Baroness Randerson – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Randerson on 2016-02-08.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether their strategy for rolling stock specifies the need for new diesel rolling stock to serve the rail lines not specified for electrification, and if so, how will they ensure that an adequate supply of new diesel rolling stock is manufactured and procured.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The success of the railways today, with additional services, greater passenger demand and significant Government investment, means that there will be a need for the future deployment of new or cascaded diesel units.

We believe that the franchising programme delivers the best solution for bidders to specify rolling stock to meet the required outputs. A proportion of the available quality points from the franchise evaluation are dedicated to plans for rolling stock. This means that bidders have every incentive to look for solutions, including new, when providing trains for a franchise.