Rail Franchises
Oral Answers to Questions — Transport
House of Commons debates, 22 October 2009, 10:30 am
Sadiq Khan (Minister of State, Department for Transport; Tooting, Labour)
My noble Friend the Secretary of State looks into some of the issues that the hon. Gentleman has raised, including rail usage—who is using the railways—and whether there are advantages in how a franchise is run. One advantage of retendering is that we can take on board passengers' concerns. This is not directly relevant to him, but we recently refranchised South Central and asked Passenger Focus to ask users what they would like to see in the next franchise. I am happy to arrange for the hon. Gentleman to meet officials to discuss what can happen in the next phase in relation to his constituency and his community.