L

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 6 January 2026

Debate

Channel Tunnel Infrastructure: Reliability

Contribution

The review that I have talked about already will look at the resilience of the infrastructure and at previous recommendations to make sure that the infrastructure is resilient. Obviously, everything that we are talking about is certainly less than 40 years old, which, by railway standards, is like yesterday. There should be no reason—I cannot think of any good reason—why the infrastructure cannot support the much-increased level of service. To that end, as the noble Baroness knows, the Government are committed to expanding the use of the tunnel for both passengers and freight trains. She will know that Virgin has been granted access to the depot in London, which it believes is necessary for its competitive activity with Eurostar. She will also know that Trenitalia, which is the Italian state railway, has found a funder to independently start additional competitive services with a depot in France, but not needing one in London. So, I am confident that all the infrastructure she mentions can support those services in the future.

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