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Railways: Nationalisation

Asked by Mr Andrew SnowdenConservativeDepartment for TransportTabled Answered 13 February 2026UIN 108048

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 23 January 2026 to Question 98657 on Railways: Nationalisation, if he will list the performance benchmarks that operators have (a) failed and (b) passed since April 2025 by (i) private and (ii) public operator.

Answered by Keir Mather

Performance across the rail network is improving, with cancellations now at 3.6%, down from a peak of 4.1% last January. We set stretching but achievable contractual targets for operators to drive continuous improvement in performance. Since April 2025, all publicly owned operators have fallen below the expected level for at least one of the following measures in a four-weekly period: Time to 3 (T3) punctuality and All stations cancellations. Over the same period, all privately operated train companies have also fallen below the expected level for at least one of their contractual benchmarks, including TOC-on-self cancellations, Delay Minutes, Short Formations, Time to 3, Time to 15 and All cancellations.

Overall, operators currently in public ownership remain more reliable on average than those in private ownership.

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