3.2 The Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions is responsible, through the Health and Safety Executive, for ensuring that the Link will meet safety standards, as required for the rest of the rail network. The Link is being constructed to meet international high-speed railway safety standards and the line is to be equipped with automatic train protection signalling. Discussions are ongoing with HM Railway Inspectorate to ensure that the detailed design and construction of the Link meets safety requirements. Railtrack and, if Railtrack does not exercise its option, the infrastructure owner of Section 2 will have to produce a Railway Safety Case, which must be accepted by the Railway Inspectorate, before each section of the new line can open for commercial services.
3.3 The Link will be used by domestic services as well as Eurostar UK services and the Secretary of State has a contractual right under the Development Agreement to approve domestic services. Although domestic services will not be subject to regulation for the parts of a journey that are on the Link, the Rail Regulator will be responsible for approving those parts of the services that run on the national network. Trains used for domestic services and Eurostar trains may also need to use parts of the national network in an emergency or during engineering works and must therefore be technically compatible with those parts of the network.