Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the Midlands Rail Hub on (a) journey times, (b) capacity, (c) frequency of services and (d) reliability of services for West Midlands passengers.

Midlands Rail Hub is designed to kickstart economic growth and breakdown barriers to opportunity. It could speed up journey times, provide capacity for hundreds of additional trains into central Birmingham, improve frequency by 50-100% on many corridors, and reliability on trains through New Street, improving journeys across the Midlands and beyond. We are assessing all our investment plans as part of the ongoing Spending Review.