Submission to the Spring Budget
12 February 2020
RIA has published its submission to the Government's Spring Budget. The Budget will be given by the Chancellor on 11 March 2020.
Executive Summary
- The rail industry is a vital sector for the UK economy, providing investment, jobs and economic growth;
- However, RIA has identified five ‘crunch points’ which, if not resolved, will pose a barrier to the Government’s investment programme up to 2024. These crunch points are: renewals, enhancements, rolling stock, decarbonisation, including electrification, and digitalisation;
- On renewals, the Government needs to implement a ‘future visibility’ scenario which sets a level of renewals work that supports a ‘steady-state’ / minimum volume of renewals for the following CP;
- On enhancements, the Government needs to provide more information within the Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline (RNEP), bring forward the design work of selected schemes and move forward with Market Led Proposals (MLPs);
- On rolling stock, a long term, stable pipeline of rolling stock orders is needed for both the industry and to reduce costs for passengers; rolling stock procurement must be considered both within the Government’s decarbonisation strategy and the Williams Rail Review;
- On decarbonising the railway by 2040, the Government needs to provide a ring-fenced fund for a rolling programme of electrification on intensively-used rail, in order to retain skills and expertise, and develop and promote a range of clean traction modes for the future, such as hydrogen, battery and bimodes;
- On digitalisation, the Government should bring some digital signalling work forward from CP7 so that the industry does not see a steep ramp up in work in 2024.
Read the Submission