Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)

I am about to get there. In turning to Amendments 49 and 181 concerning cross-subsidisation and subsidy control, I can offer further reassurance. The advantage of interventions is that you make your point; the disadvantage is that you stop hearing. As a public body, GBR is required to comply with Managing Public Money principles and relevant subsidy control legislation. The Public Service Obligations in Transport Regulations is the relevant subsidy control legislation that applies to retail specifically. GBR’s passenger services business will therefore operate within a clear financial framework, ensuring that public funding is used appropriately and fairly. GBR will be required through its business plan to set out its activities, such as its broad retailing function, the costs of these activities and how it proposes that these costs are met. The business plan must cover everything that GBR does, so there should be no concern about transparency. It is important to note that GBR will be operating a transport service of which retailing is a part. It will have to use all available channels to serve passengers, however they buy their tickets. If it is allocated more funding for retail than would be needed for a simple online retail platform, it is simply because it also has an obligation to provide physical ticket sales—I listed those activities before—including for people who pay cash. They are far more costly to provide, and other retailers are most unlikely to provide them. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Young, it will not be possible for GBR to subsidise retail from infrastructure budgets, for example, as ticket offices are not classed as infrastructure. GBR will not be overcompensated to deliver retail functions in a way that distorts the market. Funding will be allocated based on the costs of delivering those services to passengers. It will also be subject to the oversight of the ORR as the sector specialist competition regulator, alongside the Competition and Markets Authority. In that role, the ORR will be able to take enforcement steps against GBR, should it suspect that GBR is using public funds to act in an anti-competitive way.