European Union Entry/Exit System Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Moylan
Main Page: Lord Moylan (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Moylan's debates with the Department for Transport
(2 days, 5 hours ago)
Lords ChamberI am absolutely sure that my department is taking a keen interest in it. Again, this is not immediately connected with the European Entry/Exit System, but I would be very happy to write to the noble Earl and say what progress there has been.
My Lords, given that the Channel Tunnel has quite a lot of capacity, what consideration have the Government given to the increased use of the tunnel for rail freight? Will the Government’s strategy for increasing rail freight in this country include a proposal along those lines?
The noble Lord raises an excellent point. In fact, the Government and I are very active in encouraging more freight through the tunnel—and, indeed, more railway freight generally. Of course, as the noble Lord will know from our discussions on the then public ownership Bill and subsequently, the Government intend to give Great British Railways a target to increase rail freight, particularly in respect of the use of Eurotunnel. Both Eurotunnel and HS1 have the facility to discount track access charges for new freight. When I meet the freight community, as I do probably more often than the passenger operators —at least as a group—I regularly encourage and unfailingly remind it of this so that we can use the surplus capacity to which the noble Lord refers.