Lord Hunt of Kings Heath – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on 2014-03-10.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what sanctions have been applied in the last 12 months for poor quality performance on the Birmingham Cross City line by London Midland.

Baroness Kramer

We have applied no sanctions against London Midland in regard to performance on the Birmingham Cross City line; we do not disaggregate performance by the train operators to that level. In the autumn of 2012 London Midland experienced a high number of cancellations, largely due to issues with availability of train crew. As a result, they breached the terms of their Franchise Agreement, and a remedial plan and package of benefits was agreed with the Department. As the Secretary of State for Transport announced to the House on 20 December 2012, this package included passenger benefits of: 500,000 discounted tickets, free travel for season ticket holders (worth up to c.£5.4m), capital investment, and additional driver training investment worth a combined £6.25m