Railways Bill
Wednesday, 16 September 2026
Contributions
Committee (3rd Day)
Scottish and Welsh legislative consent sought.
Relevant document: 4th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee
Schedule 2: Funding Great British Railways
Amendment 63A
Moved by
63A: Schedule 2, page 70, line 30, at end insert— “(f) innovation and the adoption of new and improved technology in relation to railways and railway services.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment would allow the Secretary of State’s funding objectives for Great British Railways to include objectives relating to innovation and the adoption of new technology.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 63A I will speak to other amendments in my name in this group. Before I start, I express my gratitude to the Minister, not only for the very fine cushion he has provided me with for the course of Committee today, to match his own, but for the meeting he gave me yesterday, in which we discussed the general functions of Great British Railways, a subject that came up on the first day in Committee, when the noble Lord offered that meeting. I discovered in that meeting that the question of GBR’s functions is a great deal more complicated in the noble Lord’s mind even than we discovered when we debated it here. I discovered that there are functions of GBR that are not functions, and that some activities of GBR are subject to the Secretary of State’s direction while others are not. I cannot force the noble Lord, and I would not want to, but I wondered whether he wishes to take, at some point—not necessarily today—an opportunity to introduce into our debates in Committee a reprise to some extent of what was debated rather messily on the first day. We would then have his whole view of the question set to music, so that we can all understand it. I leave that thought for the noble Lord to take up if he wishes. In this group, I will start with Amendments 63A, 91A and 116A, all of which are related to innovation. It is only a few years ago that people in the industry were debating what a digital railway would look like—what would that expression mean? Everything was very forward looking. But I look in this Bill, which is about the future of the railways, and I find nothing at all about innovation. I find no obligations on the part of Great British Railways to innovate, no policies directed towards innovation, no mandate on the Secretary of State to include innovation in the long-term rail strategy, and so forth. That is missing. I do not want to be too difficult about this, but it is part of the general pattern of this Bill, which is very “back to the 1970s”—a theme of this Government under Mr Burnham. He has made that very clear. We could go back to the 1970s technologically as well, but I do not think that is the Government’s intention, although there is no intention here to make any progress. So these amendments, which I will not go into in detail, are tabled with a view to encouraging the noble Lord to make a statement about the Government’s intentions and how they might be reflected in the Bill in any changes he might bring forward later in Committee or on Report. Amendments 330D and 330E have been put forward by techUK. It is anxious about the information and data gathered and generated by Great British Railways, and it wants to ensure that that data is in the public domain and is transparent. I hope the noble Lord will have no difficulty in accepting that principle—completely free and open access—because that, after all, is the policy he introduced for TfL data when he was commissioner. It led to an explosion in apps in the private sector, some of which turned out to be very useful to members of the public—some fell by the wayside, but that is the way of technological development—helping them find their buses, connect their trains to the buses, make the most intelligent choice of door to get on the Tube in order to make a quick exit, and so forth. All these things are done in the private sector, and they are possible only if the data is provided. So that commitment to completely open data, and its inclusion in the Bill, would be extremely helpful. Amendment 330E, also suggested by techUK, is about smart data schemes in which rail planning and integrated ticketing are identified as candidate use cases. The rail data marketplace itself falls within scope of the work. This amendment is intended to ensure that the relationship between the two is resolved and reported and would commit the Government only to considering their own policies. Again, I hope that it would be easy for the Government to accept this amendment. Finally, Amendment 89A is on a slightly distant subject—but that is the way our groupings often work—and is to do with steel. The Government have shot British industry in the foot by imposing tariffs on imported steel. That is the policy they have gone for. It is reminiscent of the 1970s, I might say, and would not have been possible, naturally, had we stayed in the European Union. It is a Brexit bonus, as far as the Government are concerned. This amendment responds to the Government’s new steel trade measures, which came into force on 1 July this year. Those measures reduce the overall tariff-free steel import quota by 51% compared with the previous safeguard regime and impose a 50% tariff by value once the relevant quota is exhausted. In other words, there is much less tariff-free steel available to British industry, and the tariff on that which comes in is higher than it was before. All very bad news. One of the Government’s central arguments for the creation of Great British Railways has always been that bringing the railway together would reduce costs. The Government say that their reforms on the railway will secure more than £1 billion in savings and efficiencies by the end of the decade. For the railway, the Government’s own document on the UK’s steel trade measure, from 1 July 2026, specifically identifies product category 19 as “railway material”. That is significant, because Network Rail has already contracted almost 450,000 tonnes—that is, European tonnes—of rail over the five years to 2000, including at least 78,000 tonnes from Germany and 8,500 tonnes from Austria. Network Rail has said that these European suppliers are important for specialist products and security of supply—of course they are. The issue here is where GBR needs imported railway steel to maintain, renew and improve the network. Should the taxpayer bear an additional 50% cost simply because the relevant quota has been exhausted? The amendment would exempt steel imported specifically for GBR railway infrastructure from that additional tariff. It should therefore, and I imagine will, be welcome to the Minister and to everyone in the railways. I hope the Minister will explain why the taxpayer, who will be paying for GBR, will also have to pay higher costs due to a separate and distinct government policy. I hope he will explain that he is willing to take this opportunity to remove that difficulty. With that, I beg to move.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to make the first contribution from the cushion-less seats—perhaps that will change for me when we get to day 4 of Committee. I congratulate the Minister on everything he did when he was in charge of TfL on innovation and the smart use of data. There is nothing smart about data in itself; it is the uses we put data to that make it smart. That is what is behind my two amendments and those to which my noble friend has eloquently spoken in this group. When the Minister was in charge of TfL, he transformed how the network ran and, critically, the passenger and user experience. His legacy lives large today on that network. But when we come to this Bill, we do not see very much of that at all—there is nothing that is even a distant echo of what was achieved at TfL—so my amendments are somewhat probing but also offer some solutions. Amendment 130 seeks to put a technology and innovation imperative on GBR. I have set up some technologies but the key when drafting amendments and indeed legislation is to be tech-neutral, because by being tech-neutral we have a good chance of being tech future-proofed. Whether it concerns passenger safety, passenger experience or the efficient running of the rail network itself, you would imagine that all forms of AI would have a role to play. My second amendment, Amendment 329, goes to the heart of the issue of cyber. We currently have a cyber Bill in your Lordships’ House, but I would really like to see specific cyber requirements across the slate of legislation coming through. Otherwise, how will we have a sense that something as critical as the rail network has the protection and the posture it requires in the face of the key cyber risks? Those risks are here today; this is not something for tomorrow. Surely that must be a key consideration and function, or perhaps direction, for GBR, because without it, we will leave the railways open or with optionality to take a view on this. Cyber is critical, so there should be something in the Bill to this effect. This is perhaps even more significant than the other technology and innovation amendments in this group. I look forward to the Minister’s response to them all.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I intervene briefly to speak to my noble friend’s Amendment 63A, on innovation and new technology. This country has had a fine tradition of both innovation and technology in the railways, right from the beginning. We have had the finest engineers—in Victorian times, and then, in the last century, in the 1920s and 1930s, we produced the fastest steam train. Under British Rail, the engineering was of the highest quality, but it was focused on the heavier end of the rail industry: rolling stock, signalling and track. Post privatisation, innovation and technology switched to customer service, marketing and cutting costs. That was because, under the franchise system, which you did not have under a monopoly, there was an incentive to win new customers, improve customer service and reduce running costs. None of that was there with the previous monopoly, and there is a risk that once you move again to a state monopoly, the incentives we had in the private sector to innovate and use technology will fall away. There is a risk of losing another change that happened post privatisation. If one franchise, such as Chiltern Railways, introduced a new innovation or service, customers would then expect the same, or an improvement, on Greater Anglia or Great Western Railway. Once you move to a monopoly, that sort of competitive advantage within the industry falls away, and you rely on looking at what happens overseas. That is why I wanted to intervene: to underline the importance of driving forward innovation in technology in the absence of the drive of the profit motive and the need to win business—a motive that risks falling away once we move over to GBR.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to this group. First, I echo what my noble friend Lord Moylan said about the courtesy of the Minister. I thank him for the two letters I received this week. One, which I think was also sent to my noble friends Lord Moylan and Lord Lansley, was about GBR subsidiaries and clarified in a helpful way that those not doing railway functions can be majority owned by a body other than GBR. The Minister has satisfied me as far as that goes. There was also his further letter to me on licensing, which again was helpful and clarified matters to my satisfaction. I am grateful to the Minister for his courtesy in responding so promptly.
I want to say a word or two on these amendments, which I broadly support. First, on the amendments on innovation, the points my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham made are right. I am not a fan of putting things in primary legislation for no reason, but my noble friend has explained that the benefit of putting this in is that once you have a non-competitive situation, but do not have those incentives on the companies to innovate in order to win customers and drive down costs, you have to have something which reminds people, or gives them a duty, to use innovation and technology. The fact that several amendments cover both infrastructure and investment in those bigger capital items, which my noble friend Lord Moylan referred to, is helpful but there is also the amendment that refers specifically to the customer-facing elements.
In that spirit, I also welcome the amendment from my noble friend Lord Holmes. By focusing on making sure the data is available, we will empower all those other providers which will produce apps and other services for customers. It is particularly helpful that my noble friend Lord Holmes’s amendment specifically refers to third-party providers and SMEs, so that GBR would have a specific responsibility to make sure that it is easy for those providers and SMEs to engage with it.
Anybody who is involved with an SME that has to engage with government knows that it is not always that straightforward. Sometimes, the costs involved in interacting with government bodies are very expensive and can be prohibitive. In that spirit, specifically requiring GBR to think about how it engages with third-party providers is a welcome amendment, because those that produce apps will not be large. Particularly if they are a start-up company, they will not have large bureaucracies with lots of staff, and they need to be able to operate nimbly with GBR.
The final amendment I want to support is my noble friend Lord Moylan’s one on steel products. It reminds us that tariffs are, of course, a tax: they are a tax that is paid by the consumer of the product, not the person selling it. Therefore, if steel used by GBR ends up having to have tariffs imposed on it, that would increase the costs taxpayers have to bear, which is not helpful, so that is a very helpful amendment.
It would also be useful if the Minister could indicate where the steel used by GBR—primarily, in this case, the Network Rail part of it—comes from and whether it imports a lot of steel products and specialty steel for rail, or whether most of that is produced in the United Kingdom. I am not pushing either way; I happen to believe in free trade and that businesses should buy products that best meet their needs, not according to whatever flag they have on them. However, I would be interested to know where Network Rail tends to procure its steel products from. If the Minister does not have that information to hand, which he may well not, I would be perfectly happy if he wrote to me. But broadly, I am supportive of this group of amendments, which push things in the right direction to deliver better and more cost-effective customer service, and innovative products that will benefit the consumer.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, it has been an interesting discussion on this important group. My Amendment 325 would add a new requirement for Great British Railways to publish a cyber security and technology strategy. As we have heard from a number of noble Lords, it is important for the public and Parliament to understand how Great British Railways will use emerging technologies throughout the railway, including artificial intelligence. These new technologies, of course, may help innovation, develop resilience and improve the passenger experience, but this country also faces increasing threats to our national infrastructure, so we must make sure that our infrastructure remains safe and that passengers and those who work on the railway feel protected. Alongside this serious cyber threat, we on these Benches continue to focus on ensuring that passengers are at the centre of this Bill and this new structure. Rail passengers will also expect and deserve modern accessible services, reliable wifi, real-time information and inclusive design. Investment in technologies that will benefit passengers and ensure that Great British Railways can develop the quality railway that passengers deserve is really important. The other amendments in this group are variations around the theme of my amendment. Members want to see innovation and technology at the heart of Great British Railways and Amendment 91A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, also points to the supply chain having greater visibility of planned investment, which I am sure is something we all support. Open data has also been raised. This has transformed travel in London, under the noble Lord the Minister’s leadership at Transport for London. iBus, when it was rolled out, was an absolute game changer for how people use the public transport network. The importance of allowing such innovation in start-ups developing apps, and the quality jobs that have grown in that sector, should not be underestimated. I hope that this same high standard will be the basis of Great British Railways as well. I will not comment on the debate being based on the 1970s, although, I have to say, many great things happened in the 1970s. I look forward to the Minister’s response to this group.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, before my noble friend responds, I would just like to make two points. First, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on steel products—the noble Lord, Lord Harper, also mentioned that. After some of the derailments in the last few months, there will be quite strong pressure to look at the quality of the rail and where it is manufactured, apart from whether it is laid properly. I think that this amendment is important so that GBR has the full freedom to procure the rail from wherever it believes gives technically the best quality. I do not know whether that applies also to something such as HS1 and whether Network Rail is involved in it. It would be good to know from my noble friend whether HS1 rails are out of the procurement or separate. Secondly, I think on previous days we discussed wifi on trains and my noble friend was not very forthcoming about when we might be able to have wifi on trains that actually works. We have proven it on one train in the south-west, and the south-west offered to do the procurement, but, of course, my noble friend said that only the Department for Transport can procure wifi. I have to ask my noble friend about wifi for the whole network. I suppose that it is only the intercity type trains, but which trains will be included and when will we be able to see the result and be able to use it on trains?
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
My Lords, before we hear from the Minister in reply to this group, I would just like to be a bit pernickety and urge Back-Bench speakers, if they can, to speak before Front-Bench winders. It is not in the Companion , but I think that it is good custom and practice and aids the flow and understanding of debate. Without further ado, I will let the Minister respond.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
What have I done wrong? I am terribly sorry.
Lord Katz (Lab)
My noble friend has done nothing wrong, as per the Companion , but usually in Committee Back-Benchers speak before the Front-Bench winders. It helps if noble Lords understand when people speak. Before we get into a long debate, it is not in the Companion , and we have freedom to speak and to intervene—it just helps the flow of debate, when we have a long Committee debate ahead of us.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
So, technically, because I am the only Green, I am a Front-Bench winder as well. I just want to establish the rules.
Lord Katz (Lab)
Green Members often speak as part of the Back Benches, but the noble Baroness is of course welcome to speak whenever.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
I apologise to the Committee and in particular to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, I should first say that I am not buying any more cushions—I have bought enough cushions. Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to a discussion yesterday about the functions of Great British Railways. I will write to him with the views that I conveyed in a speech yesterday and to other Members, and place a copy in the Library, so that we are all clear about what the Government believe to be the case. Thirdly, today the Government published a paper on the long-term rail strategy, which will be particularly beneficial for this Committee. It was published this morning.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I will interrupt the Minister, if I may. Of course, it is welcome that a paper has been published today, but I had no idea about this. In an hour or so, this Committee will be debating the long-term rail strategy, completely blind to this new paper. The Government’s timetable for approaching this, which I complained about strongly at Second Reading, is of trying to push through the legislation when Parliament is blind to so many of the policy documents. Many are due in the spring of next year, even after we have enacted the legislation. The Government should think about the extent to which they are abusing parliamentary process and Members of this House.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The publication today is designed to be helpful and I will refer to it in today’s discussion. Since it was only published today, my remarks will include those elements of it that otherwise might not have been available, had it not been published today.
Lord Harper (Con)
Before the Minister moves on, I will add to my noble friend’s point—and this is also aimed at the Whip. The danger for the Minister is that if we debate the amendments on the long-term rail strategy, as we will today, and then we study the document published today and decide that there are matters that we wish to raise, all the Minister is going to discover is that further amendments will be put down. Then, we will have a rather repetitive debate about the long-term rail strategy, when we could have had a single debate about it. This will elongate the length of the Committee and we will end up sitting for longer, which is not enormously in our interest, if it is something that we could have dealt with earlier, and I am sure will not be welcome to the Whip. I put that on the record and we will hold that in our back pocket, if required.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
To which I respond to the noble Lord that I believe that the publication is helpful and that the remarks that I am going to make in respect of the debate on the group today—and indeed others—will help in any event and will replicate what noble Lords will find in the document from today. Amendments 63A, 91A, 116A and 130 relate to innovation. I agree completely with the important role that technology and innovation can play in improving passenger experiences and railway operations. From digitalisation supporting simplifications in fares and ticketing to AI enabling more efficient and safer monitoring of the network, technological innovation will present new opportunities for GBR across all its functions. That is why the Bill already includes a function for GBR to carry out research and development and to support innovation in relation to railways in Clause 3(1)(f). That means that a core responsibility for GBR will be to support and promote innovation on the railways, including the potential development and adoption of new technologies across infrastructure and passenger services.
Including innovation as a function rather than a duty—referring to Amendments 116A and 130—has the benefit of bringing the activity into scope of GBR’s duties, as well as under the ORR’s monitoring clause. This will lead to better outcomes by ensuring that GBR considers key elements such as the public interest and efficiency when promoting innovation and that the ORR can consider and advise on what it does. As I mentioned in a previous group, this is something the railway is already doing. The First of a Kind competition is now in its ninth round of delivery, providing millions of pounds for innovative rail projects to improve the passenger experience, including improving safety on platforms and enhancing passenger safety. Projects from previous winners are already being used across the railways to improve efficiency, safety and reliability. This will continue under GBR, which will be able to include a pipeline of proposed innovation projects in its business plan.
On the amendments themselves, I assure the noble Lord that the Bill as drafted already allows the Secretary of State to set objectives related to innovation and the adoption of new technology in the statement of objectives, as Amendment 63A suggests. I am happy to confirm for the noble Lord that the long-term rail strategy will address technology and innovation and both the opportunities and risks it presents, as Amendment 91A proposes. The right place for GBR to address innovation and technology is in its business plan, which will require it to set out its activities, guided by its functions and duties and the long-term rail strategy, which, as I have set out, will all have an innovation component. These elements achieve the aim that noble Lords are looking for.
As for Amendments 325 and 329, on cyber and technology strategies, as I said earlier, I agree with the important role technology and innovation can play in the railway. Technology is always improving, and with that comes opportunities but also threats from cyber attacks, as noble Lords have observed. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, that cyber security is not an optional extra for the railway. Rail is part of our critical national infrastructure, and we continue to take seriously the reality of growing cyber threats and the need to keep systems safe, resilient and up to date. However, I do not believe that this proposed new clause is the right way to achieve our shared aims because the Government are already taking action to address cyber security risks.
The rail sector must already comply with the Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018, and the Government will continue to monitor GBR’s cyber security position. The Government’s cyber action plan published earlier this year also sets clear expectations about how public sector bodies should manage cyber risk and resilience, including through stronger accountability and support. The Government and the ORR will review the business plan to ensure these actions and principles are embedded in GBR’s activities.
On artificial intelligence, the department has already set out how we will work with the transport sector to harness innovation responsibly, while managing risks, through our published transport AI action plan and the more recent publication in April this year of the artificial intelligence in rail industry action plan. I have already spoken about the long-term rail strategy in this group, but I reiterate that it will cover how technological advances can support better outcomes for passengers and reduce risks to cyber threats. I hope noble Lords can be reassured that this is being dealt with.
