Cat Smith – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Cat Smith on 2016-02-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what proportion of funding to the new northern rail franchise will be provided by (a) subsidies to Northern Rail, (b) investment by Network Rail, (c) passenger revenue and (d) investment by Arriva.

Andrew Jones

We are unable to disaggregate the proportion of funding on the new Northern Rail franchise.

I refer the hon Member to my answer of 11 January to the Hon Member for Nottingham South, Lilian Greenwood, (UIN 21124) where the level of subsidies to the Northern franchise was provided and which gives the biggest transformation in decades. These will achieve an unprecedented package of improvements unlike the last Northern franchise in 2004 which included limited plans to invest in services or meet demand, offers better value for the taxpayer and reduces the amount of annual government subsidy required by the Northern franchise by £160 million over nine years (http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-questions-answers/?page=1&max=20&questiontype=AllQuestions&house=commons%2clords&uin=21124).

Network Rail investment is not allocated per franchise. Investment is made on the infrastructure which multiple franchises use and so it is not possible to ‎disaggregate.

Predicted Passenger revenue and investment by Arriva are commercially confidentially information that we are unable to provide. Actual Passenger revenue is published retrospectively through annual financial statements.

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