Asked by: Noah Law (Labour - St Austell and Newquay)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to (a) support the development of battery-electrified trains and (b) ensure that those trains are made using British critical minerals.
Answered by Simon Lightwood - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is supporting the development of battery-electric trains as they are an integral part of the plan to decarbonise the railway network by 2050. This includes innovative projects such as the Greenford fast-charge battery train trial, a recent battery trial on a TransPennine Express unit, as well as the full deployment of multi-mode trains with batteries by Transport for Wales and Merseyrail. We are progressing work on a whole systems approach to decarbonisation, ensuring both track and train are considered.
The Government published a Critical Minerals Strategy in 2022, which sets out its approach for ensuring the secure supply of critical minerals for key technologies including batteries.