TOC contract expiry dates

[dk1]

Like all other NRC contracts the Abellio East Anglia Limited contract has:
- an Expiry Date (20 September 2026)
- a Core Term Expiry Date (15 September 2024)

The contract runs until the Expiry Date. However, the contract enables the DfT to terminate it on or after the Core Term Expiry Date, providing that:
- at least three rail periods ("Reporting Periods") notice is given
- the termination is at the end of a Reporting Period (in fact 01:59 in the morning)

If the DfT gives notice by 20th July (the end of Period 4), then the Abellio East Anglia Limited contract can be terminated from 01:59 on 13th October (start of Rail Period 8).

Thank you..

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill - the enabling legislation that will allow the public sector to operate passenger railway services - will have it's first reading in the Commons tomorrow, Thurs 18th July.

https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3732

https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3732/stages

The text of the Passenger Railway Services Bill has been published on the Parliament web site - 12 pages of detailed amendments to the Railways Act 1993.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/59-01/0003/240003.pdf

For sections 25 to 26ZA substitute— “25A Prohibition on franchise extensions and new franchises
(1) (2) (3) The franchise term in relation to a franchise agreement may not be extended except in accordance with section 30A (temporary continuation of existing franchises).
The Secretary of State may not enter into a franchise agreement except in accordance with section 30A.
The Welsh Ministers and the Scottish Ministers may not enter into a franchise agreement.”

I'm not a lawyer, but I think this bans new franchises or franchise extensions except under emergency conditions, and only by the SoS.
It effectively enforces the current expiry dates on existing TOC contracts, with no renewal unless in emergency.

 

[Facing Back]

I'm not a lawyer, but I think this bans new franchises or franchise extensions except under emergency conditions, and only by the SoS.
It effectively enforces the current expiry dates on existing TOC contracts, with no renewal unless in emergency.

It looks like that. It doesn't require the government to issue notice now so "as soon as possible" would really be "as soon as practicable" and it prohibits the Welsh and Scottish minsters from extending contracts interestingly

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Louise Haigh has now made it clear that the process for taking private TOCs into public control will start "early next year".
The legislation lodged today is expected to get royal assent before year end, and then the 3-month notice period will start on whatever TOCs DfT decides to bring in to the OLR/GBR fold.
So actually it may be March/April before that happens.
She says Avanti is under review on performance grounds.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...S&cvid=f7321dabcd7e495889b346fbd8009e55&ei=19

Once the legislation is passed, appointing a public sector train operator as private companies’ existing contracts expire will be the default position rather than a last resort.
Asked on a visit to a south London bus depot when this is likely to begin, Ms Haigh told the PA news agency: “We need the first piece of legislation on the books and we are aiming for royal assent certainly by the end of the year, and then we can issue the first contracts three months after that. So early next year.”
Louise Haigh, Transport Secretary
That means services run by Govia Thameslink Railway – which includes the Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express and Great Northern brands – and Chiltern Railways could be the first to be taken into public ownership, as their contracts have core terms ending on April 1 2025.
Avanti West Coast – whose contract has a core term running until October 18 2026 – could still have its services nationalised first if Ms Haigh takes action over its performance.

EDIT:
Just to add from reading the ancillary notes to the Bill, there can/will be more than one public sector operator.
This seems to allow, for example, the Welsh and Scottish governments to designate their own operators rather than DfT's.
The SoS has sole powers to extend private contracts by direct awards for up to 2 years in emergency.
There are no devolved private contracts, although where the Merseyrail/TfL concessions fit in is unclear.
Interesting that the legislation is partly to prevent legal challenges from the private sector.

Two more links:

SoS Statement:

Public ownership of rail takes centre stage as government plans radical overhaul of transport

Today’s bill will pave the way for better trains that work for everyone, no matter where you live in the UK.

www.gov.uk

After years of unacceptably low performance, the bill is a landmark change that will allow the government to bring rail passenger services back into public ownership, amending legislation to make appointing a public sector operator the default, rather than a last resort.
Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, said:

This is a clear signal of intent. Rail reform is at the heart of this King’s Speech.
As Passenger-in-Chief, I said we’d move fast and fix things and that’s exactly what we’re doing with this weighty, radical legislative agenda.
Our transport system is broken, but today’s bill will pave the way for better trains that work for everyone, no matter where you live.
After years of inefficiency, we’re 2 weeks in and the first steps towards rail reform are being taken today. Change starts now.