Finally, on open data and data review, the Government strongly support a transparent approach to rail data. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to in the case of TfL, open access to data can improve passenger information, leading to greater patronage, and enable businesses and innovators to develop new tools and services. I should add that the policy in TfL was mandated not by an Act of Parliament but by a desire to improve the business and build the passenger base. The Bill already allows GBR to disclose information obtained in carrying out its functions and activities; this supports open data while giving GBR the flexibility as the directing mind to decide what information should be shared. This largely replicates the current arrangements, whereby open railway data has been provided at no charge for over a decade without a legislative backing such as that proposed by this amendment, and I assure the Committee that this will continue.
That flexibility is critical, as technical requirements, data rights and operational sensitivities mean that data access must be considered carefully. Personal data, commercially sensitive information and information of which the disclosure could harm competition must remain protected. It is therefore not always appropriate to require all types of data to be made available through an open licence. GBR will need to consider data protection, commercial confidentiality, competition law, security, intellectual property and whether it actually has the right to disclose the information. I assure noble Lords that the Government will take an active interest in promoting fair and open data in the interests of railway users and taxpayers via GBR’s business plan. Unlike the amendment, the Government’s approach supports useful and responsible disclosure backed by contractual provisions and existing legal protections, which are in the Competition Act, that will ensure that GBR does not act abusively in its handling of railway data.
Amendment 330E is about data use and whether GBR should be within the scope of the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025. Smart data schemes are regulated arrangements for the secure sharing of specified customer or business data with authorised recipients. As I am sure noble Lords can appreciate, it would be inappropriate to pre-empt the need for a rail smart data scheme on this, particularly when open data is the default position. A separate review of data held by GBR, as this amendment would create, would duplicate the framework set out in that legislation and pre-empt proper assessment and prioritisation of a possible rail smart data scheme. Our existing approach to data, which includes allowing GBR to disclose information about its function and duties, is the more direct and proportionate way to improve access to rail data, while retaining the flexibility to use the Data (Use and Access Act) 2025 if a rail smart data scheme is shown to be necessary.
Finally, Amendment 89A is on railway steel. It is not sensible to undercut the UK’s trade policy with the sector-specific exemptions proposed by the amendment. Decisions on tariffs, quotas and trade remedies are more appropriately considered through the mechanisms established by the Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Act 2018 and related trade processes, rather than this legislation, which is focused on the business of reforming the structure of our railways. In any case, Network Rail already sources over 90% of its steel from British Steel. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Harper, that, in recent months, Network Rail has worked extraordinarily hard to support the continuation of producing steel at Scunthorpe, which is where all standard British steel is produced. GBR will continue with Scunthorpe steel, in accordance with the established framework, as Network Rail does today. In fact, there are some long contracts around, as a consequence of the previous crisis in the steel industry, that make this amendment unnecessary. The small quantity of steel that is not procured from Scunthorpe is specialist steel for relatively small applications, such as some specialist points and crossings as part of the track. It is a relatively small proportion of the total supply of rail.
In respect to the points from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, I am going to wait for the RAIB report to draw any conclusions from derailments, but the steel procured from Scunthorpe, which is British steel, used generally for ordinary steel rails in the network, is of safety-critical quality. We will wait to see what the report says.
I will write to the noble Lord about wifi. I answered his question on a previous day in Committee and will answer it again. The point of national procurement of wifi is not that the benefit is not seen in the west of England but the benefit of better wifi being put on trains all over the intercity network, at a speed that will improve many more people’s journeys than just those in the west of England.
I hope I have answered noble Lords’ points. I encourage them not to press their amendments.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, on the question of steel, the Minister said that the amount of steel that is going to be subject to tariffs is relatively small—I think that was the expression he used. Is he willing, after this meeting of the Committee, to put in writing to members of the Committee some assessment of the cost to Great Britain over the next, say, four or five years of the tariffs on steel? In other words, how much of the steel expected to be imported from abroad falls under the tariff-free quota and what value does not and therefore attracts a tariff of 50%? If the Minister is willing to put that in writing, it would be extremely helpful to Members of the Committee. On the other amendments, it is marvellous that there is such unanimity across the Committee about the importance of all these issues: technological innovation, cyber security and the sharing of data and the advantages that flow from that. The pity is only that the Government believe that we can rely on their assurances in this regard rather than having matters specified in the Bill. It is not that I do not believe the Minister and the assurances he gives, and indeed the assurances he gives at the Dispatch Box have a certain value. However, in the case of creating a hugely powerful monopoly with interests of its own and the most exiguous accountability to the Secretary of State and Parliament, the bar is higher for accepting assurances that everything is going to be fine when it is implemented and for the years that follow. Therefore, I think it may well be the case that noble Lords, when we return to this question on Report, will wish to retable some, at least, of these amendments, if the Government have not found it possible in the interim to give way on some of them and offer written assurances in the Bill, such as we are looking for. However, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment 63A withdrawn.
Amendments 64 to 78 not moved.
Amendment 78A
Moved by
78A: Schedule 2, page 79, line 2, at end insert— “(b) protect or improve the environment or mitigating or adapting to climate change, or(c) secure, maintain or improve the accessibility of railway passenger services, station services, railway infrastructure or rolling stock for disabled persons.” Member’s explanatory statement This amendment broadens the exclusion from subsidy control rules to include financial assistance with the primary purpose of environmental protection or accessibility.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I am not going to speak briefly. I am probably going to compete with the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Harper, in the length of my comments and the thoroughness with which I cover the amendments. I have put my name on all amendments in this group, and I care very much that they are properly debated and understood. The aim of Amendment 78A is to broaden the exclusions from the subsidy control rules. The Subsidy Control Act 2022 has created a fundamental split in the Bill which translates directly into how policy will be made and what can be done with public money. As I understand it, only funding for the primary purpose of infrastructure under Clause 3(1)(a) is excluded from the subsidy control rules. The implication is that everything else will be subject to them. I think that helps to explain the split between the different budgets, with infrastructure funded through the funding period review while operations and other areas, including capital projects and enhancements, come through the spending review, with a close eye being kept on cross-subsidy. That seems to run against the long-standing aim of GBR, going back to 2021, of bringing infrastructure and operations together. The Rail Industry Association warned last year that if track and train integration is to be achieved both need to be covered by the same funding process. However, my specific concern with this amendment is public interest policy-making, particularly accessibility and climate. For accessibility, will these rules make it harder to reform and integrate funding programmes and plan investment in a rational way so that we can make progress as quickly as possible? On climate, the issue is even more complicated. Many of the things we have been talking about, and will talk about later today, are vital to increasing passenger numbers and shifting people from cars to rail. These could potentially be subject to subsidy control rules, which include things such as electrification and other capital investment. Environmental measures are also subject to additional requirements under the Subsidy Control Act—so this is a complicated and underdiscussed area, and I would like the Minister to explain the practical impact of these rules on accessibility, climate funding and policymaking. This amendment would create exclusions for both, when the primary purpose of the financial assistance is to protect or improve the environment, mitigate or adapt to climate change, or secure and improve accessibility for disabled people. I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurance about how these subsidy control rules will work in practice and whether the Government would be prepared to look at exclusions of this kind.
My Amendment 130A builds on Amendment 129 from the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, which I support, but I want to ask whether we could be a bit more ambitious. We are legislating for a new Great British Railways at a time when we face both a climate emergency and a biodiversity crisis. We should be asking what this new body can actively do to address those challenges, rather than simply ensuring that it does not make them worse. The railway estate gives us an extraordinary opportunity. Network Rail is one of the largest landowners in Britain, with around 52,000 hectares of land. Its own description of the railway estate is as a “green corridor”, recognising that railway land can connect fragmented habitats across the country. I suggest that we find a way to put that opportunity into the Bill. Imagine a continuous green corridor running from Penzance to John O’ Groats, following the railway where possible—not necessarily a continuous strip of woodland or one uniform habitat, but a connected network of grasslands, wetlands, scrub, woodlands, ponds and other habitats joined together by the railway estate.
The railway already provides the basis for that network. Network Rail itself recognises this and acknowledges that the railway estate “provides a habitat” for a wide range of species, so that is a vital starting point, but the targets that Network Rail has set itself are rather vague. Its 2035 targets talk about managing biodiversity
“in a way that protects and enhances”
it and says that it will
“lead the way in land management”.
Now, those are good ambitions, but they do not tell us what success looks like. That is why this amendment asks for
“measurable targets for biodiversity recovery, habitat creation and restoration … connectivity and renewable electricity generation”.
I would like us to imagine what it would mean if, every time a railway line passes through a fragmented landscape, we ask whether the railway estate could help to reconnect it. If we did that across the whole network, we could begin to create something really significant: a national nature recovery network, running alongside our national railway network. It seems to me exactly the sort of long-term thinking that we should be building into GBR from the beginning.
The amendment would require GBR to manage its land as part of a connected national network for nature recovery. That means working with local nature recovery strategies, restoring habitats, improving ecological connectivity and creating wildlife corridors “wherever reasonably practical”. We are not asking railway engineers to become conservationists or putting nature ahead of railway safety. The amendment is deliberately framed around what is practical, but we have a chance to recognise that the railway estate is not just an operational asset—it is also land running through some of the most fragmented and depleted landscapes in the country, and GBR will have the responsibility for managing it.
We are asking GBR to maximise renewable electricity generation from its own infrastructure, from station rooms to depots, car parks and other suitable sites, and, where it can, to use that electricity to power railway operations. Where the railway has suitable land or infrastructure for generating clean electricity, it should make the most of it. The amendment also asks for “measurable targets” and a published plan, with progress reported annually. That is important, because we have seen environmental commitments before. Network Rail already has biodiversity commitments and has recognised the role that its estate can play in nature recovery. The question is whether we want to give those ambitions a statutory footing in the creation of Great British Railways, and the Bill gives us a rare opportunity to do that. The railway is a national network; its land should be part of a national network for nature recovery.
Amendment 130B, on nature’s rights, takes the same principle a little further. I support the idea that GBR should actively contribute to nature recovery, but could we go beyond saying that nature is something GBR should take into account and instead recognise that healthy ecosystems are fundamental to our own well-being and to the economy on which we all depend? The amendment would require GBR to recognise the intrinsic value of nature and to protect, restore and enhance nature when exercising its functions. It would also require GBR to consider cumulative and indirect harm, the needs of future generations and the possibility of restoration and regeneration.
That is an important shift in how we think about infrastructure. We tend to ask whether a railway project is technically possible and financially viable. Those questions obviously matter, but we should also be asking what the project means for the living systems around it and whether there is a way of achieving the same objective while causing less harm. There is of course a wider debate about this already taking place in the House. The Nature’s Rights Bill, introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is currently making its way through our House, and takes a much bigger step of recognising nature as a legal subject and establishing an integrated framework for protecting its rights.
I am not suggesting that we try to put the whole of that Bill into the Railways Bill, but it is an opportunity to take some of its thinking and apply it to GBR. We are creating a new organisation with enormous responsibility for land, infrastructure and investment decisions across the country. We should build into that organisation from the beginning the principle that nature is not simply an externality to be considered after the economic and engineering decisions have already been made; it should be part of the overriding decision itself. I saw the Minister smiling there; I hope that means he is in total agreement with what I am saying.
I support Amendments 93, 111 and 129. Amendment 93, on climate resilience, needs to be central to the railway strategy. We know that extreme heat, flooding, drought and soil moisture changes are already disrupting the railway. I know there are some hot weather procedures in place, but we need to ask whether we are testing and designing the railway for the climate we actually face rather than the climate we used to have. The Minister said some quite supportive things about this yesterday, and I hope he feels free to repeat them today.
The regulator has previously found that climate adaptation planning was not keeping pace with the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather. We have seen the consequences during heatwaves, with speed restrictions and failures affecting services. Some overhead line equipment, for example, was designed around operating temperatures of up to 38 degrees, yet we are increasingly seeing temperatures approaching that level. I recognise that Network Rail is already doing a lot of work on climate adaptation, and there are good examples, but that work is not necessarily consistent. Responsibilities have historically been divided between different organisations and different owners of track, stations and land, and the creation of GBR obviously gives us the opportunity to change that. We cannot keep treating these events as exceptional and simply responding when they happen—we actually have to design, test and maintain our railway on the basis that extreme weather is now a serious and growing threat to the network.
I strongly support Amendment 313, tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. It is an important amendment, because we are in a climate emergency, yet England has had virtually no new electrification for quite a number of years. There are two sides to this. We need to make the railway resilient to the climate change that is already happening, but we also need to reduce the railway’s own emissions. We cannot just adapt to a changing climate while continuing to build and operate infrastructure in ways that add to the problem.
I welcome the proposal for a framework looking at both climate resilience and decarbonisation, but I have tabled Amendment 330J because we need to go further. A framework is a good starting point, but I want to see a plan with binding targets, timescales, funding and a clear programme of delivery. Scotland gives us a useful example of what that can look like. Scotland has a rail services decarbonisation action plan, and it is continuing with the rolling programme of electrification. Three-quarters of passenger journeys are already made on electric trains, and the Scottish Government say they remain committed to further electrification. Of course, you have to remember that Britain lags behind much of Europe: 60% of passenger services run on electric trains here, compared to 74% in Germany and 85% in France.
Electrification is not just about emissions. Those trains can be faster, quieter and more efficient. They can increase capacity and reduce reliance on diesel. A railway powered by electricity can increasingly benefit from the move towards renewable energy. We should not talk about rail decarbonisation as though it is some additional environmental project that we might get round to if there is enough money left; it has to happen as soon as possible.
Every year, we delay decisions on infrastructure that can last for decades, which makes it harder and more expensive to decarbonise the railways. The same applies to resilience: we know that some parts of the network are vulnerable to flooding, extreme heat, landslides, drought or coastal erosion, so we should identify those risks now and have a funded programme for dealing with them. New infrastructure should be designed for the climate we expect over its lifetime, not simply the climate we have experienced in the past.
We need binding targets for reducing emissions, a comprehensive assessment of climate risks, a prioritised programme of infrastructure improvements, funding arrangements, whole-life carbon assessment and annual reporting. GBR would also be required to operate consistently within the plan. I support Amendment 313 because it moves us in the right direction. We need to move from identifying what needs to be done to committing ourselves to doing it. This is the opportunity—let us all go green and build climate resilience and decarbonisation into the railway from the beginning, rather than leaving it for somebody else to do.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for the fact that I was not able to attend Second Reading. It is always a pleasure to go after the noble Baroness. I will speak to my Amendments 93, 111 and 313, on which I have worked with Peers for the Planet. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis of Summertown, for adding their names in support. I am also grateful to the Minister for taking the time to meet me prior to Committee. These amendments seek to ensure that the railways deliver not only a modern and efficient railway, but one that is resilient to climate change, helping to meet our statutory environmental and net-zero duties. That need is underscored by events this summer. The UK endured one of its hottest and driest summers on record, with drought declared across much of England and Wales, and it has been one of the worst years on record for wildfires, which also significantly impacted our railway network. Persistent drought and heat caused many embankments to shrink, disturbing track geometry and creating growing derailment risks. We have seen emergency speed restrictions across the southern and eastern corridors affecting Greater Anglia, Great Northern, the Elizabeth line and Southern Railway, as well as two derailments within 24 hours during a recent heatwave, which Network Rail itself described as presenting “exceptional challenges”. By 1 July, Network Rail had already recorded 864 critical rail temperature speed restriction incident delays this year, more than in the whole of the previous year. Extreme weather accounted for 10% of delay minutes in 2024-25, with a 50% rise in adverse weather impacts over the last five years. The Climate Change Committee warns that peak river flows could rise by 45%, while track buckling disruption could grow from roughly one day a year today to over 14 days a year under more extreme warming. This winter’s super El Niño is likely to bring worse storms, flooding and, next summer, further heat and increased wildfire risks. These are not future risks; they are happening now. We are not as prepared as we should be. I turn to Amendment 93, which would require the Secretary of State, under Clause 15, to include measures to reduce a network’s carbon footprint and identify sections vulnerable to drought, flooding, heat and cold. It is a modest and targeted amendment. It does not prescribe engineering solutions, only that the strategy does what any prudent infrastructure owner should: assess vulnerability and plan for adaptation. Network Rail and GBR are already investing £2.6 billion in climate adaptation but, without a statutory requirement, these effects risk remaining fragmented and reactive. Scotland’s Climate Ready Infrastructure Forum and the Adaptation Pathways Programme show that structured planning can work. This amendment would embed that across England and Wales too. Amendment 111 would require Great British Railways to take all reasonable steps to contribute to the Environment Act 2021 targets, the Climate Change Act’s carbon budgets and net-zero targets, the national adaptation programme and air quality targets. As the Minister has noted, environmental sustainability is already envisaged as a strategic objective and GBR must have regard to it. This amendment would simply make that duty explicit and actionable, tying GBR to targets that Parliament has already set, without imposing new ones.
Amendment 313 seeks to set up a rail climate resilience and decarbonisation framework. This would ensure that GBR’s environmental duty is measured and reported on, and not left to aspiration. As we have heard, GBR will inherit some 52,000 hectares of land and around 20,000 kilometres of track, stations and embankments across England, Scotland and Wales. As the Government Estate Nature Plan recognises, state-owned land is shifting towards a whole-estate approach, and we welcome that. Connecting isolated habitats into ecosystems is essential to halting species loss and building climate resilience. Annual reporting would improve transparency and encourage practical action, building on the framework that local authority authorities already use for their biodiversity duties.
We support Amendment 129 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, to which I have added my name. It would require GBR to publish an annual report on how railway land supports local nature recovery strategies, wildlife corridors and clean energy generation through rooftop and car park solar. Railway land is a natural asset. Linear corridors connect fragmented habitats, and vast underused surfaces can be used for solar. This amendment would mandate not specific projects but transparency and accountability.
We support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. She introduced them very well, so I will not add to that. I notice that there is a considerable area of overlap with the amendments in my name, but I repeat that we support them.
To conclude, I am grateful to the Minister for a constructive meeting ahead of Committee. As the Bill proceeds, I look forward to further discussions on these important matters. The evidence from this summer is stark: our railways are already struggling to operate under a changing climate. If we are to have a railway that is reliable, affordable and fit for the future, it must be low-carbon, climate resilient and aligned with our environmental laws.
Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 129 in my name; Amendments 93, 111 and 313, which I have signed; and Amendment 130A, which has considerable overlap with the other amendments here. Amendment 129 aims to maintain the contribution that Network Rail has made to nature recovery efforts over recent years. It is important, in many ways, to congratulate Network Rail on what it has already achieved. This potential was first recognised in 2018 when the Network Rail vegetation management review, led by John Varley, recommended that nature recovery measures be set up across the estate to produce a railway for people and wildlife. The Government accepted this recommendation and in 2019 published a policy statement requiring Network Rail to achieve no net loss of biodiversity on the existing line-side estate by 2024 and biodiversity net gain on each route by 2040. The requirement included an expectation on Network Rail to publish an annual report on its activity and progress towards meeting these goals. It has done that and, over the past six years, this has led to progress; it is important to acknowledge that. A biodiversity plan and a regular state of nation report from Network Rail kick-started and reported on a range of ingenious projects to achieve no net loss of biodiversity by 2024. It has started to deliver on the biodiversity gain and has now brought it forward to 2035. The latest State of Nature report already shows a minor overall increase in the amount of nature-rich habitats across the estate since 2020, including an extra 618 hectares of broadleaf woodland. In the foreword to this 2024 report, the noble Lord, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, when chair of Network Rail, indicated that this progress would continue in this new arrangement, stating: “the rail industry is raising the profile of biodiversity alongside engineering … it is natural engineering that looks to offer much opportunity as we press on towards Great British Railways”. Sadly, the Government’s mechanisms to achieve this continuity are currently lacking from this Bill, and I believe there is a real risk that this good recent progress will be lost with the transfer of the railway estate to Great British Railways. Amendment 129 is designed to prevent this and is strongly supported by the Wildlife Trust and other environmental groups. The issue is that the Bill places only one tangential environmental responsibility on Great British Railways, and that is the duty to make decisions in the public interest, described in Clause 18 as encompassing, “the effect the provision of railway services has on the environment”. That is it. This is amorphous, it is an unreportable fraction of a duty and simply no replacement for the specific and reportable biodiversity enhancement requirement that has applied to Network Rail since 2018. The biodiversity duty set under the Environment Act in 2021 will apply to GBR but it is general in application and without a requirement to report on progress. My amendment outlines three concerns specifically. The first is to deliver measures as identified in the local nature recovery strategies. We have these strategies—and very shortly we will have 48 covering the entirety of England—and this amendment provides local-specific blueprints that affect nature recovery on every English railway holding. This really increases the impact of using local data and, importantly, the work of local communities, which have worked extremely hard to bring together this data into a local nature recovery strategy, and the organisations developing them. My amendment additionally would require Great British Railways to report on the creation of wildlife corridors, as already mentioned by other noble Lords. As a scientist, I went back to look at the evidence base for these corridors having any effect. Is this just a nice to have? I came across a paper published last year. It was a meta-analysis across the world, looking at wildlife corridors created alongside urban infrastructure, such as roads and railways. There were 34 countries and 800 examples and over 64% of these indicated improved movement across landscapes and associated improvements in wildlife biodiversity and abundance. One problem with UK nature right now—and I am not the only one believing this; it is the reason why we keep seeing these declines—is that currently our nature is becoming more and more fragmented into small islands surrounded by large oceans of impenetrable landscape. There is huge potential in that land alongside the railways to create these corridors. I believe they have the potential to create a wildlife corridor from Land’s End to John O’Groats or technically, looking this up in the railway network, from Penzance to Thurso. The prize that Network Rail could bring about to restoring the continuity of ecological process in the UK is huge, but it needs to be realised and supported and this would, I believe, be strengthened by reporting duty as outlined in my amendment. There is another point to these wildlife corridors that we often lose sight of and that is that nature-rich habitats can reduce fire risks on railways. Native biodiversity replaces the highly flammable invasive or unmanaged grasses. This is because native biodiversity, particularly trees and shrubs, has a higher leaf moisture content and lower volatile oils—it does not catch fire so easily, so you do not see long strips of fire going alongside the railway. The other beauty of vegetation and the wildlife corridors along the sides of railways is in the root networks in the soil. When you have flooding events, those areas that are vegetated are less likely to see the landslides and landslips that damage railways and stop them working. This is why these amendments are important. The railway estate has significant potential for solar deployment at stations and car parks. Again, Network Rail kick-started this work in 2025, with an agreement with EDF to provide energy from solar to meet 15% of the network’s needs. A new solar deployment reporting duty could build on this and galvanise work to fit small-scale solar across the railway estate and its more than 2,500 stations. But it comes back to legally requiring annual reports on the delivery of these three highly impactful environmental interventions. By doing that, I believe that Amendment 129 would lock effective environmental improvement into Great British Railways’ operating model. I am seriously concerned that otherwise it will get lost in the noise if we are not careful. I turn briefly to the other amendments that I have added my name to, the chief theme in which is resilience. We need to electrify our railways in England and set a yearly target for miles electrified, as they do in Scotland —we are way behind Scotland and we need to have some targets. We also need to ensure that trains can operate in our hot summers. I travel up and down every day by train to the House of Lords. I dearly hope that we can work it out, because my journeys were devastated this summer. The point to make is that our temperate climate is a thing of the past. This is now the norm, and we absolutely need to adapt to that. The Bill could be an opportunity to give our iconic transport network across the UK, Great British Railways, and the sector adaptation targets and a general duty to reach our missions, adaptation and environmental targets, as Amendment 111 would. These amendments would go some way towards achieving this.
Lord Hampton (CB)
My Lords, I will briefly add my voice to Amendment 313, to which I have added my name. This is the first time I have spoken, so I thank the Minister and his staff for the very good meetings we have had so far. This is incredibly important. My last two rail journeys of any note have both been disrupted badly, one due to trains having to go slowly because the rails were buckled at 24 degrees centigrade, and the other because a tree fell on a line and pretty much put the route out of action. I hear that the strategy for tree management will have to change enormously because of the drier weather. This framework is not something that we should be bringing in now—we should have brought it in 10 years ago. As with any of these frameworks, we need reporting. We know exactly what happens if you do not report on something—it gets pushed to the back.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to support some of the amendments in this group. I am sure that we have all experienced the nightmare of leaves on the track, but by putting in place a number of the different targets, we also have to have a focus on maintenance. The noble Lord, Lord Hampton, referred to buckling, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, but that is largely because we have moved to a continuously welded rail to have a smoother journey. That was particularly welcome. I should declare an interest here, as I live 100 yards or so from a railway line which has had CWR thanks to Sizewell C, because otherwise the trains would be exceptionally noisy overnight when they are bringing in all the different material.
Going back to the issues at hand, there is no doubt that increased electrification is needed. I am conscious that only about 38% of the rail network is electrified, but it covers about three-quarters of the passengers who use trains. Nevertheless, there is more that can be done. On the battery shift that is starting to happen, I hope that on lines that already have a mixed-mode situation but currently operate on diesel we will start to see a change to the battery element as that technology evolves and becomes more widespread. I assure my noble friend that I am not looking to electrify the entire system. Heritage railways, and indeed steam and coal, will continue to be important, albeit the primary reason being not for passenger transport but for enjoyment and preserving that heritage.
In thinking through where things have gone wrong, it is frustrating to see a number of situations—HS2 is probably the best example—where trees were planted, left alone, not watered, died and had to be replaced. That is a waste of money, and that is one of the frustrations. One of the benefits of bringing in targets—I am thinking in particular about local nature recovery strategies—would be to help make sure that these things are not just literally dropped in the ground and then forgotten for evermore.
I know that previous Ministers used to explore the idea of how to use these pipelines that move people and freight right across the country also for broadband, telecommunications and the like. At a much more modest cost, nature can be improved to help the Government achieve their legally binding targets. That is why I think some of these amendments are to be supported.
I will have to disappoint the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, as I am afraid I cannot go down the route of Amendment 130B. It is just not a philosophy that I am prepared to adopt, but I appreciate that she keeps bringing these issues for the consideration of Parliament.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
I will make a brief intervention. This is the first time I have spoken on the Railways Bill and I am generally extremely supportive of it. I have listened with great sympathy to all the amendments put forward. I understand the motive of most of them, but I worry about the general principle of loading the Bill with lots of duties that Great British Railways has to follow. One of the reasons why the British state is failing and has been failing for some time—this is a criticism of both Conservative and Labour Governments—is that we have got into the habit of wanting to include everything that the state is trying to achieve; it all has to be there. If we want effective public sector organisations, a lot of that everythingness has to be cut away and the board has to decide on its priorities, be accountable for its priorities and be challenged in that way. If we put a lot of statutory duties on the board, that is the road to the bat tunnel—look at the £100 million wasted on HS2. We should be very careful about how we load up this Bill with contradictory duties, putting lots of difficult choices on the statute book. It would be much better to have an effective board that made those choices.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the short but well judged speech of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I think he will discover it is not enormously dissimilar to one or two of the things that I am going to say.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
I find that very reassuring.
Lord Harper (Con)
From the little frisson I have created here, I hope I have not damaged the noble Lord’s reputation among his Labour colleagues by agreeing with him. I do not wish to do that. Noble Lords should wait for my remarks and see how in line they are. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, for her extensive recounting of the considerable progress that Network Rail made on environmental matters, under the leadership of the board by the Minister when he chaired it, and of course under a number of Conservative Secretaries of State. I thank her for recognising the considerable environmental progress that was achieved, which I support. On this group of amendments, I am supportive of GBR—Network Rail in its new incarnation, as far as the infrastructure is concerned—continuing to have an important eye to environmental matters. But I want to flag pretty much the same concern as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, to recognise that rail travel is a relatively low-carbon form of transport. When we were discussing the civil aviation Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, was obviously very critical of aviation. One of the dangers here is that if we load lots of responsibilities, costs and burdens on to the rail industry, and we make it very expensive to build and deliver new infrastructure, we are making it harder to get more people on to rail, which means that we will be taking fewer of them away from aviation and the roads. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, gave me a perfect example by referring to the bat tunnel of HS2. One of the problems with HS2, and one of the reasons why I took the decision to cancel the second phase of it, was that the costs had run out of control. Although the present Government were critical of the decision at the time, I notice that in the two years they have been in power, they have not reversed the decision and show no sign of reversing it, because they recognise the same cost pressures. The only word of caution that I would have on framing these amendments is that, if the Government are tempted by the thrust of any of them, my advice would be to bring back some amendments that are more tightly focused. We do not want to make it more costly and difficult to build and operate railways, so that we have fewer of them, fewer services and less investment in infrastructure, which will push people into higher-carbon forms of transport. That would be shooting ourselves in the foot. There are one or two aspects where I wanted to flag up some concerns. In Amendment 130A, for example, I notice that there is a reference to transition to a zero- carbon railway, as opposed to one that is net zero. I flag that as important for this reason. It talks about generating electricity on railway land, for example, which obviously makes a contribution. If you are trying to get to a zero-carbon railway, I am not sure that that is achievable, but, if you strive to do that with no eye on the cost, and given that public money is not infinite—it is limited—the effect is that you end up making less investment in railways than you otherwise would, which is a bit self-defeating. That is where I would be a little concerned. There are two other areas about which I am concerned. One is whether this ends up making it so difficult to develop on railway land, either by selling it to others or using the joint ventures that we referred to in an earlier day of Committee, that we end up stopping development, reducing the income to GBR and making it more expensive to own and operate a railway, which is not helpful for the taxpayer. The positive thing, which I absolutely support, referred to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis, and a number of other noble Lords, is recognising that our climate has altered. The work involved in looking at and identifying the parts of the network that are particularly vulnerable to different forms of weather, then putting together a plan to deal with that, so it can be costed and judged accordingly, is very sensible. I know that Network Rail already does a lot of that work, but putting it all together in a coherent way is very sensible. My final point concerns electrification, which I support. Much of the electrification on the railway in England and Wales was done under a Conservative Government—the Labour Government pre-2010 had done very little, leaving the bulk of it to be done under us. Again, one must have an eye for practicality and cost. Something like 70% of passenger journeys take place on trains that are electrified. Because of the nature of our network, and the years in which it was constructed, electrifying what has not already been electrified will be increasingly costly. That is due to bridges and the rest of the infrastructure. You get to the point at which it just does not make any sense, and this is where our earlier debate on innovation is very helpful. Noble Lords may have seen some recent rolling stock procurement news, where trains were going to be battery electric. That is helpful, as you enable the train to be electric, without having to electrify the infrastructure. Electrification is not a problem, but we must be careful not to insist that every railway line has an electrical cable running above it and insist that that be how power is delivered. The principle is okay, but you need innovation and flexibility on how you deliver it. There are some parts of the network where trying to do overhead electrification is simply not sensible. It is either impractical from an engineering perspective, or so costly that it would make no sense to do it. Innovations like battery electric trains or tri-mode trains—where you enable that technology to best use the existing network—are the way to go. There is a risk of being too specific in primary legislation about the way we deliver some of these things, albeit that the overall objective is one that I support. In conclusion, I very much support the work we have done over the years in recognising that GBR will be a very big public landowner, and it absolutely should continue the work that it is already doing. I just say that the existing legislative framework and the duties that fall under it have done a very good job, so I am not sure that we need to pile loads of extra duties on top, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I want to continue that work. I just have a note of caution, as he did, about making sure that we do not overdo it and make it so costly that we either do not develop the railway or reduce the number of people shifting from cars and planes on to a relatively low-carbon form of transport. That would be rather shooting ourselves in the foot. While supporting moves to be environmentally friendly, conscious of changes in the climate, we have to be a bit cautious about the practicalities. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government will balance those two competing objectives.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate, and I congratulate the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis of Summertown, on making strong points about the need for environmentally friendly policies to justify the ongoing construction and development of railways. As the noble Lord, Lord Harper, and my noble friend Lord Liddle referred to, there is always a risk that if you took the 300-odd amendments in the Marshalled List and applied them to roads, you would be laughing yourself silly. There is far too much detail, much of which is totally unnecessary. That is a different point to take forward. My concern with Amendment 130A is that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is basically saying that the environment, nature, is more important than humans. That is a pretty rough thing to say. I am sure she will have a go at me when I have finished. If you apply some of these provisions—I compare them with the recent policy whereby our Government have been encouraging people to develop housing near stations—there is a conflict, not everywhere but in certain places. The idea that you can have a nice place to live near a station, so that you can use a more environmentally friendly means of transport to get wherever you want to go, seemed a good one from our Government.
On nature recovery and the use of clean energy on rail land, in Amendment 130A, there are issues in the subtext. The question is whether you can actually incorporate that while building a nice little house for everybody else next door. I know that not all land owned by the railways is next to a station, but I should have expected some kind of reference to the needs of the poor old human beings who are going to get on these trains, as well as to the poor old nature recovery aspects, which are rightly listed in this amendment.
I am sure that the noble Baroness will have a go at me after this, but there needs to be a balance. I am not sure what that is, but on reading this amendment, it is out of balance.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I have to say that I take great issue with what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has just said. It is perfectly possible to have sensible housing development that is wildlife friendly; indeed, we have to have that. I remember in my days of political campaigning walking around a new estate in my old constituency and meeting three deer running through. It is correct that we have to develop housing around stations, and in a sensible way that does not damage biodiversity but encourages it. That is just plain common sense. While I sympathise with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and my noble friend Lord Harper said about writing too many duties into law, the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis, have rightly raised some extremely important issues that need to be a part of what Great British Railways does. We cannot have the country’s major landowners not focusing on protecting biodiversity in the land they control. The research the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, has done highlights that it is indeed important to do just that. While I am sure he will not accept the detail of the amendments, I hope the Minister can set out for us how, in the duties the Secretary of State provides in the various strategies for Great British Railways, they will make sure that the issues highlighted in this debate are reflected. It matters particularly to ensure that Great British Railways develops the network for the future. Where I probably do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is that, for me, capacity development is the number one priority, as it always was when I was Secretary of State, because the more people you get off the roads and on to the railways the better. There are hard choices to be made about which projects you spend the money on. My personal view is that expanding the capacity of the network, reopening disused routes and so on should be the priorities. As my noble friend Lord Harper rightly said, sometimes there are trade-offs around the cost of electrification. Battery trains and hydrogen trains provide a much better route for parts of our network for the future. I hope the Minister will take on board much of what has been said. I hope the guidance he gives to the future organisation will be clear on this issue. Sometimes there have to be compromises on what is perfect for the railways. I profoundly disagreed with the engineering standards of Network Rail, which scalped huge amounts of earth out of the route along East West Rail. It used a railway track bed that had been in existence for a century and needed restoration. It clearly needed better drainage, but was it really necessary to scalp all the biodiversity from a largely redundant corridor and leave it as brand-new open grassland? There are compromises to be made when that capacity is put in place, but that what the two noble Baronesses have said, supported by others, about the need for biodiversity to be protected by Great British Railways is extremely important. I hope the Minister will make sure that, in whatever way it is best achieved, that happens.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, this group of amendments looks to consider the environmental impact of the railway and to ensure that Great British Railways take steps to meet climate change legislation, reducing the carbon footprint of the railway and using every opportunity to support the environment and indeed electrify the railway, whether that is through rail, battery or other means. There are amendments are in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and my noble friend Lord Russell also has several in this group and has spoken clearly about the importance of these matters and the increasingly extreme weather we are all experiencing. This brings home how important this topic is to us all; we are seeing this increasingly every year. The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, also has her really good Amendment 129, in which she talks about the deployment of solar panels and transport infrastructure —as did the noble Baroness, Lady Jones—and the solar reporting duty. We can go much further in this space. In the planning legislation last year, I spoke to some amendments I tabled on using our transport infrastructure for solar panels. In places such as Switzerland, they have installed solar panels between the tracks, while France, as is well known, is using coverings in car parks. There is so much innovation that we can learn from globally, and we must do better to capture solar panel on our transport infrastructure. I really welcome these amendments. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is really valid, but these are probing amendments, trying to make sure that this is absolutely on the Government’s agenda. The long-term rail strategy, which was mentioned earlier, may well cover some of this, but I look forward to the Minister’s response on this really important area.
