Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)

My reference earlier to integrating the electrification programme with rolling stock decisions reflects the fact that many trains on the British railway network are now capable of operating in either electric or diesel mode. That is a consequence of rolling stock purchases over the past 10 years. It enables some more choices to be made about the very expensive infrastructure cost of electrification versus electrification where it makes a real difference in both time and volume of rail traffic, and where trains that will run on electricity—when the electricity is there—will also serve parts of the network where it is not. Some of the decisions which have been taken in rolling stock will last 35 years, like the rolling stock itself. That is true of the Great Western main line electrification, where those trains happily run on the wires as far as Cardiff and then travel by diesel not only to Swansea but further west to Carmarthen and to the south-west as well. A similar situation is true on the Midland main line, where bi-mode trains will be in operation. There is no point in investing in very expensive infrastructure if we can find another way of creating electrification for the vast majority of the network. The study being done by Network Rail, which will be completed and feed in to the department’s overall review of capital projects, will point out where that valuable public money ought to be best spent.