Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when Network Rail first informed his Department of their estimate that electrification of the Great Western Main Line would cost more than £2 billion.
In June 2015, as part of the affordability review exercise, Network Rail informed Department that the latest estimated cost of Great Western electrification was around £2.4bn. This forecast costs remained uncertain and further work was required to validate this figure. The validation is being undertaken as part of the Hendy review and we await the publication in the Autumn.