Lord Reay (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for their amendments. There are parts of the railway that are vulnerable to flooding, extreme weather and other climate risks. GBR clearly needs to understand those vulnerabilities and ensure that the network is resilient. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and my noble friend Lord Harper say, we need to take into consideration the administrative burdens and obligations that many of these amendments would likely engender. There is also an important point to be made about electrification. We should recognise the contribution already made by open access operators. Lumo’s east coast fleet is entirely electric, while Hull Trains has invested in modern bi-mode trains that operate electrically wherever the infrastructure allows. Open access operators and private investment have become even more important given that, just last year, the Secretary of State for Transport, Heidi Alexander, said that any further electrification of the lines is “not affordable right now”. This demonstrates that private operators and private investment is the best way to achieve the Government’s environmental objectives.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I start by responding to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, who is not in his place at the moment, on Amendment 89A. I will write to noble Lords with the information I have about the likely future origin of steel for UK Railways. On these amendments, I hope that all noble Lords will note that rail makes up only 1.4% of overall transport greenhouse gas emissions, and rail freight emits 76% less carbon per tonne than road transport; and there are even lower emissions using electric traction or low-carbon fuels. Rail is therefore already one of the cleanest ways to travel, which is something we should be proud of. Of course, there is always more to be done, and because of the duty in Clause 18 requiring GBR to act in the public interest, including by considering the environment, it will be subject to more requirements than Network Rail, the current infrastructure provider. Amendment 93 touches on a critical issue for the railway. Noble Lords referred to the impacts of extreme weather on the network that we have all recently seen and experienced, particularly this summer. That is exactly why one of the five strategic objectives in the long-term rail strategy is environmental sustainability, which will include protecting transport links by focusing on climate adaptation. The long-term rail strategy discussion document published today refers to the critical importance of this issue and commits that the strategy will suggest prioritisation of climate resilience works based on the areas at greatest risk. However, I agree about not waiting for the strategy to act. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, both said that more action is needed now. Indeed, Network Rail is already developing adaptation pathways that will, on a region-by-region basis, set out the organisation’s approach to responding to environmental challenges, focusing on the high-priority parts of the network. This has already led to meaningful improvements and, particularly in respect of the events of this summer, widely significant works to alleviate extreme temperatures and soil moisture deficit all over southern and eastern England. This will of course be continued by GBR once it is established. On Amendments 111 and 130B, I am happy to reassure noble Lords that the environment and the protection of nature will form a vital part of decision-making on the railway, just as the amendments seek. All relevant environmental legislation and targets will apply to GBR in full and, as I said, GBR will be subject to existing environmental requirements at both the national and devolved level. As discussed with the noble Earl, I can confirm today that targets in existing legislation are referenced in the long-term rail strategy, to demonstrate the importance that the Government place on this. I hope that noble Lords will see this reference in the discussion document. I turn to Amendment 330J. The Government are working to develop a long-term strategic approach to decarbonising and adapting our railways, and GBR will be vital in progressing this. That is why the long-term rail strategy also contains a strategic objective on environmental sustainability, which includes protecting transport links by focusing on climate adaptation and delivering rail decarbonisation. As I said, GBR has a duty under Clause 18 to act in the public interest. GBR will discharge this duty when it develops its business plan, where it must set out the activities that it will undertake to meet its duties and its long-term rail strategy, both of which clearly have environmental considerations. On Amendment 78A, it might be helpful to confirm that, where subsidy control rules apply, that is to ensure proper management of public money and transparency. Subsidy control is not intended to—and will not—prevent the Government from spending money on their priorities. It would certainly not prevent the Government from spending money on the environment or on accessibility. When funding the railway, the Secretary of State will also be under duties to consider the environment and the interests and needs of disabled people, which will inform her funding decisions. In summary, GBR must consider the environment and environmental targets, which will be embedded in key strategic decisions on the railway. Regarding Amendment 313, as I am sure the noble Earl is aware, the Climate Change Act 2008 already requires the Government to prepare policies and proposals to meet the UK’s carbon budgets. The most recent plan was published in October last year. It includes policies to decarbonise transport, including the railway. It supports vital infrastructure improvements such as the further electrification of the network and rolling stock and recognises the importance of shifting passenger and freight journeys from more carbon-intensive transport modes to rail. As I outlined earlier, this can make a huge difference to carbon outputs. The forthcoming rolling stock and infrastructure strategy will set out, for the first time in 30 years, an integrated plan to take this forward. Noble Lords referred to modern technology, including the use of battery technology and discontinuous electrification. They also referred to the recently announced train order for TransPennine, which includes trains that run on electric wires and have batteries where the wires are absent. Given these existing provisions, it would be duplicative to impose an additional requirement on the Secretary of State to produce a plan to reduce the carbon footprint of the railway network. The Government are already working on this across departments so that we have a joined-up response to climate change.
Amendments 129 and 130A on local nature recovery and energy generation raise important issues. I fully recognise the importance of ensuring the railway connection to our natural environment. The biodiversity duty found in the Environment Act will require GBR to increase wildlife and natural habitats and have regard to local nature strategies. In any event, Network Rail is required as part of its licence to have an environmental policy, and it is already taking action to improve biodiversity across the railway estate through its biodiversity action plan. If noble Lords would like any specific details, I would be delighted to assist.
We want this work to continue and that is why the GBR licence policy document published in May includes a requirement to maintain an environmental policy. That would include managing habitats and woodland, controlling invasive species and developing nature-based solutions. I also reassure noble Lords that, properly done, this can reduce the long-term railway costs by avoiding tree felling, through planting controllable species, for example. I confirm to the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, that Network Rail reports its performance against its biodiversity action plan to the ORR and this will continue under GBR. The ORR, as the enforcer of the licence, would be able to step in if it became dissatisfied.
I am pleased that the noble Baroness raised energy generation, as it allows me to mention that in April this year, as an example, the publicly owned LNER, alongside the renewable innovation-focused company Treeva, successfully installed three wind turbines along the east coast main line that capture energy generated by passing trains. That clean energy generated will be measured, harnessed and used to power a range of devices. It is an example of what can be done alongside the railway. This is a proof of concept that is entirely the sort of thing I would expect GBR to deliver to fulfil its environmental duty and the environmental objective in the long-term rail strategy. I hope that noble Lords can see that their amendments have been thoroughly addressed by the Government’s plans already.
In conclusion, the Government remain committed to addressing the environmental challenges that we face and the provisions in this Bill will ensure that the railways continue to support the Government’s targets on climate change, air quality and decarbonisation. I, of course, concur with my noble friend Lord Liddle that we should not load the Bill, or indeed GBR as an organisation, with a huge amount of statutory duties when there is sufficient in the Bill to ensure that the organisation does the right thing in any event. I encourage noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I thank all noble Lords who have spoken and the Minister and his team for their response. I will just make a comment or two. I am in such awe of the Minister’s extensive knowledge of railways that I always find his replies in these meetings very comforting. It is only when I walk away and start rereading them that I think, “Hold on”. I will be coming back to these issues on Report. That is a warning, not a threat. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, used a word that I had not used but will incorporate into my thinking: “vulnerability”. I think that that is what we are talking about with all these things. He is so environmentally aware that it is fantastic. It was good to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, said about corridors in other countries. It comes back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, said, that none of this is new. We can do this. We have examples that we can take from other countries and even other railways. Prince Philip once said to me—quite unkindly, I thought—that the problem with us Greens was that we never gave anyone else any credit for what they did. I took that to heart, because we do not. We think that other people never go far enough. It is never enough. We always want more. The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, was absolutely right to say that Network Rail has been doing stuff—I really should accept that. The fire risks and the flooding are things that we really need to keep down. To the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, of course this all should have started 10 years ago—or 20, or 30, or 40. We have known about the climate crisis and its approach for well over 50 years. We should have been thinking ahead then, but we were not. This goes back to what the noble Lord, Lord Harper, was saying. Yes, the Tories were better in some ways, but they are regressing now. Had they listened to the Green Party, HS2 would not have started where it started and we would not have had the bat tunnel fiasco. Please remember that the Greens were right back then and we are right now.
Lord Moylan (Con)
Briefly, although I was not here for most of—
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
No, you did not hear—oh, you did.
Lord Moylan (Con)
I did hear the noble Baroness’s opening speech, actually, and I just heard her remarks. Briefly, one of the reasons why we were not concerned about the climate crisis 50 years ago was that we were being told by scientists then—and it was on the front page of the Economist , which I used to read assiduously every week—that we were about to enter a new ice age. That was the consensus then and that was the Green Party’s view of what we should be worrying about. The noble Baroness should not rewrite history to claim omniscience and always being right. What happened to the ice age, by the way?
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I disagree very strongly with the noble Lord. If he had been listening to me back then, he would have heard me, and I did not talk about an incipient ice age. Let me get back to my comments. To the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, of course the welded rails are part of the problem and I am absolutely delighted that she does not have a lot of noise from the railway going past her house. The fact is that we need to reduce diesel. I was disappointed that she could not fully support what I was saying, but I thank her anyway. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, this is not about putting everything in the Bill; this is about thinking about a future for humankind. This is directed to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, as well, with whom I will have a word later. I am not trying to save nature for nature’s sake; it is because we rely on nature for our human existence. I do not understand why people just do not get that connection: no bees, no food, no humans. I am not saying that nature is more important than humans; I am saying that it is important for humans. I was surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, supported anything I said. That is rather nice.
Lord Grayling (Con)
Why?
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I do not know. Perhaps I have not listened hard enough to what he is saying generally, but I thank him anyway. I assumed that the noble Lord, Lord Reay, was going to completely rubbish everything that I said, so I did not start to take notes. I look forward to all the other groups and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment 78A withdrawn.
Schedule 2 agreed.
Amendment 79
Moved by
79: After Schedule 2, insert the following new Schedule— “ScheduleDirect enforcement of consumer protection legislation by the ORRDigital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 1 Part 3 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (enforcement of consumer protection law) is amended as follows.2 In section 150 (specified prohibition condition)—(a) in subsection (2)—(i) in the opening words, for “both” substitute “more”;(ii) after paragraph (b) insert—“(c) the practice—(i) relates to railways or the provision of railway services, and(ii) is in breach of an enactment listed in Schedule 16B (to the extent specified).”;(b) after subsection (2A) insert—“(2B) In subsection (2)(c) “railway” and “railway services” have the same meanings as in Part 1 of the Railways Act 1993.”3 In section 179A(1) (meaning of “direct enforcement authority”), after paragraph (b) insert—“(c) in the case of a commercial practice that meets the specified prohibition condition because paragraph (c) of section 150(2) applies, the Office of Rail and Road.”4 In section 209 (powers to amend)—(a) in subsection (1), after paragraph (f) insert—“(g) Schedule 16B so as to add, remove or vary an entry for an enactment.”; (b) in subsection (2), for “or (f)” substitute “, (f) or (g)”;(c) in the heading, for “and 16A” substitute “, 16A and 16B”.5 After Schedule 16A insert— “Schedule 16B Enactments directly enforceable by the Office of Rail and Road Enactment Extent 1. Acts of Parliament Consumer Rights Act 2015 Chapter 4 of Part 1 Consumer Rights Act 2015 Part 2 Part 3 of Schedule 5 Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 Chapter 1 of Part 4 2. Secondary legislation and assimilated direct legislation Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2007 on rail passengers’ rights and obligations All articles except article 26 Rail Passengers’ Rights and Obligations Regulations 2010 All regulations Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012 All regulations Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 All regulations 3. Other subordinate legislation Any other subordinate legislation (not otherwise listed in this Schedule) so far as made under an enactment so listed The entirety of the legislation” Consumer Rights Act 2015 6 In paragraph 8 of Schedule 5 to the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (investigatory powers etc), in the definition of “direct enforcement authority”, after paragraph (b) insert—“(c) the Office of Rail and Road.””Member’s explanatory statement The Schedule would amend the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015, in order to provide the ORR with direct enforcement powers in specified circumstances relating to railways. It would build on provision in clause 5 of and Schedule 1 to the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 79, I will also speak to Amendment 293 tabled in my name. As many noble Lords are aware, consumer protections, such as ensuring transparency of fees, safeguard customer interests and drive economic growth by promoting trust and confidence. To bolster consumer protection, the Competition and Markets Authority was awarded direct consumer enforcement powers in 2024. This meant that the CMA could determine breaches of consumer law directly and take action to rectify them, rather than having to apply to the courts if it saw a problem. The new Government’s general approach will be to award these same direct enforcement powers to sector regulators as well, which will be able to undertake the same enforcement activity as the CMA, but with additional sectoral expertise. The Government are beginning this process by awarding the Civil Aviation Authority these powers via the civil aviation Bill, and today I propose that this Bill does the same for the Office of Rail and Road. A live example of consumer protection activity is currently under way. The CMA has launched an investigation into drip pricing, a practice where the total fee is not revealed until late into the purchase process, luring consumers into falsely believing a product to be cheaper than it is. With these amendments, in future the ORR could undertake this kind of investigation in relation to the rail industry, utilising sector expertise to seek swift redress for customers should a breach of consumer law be found. This Bill seeks to put passengers at the heart of decision-making. Having the sector regulator able to take swift and decisive corrective action on breaches of consumer law is an important and sensible amendment that will boost customer confidence in railway travel. I therefore urge noble Lords to support these amendments. If the Committee is content, I will put them to a decision at the end of this group. If not, I can discuss them before Report and table them again then. I beg to move.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I thank Peers for the Planet, which alerted me to the fact that I had an amendment today, because I got missed off the distribution list from the Government Whips’ Office. I am afraid that I have not had the opportunity to explore other people’s amendments in this group and I hope that they will not think me rude in covering some of these points. I am slightly disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has left, because I thought that he might like part of my speech. My amendment may make it seem like we are going back to the 1980s or the 1990s, and in some ways it does. There is a twofold approach to what I have tried to do. I was told that it was not in scope to remove functions from the ORR but that I could create a new one instead, so I have created the one that was originally created back in the 1990s. That is basically to go back to having a simpler body that looks after rail. Ideally, roads would be dealt with elsewhere, if at all. Let us follow a bit of the logic here. Great British Railways will basically be taxpayer owned—government owned—and there is now no need whatever to have a non-ministerial department as a regulator. This will be run by the Government. I am more than happy to sit down with the Minister another time to go through how he could get some brownie points or gold stars with the First Secretary of State in helping to rewire the state, given the discussion that has been going on within the Government about how to get back more control. The control is not just about owning the railways; it is about how people are accountable. A non-ministerial department is accountable not to Ministers but to Parliament. That does not mean that there are no discussions and the like but, if the Government are going to own the railways, I think people would rather them to be in charge, to be accountable and to look into how they operate. I appreciate that there is an element here about safety, and there are currently two functions of that. The Railway Accident Investigation Branch is not part of the ORR; it is a body that reports directly to the Secretary of State. The ORR has other functions to do with safety, which it took on in 2006 instead of the Health and Safety Executive. It is perfectly acceptable for there be a much closer relationship, in thinking about how safety is applied on government-owned railways, than through some other third-party body. There is another example. The Health and Safety Executive is a NDPB, but the Defence Safety Authority is in the Ministry of Defence. It has a different way of having accountability: to avoid it going straight to the Secretary of State, it goes through a Permanent Secretary. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is back, and I hope that he might enjoy part of my speech on helping to rewire the state and have fewer of these non-ministerial departments. The reason why I am focusing on this is that, if the whole point is to have much more control of railways by Ministers, there is a sense of starting to strip away other unnecessary aspects of the state to make sure that that can get done efficiently and effectively.
With the ORR there is obviously a focus on rail rather than roads. There is a bit on roads, but I am not sure it has done the best job in managing National Highways. Indeed, the Lower Thames Crossing was taken away from National Highways, and it was taken back into the department. A new Bill has been tabled in the Commons, the Highways (Financing) Bill, which will allow toll roads and introduce the RAB model. When I was an MP, I was delighted when I managed to fight a toll road on the A14 by persuading my noble friend Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, when he was Prime Minister, that to get to Felixstowe you could use only the A14; so, there was no toll on that. However, we will have that debate another time. We have other ways of helping Parliament to understand whether it is a matter for the National Audit Office or similar.
Thinking about roads, we know why this happened. It happened in 2015 when National Highways was set up as an executive agency to allow multi-year budgets and some element of independence from Ministers. I am not sure how well that worked out, although I appreciate there are two former Secretaries of State here today who were heavily engaged in that. It was at that point that the ORR changed; it kept the ORR letters from 1993 all the way through to 2015, and it took on roads at that point. When we are trying to be more effective and efficient, we need to get more power back into the hands of Ministers and have clearer ways of Parliament holding Ministers to account. At the moment, the structure is not set up in the best way to achieve that.
Finally, I want to credit the rail inspectors, and in particular a gentleman called Ian Prosser. There can be people who are exceptionally sensible, not jobsworths, overriding other rail organisations which panic on aspects of safety. It is important that there is confidence in rail safety, of course, but we need that sensible element. I am thinking of a situation that arose at Halesworth railway station. Ian Prosser came all the way up to Suffolk and made sensible decisions. It is that sort of direct, closer relationship that would make the Minister even more effective. I know he loves his buses, as does the Prime Minister, but he enjoys his railway as well. Instead of other people being accountable for the tracks, we would like to see that in the hands of the Minister.
