Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, with reference to the Office for Budget Responsibility's 14 April 2020 finding that GDP could fall by 35 per cent in the second quarter of 2020, whether his Department has made an assessment of the economic effect of the covid-19 outbreak on levels of demand for railway travel.

This crisis will have a long-lasting impact on our society – but it is too early to predict what that may mean in practice. There are a number of factors that will determine the demand for rail travel, including when lockdown restrictions are lifted, the nature of social distancing guidelines put in place going forward, and how people’s attitudes towards rail travel may have changed.

In the short term, we have stabilised the industry to ensure essential services are still running, and goods and rail passengers can get where they are needed most.