Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department is considering measures to bring rolling stock (a) procurement and (b) ownership into public ownership as contracts with leasing companies expire.

Rolling stock companies own and lease trains and carriages worth billions of pounds. It would not be responsible for the Government to take on the cost of renationalising all the rolling stock at the present time, as there are other urgent pressures on the public purse and we need to focus on wider rail reform.

The Government will develop a long-term strategy for rolling stock and associated infrastructure, which will have passengers at its heart and which will also support the supply chain by providing a predictable pipeline of work. Once established, Great British Railways will take a whole-system and long-term approach to using rolling stock across the network, providing certainty to manufacturers and rolling stock companies across the country and globally. Taking this approach to rolling stock will enable greater certainty and lower risk for the supply chain and will be a better way to secure value for money than the failed franchising model.