Lord Boateng (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 142 is in my name. I speak with apologies for not having attended Second Reading and with some trepidation, given the level of expertise on railways and rail that is clearly present on all sides in this Grand Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, began his contribution to today’s proceedings with a reference to the 1970s. He will forgive me if I do not go there. That, for me, was a time of flares, floral shirts and an afro. There are many Members here who are familiar with flares and floral shirts, but perhaps not so many with an afro, but that was the 1970s for me and I do not intend to go there. However, I do intend to go to the 1980s, when I was a member of a local authority that had oversight of the Docklands Light Railway, and to the early noughties when, as Chief Secretary in two spending reviews, I took a particular interest in Crossrail. From both those experiences, in the 1980s and the noughties, I learned that the significance of railways in promoting economic growth is absolutely central. As a result, Great British Railways should not merely operate a railway but should help grow Britain. That has to be at the heart of our consideration of this Bill, and therefore ORR’s regulatory framework should recognise the economic geography of the whole country, as well as the economics of the railway. Hence the importance of regional growth: that should unite us on all sides of this Committee. We may have different views on how we get there, but we all believe that growth is essential for the future of our country. I will not go down the road along which the noble Baroness tempts me, but I can add the words “sustainable growth”. She will not demur from that proposition. I have no problem with the notion of sustainable growth, nor with that notion being on the face of the Bill through this amendment. The amendment is by no means perfect, but it seeks to elicit from the Government how—with their commendable commitment to growth across the country, and particularly to addressing regional disparities—they will make this Bill fit for purpose. I suggest that we will have to come back to the issue of sustainable growth during our consideration of the Bill. As it stands, it does not make the point that railways have a vital role in the country’s future going forward. I take as an example the situation which exists today in relation to HS1 and Kent, and that county’s regeneration. The noble Lord, Lord Young, is sadly not in his place, but he made a very important contribution to our earlier deliberations. When he was Secretary of State—and, indeed, when I was in the other place—he made the following point about the railways, and the Channel Tunnel rail link in particular: “The benefits of the deal for the nation are wide-ranging and substantial.” He went on to say: “The railway will be a great boost to economic development and regeneration.”—[ Official Report , Commons, 29/2/1996; col. 999.] So, indeed, it has proved in relation to Kent. But, sadly, the decision made in March 2020 to close access to the channel rail link for Ashford and Ebbsfleet had a devastating effect on the region and a negative effect on its growth. That point has been very well made in the work, which I commend, of the local Members of Parliament in the other place: Helena Dollimore for Hastings and Rye, Tony Vaughan for Folkestone and Hythe, Sojan Joseph for Ashford, and others in the region. They worked with the Good Growth Foundation to demonstrate what the impact of the lack of access through Ashford has meant for the region: £80 million of infrastructure investment rendered useless and business across the region losing footfall and trade, perpetuating some of the deep inequalities that exist in Kent and East Sussex. After all, they contain some of the most deprived communities in the UK, with child poverty and unemployment concentrated particularly along the coastal towns, which I happen to know well. All that is impacted by a decision made by a rail operator in relation to one specific station. My point, at this stage of our consideration of the Bill—I am hugely grateful to the Minister for his interest in this subject over the years—is that we must amend the Bill as it stands with a regional growth duty requiring the issue to form part of the regulatory decision-making process, rather than being treated as somehow external to it. The Commons Library reported on this just in August this year, in relation to the four potential competitors for Eurostar that have aspirations to operate international passenger services through the Channel Tunnel. The ORR has already approved track access agreements between Virgin Trains and HS1 Ltd, following its earlier Temple Mills decision, of which I know the Minister is well aware. The Minister will be equally well aware that the Government have supported an industry working group to look at the remobilisation of the Kent HS1 stations for potential new international entrants. If we do not amend the statutory framework now, and if the ORR were considering competing access applications from one operator proposing a London-Paris service running non-stop through Kent and another proposing to call at Ashford, the Ashford stop could appear disadvantageous under a narrow railway economic analysis: a few minutes additional journey time, station operating costs, border security arrangements and possibly reduced London-Paris capacity. If that were the only consideration, the ORR would be driven in one particular direction, but a regional sustainable growth duty would require the ORR to consider the other side of the ledger: inward investment attracted by European connectivity, tourism expenditure, labour market accessibility, business productivity and the agglomeration effects. There would be development around Ashford, connectivity for Kent, East Sussex and the wider south-east, utilisation of existing infrastructure —a model transfer for car, air and international rail travel. If that is true—and it is true in relation to Ashford and Kent—think about the rest of the country. Think about those parts of the north-east, the Midlands and the wider north of our country. Without a specific duty to take note of the issue of growth, they will be denied the benefits that a railway system can provide for the whole country. On that basis, I commend the amendment to the Minister and hope that his reply will give us some hope that these issues will be addressed in the Bill.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Boateng for that introduction. I declare an interest in that, apart from having been involved years ago in the Channel Tunnel and Ashford station—getting that built in the right place was not very easy —I am now involved in one of the cross-channel services that he mentioned, Gemini, whose ambition is to stop trains regularly at Ebbsfleet and Ashford. It is all quite complicated because you have an independent infrastructure manager which obviously wants the maximum return. It operates local services to Folkstone, Dover and Ramsgate, I think, and they all have to be fitted in together. That is before you get involved in the frontier control issues, which I had probably better avoid for the moment. On international services, which is what these are called, it is for the operator to decide its timetable of services and which stations it wishes to stop at, which is the same, really, as open-access operators in this country, with a few minor differences. It has to look at the costs of infrastructure, of police and of everybody else who has to be there; it has to find somewhere to park the trains at night, and all the other things that go with it. My noble friend’s point is that this needs some kind of economic encouragement—I hope from the Government. It is very similar to what should be being provided up in the north now, or in Wales, or even where I live in Cornwall—wherever it is needed—to try to balance the economies of these various areas. It is then a question of who makes what decision as to where to run the trains. If it is an open-access operator—we have talked about that elsewhere in the Committee—we have the ability in the Bill to encourage or allow open-access operators if they do not get in the way of the other trains and the freight trains. It is more difficult when you get smaller operators that want to go on a short journey. Will they be allowed to operate? We really do not know that yet. The link between economic demands and what the railway can provide is fundamental. As my noble friend said, the needs of Ashford, and to some extent the rest of east Kent, are horrendous compared with other parts of the south-east. Therefore, stopping trains at Ebbsfleet and Ashford has many benefits; it also links to other routes down to Brighton and Hastings. It is all a question of the decisions the Government make on these various priorities, bearing in mind that they probably do not have too much money to spend. I believe that the idea in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to abolish the ORR and create a new one would be a complete disaster for the railways, because I worked on rail freight as well. You need an organisation that can be seen to act independently on all the issues when you are trying to fit more trains than you can possibly need or want on to a track and decide who gets priority. There is the argument about fares, speeds and, basically, competition issues. Over the years, the ORR’s terms of reference have been changed once or twice but it has mostly operated fairly and in a timely manner. We can compare its terms of reference and what it does with the Civil Aviation Authority or the similar one for maritime, whose name I cannot remember. All they do—I say “all”, but it is a very important thing—is to act as an independent appeal body, if you like, so that you do not have to go to court and you do not need the Competition and Markets Authority every time you want to blow your nose. The ORR, with whatever amendments are decided in this Committee and later, is a fundamental part of keeping the network fair and as full as it can be, and encouraging new operators. New operators, if my noble friend really wanted, could mean extra, more reliable traffic that is provided fairly and at the best possible price.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I will speak to my stand part notice opposing Clause 20. A duty is being placed on the Office of Rail and Road that I do not understand, which is about promoting competition. I am trying to probe exactly what the Government mean by the ORR’s duty to “promote competition”. I am concerned that there is a lack of clarity here between promoting competition and regulating competition. The ORR already has a role in regulating competition under the Railways Act 1993, but Clause 20 appears to give it a separate duty to promote competition. I would like to understand what exactly that means in practice and why it is necessary. This is not an issue that I will bring back on Report, because I cannot quite put enough passion into it, but we see that there is potential tension here because the ORR has a number of other responsibilities, including safety, access and economic regulation. The areas in which it is required to promote competition include important parts of the railway’s network services. I would like the Minister to explain how this new duty will interact with those other responsibilities. In particular, if there is a conflict between promoting competition and another statutory duty or the Government’s rail strategy, which takes precedence? I am not convinced that we need a general duty on the regulator to promote competition in the Bill.
Lord Moylan (Con)
If I may help the noble Baroness—of course, I might be as lost as she is—the effect of Clause 20 is in fact to remove the competition duty of the ORR from everything in subsection 1, paragraphs (a) to (g), which is basically everything, more or less.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for explaining that to me. I would like to hear that corroborated by the Minister, if he would. This one obviously needs safeguards and so on. My Amendment 331 is quite specific, but it raises two important questions about what we consider to be competitive parts of the railway. The first is rolling stock. We discussed on the first day the question of bringing rolling stock into public ownership. The Office for National Statistics is also considering the accounting treatment of rolling stock companies, including whether their leases should ultimately appear on the public sector balance sheet. I do not want to rehearse that whole debate here, but it is worth asking whether treating rolling stock as a competitive market should simply be taken for granted. If the Government’s ambition is to create a genuinely integrated railway, which I hope it is, there may be circumstances where intervention in the rolling stock market is necessary. Removing rolling stock from this particular competition provision would at least allow that policy question to be considered without assuming that competition must always be the organising principle. The second issue is passenger information systems. I would like the Minister to explain exactly what is meant by these systems in this legislation—if not, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, could help me out. This provision dates back to the Railways Act 1993, when the technology and structure of the railway were very different. If we are talking about the digital systems that allow information to be shared across the rail network, there is a strong argument for treating them as essential railway infrastructure. That would not necessarily prevent competition in ticket retailing or other services, but the underlying information infrastructure needs to work across the network. Can the Minister therefore clarify what systems are covered by this provision and why they need to be treated as a competitive market? My Amendment 332 raises a broader question about the position of competition regulation within the new railway. As I understand it, the effect of this provision is that the ORR’s competition functions under Section 67 of the Railways Act 1993 will continue to apply to Chapter 2 of Part 1 of this Bill. However, the Bill also establishes a rail strategy and a set of general duties for Great British Railways, so I want to understand how these things fit together. If the ORR is applying competition regulation to the new strategy framework, could that regulation prevent GBR implementing something that is otherwise consistent with the rail strategy and its general duties, and, if so, which takes priority? We have heard arguments that the ORR’s role is being reduced under this Bill, but this provision seems to leave it with significant powers in relation to competition. I would like us to be clear about where the balance lies. Are we creating a new railway strategy, which GBR is expected to deliver, while simultaneously giving the regulator the ability to intervene where it considers competition requirements have not been met? If that is the intention, the Government should explain how conflicts between those objectives will be resolved. I am not arguing against regulation where it is needed, but I question the idea that competition should be an end in itself. The purpose of the railway should be to serve the public, and competition should support that purpose rather than take priority over it.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I will address the government amendment that leads this group, which takes us back somewhat to the debates we had previously about the Civil Aviation Authority and the additional responsibilities that it was given. I have significant misgivings about exactly where the Government are placing the ORR in this legislation and in the structure for the future. It has always seemed to me there are two prime functions, if there is to be a regulator at all. In a state-run railway, where the Government are, in effect, recreating British Rail—of course, in the past, there would not have been such a thing—the Government are creating multiple bodies around what was once a single national railway. The key issue is that the ORR’s job should be about ensuring that, where there is external access to the network for freight, for open access and for heritage railways—I see my noble friend over there—that access is provided on a fair basis and charged for on a fair basis. I am not really sure I understand why this amendment is necessary. It takes the ORR into the field of consumer regulation, into the work of the CMA and into the world of competition legislation. When we debated the similar measure on civil aviation and the Civil Aviation Authority, we were dealing with a range of powers that the Government were seeking to give the Civil Aviation Authority, some of which the Minister himself rightly recognised—I am grateful to him—were too draconian. He stepped back from some of the original pieces in that legislation. Before we give him carte blanche to do this, in a Grand Committee where there is not the opportunity to divide as there is on the Floor of the House, he needs to explain in a bit more detail precisely what this entails. What is the ORR trying to sort out? What are the justice implications of this? What are the kinds of areas of criminal civil activity that this is designed to tackle? Unless the Minister can set that out in a lot more detail, I will object to this going through this Committee today and say that he needs to come back on Report with much more information. He will recall our debate on civil aviation. I asked him a number of questions on which, through no fault of his own, because it was not his specialist area, he did not have the full information to hand. This, of course, is his specialist area, and I am sure that he has the information to hand. If he does not, this is not a matter that should be dealt with today.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I wish to speak to several amendments in this group. They cover the role of the ORR. As my noble friend Lord Grayling has just said, it is arguably a bit weird continuing to have a regulator when you are bringing track and train together in GBR. He also highlighted the reason why it matters: the ORR has an important role in making sure that fair decisions are made. We will talk about it a bit at various stages during the Bill. Fair decisions should be made for access to the network for open access operators and freight, and that those powers are exercised in a fair and reasonable way. We will have some debates later about whether the way in which the Bill is set up for GBR means too much marking of its own homework. I speak first to Amendment 134 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley; he is sadly unable to be here today and asked one or two of us to speak to his amendment. It has been co-signed by my noble friend Lord Moylan. It would have the effect that the ORR’s duty to promote competition continues to apply to its functions under Chapter 1 of Part 3, relating to access and use policy, infrastructure capacity, the working timetable, the capacity duty, the charging scheme, the performance scheme and appeals in respect of those policies. I shall listen carefully to what the Minister says when he responds to this group. It may be that he says that the reason why the role of the ORR is being constrained in the way it is in the Bill as drafted is so that the ORR does not use its powers to undermine the directing mind of GBR. That is a flawed argument. The great majority of passenger services and ownership of assets are in the hands of GBR, or will be when the remaining franchises have expired and GBR has taken over those routes. The promotion of competition operates at the margin. However, that does not mean that competition does not have enormous value because its role can demonstrate the value of particular routes, and more efficient and consumer-responsive services. Let me give an example that may appeal to those who are particularly keen on the European Union. The European Commission, in a report based on services in Spain and Italy, found that open access on their high-speed rail network could reduce prices, improve quality and frequency, enlarge the rail market and passenger numbers and—this should be attractive to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones—encouraged modal shift. It is important to recognise that the duty to promote competition is linked to the benefit to consumers. It is important to preserve that element of potential challenge. The ORR has limited powers, but we should maximise the extent to which it can use them. I shall give an example in this country. The importance of capacity—we have had this debate previously—is that you cannot have competition unless there is capacity. It is important that when decisions about capacity are being taken, they must make sure that we can have competition. The line that has capacity is the east coast main line. There, three open access operators—Grand Central, Lumo and Hull Trains—all provide competition against LNER. That is valuable not just because those three open access operators provide different types of services to those of LNER, and a number of them are focused on providing very low-cost rail services, but the effect of having those three operators—this has been documented by independent economic analysis, I understand—is that it holds down ticket prices on LNER. Even people who never use open access operators but use the existing main operator benefit from the existence of the open access operators. That is why it is important to make sure that we preserve that element of competition. I listened very carefully to the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, on his Amendment 142 about promoting regional growth. He is right that there is a lot of evidence that improving rail connectivity—it is true of improving road connectivity as well—can deliver economic growth. We have seen that very clearly in what happened—and it is not even complete yet—once we got to the point where we were constructing the first phase of HS2. Anybody who has been to Birmingham will have seen that, even before the rail line is completed, once it was clear that it was going to happen, there has been an enormous amount of investment and economic development in central Birmingham with companies relocating their operations. That has happened on a prospective basis because people knew that that was going to happen, so the noble Lord is correct that regional economic growth is driven by rail. I think I can reassure him a little bit. When the Government make these decisions about where they invest—the investment that Network Rail and GBR make in the infrastructure is public money—they look at the cost-benefit ratio. Some of the things they look at are not just time savings, but wider economic benefits. That is not the easiest thing to capture when you are looking at prospective benefits and economic growth. Being able to nail that down and produce an economic analysis that is robust that you can turn into numbers that you can then weigh up against the cost is not that straightforward. I do not know exactly how many, but the Department for Transport has a significant number of economic analysts who produce all this information for Ministers when they are taking these decisions. Whether we need to add it to the Bill, I am not quite sure, but the thrust of the noble Lord’s arguments about the importance of the rail network for regional economic growth is absolutely spot on. There are already a lot of things that make sure that that is taken into account, but I support the thrust of what he says. I will listen, as will the noble Baroness, Lady, Jones, to the Minister’s response, but I take a much more positive view about the benefits of competition on the rail network. As I said in the points I just made, competition helps to keep down costs to consumers and drive passenger growth, particularly by attracting people on to the rail network who perhaps cannot afford to travel on some of the existing services. Some open access operators have specifically gone for no-frills, low-cost services that attract people who would not otherwise use the rail network. You therefore get modal shift, with people shifting off more environmentally impacting forms of transport that produce more carbon per passenger mile on to the rail network, which I think is a good thing. It is good for consumers and the environment, and competition helps to drive that. That is, in effect, as I know my noble friend Lord Young would say if he were here, what happened post privatisation. There was a vast increase in investment and in passenger numbers, which took a lot of people off roads and aviation and put them on to the rail network, which was good for them, the economy and the environment. I want to make sure we maximise the extent to which competition exists with this new model as we move to GBR.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, this group of amendments on the Office of Rail and Road is clearly seeking a different role or structure for the office than that envisaged by the Government. For many, it is more of the same. The amendments are, on the whole, trying to allow the Office of Rail and Road to assess competition on the railways to allow, it seems, more open-access operators. While I absolutely understand and have seen the benefits that open-access operators have brought to the railway, as noble Lords have described—and I hope those operators can continue to bring their services to passengers—there is the issue we have debated on the setting up of Great British Railways and the Secretary of State having so many powers. We have warned about the marking of their own homework. I think the Government will not move on these amendments, because this is an area they set out clearly in their manifesto, but I fear there is a real challenge here in how the structure will work in reality and what open access will be allowed. The clarity that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is seeking will be helpful. Freight is also an open-access operator, although obviously a different type of service. I think the freight industry would appreciate some assurance from the Minister about its role. We have other groups on this issue later, because it is concerned about the legislation as drafted. I am interested in Amendments 286 to 288, which would give the ORR a role in monitoring and auditing Great British Railway’s statutory functions. That could help with this whole issue of being judge and jury, while marking one’s own homework. I really like Amendment 142 from the noble Lord, Lord Boateng. First, I should welcome him to the transport enthusiasts’ club, which has many members across all sides of the House. He is welcome to stay through the many other days of Committee on this Bill.
A noble Lord
If he can bear it.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
If he can bear it—exactly. It is a joy to have him here, but it really is interesting hearing him describe the Docklands Light Railway and Crossrail, and the economic growth those railways brought to those parts of London and further afield. It is a really interesting point: the Office of Rail and Road should recognise the economic geography of the country, as well as the economics of the railway. His point about the impact of High Speed 1 and the fiasco in parts of Kent explains this issue really well. I hope the Minister might be sympathetic to that point. Although there may be issues in finding a way to develop that, it is a really important area that this whole new Great British Railways should look at as we go forward. I look forward to the Minister’s reflections on these points.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group dealing with different matters. I may take slightly longer than my customary brevity, because I also wish to speak to some amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley, to which I have put my name. They are not those to which my noble friend Lord Harper has spoken, because there is no need for me to repeat what he has said, but there are others that have not been addressed. Before I come to those, I turn to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng. I understand very much what he is saying. During the 2012 Games, I was chairman of the Olympic park, and it was a great ambition and hope of mine that we could, at some stage, get Eurostar trains to stop at Stratford International station, which is on the line and was available to do that, in the interests of promoting growth and regeneration in Newham and that Olympic park area. It was hopeless: there was never any chance of doing it and no interest whatever on the part of Eurostar, which was a great disappointment and an opportunity missed. To be frank, there is little point in that station if those trains do not stop; I know that the Javelin trains stop, but it is a bit pointless in a way. We need the Eurostar to stop. Then I moved on and, later, I was a member of the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation for three or four years, and we did have trains that stopped. That was absolutely marvellous. We had not only the Javelins, so that you could get to Ebbsfleet in 19 minutes from St Pancras—as I used to do to go to board meetings—but the Eurostar trains. I think they did not stop at Ashford, which is what the noble Lord mentioned, but they stopped at Ebbsfleet until Covid came along. Without a doubt, Covid was why they stopped stopping at Ebbsfleet, but Eurostar took that opportunity never to resume. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, suggests that this is inevitably all driven by commercial considerations and a railway company’s choice of where to stop its trains to maximise its revenue. The implication is that if the Government want to do something and make use of these stations, to get the sort of advantages that the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, referred to, they need to provide some subsidy or something of that sort. Actually, the new competitor, whoever it may be, who wants to provide a service, needs a depot in London. The only person who is working hard—I know this for a number of reasons—to secure that depot in the Walthamstow area is the Minister. I do not think he needs to supply subsidy to achieve his aims; he has leverage, and we should use that leverage to secure the economic and connectivity benefits we have built the stations to secure. So, I have considerable sympathy with the thrust of what the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, said. If the Minister does not accept this precise amendment, I hope he will show some gumption about this and try to get something done.
I will take my Amendments 135, 137, 138 and 140 together because they work together and would do the same thing, which, essentially, is to restore the ORR’s competition duty in respect of Great British Railways’ rail operations. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, has a suspicious mind and slightly suspected that this was all about promoting open access. But I say to her that a great deal is going on on the railways apart from open access where competition will be both necessary and beneficial. There is the supply chain. There is no obligation on Great British Railways to encourage competition in the supply chain, but we would benefit greatly from that supply chain being competitive and sharper. It would help Great British Railways and make it more productive, increasing the opportunity of exports on its part.
There should also be a promotion of competition in ticket retailing and in ancillary areas—and indeed in the provision of coffee shops. Do we all want the same Stalinist British Rail coffee shop on every station up and down the country, or should there be a promotion of competition among coffee shops? There would then be choice in different stations and a bit of local character and colour in the type of coffee you get when you go to different stations. All this needs to be in the Bill; it is not simply open access, and it is a serious mistake to leave it out. Competition is a significant driver of economic growth, which is what the Government are meant to be looking for.
Amendment 196 is simply good practice. It would require Great British Railways to provide its complaint statistics to the ORR. Of course, maybe it would do this, but I suggest that there needs to be an obligation on it so that there is transparency and comprehensiveness in the complaint statistics it gives over to the ORR. The ORR could make a judgment about them and so forth.
Amendments 286, 287 and 288 would work together to give the ORR the power not simply to monitor GBR but to audit it. That would be a greater power to get into the weeds, and a power to demand sight of the weeds, in order to understand what is going on. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, for indicating that she finds that an interesting thing to pursue.
