Railway Industry Association Report

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I reassure the noble Lord that it is our aim to deliver a net-zero carbon railway. East West Rail is a very important part of the development of the Ox-Cam Arc, which will support housing and jobs. Any decision to grant development consent for the project will need to demonstrate that it would not have a material impact on the ability of the Government to meet their carbon reduction targets. However, EWR Co, the company responsible for it, continues to examine decarbonisation options, including full electrification along the whole route, as well as various options for partial electrification using battery or electric hybrid rolling stock and other sustainable rolling stock options.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

There is nothing really new in this review because, of course, electrification has always been a cleaner option and, as I never tire of saying, the Green Party has been saying this for 30 or 40 years. Why have the Government not taken this as a matter of urgency and done it much faster?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I take this opportunity to remind the House that the Green Party is against HS2, a position which I remain a little confused by. The noble Baroness is quite right that now is the opportunity to put our shoulder to the wheel and to electrify our railways as quickly as we can. That is why we will be setting out a rolling programme in the forthcoming RNEP, and why we take great heed of what was written by the Network Rail-led traction decarbonisation network strategy. That is not government policy, but there are some very important conclusions which we are looking at, and we will be putting them in the transport decarbonisation plan.