Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)

I refute that comment, for the avoidance of doubt and for the record. The noble Lord is correct. It is an important distinction. As I said, let me meet him on that. He referred to Clause 70. I am not equipped to go into that just now, as he will appreciate, so I will talk to him further about it. Amendment 18 removes the delegated power to add to the list of functions for GBR. While the functions listed in Clause 3 cover the breadth of activities that we expect GBR to undertake as the directing mind for the railways, it is sensible to provide the flexibility to add functions should the railways change significantly enough to warrant a new function being added—for example, due to technological development, such as in the artificial intelligence space. This power is not expected to be used frequently, if at all, but it future-proofs the Bill in the event that new activities need to be brought within the scope of the functions. Bringing an activity within the functions in the Bill has several benefits, including that the function then becomes subject to GBR’s duties and ORR’s monitoring. This legislation is expected to govern the railways for a long time, as the 1993 Act did, so this is a responsible and sensible power. This power was also reviewed by the Delegated Powers Committee, which deemed it acceptable and did not draw it to the attention of the House in its report on the Bill—I welcome the report and look forward to responding to it formally in due course. The power cannot be used to change or remove functions and is subject to the affirmative resolution. It is also not unprecedented: the National Health Service Act 2006 allows functions to be added to special health authorities via regulations. I therefore hope that the noble Lord will feel able not to press this amendment. Amendments 20 and 110 from the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, relate to passenger growth. I very much agree with her that growing passenger numbers on the railways is vital. It supports economic growth, jobs and homes, encourages modal shift and can reduce the level of taxpayer subsidy required for the railways. However, GBR’s general duties in Clause 18 already include a duty to promote not only the interests of passengers but potential passengers. This already requires GBR to consider how best to encourage new users on to the railways. GBR’s business plan will also reflect the Government’s ambitions for passenger growth, including measurable outcomes against which GBR can be held to account. GBR’s other duties, including promoting high performance, such as reliability and punctuality, will also contribute to making the railways more appealing to passengers. Transport Focus recently found reliability to be the single most important issue for passengers. GBR will be able to improve reliability by making better, whole-system decisions on issues such as the choreography of maintenance works. As a commercially minded organisation, GBR will also be naturally incentivised to attract more people to travel by rail, because increasing passenger numbers will increase its own revenue. By contrast, there is no intrinsic motivation for GBR to increase rail freight when there is limited network capacity and freight services are in the clear minority of services. That is why the Bill already includes a freight duty and a freight target, to ensure that freight is given equal weight to passengers in a system where passengers may have naturally taken priority otherwise. A stronger or additional passenger equivalent duty or target could actually undermine our ambitions on freight. I therefore hope that the noble Baroness will agree that that would not be the right outcome.