Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps she is taking to help (a) tackle infrastructure congestion and (b) improve (i) timetable capacity and (ii) passenger numbers to support open access plans for the Wrexham, Shropshire & Midlands Railway.

The delivery of HS2 will almost double long-distance rail capacity between London and the West Midlands, significantly improving the heavily congested southern section of the West Coast Main Line and releasing capacity for other services on the route. We are also investing to increase power supply on the southern end of the West Coast Main Line to enable the introduction of new electric services and support future growth and performance improvements on the route.

Further, my Department remains committed to a role for Open Access where it provides genuine benefits to passengers without disproportionately impacting taxpayers, which is why we provided support for Wrexham, Shropshire & Midlands Railway’s application. However, we must equally ensure that Open Access does not have detrimental impacts upon the performance of the network. It is the role of the regulator to take access decisions informed by assessments of capacity.