Amendment 290 is about procuring services in the private sector. I am not suggesting that we go back to the old days of the railway. Take London Underground, for example. In the old days, it manufactured everything. It had huge depots at Earl’s Court and, if you wanted a new bench for your station, you did not go out and buy a bench for the station; you summoned up the workshop and it would make a bench in Earl’s Court to go on your station. If you wanted a new roundel to go on the wall, it would be made for you. Catastrophically, it would make the lifts as well, and it would take simply ages, at huge expense, to install the lifts. All that was got rid of.
I want to be sure that Great British Railways will not go back to that sort of mentality from the past. An obligation to procure as much as possible from the private sector would be exactly the right focus for a lean, efficient railway that is focused on the provision of services, timetabling and the strategic management of the railway. That is where its focus should be, and it should be strongly discouraged by legislation from getting into the procurement of supplies from its own sources. It should be pushed to secure them from the private sector.
I come to Amendment 292 and my opposition to Clause 75. We are dealing here with a basic question: how is the ORR supposed to enforce compliance if one of its most important enforcement tools is taken away? Clause 75 specifically prevents the ORR imposing fines on GBR. There is the argument that you cannot impose a fine on GBR because GBR is part of the Government, so it is all circular money, and so forth. We used to say that in respect to the NHS. When I was young, the NHS had Crown exemption; you could not sue it for damages. Now we can—we have been able to sue the NHS for negligence since the 1980s, I think—and, because of that, a great deal of bad practice has been exposed, and a great deal of opportunity and stimulus has been created to improve practices and eliminate bad practices. Exposing things to the light of day in that fashion is a very good means of ensuring improvement, and I do not see why the ORR should not have the power to impose these fines. The principle that financial penalties can change behaviour is apparently accepted everywhere, except when GBR breaches its licence.
Amendment 292 goes further. It is a little cruel, I have to grant, but I do not see why the individuals responsible at GBR should not be subject to financial penalties as well, to keep them on their toes. That power would be created by my Amendment 292, and the ORR could impose fines on individuals if it was thought to be appropriate and they had contributed significantly to the breaches.
I come now to government Amendments 79 and 293, which are linked—I think I am right in saying that Amendment 293 is consequential on Amendment 79, so I will speak just to Amendment 79. It creates concurrent enforcement powers. I do not have to speak at any great length because, first, we discussed something similar when dealing with the civil aviation Bill and, secondly, my noble friend Lord Grayling has, without any co-ordination with me, raised concerns that I share. In addition to what he has said, I say only that I would support him if he were to object to these two amendments being agreed by the Committee today. I think they require a great deal more explanation as to how this is going to work. Dual enforcement is always risky. It always risks confusion and unfairness. We really have to understand how this will work.
Finally, I come to Amendment 143, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, dealing with Clauses 67 and 68. These clauses set out how the ORR is to consider appeals; the Committee will discuss those arrangements in detail in a later group. The clauses already provide that the Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about steps to be taken before an appeal can be brought, time limits, and governing the practice and procedure of appeals. It is therefore not clear what the purpose of guidance is in relation to the appeals procedure, but it should clearly not be used to seek to control how the ORR conducts appeals by means which are not subject to parliamentary scrutiny, as would be the case for regulations made by statutory instrument. At this stage, the Committee should be told why and for what purpose such guidance may be issued by the Secretary of State in relation to the appeals procedures. Since there will be statutory regulation made which will be scrutinised, what is the guidance adding which is not subject to that scrutiny?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I first turn to government Amendments 79 and 293, in response to the noble Lords, Lord Grayling and Lord Moylan, who have just spoken about them. These amendments are just giving the ORR the same powers as the CMA now has in consumer law to enforce directly—for example, on drip-pricing and other issues which negatively affect consumers. It does not change the law. It just enables the ORR to directly enforce the law, as the CMA can.
Lord Grayling (Con)
The Minister will remember the debates we had on civil aviation legislation and the powers provided to enter homes and office buildings and to read documents, and so forth. I do not understand why in the rail industry—which will be dominated by a single national body, answerable to the Secretary of State—we need exactly the same powers. I do not feel that this can be pushed through in Committee. I suggest that the Minister might keep this in abeyance until Report and provide a much more detailed letter to us all to explain this.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
I am grateful to the noble Lord. If he is concerned about Amendments 79 and 293, not only will I withdraw them but I will invite him to discuss them further on Report. I turn to Amendments 134, 135, 137, 138 and 140 and the opposition to Clause 20 standing part. This Government recognise that there are many circumstances in which competition brings benefits to the users of railway services. Noble Lords have mentioned the supply chain, where competition drives innovation and efficiency, and the online retail market, where competition provides choice and drives up the quality of passenger experience. However, there are other railway functions where the promotion of competition in the new circumstances is not appropriate and will be counterproductive. We have deliberately specified in Clause 20 when this competition duty should apply. I will set out our approach here. Competition should be focused on where it delivers the outcomes that we are seeking, as set out in the duties. In other words, competition is a tool that can be used to achieve better passenger outcomes, or more freight services, or economic benefits. When competition supports those aims then we agree that it should be promoted. For example, competition in retail online markets supports better outcomes for passengers because it gives them more choice. We know from the debates in your Lordships’ House that lots of disabled passengers are looking forward to the GBR app, which will allow them to book all tickets and passenger assistance in one place. Other disabled passengers, such as passengers with vision impairments, prefer a wider choice of apps so that they can select which ones integrate best with their support systems. This is a perfect example of the competition that the railway genuinely needs, which is why the ORR’s competition duty will apply when it writes the code of practice. On access, in comparison, the best outcome for passengers is the service which most meets their needs. That often means a frequent, reliable service, with stops in the right places, and a regular, coherent pattern of services. Competition does not necessarily achieve that. In the past, competition has resulted in operators making timetable changes that seek to maximise their own revenue share, not designing an overall timetable that makes sense to passengers.
For many years under franchising, the Brighton main line was an example of this. Inefficient, unco-ordinated service patterns limited the total number of services that could run, and passengers at some stations faced irregular intervals between services. It was possible to construct a more coherent timetable with more services overall and more regular calling patterns only when the two competing franchised operators were combined into one. Likewise, the best outcome for freight is the opportunity provided by more usable freight paths becoming available. That, too, is achieved by a sensible plan that enables space to be made at the right time in the right places, not by competition for competition’s sake.
To be clear, I am not saying that open access operators cannot provide benefits for passengers: they absolutely can. That is why we see the value of open access operators and why there is a place for them on the railway. If any operator—devolved, open access or GBR—offers the best choice for the passenger and public, according to the duties, they should be granted access. That is not the same as pursuing competition for competition’s sake, regardless of the final product that it achieves. Where open access delivers the best use of network capacity, those services should be planned as a coherent part of the overall service pattern on the relevant route, not bolted on as an afterthought or in conflict with other services.
Turning to the idea that competition duties should apply when the ORR assesses access appeals, this would mean the ORR assessing decisions through a different set of criteria from GBR. It would effectively mean the ORR re-running the best-use judgment based on competition dynamics rather than relevant duties in the Bill, such as the freight growth duty or the passenger interest duty, which are the outcomes that matter. We want the ORR to ensure that GBR has treated people fairly and reasonably against those outcomes, not to take decisions according to a totally different set of criteria. The ORR will not be the directing mind, and the last thing the access framework needs is more fragmentation, conflict, disagreement and delays with passengers and freight customers being deprioritised, as in many cases today.
Likewise, we do not want the competition duty to apply when the ORR is enforcing GBR’s licence. GBR’s licence contains provisions that GBR must comply with, including safety, accessibility and others. Therefore, when the ORR is enforcing against these licence conditions, it is vital that it does so in a genuinely fair and balanced way based on the simple question of whether GBR has complied. It is not appropriate for the ORR to assess GBR’s compliance with its licence against completely separate criteria relating to competition aspirations.
But there are circumstances where it is important for this duty to apply. For example, earlier this year the ORR launched a review into rolling stock maintenance market to ensure that market arrangements support efficient investment and growth in the rail sector. The ORR’s competition duty applied in this situation, as driving up competition is key to supporting investment that can bring passenger benefits, which is the point of the review. The Bill would not change this.
I turn to Amendments 331 and 332, and I note that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, wants to remove or limit the ORR in this area. Competition law aims to prevent the distortion of markets through anti-competitive agreements between competitors—for example, price fixing—or the abuse of dominant market positions. We do not want this distortive practice in any part of the railway sector. I remind noble Lords that the enforcement of competition law is distinct from the ORR’s proactive duty to promote competition referenced in Clause 20. There is no part of the railway system in which we would support exemptions from competition law compliance, and I therefore urge the noble Baroness not to press these amendments. I am very happy to discuss with her further and, if necessary, to write to her and copy to other Members of this Committee all the answers to some of the questions she posed earlier.
On Amendments 141 and 142, I should provide some reassurance that the ORR must already consider efficiency and economic growth as part of its general duties in Clause 18. Clause 18(2)(f) specifically requires the ORR to take into account costs from public funds and the need to make efficient use of them. Likewise, Clause 18(2)(e) specifically highlights the need for the ORR to act in the public interest, with the definition of this explicitly including economic benefits.
I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, on the point of the railways, growth, jobs and housing. The Bill places important duties on GBR in relation to regional and local growth, in particular in mayoral combined authorities. I would be delighted to speak to him further on this between now and Report. I am also happy to talk to him about international rail. The Bill does not change anything in respect of international rail and, in respect of Eurostar stopping at the stations in Kent and Stratford, if we still had a shareholding in Eurostar it would have been easier in 2016 to make trains stop, as it would have been in 2020 when they reduced stopping at Ebbsfleet. Because it was sold in 2015, we have to influence it and its competitors in any way we can. On this, at least, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is right. I am engaged in that persuasion because the economic benefits of stopping in those places are important.
The important issue of technology was raised. I reassure the Committee that the ORR is already working on how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and digitalisation can improve the resilience of the railways, thereby improving service to passengers. For example, the ORR produced an action plan on AI earlier this year, setting out how it can be safely integrated into the rail industry to drive innovation and economic growth.
Amendment 290 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, talks about assessing whether private sector procurement would offer a better use of public funds. I absolutely agree that GBR must deliver value for taxpayers. It will have to take procurement decisions on their merits, taking account of the duty to make efficient use of public funds, as well as its other duties, such as considering what is best for the passengers and the public interest. As the noble Lord suggests, there are likely to be situations where GBR finds that private sector procurement is more cost efficient and delivers more for the public. Network Rail, as its predecessor, is good at this already and a majority of its work on infrastructure is, in fact, contracted out. He used the example of a bench produced at the Lillie Bridge works in West Kensington. London Transport had a much better one because it used to make its own Christmas puddings. I am not expecting GBR to do this.
I reassure the noble Lord that, when providing advice to the Secretary of State on whether to approve the business plan, the ORR is required by Schedule 2 to the Bill to advise on whether the business plan represents value for money. We would expect this to include consideration of GBR’s chosen delivery routes and whether it would be better value to procure something or some things from the private sector. Therefore, this assessment is already baked into the business plan the ORR is monitoring GBR against. In summary, while the Government agree with the importance of these issues, these amendments are not required because these duties are either in the Bill or being delivered without the need for legislation.
On Amendments 143, 196, 286, 287 and 288, I recognise the importance of the ORR’s independence when determining access appeals. Let me reassure the noble Lord, Lord Lansley—I spoke to him yesterday but, as noble Lords know, he cannot be in his place today—that the ORR will determine appeals independently and will itself be responsible for setting the practice and procedure for its appeals process. It has already begun engaging with industry on this ahead of formal consultation. However, this does not mean that there can be no legitimate role for the Secretary of State’s guidance. There may, for example, be matters of general principle relevant to the exercise of the ORR’s appeal functions on which guidance will be appropriate. For example, at some point in the future it might be desirable to provide guidance about the timeframes in which appeals ought to be heard to ensure timely resolution.
This guidance power is intended to set strategic expectations about the ORR’s functions within the wider railway framework while respecting the statutory independence of the regulator in carrying out those functions. Guidance cannot alter the legal framework established by Parliament or displace the ORR’s duty to determine appeals in accordance with the requirements set out in the legislation. Any guidance issued under Clause 21 would therefore need to be read alongside, and consistently with, the statutory access appeals framework. The ORR will remain responsible for reaching its own independent decisions on appeals, applying the statutory tests that reflect established judicial review principles. A specific exclusion for access appeals is unnecessary. The legislation already safeguards the ORR’s independence while preserving the Secretary of State’s ability to issue guidance to ensure the effective operation of the railway.
On Amendments 286, 287 and 288, I agree that robust independent oversight of GBR will be essential. That is precisely why Clause 74 gives the ORR a significant and enhanced monitoring role across the breadth of Great British Railways’ statutory functions. The ORR will monitor GBR’s delivery against its business plans, including how its costs and income compare with its estimates, whether its statutory functions are being exercised in a way that furthers railway safety and whether it is meeting its duties and KPIs. Importantly, it will also be able to carry out investigations where it considers that to be appropriate. This provides the ORR with the scope to scrutinise GBR’s performance and provide independent advice to the Secretary of State.
Auditing is a separate function. GBR will already be subject to independent audit through the National Audit Office, including the audit of its annual accounts. Requiring the ORR to undertake an additional auditing role would therefore duplicate established arrangements and blur the distinct responsibilities of the regulator and the auditor.
On Amendment 196, I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that the ORR will retain this role. As now, the frequency of publication is not dictated by law. This enables flexibility, allowing for the collection of data to be proportionate and needs-based and to ensure the necessary levels of transparency. Detailed arrangements for the collection of data by the ORR and publication processes in the new system will be worked through with GBR once it is established. However, the current system provides a great deal of transparency, as the noble Lord noted, and we are not proposing to reduce this. The passenger watchdog will have access to the data collected by the ORR, including data on complaints, and will be able to use it to identify issues and areas for improvement for passengers and to follow up.
On Amendment 292 and the question that Clause 75 stand part of the Bill, the Government do not support this because it would create a situation in which public funds would be recycled around government. GBR will be a publicly owned company funded by the taxpayer and therefore it is right that the ORR’s licensing enforcement process should not include the ability to fine GBR. All that fining would do in this situation would be to create a complex and administratively challenging money-go-round. Indeed, it would return railway funds to His Majesty’s Treasury, leading to less being spent on the railway. This is not the situation that the noble Lord described of suing the NHS. It is a practical measure to retain money in the railway.
This is the only change to the licence enforcement process proposed in the Bill. All the other powers remain the same. The ORR will therefore hold the same role on licences in the future as it does today and will still be able to take the following enforcement steps: it can escalate the issue to the GBR board, it can require the creation and publication of an improvement plan, and it can issue a legally binding enforcement order to force GBR to change its actions. I add that the Government also reject Amendment 292 because there are enough serious duties on board members of a public body such as GBR without suggesting that they should be pursued individually. These powers provide appropriate enforcement routes without a pointless money-go-round, and I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press his amendments.
Finally, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for her Amendment 330G and her interesting speech. I agree with her that we want the ORR to do only what is necessary, given the substantial change in the organisation of the railway. I thought she might find it useful if I briefly repeat the findings of the independent review into the ORR, published earlier this month, for her consideration. First, it noted that the ORR is well positioned to navigate the challenges ahead and is respected for its expertise,
“valued for its independence and recognised for its economics and safety capabilities”.
The review also concluded that the ORR added value for,
“taxpayers and users via assurance and challenge of infrastructure managers and operators”.
What is more, the review highlighted the inherent benefits of road and rail oversight being within the same organisation. It noted that:
“With more structured cross-sector engagement, valuable lessons from both rail and road could be shared more consistently, unlocking wider benefits for both sectors”.
That is why the Bill preserves the ORR’s essential role as the road and rail regulator.
Separately, we must recognise the ORR as a key delivery partner in the biggest rail reform programme in 30 years. It is already implementing a comprehensive transformation programme to make sure that it is ready to fulfil the requirements in this legislation. A further organisational change in just 12 months would not only create an implementation risk but risk creating a weakened body without the expertise to properly regulate the railways in the new circumstances. With that, I thank all noble Lords for their participation and beg them not to press their amendments.
Amendment 79 withdrawn.
Clause 13: Charging and terms and conditions
Amendments 80 and 81 not moved.
Clause 13 agreed.
Clause 14 agreed.
Amendments 82 to 89A not moved.
