Baroness Pidgeon (LD)

My Lords, there is such a wide range of amendments in this group, all focusing on value for money, fares and some additional duties, some of which we covered in our debates on other groups. For example, we discussed the passenger growth target on a previous day. The noble Baroness’s point at the start about reducing emissions and a modal shift is really important, and my noble friend Lord Beith talked about multimodal travel being a gamble. It absolutely is in parts of the country. I recall turning up somewhere many years ago by train, assuming that there would be a cab rank where I ended up, and there was not. I was in the middle of a forest somewhere, trying to visit someone in a hospital. I just made an assumption, because I was used to that level of service in the capital city. My noble friend is absolutely right on that. We had a strong reminder again about the importance of the heritage sector, which should be considered in all decisions, where appropriate, by different parts of the rail industry, as it were. That was set out clearly by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. It is such an important part of our tourist offer. I hope that is supported. The noble Baroness, Lady Laing, talked about value for money, productivity and best value. It is really hard to define that. I sit on the Public Services Committee, and we have looked at that sort of work and how we define it. It is really important that we do, but it is hard to do that. But I would expect any company, private or public, to look at how it can operate in an increasingly tight financial envelope, looking at how to innovate and use technology and being mindful of the cost base. I am sure that Great British Railways would be no exception to that, but we need confirmation of this. I look forward to the Minister’s response to this broad group.