Railway Industry Association Report

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend is quite right. Indeed, the Rail Industry Association report in 2019 set out that one of the root causes of the challenges of electrification was the 20-year hiatus that had previously occurred in the electrification projects, which led to a loss of specialist knowledge. But we are looking at the supply side of this to bring forward the rolling programme of electrification; I specifically point my noble friend to the Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy, which has a lot of information about the supply side. We are confident that, if we have the right programme in place, we can not only use the existing supply-side skills and expertise but grow them for the future.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that all the options in this report are better than diesel trains, which are just as bad as diesel cars for the environment and health? Can she therefore explain why the Government have fixed 2030 as the year to phase out all diesel cars while they are still promoting hybrid trains, which are of course simply diesel trains for large parts of their journey?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Baroness will be well aware that decarbonisation of different modes has to happen at different speeds. For example, the reality on the railway network is that freight is a challenge, because it takes much higher levels of energy to pull freight cars along. Therefore, it is right that we look at each mode and try to decarbonise them as quickly as we can, and that is what we will set out in our transport decarbonisation plan.