Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment she has made of the potential role of newly approved open access services in supporting British train (a) manufacturing, (b) assembly and (c) supply chains.

Privately owned and run open access operators can play a significant role in supporting UK train manufacturers, assemblers and their UK supply chains and are an important source of potential orders, both for new and cascaded rolling stock.  It remains a matter for each operator to decide when and how to source its own rolling stock.