Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Sugg on 31 October (HL Deb, col 1360) on railway investment, what assessment they have made of the cost-effectiveness and impact on reliability of investments in signalling on the West Coast Mainline.

Network Rail regularly monitors the reliability of its infrastructure, and this monitoring indicates a broad improvement in signalling asset reliability across the West Coast Main Line resulting from the ongoing replacement and modernisation of the infrastructure. Network Rail’s monitoring indicates overall reductions in delays from track circuit, signalling system and power supply failures following resignalling and other measures.

The Office of Rail and Road undertakes yearly reviews of Network Rail’s expenditure and efficiency, to help customers, funders and other interested parties gain a better understanding of Network Rail’s financial performance. This is published in the Annual Efficiency and Finance Assessment of Network Rail.