DfT Memorandum:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ic-ownership-bill-delegated-powers-memorandum

The government was elected with a manifesto commitment to bring the railways back into public ownership as franchise agreements with existing private sector operators expire or are broken through a failure to deliver. The bill will enable the delivery of that policy as quickly as possible and mitigate the risk of a successful challenge that exists in the absence of legislative change.

 

[Snow1964]

The Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill - the enabling legislation that will allow the public sector to operate passenger railway services - will have it's first reading in the Commons tomorrow, Thurs 18th July.

https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3732

https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3732/stages

Looks like second reading is scheduled for next Monday, 29th July

https://whatson.parliament.uk/event/cal48603

 

[Goldfish62]

Looks like second reading is scheduled for next Monday, 29th July

https://whatson.parliament.uk/event/cal48603

They're not hanging around!

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

They're not hanging around!

I'm not sure the committees, who review new bills, have yet been set up by the new parliament.
That might delay things a bit.
There is no Transport Select Committee at the moment.

 

[D6975]

Am I right in thinking that this will have no effect on freight operations?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Am I right in thinking that this will have no effect on freight operations?

It might change their contracts, over time.
Things like access charges, priority etc.
But their existing contracts are unaffected.

 

[dk1]

Am I right in thinking that this will have no effect on freight operations?

Very unlikely.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Lousie Haigh said this during introducing the PassengerRailwayServices(PublicOwnership)Bill

She should be in no doubt that South Western will be brought into public ownership, as will all remaining contracts within the first term of this Government, and ideally within the first three years of this Bill receiving Royal Assent

 

[172007]

Very unlikely.

DRS are however state owned as they are part of the Nuclear Decomissioning Authority amd ultimately fall under Ed Milliband. Intersting to see what happens, will they come under Great British Rails structure or will they continue under the NDA and will they be left to their own devices such as now or, will they be used to spear a freght revolution by picking freight services that break even just but would go to road or take services from road at breakeven and build them up for the private operators.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

DOLR, the DfT unit which runs four public sector TOCs (LNER, Northern, Southeastern and TPE) has produced its annual report (year to 31 March 2024).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/669a72dfa3c2a28abb50d338/dft-olr-annual-report-23-24-print.pdf

Much of it is corporate governance-speak with relatively little on TOC operations.
But if I read it correctly (p19), the subsidies from DfT to DOLR for the four TOCs were (£million)
LNER: 36
Northern: 648
Southeastern: 415
TPE: 174.5 (part year from 28 May 2023)
Total subsidy: £1273.5 million

Most of the report aggregates the financials of all four TOCs together, but I was interested in the individual figures for EC4T (traction electricity costs, p24).
These are paid by Network Rail and then passed on to individual operators based on usage (£million).

LNER 320
Northern 73
Southeastern 478
TPE 34
Total EC4T: £907 million (rounded)

It puts domestic electricity bills into perspective.
LNER and Southeastern are of course predominantly electric TOCs, while less than half of the Northern and TPE networks are wired.
The EC4T figure is not massively higher than the previous year, which probably reflects the current supply contract NR has with EDF.

The report reads in places as though additional TOCs will find their way into the DOHL fold, with DOHL well-placed to receive them.
I wonder where they got that idea from...

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

DOLR, the DfT unit which runs four public sector TOCs (LNER, Northern, Southeastern and TPE) has produced its annual report (year to 31 March 2024).

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/669a72dfa3c2a28abb50d338/dft-olr-annual-report-23-24-print.pdf

Much of it is corporate governance-speak with relatively little on TOC operations.
But if I read it correctly (p19), the subsidies from DfT to DOLR for the four TOCs were (£million)
LNER: 36
Northern: 648
Southeastern: 415
TPE: 174.5 (part year from 28 May 2023)
Total subsidy: £1273.5 million

Most of the report aggregates the financials of all four TOCs together, but I was interested in the individual figures for EC4T (traction electricity costs, p24).
These are paid by Network Rail and then passed on to individual operators based on usage (£million).

LNER 320
Northern 73
Southeastern 478
TPE 34
Total EC4T: £907 million (rounded)

It puts domestic electricity bills into perspective.
LNER and Southeastern are of course predominantly electric TOCs, while less than half of the Northern and TPE networks are wired.
The EC4T figure is not massively higher than the previous year, which probably reflects the current supply contract NR has with EDF.

