Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what the total cost to the public purse was of covid-19-related emergency financial support provided to train operating companies since 1 March 2020, broken down by quarter.

Train operators provide management accounts to the Government, and are paid by the Government, once per rail period and there are 13 such periods in each financial year. Therefore, reliable data cannot be produced on an exact quarterly basis as the dates do not align.

However, periodic data on operational support payments made to each franchised operator from 1 March 2020 to 6 February 2021, are published at the link below:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dft-payments-to-passenger-rail-operators-under-emergency-agreements