Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

My Lords, I thank the Minister and everyone who took part in the debate on this long and varied group. Noble Lords will be pleased to know that I do not plan to run through all the amendments. I will, however, make a couple of points. I have to respond to the noble Lords, Lord Grayling and Lord Moylan. The noble Lord, Lord Grayling, said that the public sector often does not deliver good value for money or a good value of services. Of course, many people in Britain have suffered over the past decade from the poor-quality and poor-value-for-money services offered by the private sector, in railways, water companies and many other areas. So the public sector should not be singled out here. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Laing, for her interesting thoughts about value for money. I do not know whether this is still the case, but I have been on the two-car train from Newport in Wales to Hereford a number of times. I have seen people being literally shoved in the door. It might be good value for money in terms of cost per passenger mile, but it is not a great way to travel. That was what the noble Baroness made me think of. The noble Lord, Lord Evans, referred to cutting public subsidies. Of course, it is important that we consider the value from those public subsidies in terms of encouraging public health and in terms of the climate and nature issues that my amendments raise. This is a cost, but there are benefits that go beyond the benefit of the actual train journey. I will respond briefly to the Minister’s response to my noble friend’s amendments. In a number of these cases, when talking about modal shift and about climate and nature, the Minister referred to strategy as being the alternative approach that the Government plan to use, but a strategy is not the same as having something in the Bill. That also applies when we are talking about issues of affordability and the flexibility that Great British Railways is being offered with the simplification of fares. As the Minister was speaking, I was thinking of many train journeys that I have made, particularly to Manchester and Liverpool, where I have paid well over £100 for a journey that I might expect to cost £40 in continental Europe, and have sat on a train that was, at best, perhaps a sixth or a seventh full, while thinking what an awful waste it was that lots of people were undoubtedly making that same journey in their cars because of the cost of the rail fare.