Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many miles of track have been electrified since June 2015.

The Government remains fully committed to delivering the biggest modernisation of the railways since Victorian times. We are spending over £40bn on our railways including around £15bn on enhancements. In autumn 2016, we turned on the electrified infrastructure on the first section of our rolling programme of electrification on the Great Western Main Line, which by the end of Control Period 5 will deliver a 151 mile electrified route between London and Cardiff. This Government remains committed to delivering hundreds of route miles of electrification across the country over the next few years but it is important to understand that turning on the electric wires to allow electric trains to run is the very end of the construction process - various substantial enabling works such as site clearance, foundations and mast installation need to take place beforehand, and these have been continuing at various sites across the country since June 2015. For example, on the Great Western mainline, Network Rail needs to alter about 170 bridges, lower parts of the track bed and install 14,000 masts of overhead line equipment.