Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how much funding the Government has allocated for each financial year of the Beeching Reversal Fund to (a) Scotland and (b) the UK; and what the Barnett consequentials are for that funding.

The UK Government’s announcement is for £500m funding to support railway re-openings within the territory for which it has funding responsibility (England and Wales). It has no immediate implications for DfT’s spending limits, and therefore none for funding of railways in the Devolved Administrations.

The final profile and exact funding arrangements for the reversing Beeching Fund have not yet been agreed. Final decisions on funding will be made at the Spending Review in the usual way.

Her Majesty’s Government is clear about the benefit of pan UK connections and is, for example, supporting the examination of the potential reopening of the Edinburgh- Carlisle ‘Waverley line’ as part of the Borders Growth Deal.