Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the proportion freight that will transfer from road to rail in each of the next five years.

The Government is fully committed to growing rail freight and unlocking the economic and environmental benefits that the sector can deliver. We continue to encourage and incentivise modal shift from road to rail through the Mode Shift Revenue Support Scheme (MSRS), which financially supports the carriage of freight by rail and water on routes where road haulage has a financial advantage. The £20m scheme delivers high value for money and in 2020/21 removed around 900,000 HGV lorries off our congested road network, saving 58,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Furthermore, in both the William-Shapps Plan for Rail and the Transport Decarbonisation Plan, Government committed to introducing a rail freight growth target which will contribute towards broader Government objectives of modal shift.