Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the Green Book appraisal framework for reflecting the value of transport infrastructure funding in rural areas like Cornwall.

The Department for Transport’s Transport Analysis Guidance (TAG) is a robust framework for assessing the cost and benefits of different transport schemes, across different parts of the UK. TAG builds on the foundations set by HM Treasury’s Green Book with specific guidance for transport schemes, but it does not deviate from the key principles set by the Green Book. The Department plans to update TAG in response to HM Treasury’s Green Book Review published last July, including supporting the development of place-based business cases.

The Department is developing an Appraisal, Modelling and Evaluation Strategy to identify updates to TAG to prioritise improvements to appraisal over the next five years, so investment decisions prioritise people and places are underpinned by high quality and accessible analysis. We listened to feedback from our extensive stakeholder engagement programme as part of this, and an emerging action is to consider developing the appraisal guidance for non-urban areas – including rural areas like Cornwall.