Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effect of the decision not to introduce in full a new railway timetable in December 2018 on the services of rail freight operators.

Network Rail is working with freight operators to minimise the impact on their operations of the December 2018 timetable decision. Network Rail has asked all freight operators to provide details of their priorities for December 2018 and will endeavour to include these where capacity and other constraints allow. Furthermore, in line with standard industry processes, the Department expects Network Rail to facilitate where possible any ‘spot bid’ applications for train slots that freight operators may make in response to their commercial requirements.