Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimates he has made of the levels of emissions generated from trains travelling between Glasgow and London using (a) the aggregate national rail conversion factor and (b) a line specific estimate of emissions from electric trains in terms of indicative greenhouse gas emissions expressed as kg CO2e for a single passenger.

The Department has recently published its first estimates of indicative GHG emissions produced for each mile travelled by different modes of transport as part of its new Transport and Environment Statistics release.

When considering the approach used to derive those statistics, (a) estimated indicative emissions for trains travelling between Glasgow and London are 23 KgCO₂e per passenger for direct emissions, or 28 KgCO₂e per passenger including indirect emissions (from fuel extraction and delivery), using the aggregate national rail conversion factor for 2020. However, (b) there is no equivalent conversion factor for electric trains, therefore we are unable to estimate per-passenger emissions for this or any specific electric-only journey.