Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of recent disruption on the Dawlish rail line on the local economy of Torbay.

The Government has invested £165 million into the South West Rail Resilience Programme to build resilience around Dawlish, which has seen much improved performance. There has, however, been some disruption on the line through Dawlish in recent months with cancellations due to poor weather, a lack of traincrew on Sundays and fleet reliability. The Department is working closely with Great Western Railway and Network Rail to improve the resilience of train services on this rail line.