Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment the Government has made of the potential merits of adding rail as an eleventh point to the ten point Green Industrial Plan.

Rail plays a key role in the Prime Minister’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. In the section on ‘Green Public Transport, Cycling and Walking’, the plan included commitments to: invest tens of billions of pounds in enhancements and renewals of the rail network; electrify more railway lines; end the complicated franchising model and create a simpler, more effective system; expand rail routes around our big regional cities; restore many of the rail links removed in the Beeching era; and progress the Midlands Rail Hub scheme in Birmingham and improvements in Manchester and Leeds, alongside Northern Powerhouse Rail to improve east-west links across the Pennines.