Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what steps he is taking to improve the resilience of rail infrastructure to bad weather conditions to prevent delays and cancellations to rail services.

Network Rail is undertaking a range of measures to improve the resilience to extremes of weather from active monitoring of rails at potential risk of buckling during hot weather to enable contingency plans to be enacted; to Emergency Weather Action Teams being stood up proactively in readiness to respond in advance of any extreme weather. Furthermore, in light of the tragic events at Stonehaven, NR were commissioned to produce a report in to improving the resilience of the network in response to extreme weather events. The interim report was published on 10 September and contained a range of short term and longer term actions which are being taken forward, including the creation of two task forces to look specifically the management of earthworks and the other to make best use of weather data. A full report will be published in due course.