Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, on what date he expects to introduce legislation to make Network Rail subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The Government and Network Rail have agreed that Network Rail will be subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 in relation to its public functions. This requires secondary legislation, which the Government will bring forward at the next opportunity with the intention of making Network Rail subject to the Freedom of Information Act by April 2015.

Before then Network Rail will continue to exercise transparency to the public through its Transparency Strategy, which includes a voluntary information publication scheme. This was introduced in June 2012 to make the company more transparent and accountable to the wider public.