Clause 15: Rail strategy
Amendment 90
Moved by
90: Clause 15, page 9, line 9, at end insert “, including heritage railway services.” Member’s explanatory statement This would require the Secretary of State to include consideration of heritage railway services in the Government’s long-term rail strategy.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 90 stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, who is prevented from standing up at this a moment to say that he agrees with every word I am about utter because he is presiding over us with inscrutable impartiality. This is a large group of amendments dealing with the Government’s long-term rail strategy, as provided for in Clause 15. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and I propose adding a modest line at the end of subsection (1)(b) with the words “including heritage railway services”. Noble Lords may not think that this is the most pressing of the amendments in the group that deals with the long-term strategy, but there cannot be a long-term strategy for rail without an understanding of and an appreciation for the past and the lessons it can teach us. Heritage services operate on main line rail services, not just on preserved lines. They are highly visible and hugely cherished services that form special birthdays, wedding anniversaries and memorable occasions for families across the country. They are also a hugely important recruiting sergeant for our railways—for the passengers, the drivers, the engineers and all the many other roles that go into making our railways a success. Not for nothing was the special train that toured the country this year and last, as part of the Railway 200 events, named “Inspiration”. I pay tribute again to the work of Network Rail, the National Railway Museum, the Minister and others who had a role in its great success. It covered 12,000 miles, visited more than 60 locations and inspired more than 100,000 people, a large number of them young people, particularly on school visits. Brilliantly, the exhibition and the events were targeted at young schoolchildren at the time when they start to decide the subjects that will help form the careers they might pursue. On board the carriages were exhibitions that opened their eyes to the many and varied roles that they could play on the railways of the future. This, of course, is on top of the social and economic impact that heritage railways have directly through their work: the vital role they play in tourism, conservation, skills and training and regeneration in communities across the country. I have the privilege of being the chairman of the Heritage Railway Association, succeeding the Minister, where I am joined by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, who serves as its president. HRA members attract more than 13 million visitors and generate more than £600 million annually to our economy. Thanks to the change that the Government agreed in what is now the Employment Rights Act, it provides opportunities for young people and volunteers across the country. This brings generations together; it helps people with neurodiversity to find fulfilling things to do; it helps tackle loneliness in people of all ages; and so much more. The Minister, of course, knows all of this from his time chairing the Heritage Railway Association and through his lifelong passion for our railways. He is a great enthusiast for the past as well as for the future of railways. He will know, too, that the charities, trusts and small businesses which look after our rail heritage do so in the face of significant challenges: the restricted availability of coal, particularly following Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and the closure of key mines such as Ffos-y-Fran in south Wales, and the rising costs of energy and employment, not least through the changes the Government have made to national insurance contributions. Heritage railways have had a tough summer once again, not just because of the rising temperature but because of the rising cost of living. Regrettably, the Government’s Great British summer savings scheme, which encouraged people to enjoy days out with their families, did not help the heritage railways, because transport is zero-rated for VAT. The very dry weather we have had this summer meant that heritage railways were unable to run steam operations because of the risks of lineside fire. I listened with interest to the point the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, made in a previous group about biodiversity helping to tackle the challenges of dry grass by railway lines, which is something that many heritage railways are already doing. Even before the decision that was encouraged by the Government’s national emergency alert on 14 August, many heritage railway operators had taken the decision to stop running steam services. I visited the Bluebell railway in Sussex the morning after the alert went out and saw the impact it had on it and many other railways, in the absence of steam, which of course is such an attraction for so many of the visitors. Those restrictions have continued. I was supposed to be on the “Mayflower” service running from Bristol down to Plymouth last weekend, but the continued red conditions mean that steam tours on mainline rail have required diesel assistance, and that has sadly had to be postponed until the spring. In that context, there is some nervousness among heritage rail operators about certain provisions in the Bill, both those who run services on the mainline, whether through timetabled open access rights or through ad hoc pathing requests, as well as by those who rely on the national rail network to move historic locomotives, carriages and other rolling stock. The Minister knows well the challenges that are inherent in co-ordinating all of this. Heritage rail is often slower than modern trains, and pathing even 75 miles per hour heritage trains is getting more difficult. Standards have of course also changed in the intervening years. Slam-door carriages are needing to be replaced at a cost to the operators who run them, and often to the dismay of those who come and see a livery other than the one they were expecting. Capacity both on lines and at major railway stations is being squeezed. Platform capacity is an issue for the “Polar Express” trains which run out of Euston, and there is already only one suitable path a week out of King’s Cross. One only needs to look at the queue of international tourists who wait to stare at a brick wall labelled “Platform nine and three-quarters” to know the important draw of heritage railways and their importance to our tourist and visitor economy. Further amendments which the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and I have tabled to the Bill seek to probe some of the challenges of access and other areas of concern. We are very grateful to the Minister, who made time ahead of Committee to meet both of us to discuss these issues. At present, there is no mention of heritage in the 99 pages of the Bill, nor in the 24 pages of the briefing document, published today, which gives a bit more detail on the Government’s long-term rail strategy. Many of the concerns which those operating in the heritage part of the sector have raised could be alleviated if there were a duty to consider heritage, among all the other important considerations which will help to shape the Secretary of State’s long-term strategy for rail. I beg to move.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, if I intervene at this point, it might enable the occupant of the chair to be free to speak to his own amendment. As the Committee can see, we are doing a bit of a Box and Cox exchange here. I must first declare an interest as a vice president of the Aln Valley railway, which will be well known to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson. I thank him for tabling his Amendment 90. This is a necessary signal. There have been times in the recent history of the railways when there have been people in some management positions who did not like the heritage sector. That has changed significantly, not least because of the success to local economies and the popularity of the heritage sector, but we need to give that signal in some way. My main purpose in standing is to speak to my own Amendment 105, which is on a different matter entirely: integrating road and rail transport. When the railways were nationalised, along with British Road Services and many bus companies, it was suggested that everything would be co-ordinated; trains and buses would meet each other and it would all work out beautifully. None of that happened. It was an abject failure: nationalisation did not secure co-ordination between different forms of transport. If you travel around other countries, particularly in northern Europe, including countries that have public sector railways and those that have private sector railways, you will find that there is often a frequency and reliability of connections between trains and buses, and between buses and ferries, which enables people to plan their journeys with a degree of confidence. That confidence rarely exists in our own country. There is a general feeling that, if you are lucky, you might be able to get a bus from the station. The idea that the bus would be waiting for your train, and might wait five minutes if your train is five minutes late, is somehow alien to the system. The same is true in reverse, of course. There have been some improvements at Berwick station, which I use regularly. Important Borders bus services are integrated into the passenger information screen. You look at the screen and it will tell you that the next train is through Edinburgh and, after that, there is a bus to Galashiels. That is on the actual indicator screen, but that does not happen in many places. In being so limited, it fails to provide for, first, the number of commuters who are affected by this—this amendment was suggested by the Association of British Commuters—who have to drive to the station. They therefore have to use their car when, really, their objective is to have a train journey to work. A bus connecting with the train would reduce their use of the car and discourage them from saying, “If I’m getting the car out, I might as well drive the whole way rather than use the railway”. It is also a disincentive for travellers visiting more distant places as tourists who cannot rely on a connecting bus, rail or ferry service. It is another of these things that could be included in the Bill not to create a complicated obligation, but to start signalling that we see it as something desirable that is likely to improve and increase the use of the railway. This is a neglected area. Many other countries achieve a great deal more in this area than we have thus shown any sign of doing. I suggest that the Minister finds a way of encouraging bus-rail co-ordination, recognises it as an objective of the industry and realises that, without it. we are discouraging people from using trains.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 101A in my name to which the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, has added her name. I accept that this amendment is quite long, but it is also a bit of a wish list of everything I would like for improved accessibility across the train network. This proposed new clause would require a 10-year railway accessibility strategy, including a funded programme for permanent step-free access, accessible rolling stock, mobility-aid carriages, accessible interchange and accessible rail replacement services. It would also require measurable targets, annual reporting and the involvement of disabled people in the development of the strategy. I declare my interests as a member of the Campaign for Level Boarding and as an observer on the Avanti accessibility panel. I am fortunate to have an open invite to Network Rail’s national accessibility group. I thank the Minister and his team for meeting me and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, this week to discuss our amendments. I look forward to the ongoing discussion on how we can improve access for disabled people. I was encouraged by his comments in the earlier group that disabled people will be able to book assistance and buy the best-priced ticket at the same time rather than having to use the six different apps that I currently have on my phone. It is welcome, if not slightly overdue. I also thank Alex Hynes and Alison Smith from Network Rail who I met last week and were also helpful.
This is a probing amendment. I am happy to discuss with the Minister whether it should be split into different parts because there are some things that I recognise might be challenging to achieve. As we move to GBR, it is essential that we move away from the current state of play whereby train operating companies implement accessible travel policy in different ways. I have amendments in other groups that fit with this. There was a bit of debate as to whether this was the right group for this amendment to sit in; although it relates to long-term strategy, there might be a better place for it in the Bill.
One of the changes that the Minister made when he was commissioner at TfL, whose board I had a great deal of pleasure sitting on with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, was to think about how to do accessibility in a different way. Rather than putting all the budget at the back end of the project and not being able to do much with the money, it became about what you could do with accessibility right at the start if you were redesigning stations. That significantly improved the number of accessible stations on the network and it was a realistic way in which to do it. I should like to consider how we can do something with Access for All, because that feels far too removed from the process of improving accessibility.
The total historic funding for AfA is £873 million, which sounds like a lot of money but, when you break it down into individual stations, it is a relatively small amount. Part of this amendment is also about collecting better data to be able to plan ahead. The previous Government estimated that it will be 100 years before we have a full step-free train network in this country. Unless we chunk it off, we are never even going to hit that 100-year deadline.
Probably for another time, I should like to think about how we refer to step-free stations. I am not particularly keen on just being able to get to the platform being called “step free”, because that makes it hard for disabled people to think about how they use the network. However, we have an opportunity to get a better standardisation of service. Some really exciting things are happening now. It was great to see the announcement last week of TransPennine buying low-floor trains. I am hoping for more good news from other companies. We also have to recognise that there has to be a programme of ongoing work to change platform heights. It will not be possible to do all that in one go, as much as I would love it, but we have to think about how we can make a difference. If you look at what has happened with Greater Anglia, not every station on its line is step free to train but there is much greater accessibility than before.
Part of the amendment also looks at mobility aids. They have changed significantly over the years. A lot more people are using scooters rather than manual or electric chairs. We have to think about the current space that is available on trains and the space around companion seats. The DfT is doing some great and interesting work on accessible micromobility. We also have to think about how we can future-proof some of the decisions that we are making now, because far more people are using devices such as the battery pack attachment I use outside the building to be able to get around. Technically, it is not a scooter, but I know a number of people who have been stopped from getting on a train because they have been told it is scooter. It is ridiculous that the ATP is not being universally applied.
There have been some big wins in the last years. I pay tribute to Tony Jennings, who I have worked with over the last few years. He has changed the scooter policy for ScotRail and Northern; until quite recently, both those train companies banned scooter users. It has taken quite a long time to get to this point. Scooters seem to have been banned because, many years ago, there was a fault on a train when both doors opened, and a scooter user getting on to the train went through one door and fell out the other side. That is horrendous, but we do not ban little old ladies from travelling on trains because one falls down the side of the Elizabeth line, so it does not always feel as if disabled people are being treated terribly equitably.
Recently, Northern, thanks to Tony Jennings, has lifted its Class 158 ban so that mobility scooters can travel on the whole Northern network for the first time. However, if you get off at Newcastle and try to use the Tyne and Wear Metro, you are still banned from it. That is a bit of a shame because it has replaced all its old trains with level-boarding Class 555 Stadlers, so there really are no excuses. Now, what Merseyrail has done on level boarding has been amazing. Somebody said to me that that was easy, because it is a closed-loop system; it is not easy, but certainly easier. However, what it had was a vision for how disabled people could travel differently.
We also have to be realistic about the changing nature of the network. If it is likely that there will be fewer staff at stations, we have to really make a difference in how disabled people get on trains. Right at the start of the debate, I was contacted by an individual who was at a train station. They were trying to get on a train and could not find a member of staff, so they called the help point twice—I am not convinced help points are the answer. Apparently, it is set up so that it rings for 25 seconds, stops, then rings again for 25 seconds; if still nobody has answered it, the call then goes through to National Rail enquiries, who can do nothing at all to help an individual get on the train. These are the things that we need to be sorted and some of them will come up in other amendments that I have.
Making public transport fully accessible could boost the economy by £176 billion a year. There are 2.8 million working-age disabled people who are locked out of the workforce, and the lack of accessible public transport will contribute to that.
The last point I want to raise is that part of the amendment is around rail replacement. That is not great for anybody but, in the last few years, I have had a couple of experiences. One was amazing, but that was because, on the train, they recognised me as a Member of the House of Lords and a person who posts on social media—that was actually whispered to me. They sorted me out, which was very nice, but that does not happen for the vast majority of disabled people. More recently, I had not such a great experience in trying to get to Westminster. I had to try three different train stations that I could get to. Luckily, my husband was able to drive me around these various stations in the north-east of England, so I could avoid using rail replacement, but, again, that is not realistic for the vast majority of disabled people.
The reality is that accessible taxis are not available outside many major cities and there is a real risk that disabled people could be stuck, unable to continue their onward journey. It is not okay to say to a disabled person, “You can’t travel on that day”, or, “You should have booked”, which is the default for many train operating companies. When there is a failure of assistance, the blame is put on the disabled person for having the temerity to turn up and go. There is something much smarter that we can do in terms of rail replacement.
I look forward to the Minister’s response. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, unfortunately is unable to be in her place today, but both of us are very happy to continue the conversation to see which areas of this amendment may be more palatable than others.
Lord Grayling (Con)
My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 99 in my name. The reason for this amendment is that I am genuinely concerned that we are going to end up with a state monopoly which squeezes out the small amounts of competition that remain through open access, that perhaps even becomes more unfriendly in time to freight, and that takes a difficult approach to heritage usage of the network, because it is all a bit of a nuisance. The Secretary of State needs to be talking to people who are offering alternatives and raising concerns about the way things were in the past and the way things could be in the future. We have to remember that a number of the issues with and constraints on the network today date back to the days of British Rail. Budgets are, I am afraid, going to be tight in the coming years. We know that subsidy levels have rocketed, revenues are falling and the Treasury has no money, so the railways are going to get squeezed in the way they were in the days of British Rail. And what happened then? We all know the British Rail approach was that if the budgets were tight, it cut services, closed routes or took out capacity. The single-track line from Soham to Ely is a case in point, where the implications for today’s railway are significant—but it was a useful closure at the time to save a bit of money. So, what happens now? If the Bill goes through as it is, then as far as I can see in the legislation, there is no duty for the Secretary of State to consult those who could be doing things differently, like offering alternative services; those who are using the network for open access; those who are using it for heritage railways; and those who may want to, such as those who may be looking for capacity and looking to offer alternative services, as part of the formation of the long-term rail strategy. That feels to me like a major omission. I will come back later in this Committee to the question of what happens if GBR objects to an open-access application and then does not launches the service itself; or if GBR just wants to stop somebody getting in the way and objects to an open-access operator; or if GBR pulls out of a service and somebody else wants and is willing to run that service; or if somebody comes along and tries to run a service GBR does not want ever to operate, but wants to be difficult. Ultimately, the duty of the Government in the Bill is surely to deliver the best possible, most comprehensive public transport system available. There will be times when the state cannot and will not do that, and there will be times when there is a demand that the state operator will not, cannot and does not want to meet. Therefore, what is the mechanism, in producing the long-term rail strategy, for the Minister to say that they think they are going to leave that space for open access, that they are going to need that capacity for extra freight, or that they are going to need to make provision for tourism access to the network? If there is no duty to have those conversations—which there does not seem to be in the legislation—where is the requirement for those conversations to take place? How will they take place? Or, in the rush to get a document out, will they actually not take place at all? This is a simple amendment with the effect of ensuring that everybody should, would and does have a say in what the Secretary of State does, on a reasonable basis, within a reasonable scope—but the requirement is there, and that is why this amendment is necessary.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak briefly, first to Amendment 101A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. She is absolutely right about quite a long list of things that need doing. The timescale she sets out in the amendment is probably quite challenging, because trains probably last for 30 or 40 years, and the track for quite a long time as well. The platform heights are of course the biggest problem. There was a very interesting article in the latest Rail magazine about platform heights. I have studied this over the years because of the issue of getting container trains through; it is very difficult, and there is no easy solution. She is absolutely right to table the amendment, and I certainly support it. The other issue I will briefly speak on is that of heritage, which the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, spoke on initially. I like his amendments; on the other hand, the text of the Bill in Clause 15, line 8, is slightly odd: “the railway services that the Secretary of State wishes to see provided in Great Britain.” What happens if the Secretary of State does not wish it? It is a pretty stupid question to ask, but the word “wish” to me seems possibly to be the wrong one. Heritage, I assume, covers any type of non-timetabled service. I do not know if that is true or not—there might be occasional commercial services or local train movements. Does heritage include the smart restaurant cars on the main lines, or the branch lines which occasionally have it?
It is important that there be some mention of the timings of these, including when they will fit in with the rest of the timetable, and on which days. I know from talking to heritage providers that they are scared they may be told that they cannot run trains for two weeks, even after they have taken reservations. We may wish to come back on Report with more detail or for more discussion—it is an important issue that could easily be brushed aside.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 128. I really want to go, but—
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
Feel free.
Noble Lords
Oh!
Lord Moylan (Con)
I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, is speaking to her amendment—and committing herself to hearing my speech and that of the Minister.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I will relax and take my time, then. Passengers’ journeys are very rarely just a train journey—there might be a bus to a station, a train and then another bus, or tram, or whatever—and if those parts of the journey do not connect properly, the whole journey becomes more difficult. I know this from personal experience. A missed connection, a long wait, separate tickets or poor passenger information can all make public transport less attractive. The National Transport Survey found that for England in 2023, 50% of public transport trips were across more than one type of public transport. That is why integration is one of the strongest levers we have for getting more people to choose public transport. The Railways Act 1993 included a duty on the Secretary of State and the regulator to contribute to the development of an integrated transport system, and that duty has now been dropped. Amendment 128 would put some of that principle back into the Bill, by requiring the Secretary of State and GBR “to promote the integration of railway passenger services with—(a) bus and coach services, (b) tram and light rail, and (c) micromobility.” I also support Amendment 105 from the noble Lord, Lord Beith, which approaches the same issue from within the railway strategy. It specifically talks about improving connections and co-ordinating timetables, ticketing and passenger information, and includes ferry services. The two amendments complement each other rather well. One establishes integration as a duty, while the other sets out some of the practical things integration should mean for passengers. This is not just about making journeys more convenient; if we want people to make more journeys by public transport, the whole journey needs to work. I ask the Minister why this duty to integrate transport has been removed from the Bill, and what will replace it. Will GBR have a clear responsibility to work with local and regional transport authorities to improve connections between different modes? Will the Government consider putting some of the practical elements in Amendment 10 —timetables, ticketing and passenger information—into the statutory framework? We have an opportunity here to create a railway that works as part of a wider public transport network, rather than as a system operating on its own. That should be one of the purposes of GBR from the very start.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, the Committee will be relieved to know that I am going to be brief. Noble Lords will have observed that my name appears on two of these amendments, the lead amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and the excellent amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Beith. First, on the heritage amendment, I express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for many of the nice things he said about me and heritage railways. As far as they are concerned, I agree completely. I also alert the Committee to the extraordinarily beneficial effect of the amendment that was passed to the Employment Rights Bill making it legal for young people under 16 to volunteer on heritage railways and tramways, which has led to a substantial increase in the number of young people coming forward. The Heritage Railway Association is devoting its annual conference to the subject of volunteering. That was made possible as a result of the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and I managed to persuade the House and the Government, with, I think, some help from this Minister, to see included in the Bill. The other aspect of heritage railways that I want to mention is the fact that there are already a number of operations where heritage railways and the national railway are working closely together and providing timetabled services. I hope very much that it will be possible for those to continue under the new arrangements. North Yorkshire Moors Railway is running into Whitby, as it has done for a number of years, and Severn Valley Railway has just announced a new service in the timetable that is giving people in Bewdley the opportunity to commute to Birmingham with just one change at Kidderminster. This is a step forward, as it means that for the first time for many years Bewdley is going to have a decent train service at times when people want to use it, rather than one that is available just for heritage purposes. On the excellent amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Beith, I remind the Minister of a letter that I forwarded to him from Moreton-in-Marsh Town Council last week. I spent considerable time in Moreton a couple of weeks ago to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Stratford-on-Avon to Moreton tramway, which they claim to be one of the earliest railways in Britain. It opened in 1826. Great events went on at both ends of the line, including a visit by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, to the town where many of the public buildings bear the name of his family. Moreton-in-Marsh Town Council is asking for the Minister’s support for its application for funding from the Cotswold District Council’s community infrastructure levy to provide a community rail hub in Moreton-in-Marsh to bring railways and buses together and provide an integrated service. The council has already gone a long way to doing that and has expanded bus services, but if the Minister is prepared to give a nudge in that direction, that will go down extremely well. I thank the Committee for its indulgence in allowing me to, as the noble Lord, Lord Beith, said, Box and Cox in the chair.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I want to touch on four parts of this group. First, Amendment 90, which I strongly support, was ably moved by my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. The constituency I represented in the House of Commons for many years, and in which I still live, has a heritage railway, Dean Forest Railway. Although most of its services run on its own tracks, it interacts with the main railway at Lydney and has a decent relationship with Network Rail. I support everything he said in his speech, particularly about the impact on getting volunteers and interesting people in working on the railway. I am afraid the railway indulged me by allowing me to do one of the things I always wanted to do, which was to drive a steam train—I see the Minister is finding that amusing—and shovel coal into the fire as well. It was fantastic. Of course, they do that all the time. I mention that because it is a big tourist attraction in the area. They run lots of themed days, such as Thomas the Tank Engine days, and bring a lot of people into the area; it is very significant. That interaction of heritage railways and tourism is powerful. If you go to London Paddington, it might not be quite as impressive as platform nine and three-quarters, but you will see the number of tourists taking pictures of the sculpture of Paddington Bear. That interaction of railways and tourism is very powerful, so I absolutely support the amendment. Even if it is not acceptable to the Government as drafted, I hope very much that the Minister will consider it. In the same way that the noble Lords, Lord Faulkner and Lord Parkinson, were able to get the success on the Employment Rights Act that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, explained, perhaps the Minister could come back with a government-drafted amendment or some other way of delivering this important benefit for heritage railways. Secondly, I want to touch on Amendment 95 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley and Amendment 101 in his name and that of my noble friend Lord Moylan. The effect of these two amendments would be to require the rail strategy to be laid before Parliament and for there to be the opportunity for a debate. At the moment, Clause 15 requires the Secretary of State to publish the document. As it is currently set out, there are some consultation requirements but there is no requirement for any parliamentary process attached to the rail strategy, and it would be helpful if there were. The amendments do not trespass by insisting that Parliament approve the rail strategy, but it would have to be laid before Parliament and available to the Houses to debate, and the Secretary of State would have to respond to any resolution made by either House. That would force the Government to have a better relationship with Parliament. Other significant statements by the Government have far more extensive parliamentary processes. The energy national policy statement has substantial consultation requirements, including a Select Committee review. The Planning and Infrastructure Act says that national policy statements must be approved by a Commons resolution. Amendment 101 wants a much lighter touch. It would enable a debate but would not require approval or enable Select Committees to make recommendations. The structure is based on Section 9 of the planning Act for national policy statements. It seems to me that, given the importance that Ministers have placed on the rail strategy, they should embed in the Bill that requirement for Parliament to at least be involved in the process in this relatively light-touch way. That would be welcome. Again, if the Minister does not find this particular solution acceptable, it would be helpful if he could indicate that he is at least willing to have a look at what he might be prepared to put in place. Thirdly, I listened very carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who spoke to her Amendment 101A on a railway accessibility strategy, and I think the thrust of her amendment certainly has merit. Again, I would be happy to listen to the Minister. He has a very good track record in this area, in all the roles that he has held, both at TfL and in his capacity as chair of Network Rail, and in his current role. The only point I would add to what the noble Baroness said is that the reason for putting this in the strategy is that the earlier you think about accessibility, the better it will be delivered and at the lowest cost—both of which are very important. Also, if you make the railways more accessible for disabled people, they will be more accessible for everybody. On thinking about this early, it is not just about the requirements for dealing with people with a physical disability; it is also important to think about things such as signage, information systems, announcements and the data that is available to people with a visual impairment or a hearing impairment, for example, or someone who has a learning disability but is in the workforce. They cannot drive, perhaps, but need to get to work and may find some of the traditional ways we communicate that information difficult to handle. All those things need to be thought about. As the noble Baroness said, there are lots of people for whom public transport is the only way they can get about, until perhaps we have more automated vehicles on the road. That is why this is important. I will touch on that theme in a later group with one of my trade union amendments about consulting disabled people.