The report reads in places as though additional TOCs will find their way into the DOHL fold, with DOHL well-placed to receive them.
I wonder where they got that idea from...

Figures for EC4T is energy consumed not cost that looks like £167m aggregated across all four operators (see note 3). Interesting to see though by vehicle miles run not much difference between a high speed operate and a commuter operator.

SE ran 236m vehicle km which equates to 2.02kwh/vehicle km
LNER ran 198.4 vehicle km equates 1.96kwh/vehicle km although that will include an element of diesel mileage so will be about 1% higher that being diesel kwh consumed.

When you then analyse the subsidy per passenger carried (see ORR TOC stats)

LNER is 1.49/passenger
SE is 3.23/passenger
TPE is 7.45/passenger and adjust for full year near £8 I would imagine
Northern is 7.62/passenger

In the case of Northern we don't know how much gets expended on running the social low usage lines vs more major flows but TPE isn't in that position although granted they've had a shambolic service which is probably supressing higher demand. So you have to wonder whether TPE will come under pressure to reduce now the honeymoon period is over from stabilising the operation.

Other stats OLR paid out 42m on delay repay, 559m on rolling stock leasing charges, 633m in NR charges (which split out as 147m fixed, 268m variable and 218m on stn and depot charges [surprised how high that was]) but the nett figure was 520m as NR handed them 113m back presumably for sch4&8 charges.

 

[TheLastMinute]

Lousie Haigh said this during introducing the PassengerRailwayServices(PublicOwnership)Bill

As expected, the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill passed it's second reading in the Commons last night. The final stages in the Commons (a Committee of the whole House and the 3rd reading) are expected to take place on 3rd September after MPs return from their summer recess. The bill will then pass over to the Lords where it will probably proceed equally quickly and I can see it obtaining Royal Assent before the year is out, perhaps even in the autumn.

It may be worth pointing out that this bill is simply to amend the Railways Act 1993 so that train operating franchises can only be awarded to publicly owned companies. At this stage, it's only the presumption that trains services "ought" to be run by the private section which is being changed, all other aspects of the rail system will remain as is until the anticipated Railways Bill goes through parliament. It was stated yesterday that the government intends to bring forward a new Railways Bill sometime in this parliamentary session, i.e. within the next 10 or 11 months. The new bill would presumably complete replace the Railways Act 1993 and set out a completely new legislative framework under which the rail network and GBR would operate. When this bill is published, we should have some firm answers as to what the long term future will actually look like.

There were also some partial answers to questions raised further up in this thread. This includes the creation of a Passenger Standards Authority, which will presumably take on some regulator duties undertaken by DfT and ORR, a duty for GBR to promote rail freight and local leaders having a statutory role in rail network. As ever, the devil will be the detail but it appears to me to be a good starting point.

Let me assure the shadow Secretary of State that the wider railways Bill is absolutely a priority for this Government, unlike the previous Government, who had years to bring forward legislation to reform the railways and only got as far as a draft Bill. We are not delaying; rather, we are taking the time to develop the much larger Bill properly, so that it delivers the benefits that we have promised. I look forward to bringing it before the House later in this Session when parliamentary time allows. Under that Bill, the Secretary of State will be the passenger-in-chief and hold Great British Railways to account for delivering for passengers and freight. We will also create a powerful passenger-focused watchdog, the Passenger Standards Authority, to independently monitor standards and champion improvement in service performance against a range of measures.

I am glad that the issue of freight has been raised today. Alongside the overall growth targets set by the Secretary of State, the wider railways Bill will include a statutory duty on Great British Rail to promote the use of rail freight, to ensure that freight remains a key priority.

Finally, the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry) highlighted the role of Transport for London and Merseytravel. How to secure the delivery of services in those areas will remain a matter for local leaders. The wider railways Bill will give local leaders a statutory role in governing, managing, planning and developing the rail network. This, along with our plans to give local authorities more control over bus services through our better buses Bill, will make it more straightforward to integrate the railways with other forms of transport.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Well, that saves a lot of time with the whole house being the committee.
DfT will have to beef up and rename DOHL to something more permanent as part of the future GBR, before the first TOC transfer.
Maybe some shadow GBR appointments will be made to kick things off.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Well, that saves a lot of time with the whole house being the committee.
DfT will have to beef up and rename DOHL to something more permanent as part of the future GBR, before the first TOC transfer.
Maybe some shadow GBR appointments will be made to kick things off.

