Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many trees have been felled by Network Rail as part its lineside tree felling programme to date.

Network Rail does not have a lineside tree felling programme, however Network Rail does have a statutory duty to ensure that the railways remain safe and reliable for the millions of people who use the network every day. In the last year, there were more than a thousand incidents where trees caused disruption to the network, which in some cases resulted in injuries among train drivers and members of the public.