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

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this group. Of course, I completely agree with noble Lords on the importance of making our railway more accessible. In the spirit of

Perhaps I should have a discussion with the noble Lord separately because I think that, as set out, the Bill is clear enough. I thought I had answered him but, if he does not think I have, I will have

With respect to my noble friend, I do not think that is what I said, and certainly not what I meant. That is why we have separated the infrastructure capacity plan from the operation of trains by GBR.

That is right; the previous Government did nothing about it. The Government’s commitment to the public ownership of passenger train operations has been consistent since the lead-up to the last electio

The noble Lord raises an interesting point. Although the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, says that I have clearly not learned much in the past three weeks, within the past three weeks I have reread the Willi

The noble Lord is right, and of course I can. At that stage the railway did not have many trains on it, and one of the principal benefits of the post-1993 situation was the ability of franchisees to r