Mr Merriman admitted there were teething problems shortly after the Government’s Operator of Last Resort (OLR) took over in May and by the end of that month more than a quarter of services (26 per cent) were being cancelled.

But the Tory Minister also said the cancellation rate has fallen to 5 per cent in weeks when train drivers and rail workers are not taking industrial action.

“Having now seen that delivered I believe it was the right decision to make. I believe the evidence backs that up now,” he told Parliament’s Transport Committee yesterday.

First Group lost the contract to run TransPennine Express (TPE) services in May, when the operator had the worst cancellation rate in the country and it was struggling with a lack of driver availability.

The OLR helped secure a rest-day working agreement with the train drivers union Aslef in June and Mr Merriman said this cut the cancellation rate as drivers could work overtime for the first time since December 2021, cover for absent colleagues and help train new recruits.

Only half the TPE drivers were trained to operate services on all routes before the agreement was reached, but that number has increased to 63 per cent.

Chris Jackson, Interim Managing Director for TPE, said there was some “turbulence” after the takeover in May but improvements have been made since the rest-day working agreement was put in place.

“We’ve had seven weeks when cancellations were 5 per cent or below. In fact we’ve delivered some of our best performance in 18 months,” he said.

But he also told the committee TPE is “still vulnerable” when Aslef imposes short-term bans on drivers across the country working overtime, as it did last month, amid an ongoing dispute about pay and working conditions.

“The critical thing is we address some of the driver training backlog and we are making good progress,” he said. “As of yesterday 63 per cent of drivers now sign all of the routes and traction in their roster but there is much more to do.”

The latest ORR figures show TPE had the highest cancellation rate in the country, of 7.5 per cent, between January and March. The regulator is due to publish updated figures next week.

Despite the recent improvements, the Government said the OLR will only run services on a temporary basis and it wants a private operator to take control of them at some point in the future.

Passengers have endured disruption caused by strikes, involving Aslef and RMT members, in recent weeks as well as work that is being done as part of the Transpennine Route Upgrade.

Last month, Mr Merriman said the Government is confident the long-awaited project will be completed by 2033 delivered within the £11.5bn budget.

Workers are electrifying the 76-mile route, building new tracks, installing digital signalling equipment and upgrading stations.

The project, first announced back in 2011, will increase capacity – allowing eight more trains to run each hour – improve reliability.

It will also cut journey times, so people can travel between York and Manchester in 41 minutes and from Leeds to Manchester in 33 minutes.

TransPennine Express: Minister says nationalising services was the 'right decision' as passengers are seeing improvements