Isn't it the National Train Operator or is that artistic licence from some journalists. Anyhow what they really need to get on with is setting up shadow GBR and getting DfT distanced from day to day operations as far as possible. This will save a load of consultants cost as well as im sure plenty of civil servants some may have to transfer but at least they will be led by somebody (hopefully) who knows what they are doing to get the industry back on an even keel. You would have thought Haines or Hymes would have been favourites here.

 

[brainiac_ghost]

I'm not sure the committees, who review new bills, have yet been set up by the new parliament.
That might delay things a bit.
There is no Transport Select Committee at the moment.

A business motion was passed last night just after the second reading passed, that the bill will be committed to a committee of the whole House, and that it will occur immediately prior to the third reading (the committee lasts no more than 4 hours, and the third reading shall be bought to a conclusion 5 hours after the commencement of the committee of the whole house).

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Isn't it the National Train Operator or is that artistic licence from some journalists. Anyhow what they really need to get on with is setting up shadow GBR and getting DfT distanced from day to day operations as far as possible. This will save a load of consultants cost as well as im sure plenty of civil servants some may have to transfer but at least they will be led by somebody (hopefully) who knows what they are doing to get the industry back on an even keel. You would have thought Haines or Hymes would have been favourites here.

Page 32 of the DOLR annual report has a table showing the remuneration of the directors.
The total is £676K (same as last year) with the CEO Robin Gisby being the highest at £236K.

At the start of DOLR, the senior staff were hired as consultants from SNC Lavalin.
I don't know if they are now permanent DfT staff, the column is suitably vague headed "Salary/Fees" so could be either/both.
No pensions/benefits payments have been made which suggests they are not employees.
What is clear is that TOC oversight by DfT/GBR costs money, it's not "free issue" to bring them in-house, as the politicians pretend.

 

[The exile]

Louise Haigh has now made it clear that the process for taking private TOCs into public control will start "early next year".
The legislation lodged today is expected to get royal assent before year end, and then the 3-month notice period will start on whatever TOCs DfT decides to bring in to the OLR/GBR fold.
So actually it may be March/April before that happens.
She says Avanti is under review on performance grounds.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...S&cvid=f7321dabcd7e495889b346fbd8009e55&ei=19



EDIT:
Just to add from reading the ancillary notes to the Bill, there can/will be more than one public sector operator
This seems to allow, for example, the Welsh and Scottish governments to designate their own operators rather than DfT's.

… and for those operators to operate services in/to England. Not particularly relevant for Scotrail, but very important for TfW.

 

[snowball]

A business motion was passed last night just after the second reading passed, that the bill will be committed to a committee of the whole House, and that it will occur immediately prior to the third reading (the committee lasts no more than 4 hours, and the third reading shall be bought to a conclusion 5 hours after the commencement of the committee of the whole house).

In any case I thought the committees set up to do the detailed examination of a specific bill as part of its passage were ad hoc and completely separate from standing committees such as the Transport Committee.

 

[HerneHill]

Page 32 of the DOLR annual report has a table showing the remuneration of the directors.
The total is £676K (same as last year) with the CEO Robin Gisby being the highest at £236K.

At the start of DOLR, the senior staff were hired as consultants from SNC Lavalin.
I don't know if they are now permanent DfT staff, the column is suitably vague headed "Salary/Fees" so could be either/both.
No pensions/benefits payments have been made which suggests they are not employees.
What is clear is that TOC oversight by DfT/GBR costs money, it's not "free issue" to bring them in-house, as the politicians pretend.

Currently, the only financial contribution from the Owning Groups into the system are the paycheques of TOC MDs and FDs. Yes DOHL would have to take those costs on - but that is ~£400k in costs per TOC, in return for no longer having to pay >£10m in management fees and PBFs to Owning Groups per TOC. It’s a complete no-brainer trade!

