Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of progress on the Rail Delivery Group’s plan to introduce a national train driver academy.

The Board governing the National Driver Training Academy (NDTA) was established in April this year. The Rail Delivery Group is working with several train and freight operating companies to roll out training across the industry ; trials with operators are ongoing.

The first operator is scheduled to begin using the training fully in November with a further eleven operators looking to trial or roll-out the new training. Furthermore, through the work of the National Train Driver Academy, the train driver apprenticeship has successfully attained level 3 standard and has been approved by the Institute for Apprenticeships. Work is also ongoing to utilise opportunities provided by the Academy to further improve diversity within the profession.