Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if her Department will make an assessment of the value for money of (a) the Rail Delivery Group, (b) Network Rail and (c) other publicly funded railway bodies engaging public affairs agencies for lobbying purposes.

We do not hold this information; the Rail Delivery Group’s (RDG’s) structure reflects the role the organisation has played as a means of facilitating collaboration and delivering whole-system outcomes within a multi-operator sector. As a Non-Departmental Public Body, Network Rail strictly adheres to Cabinet Office rules which prohibit attendance at party conferences and the use of consultancies for lobbying activity.

The Secretary of State has not put any restrictions on RDG from attending party political conferences, international railway meetings overseas and other lobbying activities.

Furthermore, we have not carried out a value for money assessment in relation to RDG and Network Rail engaging public affairs agencies for lobbying purposes. RDG undertakes and provides a wide range of critical functions across the rail industry which deliver high value for money for the industry.

Network Rail has a profitable international consultancy arm which involves international travel and conferences; and also necessarily participates in international activities as railway standards and the railway supply chain are both international.

The Rail Delivery Group will be overtaken by GBR in due course which will be an arms-length body of the Department for Transport and therefore subject to Cabinet Office rules.