Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Kramer on 30 June (WA 209), what are the reasons for not moving responsibility for railway safety in the Channel Tunnel to the Office of Rail Regulation and its French equivalent at the same time as moving economic regulation.
Unlike economic regulation of the Channel Tunnel there is no European legislative obligation to move responsibility for railway safety in the Channel Tunnel to national regulators. The Government considers that currently there is no justification on safety or other grounds for moving safety regulation and therefore has no plans to do so at the moment. This view is also shared by the French Government.