The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)

My Lords, first, on Amendments 106 and 106A, the Government share the noble Lord’s ambitions for the freight sector, which is why we have committed to the overall target of increasing rail freight by 75% by 2050 and why we recently announced, as has already been mentioned, the interim freight target of 40% growth by 2040. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, is right: 75% requires a growth rate of a little more than 2% a year, whereas 40% is about 2% a year. The Bill requires the Secretary of State to issue a growth target in perpetuity, so the effect of Amendment 106A is, I think, already achieved. I discussed Amendment 106 with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, before Conference Recess, and I take his point that it can be helpful to guide GBR towards the freight growth that it would need to achieve to reach the freight target. I agree that it would be helpful—in fact, I think it is essential—for GBR’s business plan in particular to consider how to maintain the average growth needed over the five-year plan, whether that be 2% or otherwise. I can assure the noble Lord that the ORR and the Secretary of State will assess that business plan with that in mind. However, I do not want to enshrine a specific target per year into legislation, as it is also true that GBR will be planning over a five-year period and there may be greater opportunities to make gains in some years rather than others. Significant investment in infrastructure, as several noble Lords mentioned in the debate, may enable large gains in a particular year and that investment may of course come from particular sources. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, raised Ely-Haughley, which I agree has great value. I will write to him about the actions that I and Network Rail have taken to move that forward. He is right that the Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough is involved; he and the county councils and highway authorities concerned will, I hope, help in reducing the cost of that scheme. The fact is that you do need steady growth, but any of the significant investments in infrastructure that release capacity may release a lot of capacity in a relatively short space of time. I turn to Amendments 107 to 109. The wording in the Bill already requires GBR to take the target into account while exercising all its functions; in other words, when making any and all decisions relevant to freight. That includes decisions around access to the network, such as which paths should be prioritised for freight use, which is deliberate. It ensures that GBR cannot ignore the target at any time unless it undertakes activities that are completely removed from the railway or from opportunities for freight growth. Additionally, in acknowledgment of the challenges that rail freight has historically faced in today’s first-come, first-served market model, we have provided not one but two duties to promote and grow freight. I therefore hope that noble Lords cannot think that the Bill provides anything other than absolute support for a thriving freight sector.