Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to page 67 of the Budget 2018 Red Book, what funding he has allocated for resilience work in Dawlish.

The government committed to £15 million of funding in November 2016. The essential improvement works are to begin in November of this year to strengthen the cliffs and protect the sea wall at Dawlish. Further plans for major improvements of the seawall at Dawlish will be published in the summer 2019.

Overall, we are investing more than £400m in the rail network in the South West and will continue to work with Network Rail and the Peninsula Rail Task Force to explore the potential for longer-term improvements from summer 2019 onwards.