Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what progress his Department has made on meeting the government's target of delivering a net zero railway by 2050.

The Government is committed to meeting our target of a net zero railway by 2050. Since 2010, more than 1,200 miles of electrification has been delivered in Great Britain, including almost 800 miles in England and Wales in the last seven years. Government is also investing in further electrification schemes including electrification of TransPennine Route between Manchester, Leeds and York and completion of the electrification of the Midland Main Line to Sheffield and Derby. Since the start of 2019, the Government has also contributed over £12.5 million to 33 First of a Kind (FoaK) projects that will help decarbonise the railway or reduce harmful emissions.

Network Rail has set the standard as the first railway organisation in the world to set science-based targets to the most ambitious target of limiting emissions from its own operations to a 1.5°C warming scenario.

We are working with the Great British Railways Transition Team to bring forward options to decarbonise the whole network, in line with our net zero targets, for Government to carefully consider in terms of overall deliverability and affordability.