Treasury written question – answered am ar 6 Medi 2024.
Helen Whately
Shadow Secretary of State for Transport
To ask the Chancellor of the exchequer, with reference to Table 1 of her Department's document entitled Fixing the Foundations: Public spending audit 2024-25, CP 1133, what the evidential basis is for saying there was an additional £1.3 billion cost for rail maintenance in the 2024-25 financial year.
Darren Jones
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Rail infrastructure is managed by Network Rail (NR). The Department for Transport (DfT) provides grant funding to NR for operations, maintenance, and renewals via five-year regulated ‘Control Periods’. Funding for each Control Period is established through a statutory process of Periodic Reviews, the timelines for which have not aligned with Spending Review periods.
At Spending Review 2021, DfT’s budgets were set for a period (2021/22-2024/25) which extended beyond the end of the previous Control Period (Control Period 6, 2019/20-2023/24). The periodic review to determine Control Period 7 (2024/25-2028/29) concluded in October 2023, confirming the funding requirements for 2024/25. Therefore, the assumption for maintenance costs in 2024/25 had to be revised following the periodic review in 2023 as these costs were higher than budgeted at SR21.
Yes4 people think so
No2 people think not
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