Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of trends in the level of rail freight usage since 2014.

In 2014-15 the total freight moved was 22.2 billion net tonne km. This has decreased by 29% to 15.7 billion net tonne km in 2022-23. Much of the decline is due to the phasing out of coal for power stations. Coal traffic decreased by 93% from 6.5 billion net tonne km in 2014-15 to 0.5 billion net tonne km in 2022-23.

If coal is excluded, the total amount of freight moved has decreased by 3% from 15.7 billion net tonne km in 2014-15 to 15.2 billion net tonne km in 2022-23. However, there is significant potential for growth and that is why the government has set a target of at least 75% growth in freight moved by rail by 2050.

The government is committed to growing rail freight.

Network Rail has committed to supporting growth of 7.5% in CP7 (2024-2029) and are working on plans to achieve this. That will form the first step on the way to the 2050 target.

The Rail Minister hosts bi-monthly roundtable meetings with key rail freight stakeholders. Network Rail also continues to work closely with freight operators to improve performance, with increases seen recently in Network Rail’s Freight Delivery Metric.

The Government encourages and incentivises modal shift from road to rail by allocating £20m per year to the Mode Shift Revenue Support scheme. In 2022/23, the scheme removed the need for around 900,000 HGV journeys, saving almost 40,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

The Government has also contributed over £12.5m to 33 "First of a Kind" R&D projects and £7m through the “Future of Freight” fund both to boost innovation and help decarbonise freight.