Railways: Electrification

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government are in frequent discussions with the rail freight sector. This is an important element of our decarbonisation strategy, as it takes goods away from the roads and transports them with a far lower level of emissions. The Government would actually like to remove all diesel-only trains by 2040, so I hope that makes the noble Lord happy. However, we must be cognisant that we do not want to shift freight from rail to road to achieve that target, because that would raise emissions. We are monitoring the situation, but our ambition is to remove all diesel-only trains by 2040.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

I congratulate Network Rail on the strategy. Will my noble friend do all she can to encourage it to improve rail links to existing ports and, especially, to encourage more multi-modal global rail freight facilities such as that at Doncaster?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

This Government have invested £235 million in the strategic freight network in the five years from 2014. We appreciate that the intermodal connectivity hubs are incredibly important. The largest amount of rail freight—39%—goes to these intermodal hubs, so we welcome the development of strategic rail freight interchanges. They are incredibly useful, combining warehousing and connectivity for rail and road.