Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the time taken to publish the next Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline on the timescale for future rail investment.

The Department is taking decisions to progress the schemes that have the greatest potential to unlock growth only once we are confident that they will deliver it. The time taken to undertake this work has no impact on the timescales for future rail investments.

I know that stakeholders and industry want to know what is in our rail investments pipeline and want more visibility of our forward plans of work. I will continue to announce details of schemes as decisions are taken, just as we did at the Budget for East West Rail and Transpennine Route Upgrade.