Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much funding her Department has allocated to reducing the number of rail replacement services required on Thameslink services in the 2025-26 financial year.

The Department requires its train operators to use reasonable endeavours to provide alternative means of transport where they cannot provide their planned train service. Rail replacement bus services are typically provided when parts of the railway are closed for planned maintenance and upgrade work or unplanned maintenance and repair work. The Department does not specifically allocate funding for the purpose of reducing the number of rail replacement services.