Railways: Freight

(asked on 17th November 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department has had discussions with supermarket representatives on (a) strategies to encourage the use of rail freight over road freight in their supply chains and (b) potential challenges in adopting rail freight in supply chains.


Answered by
Chris Heaton-Harris Portrait
Chris Heaton-Harris
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
This question was answered on 22nd November 2021

The Government supports the modal shift of freight from road to rail wherever possible and would encourage supermarkets to consider carrying more of their goods by rail. Rail freight customers, including supermarkets, increasingly view rail as a critical part of their operations, and we hold regular meetings with representatives across industry, including supermarket representatives, to understand the challenges and opportunities of using rail freight as part of supply chain operations.

The Government continues to work closely alongside Network Rail (NR) and the rail freight industry and have taken several urgent steps to enable rail freight to support resilient supply chains. NR has increased the number of freight train paths available from key ports, such as Felixstowe, and NR and the Freight Operating Companies are currently running longer, heavier freight trains to increase capacity. The Government has also increased the 2021/22 Mode Shift Revenue Support scheme budget by £500,000 to reduce the number of HGV journeys by an additional 29,000. We will continue to work at pace with NR and the rail freight industry to explore what steps can be taken to support resilient supply chains and increase the number of rail freight services, the length of trains and utilisation of existing services.

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