As to Owning Group-level Directors and supervisory staff - ask anyone who makes actual decisions in TOCs when was the last time they contributed anything of value…

Lousie Haigh said this during introducing the PassengerRailwayServices(PublicOwnership)Bill

An interesting observation is that Simon Lightwood did not actually react to Kieran Mullan’s assertion that the Government are “rushing to do this so that they can begin with Greater Anglia and West Midlands Trains in September” one way or the other (e.g., offer any reassurance that poorly-performing TOCs will be prioritised first) - perhaps one to take as an indication that taking back GA and WMT will indeed be steamrolled through the very day this bill receives Royal Assent…

 

[Snow1964]

If anyone is wondering about how big each contract is, and how much it affects (employees, passenger numbers, trains, reliability, and lots of other info). ORR has just published the key statistics for each operator (links to each operators data)

TOC key statistics | ORR Data Portal

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Currently, the only financial contribution from the Owning Groups into the system are the paycheques of TOC MDs and FDs. Yes DOHL would have to take those costs on - but that is ~£400k in costs per TOC, in return for no longer having to pay >£10m in management fees and PBFs to Owning Groups per TOC. It’s a complete no-brainer trade!

As to Owning Group-level Directors and supervisory staff - ask anyone who makes actual decisions in TOCs when was the last time they contributed anything of value…


An interesting observation is that Simon Lightwood did not actually react to Kieran Mullan’s assertion that the Government are “rushing to do this so that they can begin with Greater Anglia and West Midlands Trains in September” one way or the other (e.g., offer any reassurance that poorly-performing TOCs will be prioritised first) - perhaps one to take as an indication that taking back GA and WMT will indeed be steamrolled through the very day this bill receives Royal Assent…

They can do those two now subject to 12wks notice but am pretty sure the baying MPs along Avantis line of route wont be happy. I suspect though wiser heads will prevail in DfT as they would rather OLRise two performing operators now than end up with a troublesome Avanti and lean on them to sort things out then absorb it.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Before any contracts are taken back, the government has to decide what kind of contracts its directly-operated TOCs are to deliver.
OLR's TOC contracts also come up to expiry in the near future, and they will also have to be put into the same mincing machine.
The long-term answer is GBR, of course, but we still don't know how that will be organised and run, or who by.

Will those answers be forthcoming before the public sector bill becomes law?
I still think 1 April 2025 might well be the date when the first forced transfer is effected.
The trophy return to the public sector would be SWR (expires 25 May 2025), which was the first privatised TOC in 1996 (along with what is now GWR, but that contract expires a month later).
But then Avanti might beat them all, albeit on different grounds.

 

[physics34]

Rumours that Greater Anglia and WMT contracts are to be extended by 2 years as the GBR framework is not quite ready. (They were due to expire 2 months ago). Source is Wikipedia.

Do we know anymore on this?

It makes GTR the most likely to be the first 'private' Rail Operator to switch to GBR when their contract ends in April 25.

 

[LowLevel]

Rumours that Greater Anglia and WMT contracts are to be extended by 2 years as the GBR framework is not quite ready. (They were due to expire 2 months ago). Source is Wikipedia.

Do we know anymore on this?

It makes GTR the most likely to be the first 'private' Rail Operator to switch to GBR when their contract ends in April 25.

Wikipedia isn't a source

Not heard anything much at all.

 

[Clarence Yard]

The contracts don’t need to be extended - they just run on past the CTED until the DfT gives three periods notice.

I wouldn’t rely on wiki as gospel. The order of return and proposed dates to transfer to DOHL have yet to be announced by the DfT. Nobody in TOC land has a clue.

Anything you see on wiki is likely to be just wibble.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The Passenger Services Bill is still navigating the parliamentary process, now being in the Lords report stage.
It will then have its 3rd reading in the Lords and then the government will have to review any proposed amendments.
Nothing will happen to TOC contracts before the Bill gets Royal Assent.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Rumours that Greater Anglia and WMT contracts are to be extended by 2 years as the GBR framework is not quite ready. (They were due to expire 2 months ago). Source is Wikipedia.

Do we know anymore on this?

It makes GTR the most likely to be the first 'private' Rail Operator to switch to GBR when their contract ends in April 25.

Was speaking to a couple of the Exec team who have been involved with this for some time yesterday and they are in very regular communication with SoS and are deep in the process of removing Transport UK from all contracts etc so it will be just a change of name or direct report when it does happen.

They are under the impression it will be by Summer 2025. They were told ownership will not be extended post 2026 contract expiry.

SoS has told the MD that GA and WMT will be 'one of the first 2' to be taken in-house. Dominic Booth is still in fighting mode but SoS has said the end is nigh.