Lord Moylan (Con)

My Lords, I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, has said, but I will go a great deal further. I am genuinely very angry. We are here today to discuss the long-term rail strategy. Looking at the groups coming up, I think I am right in saying that this is our only opportunity directly to discuss the long-term rail strategy, and yet the Minister has announced that a new document has appeared today setting out the parameters, I believe, and the instantiation of the long-term rail strategy. I am a little further advanced than the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, because I now have access to it on my iPhone. It is a lengthy PDF document which I find very difficult to read, with my eyesight, on my iPhone. It is worse than useless; none the less, I at least have a link to it now. We do not know what it says, and the Minister said during an earlier group that he hopes to give us, in the course of debate, an idea of what it contains, but he is speaking last. We will have the debate, and only then will we get the summary of what the document contains; and after that we will, over the next few days, have an opportunity to read it. This is completely contemptuous of the Committee, and I am genuinely very angry about it. As far as the debate we have had is concerned, one is obviously very sympathetic to the horrendous stories told by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. One is supportive of the heritage rail industry in general, though I note that, unlike the long-term rail strategy, we will return to have another debate on heritage rail later on. The speech by my noble friend Lord Grayling was also very wise. Are we moving to a monopoly? At the moment, 25% of rail movements will not be GBR. What is the target for that? What is the vision? Some 20 years from now, is GBR going to be doing 80% or 85%? Are the private sectors being squeezed out, as my noble friend said, or is the target for them to be doing less? What is it? We do not know what the future will hold. We are giving all these powers to Great British Railways with very few constraints and checks, and we do not know where they are taking us. I refer briefly to the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, to which the noble Lord, Lord Harper, spoke. I do not need therefore to say what it contains, but it essentially requires a form of parliamentary scrutiny of the long-term rail strategy before it is adopted. I want to particularly refer to that because my Amendments 96A and 97A have both been drafted in the light of recommendations of the Transport Select Committee in the other place; I have had an opportunity to discuss them with its chairman. The first amendment refers not to the parliamentary scrutiny of the long-term rail strategy, because that has been dealt with by my noble friend Lord Lansley’s amendment, but to what happens when changes are made to that strategy. The thrust of the amendment, and very much the view of the Transport Select Committee, is that those changes should be subject to a similar form of parliamentary scrutiny as the original document. The fear that the Transport Select Committee has expressed is that the long-term rail strategy, because it can be changed by the Secretary of State, will become what it thinks of as a series of short-term rail strategies, which is of course no strategy at all; it is simply lurching from one plan to another in the light of the money made available by the Treasury. Putting some form of check on the Secretary of State, so that those changes have to be considered equally, is an important consideration in Amendment 96A. Amendment 97A is again from the Transport Select Committee. The committee specifically recommended that mayoral strategic authorities “should be statutory consultees on the Long Term Rail Strategy”. Evidence to that committee described their absence as “a little bit out of kilter”, with the Government’s wider ambitions for devolution. Surely Scottish Ministers, the Mayor of London and mayors across England should have a formal opportunity to contribute when it is prepared, revised or replaced. The Government say they want greater devolution and these amendments would give effect to that. Amendment 100 is similar. The British Transport Police has unique expertise in the safety and policing aspects of running the railway. There should surely be an obligation on the Government to formally consult the British Transport Police—and the chief constable, in fact—about the long-term rail strategy. Amendment 98, which is not in my name but in that of my noble friend Lord Lansley, has a similar effect in relation to the Office of Rail and Road. Should not the Office of Rail and Road be consulted about the long-term rail strategy before it is prepared and published? Amendment 102 would strengthen the obligation of GBR in relation to the long-term rail strategy. At the moment, GBR is required to “have regard to” the objectives set out in that strategy. My amendment would improve on that and require it to “seek to achieve” those objectives, so there is a strong sense of direction from the Secretary of State embodied in the long-term rail strategy. Those are my amendments in relation to the long-term rail strategy. None of them is revolutionary. All of them make it more effective and more relevant and I hope the Government will be able to accept them, but I cannot sit down without repeating that there is something of a farce involved in having this discussion when the Minister is now going to explain what it is we have been discussing.