Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking, if any, to progress the development of a privately financed Southern Railway link to Heathrow Airport.

This government has committed to building a Britain with world class infrastructure. SAtH would be part of the Government’s plan to build back better, greener and faster. We remain committed that a Southern Access to Heathrow should be a ‘Pathfinder Project’ working with the private sector to harness new and innovative ideas while reducing the burden on fare and taxpayers.

The Department has undertaken extensive stakeholder engagement to develop a set of strategic objectives for the Southern Access to Heathrow scheme. Throughout this process the Department has remained ‘outcome-focused’ and mode-agnostic allowing space for private sector innovation and ideas. It is not a detailed specification for the scheme at this stage.

Since the publication of these Strategic Objectives in November 2019, the Department has worked to finalise a ‘Pre-Strategic Outline Business Case’, to outline the case for change and need for a scheme such as this, setting out practically how this scheme should be taken forwards.

The Department is developing commercial and financial models for working alongside the private sector to fund, finance, and deliver this scheme.

Following Ministerial approval and alignment to the upcoming HM Treasury Infrastructure Finance Review, the Department intends to provide further guidance regarding the commercial approach in early 2021.