Contribution
My Lords, my Amendment 92 would require the rail strategy to cover a 30-year period. At the start of this session, the Minister talked about a paper published today on the strategy. I have not seen it or received any email about it, and I am completely up to date on my inbox. I would have hoped that officials could have sent that to us before we had come in today, so I would be grateful if that could be sent round to noble Lords who are working on this Bill so we can look at that.
So, without having seen what was published today, which may do exactly what I want, I say that this rail strategy should cover a 30-year period. I am sure that noble Lords will be only too aware that an organisation such as Great British Railways, with its vast infrastructure and multiple services to deliver—including the growth in rail freight and, we hope, in passengers—is complex. Different parts of the railway will have different needs for investment and decisions on rolling stock, electrification, station modernisation, workforce planning and passenger experience. They simply cannot be taken on short political cycles.
The rail strategy needs to ensure that it meets the needs of every part of the country. Rural communities are not always well served by the railway, and they need to be considered fully as part of a long-term 30-year strategy that will provide the vision and the clear steps to make that vision a reality. I hope the Minister will consider my amendment and its request carefully.
Other amendments in this group require consultation with lots of organisations as part of the strategy development. Surely, any good organisation will do that, and I would hope that the Minister can assure us of that.
As the discussion has shown, Amendment 105, from my noble friend Lord Beith, is very important. It highlights the importance of integrating the railway with other modes of transport and ensuring timetables align. If you want people to buy tickets, which then can move on to include bus travel and so on, the co-ordination infrastructure needs to make this easy. As we have heard, the bus, the ferry or whatever, should not be leaving three minutes before the train arrives. That, to me, is part of the added value of Great British Railways, whether it is the model I support or not. What difference are you making to people’s onward travel? What difference will this new structure make? That co-ordination is important. The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, makes a similar point and I hope we will hear something positive from the Minister on that.
The noble Lords, Lord Parkinson and Lord Faulkner, who have a special interest in heritage railways, made their points clearly, and I hope we can hear a positive response on that.
The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, supported by my noble friend Lady Brinton, is so important and would be part of this 30-year strategy as I see it. It should not be rocket science to be able to book the tickets and the support you need to use the railway in one simple way. This should be part of a programme and strategy. The debate about mobility aids is really important. E-scooters, as in the two-wheeler devices that many people use, were banned on buses in London. The very next day, I had people with mobility scooters who were unable to get on buses in Kingston because this rule had been interpreted wrongly. That was affecting disabled people’s ability to use public transport to get about their everyday business, so it is really important that this be looked at.
This has been a really good debate, and I know the Minister has a strong track record in some of this. I look forward to hearing his response and to whether he will support this 30-year strategy.