Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps his Department is taking with Network Rail to reduce instances of overhead line issues on the East Coast Mainline.

We recognise that overhead line issues on the East Coast Main Line have a huge impact on passengers and freight operators. Network Rail has put in place a programme of work to replace overhead line components that have historically caused a high number of failures and are working with train operators to ensure their trains interact as sympathetically as possible with the infrastructure. Network Rail is also designing a series of specific upgrades for tunnels, where overhead line failures can be extremely disruptive, so that the infrastructure is as resilient as it possibly can be. Finally, Network Rail is working to improve the speed of its response when incidents do happen, making sure its teams get trains moving again as quickly as possible.