Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment her Department has made of trends in the level of emergency track and asset renewals on the rail network over the last ten years.

Analysis of trends in asset failures form part of Network Rail’s assurance processes. Whilst it has identified that track asset ‘used life’ has been increasing over ten years, its data shows that the ‘performance risk’ for rail and track geometry defects is less than 40 per cent of the levels seen 25 years ago.