Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 9 February 2021 to Question 147963, what (a) lines and (b) stations he plans to restore in the North that had been previously closed during the Beeching cuts.

One element of the Restoring Your Railway Fund is the Ideas Fund, which is providing development funding for early-stage ideas to explore options to restore lost rail connections to communities.

We are currently funding 10 schemes based in the North to develop business cases to restore lines and stations, as well as investing £34m to progress work on reopening the Northumberland line. These schemes have been published on GOV.UK and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/restoring-your-railway-fund-successful-bids.

Bids are currently being accepted for the third round of the Ideas Fund and submissions will be accepted until 5 March 2021.