Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether the Government has signed off on the Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy.

Network Rail’s Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy (TDNS) is a set of recommendations that suggests which traction decarbonisation solutions (electrification, battery, or hydrogen) could be best suited to which parts of the currently unelectrified network. The recommendations in TDNS are based on assumptions founded on the best analysis of the technology available at the time; such analysis will need to be updated as technology evolves.

In the Transport Decarbonisation Plan, the Government has committed to the delivery of a net zero railway by 2050, and to use TDNS to guide our work to deliver an affordable, deliverable decarbonisation programme.