Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make an estimate with Cabinet colleagues of the cost of industrial action by railway staff to the (a) public purse and (b) economy since 21 June 2022.

The independent Centre for Economic and Business Research (Cebr) estimated that rail strikes between June 2022 and January 2023 led to a loss of UK economic output of around £500million due to people outside of the rail sector not being able to work. In January 2023, Rail Delivery Group reported that national level industrial action since June 2022 had led to direct revenue losses across the industry of around £500million.