DfT Ministers - Roles and Responsibilities

Here are the published roles and responsibilities of the refreshed DfT Ministerial team:

Secretary of State – Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP

• Overall responsibility for the Department’s policies

Minister of State – Rt Hon John Hayes MP

• Highways England
• Modern Transport Bill
• maritime (including Maritime and Coastguard Agency)
• maritime security
• freight and logistics
• environment and technology
• skills and innovation
• built environment

Parliamentary Under-Secretary for State (Rail Minister) – Paul Maynard MP

• rail (including housing development)
• rail security
• light rail

Parliamentary Under-Secretary for State – Jesse Norman MP
Responsibilities to be confirmed but likely to include:

• HS2
• devolution including Northern Powerhouse
• sustainable accessible travel (including walking and cycling)
• smart ticketing

Parliamentary Under-Secretary for State – Lord Callanan
Responsibilities to be confirmed

• Transport spokesman in the House of Lords 

A big Railway Eye welcome back to Paul Maynard (and note the 'housing development' role in Paul's remit).

First/MTR suffers from premature evacuation - Official

Good news from the Shire this morning!

The great and the good are gathering in Derby for an announcement about an order for 750 new 'Aventura' vehicles for the London and South Western franchise, worth £895m

This from First Group:

PRESS CALL: Announcement of South Western rail franchise rolling stock procurement

FirstGroup and MTR will take over the South Western rail franchise from 20 June 2017. This is an opportunity to find out more about the new rolling stock being planned for the new franchise, with new trains to be built in the UK and introduced into service from mid-2019.

Members of the reality based community will of course realise that the new franchise is due to start on the 20th August, rather than June.

No matter.

Regular readers of Eye will recognise today's announcement from this, posted back in April...

Meanwhile here is a tip for other rolling stock manufacturers without a UK footprint:

You've got to be in it, to win it!