Railways: Torbay

Mr. Sanders
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what estimate he has made of the proportion of journeys between Torbay and London undertaken by rail; and what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of such journeys.

Paul Clark
The Department for Transport has the estimate of the number of journeys from and to Torbay as published in the National Rail Trends. In 2006-07 the number of journeys made was 788,000. However, the Department does not have any estimate of the journeys as a proportion of total between Torbay and London.

Our aim is to give people real choices about how they travel, which means we need both a reliable, well resourced railway and properly financed roads. Our policy is to make the most of existing capacity on both road and rail and that is where the majority of our investment is focused.

Mr. Sanders
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport if he will make it his policy to alter the service level commitment of the First Great Western franchise agreement to increase the number of direct journeys between Paignton and London Paddington.

Paul Clark
The Secretary of State currently has no plans to alter the service level commitment of First Great Western to increase the number of direct journeys between Paignton and London Paddington.