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The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-11-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is the budget for the National Infrastructure Commission for the current year; what are the locations of its office accommodation; what that accommodation costs; and how many staff it employs, and at what cost.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

A suitable budget will be made available to cover the costs of staff and commissioning work from external organisations where necessary. The Commission is currently located at 1 Horse Guards Road on a temporary basis. The Commission is expected to have a staff of around 30 and it is now recruiting for these positions. The staff are being paid in line with salaries for government officials.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-11-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government under what legislation the National Infrastructure Commission currently operates; whether the National Infrastructure Commissioners are being paid allowances or expenses for their work; and if so, on what basis, and how much.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley

The National Infrastructure does not currently operate under any legislation, but it will be legislated for when parliamentary time allows. Commissioners are being reimbursed all reasonable expenses properly and necessarily incurred in respect of their appointments. They are paid allowances in line with similar government positions.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-11-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the reasons for the delay in the refranchising process for the West Coast Main Line.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The re-timing will ensure that passengers and taxpayers get the maximum possible benefits from both the InterCity West Coast (ICWC) franchise and the HS2 project.

We are re-timing the ICWC franchise to ensure that it is well aligned with the HS2 programme which is currently progressing through Parliament. The ICWC operator will play an important role during the construction of HS2 and in facilitating the introduction of High Speed services in 2026. This retiming will allow us to continue to engage with the market on the best options for the franchise to do this.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-11-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what arrangements train operating companies are required to have in place to allow passengers on feeder services to a mainline hub station who have bought advance tickets online which start from a station without a ticket machine, and where the tickets have to be acquired at the mainline hub station, to travel by using booking confirmations that have been printed out, or can be shown on mobile devices, or by other means.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon

The National Rail Conditions of Carriage (NRCoC) states that Train Operating Companies must make tickets and reservations available at stations, over the internet or by telephone as appropriate.

When booking Advance tickets online most train operators give passengers the choice to print their ticket at home, collect it from a ticket machine, receive it by post or, where available, download their ticket onto a mobile phone.If a passenger chooses to collect from a ticket machine the train operator will give the passenger a choice of stations with ticket collection points available. These can be collected any time in advance of travel.

Passengers do have an obligation to have a valid ticket for the whole of the journey, and to keep their ticket safe. The NRCoC states that it is the ticket, not the receipt for it, which gives the right to travel.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2015-11-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, for each of the last five years, how many planning appeals were made against local authority decisions on major housing schemes; what was the average time taken by the Planning Inspectorate to deal with those appeals; how many took longer than six months; how many have so far been made this year, and of those how many have taken, or are scheduled to take, longer than six months.

Baroness Williams of Trafford

The table below shows the number of planning appeals made against local authority decisions on major housing schemes (10 or more houses). It shows the average time taken, how many took longer than six months, how many have been made so far this year and of those, how many have taken or will take longer than six months.

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