Finally, on integration, this is one of those occasions where I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and others. I was pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Beith, confirmed that the last time there was a significant amount of nationalisation, the nationalised body was completely useless at integrating anything. That backs up my view about nationalisation, but the Government have a policy to nationalise so I will not reopen that argument. I agree that the integration point is important, particularly now, with the various information systems that are available. For somebody to be able to plan a journey on their phone from door to door—whether by taxi, Uber or bus to get to a train station and perhaps then to an airline trip—and to see all that joined up is very valuable.
It was very noticeable to me when I was Secretary of State that one of the things that mayors were asking central government for money for was to try to deliver more integrated transport solutions. One thing that mayors were able to do was to look at the delivery of bus services, trams, light rail and rail services, think about how they all fitted together and use their convening powers and their investment to deliver that more integrated approach. Certainly, when I was Secretary of State, central government was very keen to support that.
Whether or not these amendments are drafted in the right way, I urge the Minister to think about how that need for integration can be reflected. It is complex: there is no point requiring GBR to deliver integrated services when the other bits are delivered by other people, but at least there should be a duty on GBR to think about these things and interact with other bodies, whether they are local authorities, elected mayors or other people who deliver transport services. By the way, that will also include the private sector. There are private sector mechanisms for getting to rail stations, and sharing data and making sure that that is seamless will give us a better transport system that is usable by more people, which will benefit the economy.
This is one of those occasions where I can agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, in her amendment. We do not get those opportunities often, so, particularly since she has had to stay later than she intended, I thought I would give her that positive news in concluding my remarks.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, my Amendment 92 would require the rail strategy to cover a 30-year period. At the start of this session, the Minister talked about a paper published today on the strategy. I have not seen it or received any email about it, and I am completely up to date on my inbox. I would have hoped that officials could have sent that to us before we had come in today, so I would be grateful if that could be sent round to noble Lords who are working on this Bill so we can look at that. So, without having seen what was published today, which may do exactly what I want, I say that this rail strategy should cover a 30-year period. I am sure that noble Lords will be only too aware that an organisation such as Great British Railways, with its vast infrastructure and multiple services to deliver—including the growth in rail freight and, we hope, in passengers—is complex. Different parts of the railway will have different needs for investment and decisions on rolling stock, electrification, station modernisation, workforce planning and passenger experience. They simply cannot be taken on short political cycles. The rail strategy needs to ensure that it meets the needs of every part of the country. Rural communities are not always well served by the railway, and they need to be considered fully as part of a long-term 30-year strategy that will provide the vision and the clear steps to make that vision a reality. I hope the Minister will consider my amendment and its request carefully. Other amendments in this group require consultation with lots of organisations as part of the strategy development. Surely, any good organisation will do that, and I would hope that the Minister can assure us of that. As the discussion has shown, Amendment 105, from my noble friend Lord Beith, is very important. It highlights the importance of integrating the railway with other modes of transport and ensuring timetables align. If you want people to buy tickets, which then can move on to include bus travel and so on, the co-ordination infrastructure needs to make this easy. As we have heard, the bus, the ferry or whatever, should not be leaving three minutes before the train arrives. That, to me, is part of the added value of Great British Railways, whether it is the model I support or not. What difference are you making to people’s onward travel? What difference will this new structure make? That co-ordination is important. The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, makes a similar point and I hope we will hear something positive from the Minister on that. The noble Lords, Lord Parkinson and Lord Faulkner, who have a special interest in heritage railways, made their points clearly, and I hope we can hear a positive response on that. The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, supported by my noble friend Lady Brinton, is so important and would be part of this 30-year strategy as I see it. It should not be rocket science to be able to book the tickets and the support you need to use the railway in one simple way. This should be part of a programme and strategy. The debate about mobility aids is really important. E-scooters, as in the two-wheeler devices that many people use, were banned on buses in London. The very next day, I had people with mobility scooters who were unable to get on buses in Kingston because this rule had been interpreted wrongly. That was affecting disabled people’s ability to use public transport to get about their everyday business, so it is really important that this be looked at. This has been a really good debate, and I know the Minister has a strong track record in some of this. I look forward to hearing his response and to whether he will support this 30-year strategy.
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.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased that there is so much agreement that we need a genuine long-term plan for the railway. Indeed, the counterpart of the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, in the other place called it the strongest element of the Bill. I believe we share the same vision for the genuine change that a long-term rail strategy can provide for the industry and the country. I am sorry that noble Lords have not received the consultation document—for that is what it is. It is not the strategy itself but a document about the strategy. To the extent to which noble Lords have not received it at all, I will make sure that they have a copy in a form that can be read, either this evening or tomorrow morning. I am sorry about the timing. Amendment 90 is on heritage rail. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and other noble Lords here know that I am a strong supporter of these services, but the strategy is not the right place for consideration of heritage rail. The strategy is intended to be where the Secretary of State sets out the strategic objectives, priorities and challenges of the railway over the next 30 years. These are very much at the macro level, such as societal, technological and environmental trends over the coming decades. The strategy will help GBR make choices that have a fundamental impact on the British economy and society for future generations. While I absolutely agree with the noble Lord about the past informing the future, I hope he will agree that heritage services are more appropriately dealt with at the next level of operational detail down. Rather than being included in the strategy, heritage services are better considered as part of, for example, the access and use policy. That is where GBR can effectively safeguard the provision of those services and ensure that they have enough access to continue providing the benefits that they do. I hope the noble Lord is as pleased as I am to see that the draft access and use policy published last week included mention of heritage services, showing that they are considered at the heart of GBR’s access decision-making, alongside freight and other non-GBR passenger services. I would want to avoid too hasty a consideration of heritage railway routes as part of the national network, where, at least at present, that poses significant challenges to some of their finances and existence. I will return to this subject in group seven, and Amendment 118, which will deal also with points that my noble friend Lord Berkeley raised.
Lord Harper (Con)
Before the Minister moves on, perhaps I may raise one point and then the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, will respond at the end. I follow the Minister’s argument about whether the strategy is the right place. The only thing I would be concerned about is whether achieving things in the strategy means GBR taking decisions that have not the intended consequence but the consequence that they impact heritage railways, without GBR having thought about that or taken it into account at that stage. It may be that it is not right to include full consideration of heritage railways in the strategy document. What I would not want is to have it done at a level down, and then decisions be taken about the overall network that impact it. I will throw that one out there, and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, can no doubt respond when he sums up at the end.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
I thank the noble Lord. I was looking at what I might say in group 7 about Amendment 118, which might well deal with that. Clearly, the access sought on the national network is access for specific trains at specific times, and therefore it is in the access and use arrangements that that is formalised. Of course, those services pay track access charges, so on the whole it is in GBR’s interest to want to run the services, providing that it is capable of finding the paths. We will come to that in Amendment 118.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
Will a definition of what a heritage railway service is be included?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I will think about that, if I may. There are various phrases, such as “tourist”, “charter” and “heritage”—I was replicating the use by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, of “heritage” to embrace all three. That is probably the best way of doing that. Some of the heritage seems questionable, as it seems to have occurred during my recent life—but I am quite old now. We are talking about heritage including both charter and tourist trains; the noble Lord nods, so I feel confident about that. I turn to Amendments 92, 95, 96A, 97A, 101, 98, 99 and 100. While I appreciate the intent of Amendment 92, it is not clear to me that the Bill needs to set out that the strategy will be 30 years’ long in legislation. We have stated a clear intent for the strategy to cover 30 years in multiple locations, including in the strategy’s factsheet, in the Bill’s explanatory notes, and at the Dispatch Box in the other place, and I confirm it again today. I also confirm that it will feature in the discussion document on the long-term rail strategy, which we have referred to. Although nothing in the Bill requires the Strategy to be 30 years’ long, I remind the noble Baroness that precedent plays a strong role in government. On amendments 95, 101 and 96A, the Bill already requires the strategy to be published, and we have also committed to the Transport Select Committee to place copies in both Houses’ Libraries and to publish a Written Ministerial Statement alongside the strategy publication, so that the contents are immediately brought to the attention of the House. Our intention is that that should also apply to any changes in the strategy. I am confident that if the strategy were to fall short of its 30-year goal or if Members of your Lordships’ House took issue with its contents, there would be many, including the noble Baroness and noble Lords present in the Committee, ready and willing to hold the Government to account, including by requesting a debate, without needing to say that in legislation. I do not agree with amendments 97A, 98, 99 and 100. One of the Government’s key ambitions is to grow passenger numbers and encourage modal shift. The passenger watchdog is valuable in recognising barriers to passenger growth, enabling the Secretary of State to prioritise tackling obstacles to it in the strategy. Wales is included as a statutory consultee because, as we discussed previously, the devolution position in Wales is different and the strategy will cover England and Wales in full. Mentioning Wales on the face of the Bill therefore demonstrates the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the Welsh Government’s views are represented. Meanwhile, our memorandum of understanding with the Scottish Government already sets out that Scotland will be engaged on the strategy, to ensure that our respective strategies are aligned, but the Bill reflects the different devolution settlements in rail. I add that the Scottish Government have consented to this Bill as drafted. While I agree that mayors play an important role in local transport planning and economic development, it is not necessary to name every single one of them as consultees on the strategy. I assure noble Lords that engagement with mayors is planned as part of the strategy’s development, and that engagement will inform the final strategy. That is made clear in the document we published today. On Amendment 98, the role of the ORR is that of a regulator and adviser. It is not for the ORR to set out priorities for the railway for 30 years; that is clearly for the Government of the day to do, and it is for the ORR to provide advice about how that vision is actioned. That is exactly what the ORR will do by providing advice on the funding and business planning processes for GBR, which will include advice on how GBR should go about achieving the wider priorities set out in the long-term strategy. The Government will engage with the ORR in the development of the strategy, as we do in the development of almost all railway publications, but this is regular business and does not require a statutory footing. On Amendment 99, the strategy is about setting out a vision for rail, including the long-term outcomes that need to be delivered to support the Government’s broader social, economic and environmental policy ambitions—for example, growing housing or improving access to jobs. Rail operators can help to deliver that vision, and they will of course be involved. As a routine matter of business, the Government engage with freight and passenger operators regularly, and we have had multiple discussions on the development of the strategy already. This has allowed them to feed in without the requirement for them to be formally consulted. They will of course also be consulted on GBR’s business plan, which will explain how the rail industry will achieve the Secretary of State’s objectives. The access and use policy deals with consultation on access decisions and service frequency. On Amendment 100 and consulting the British Transport Police, although I agree that safety and security are key for users of the railways and that the British Transport Police are critical to supporting this, the strategy will not set out operational decisions which will be more relevant to the transport police. The strategy will set out what the Secretary of State wants to achieve and GBR’s business planning will work out how to achieve her goals. That is when the engagement with the BTP will take place. On Amendment 102, the existing duties in Clause 16 already ensure that ministerial strategies will be prioritised. GBR and the ORR will be expected to demonstrate how they have considered the strategies and how their activities align with the objectives set over time. As already mentioned, GBR’s business plan will work towards delivering the long-term rail strategy and the Scottish Minister’s strategy, and will set measurable KPI targets to help it achieve the overarching long-term goals. The Secretary of State will sign off the business plan only after the ORR has confirmed that the plans align with these strategies and GBR’s other duties. I propose not to talk to Amendments 103 and 104 as I note that the noble Lord, Lansley, who is not in his place today, and I agreed last week not to repeat the debate. As I said then, I will reflect on the valuable points he has made. On Amendments 105 and 128, I briefly address the Moreton-in-Marsh transport hub collaboration that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, raised. I am a great supporter of projects such as this which seamlessly link rail and bus services, taxis, pedestrians and cyclists to reduce road traffic and congestion and, while I cannot pre-empt the community infrastructure levy process, I encourage the town council and the Great Western Railway to continue their engagement with it. I look forward to hearing more about this in the future. I hope that will do him. The Government agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the importance of integrating rail passenger services with other public transport modes, which is why we published a strategy for integrated transport in April this year that set out our ambition to create a simpler, more connected and people-focused network across England. In addition, I have also committed to the long-term rail strategy including objectives to improve the integration of railway passenger services with other modes of transport. The discussion document discusses the importance of meeting multimodal expectations and reducing end-to-end journey times and this will be a key long-term priority. We are absolutely committed to improving connectivity across the country. When noble Lords read the Secretary of State’s introduction, they will see commitment to integration set out there too. The Bill also includes practical measures to make integrated transport a reality. Both GBR and the Secretary of State will be required to promote the interests of passengers and to act in the public interest, which would absolutely include working with the providers of other transport modes to improve connectivity. In addition, as we have already discussed, GBR will have regard to local transport plans, which will naturally lead to improvements in connectivity by encouraging collaboration with mayoral strategic authorities that have responsibility for wider local transport services. The Bill also continues to enable the local devolution of railways, and the Government have published guidance to support this, creating more opportunities for integration of train and bus services. If the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is talking about the commitment in the 1993 Act, I am firmly convinced that the commitments to the mayoral combined authorities in this Bill and the other commitments that I have discussed equally meet that commitment. I will just say in passing to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, that he can have his own views about British Rail and integration but, in fact, it used to be quite good and it is the deregulation of buses outside London in 1985 that destroyed a lot of the integration over much of England. For example, railway tickets were interoperable with bus services, but that Act finished that one. I turn to Amendment 101A, from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. It was a pleasure to discuss all the issues that she spoke about today, and more, with her and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, when we met this week. Our overarching plan for the framework is that the Secretary of State sets objectives in the long-term rail strategy and GBR delivers them through an integrated plan. It is our strong view that accessibility should not be considered in isolation. Decisions about stations, rolling stock, passenger assistance, information and investment are most effective when planned together. Embedding accessibility within the long-term rail strategy rather than a separate document ensures that it informs every major decision GBR takes, rather than being treated as a stand-alone issue.
Noble Lords will see in the discussion document that improving accessibility is a key part of the objectives to evolve the passenger offer, to better meet needs and encourage more people to use the railway. I can absolutely assure the Committee that the Government are looking to engage with disability groups on the development of the strategy in the coming months. The noble Baroness has eloquently set out what should be included in an accessibility strategy; I am more than happy to take that away and discuss it further with her and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.
I should say two final things before I sit down. The noble Baroness referred to railway replacement services. The Minister for Buses in the other place and I have pursued accessibility on those services—rightly, given what she said and many people’s experiences. We are seeking to change this, and it will of course be easier with GBR. In the meantime, tomorrow morning I will raise the issue of scooter acceptance with all the operators we control.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in support of Amendment 90, which the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and I tabled, including the noble Lords, Lord Beith, Lord Berkeley and Lord Faulkner himself, the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, and my noble friends Lord Grayling, Lord Harper and Lord Moylan. I will focus my remarks on Amendment 90, but, in passing, I want to say how much I agreed with the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, in relation to her amendment, in particular the unacceptability of the fact that people who rely on certain forms of electric wheelchair or mobility scooter cannot get to Whitley Bay on the Tyne and Wear Metro. She is absolutely right to raise that, and much else, and I was heartened by the Minister’s response. Amendment 105, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Beith, on connecting services is an important one in connection with this. I mentioned that I visited the Bluebell Railway last month. Had a friend who was going to give me a lift rescinded the offer, taking the Bluebell Railway would have been the only way I could reach the campsite we were staying at. The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, was right to highlight the trials that have just been started by the Severn Valley Railway for a commuter service in rush hour. That might not be right or appropriate for every heritage railway, not least because of the extra burden it places on volunteers, but it is another reason why the Secretary of State ought to consider heritage rail services in the long-term strategy for our railways. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was right to mention the challenges of timing, both what time of day movements can happen and the short notice that is often involved. I and the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, have tabled further amendments, Amendments 222, 225 and 230, which touch on this and other issues of access, which we can return to. As the Minister rightly says, we also have Amendment 118 in a later group, which deals with the access and use policy. It was very useful to have his comments about that perhaps being a better place for a reference to heritage railways, before we turn to that debate later in the Committee’s deliberations. I am grateful to him for what he said on this group as a prelude to that and I look forward to the debate on the access and use policy that we will have. However, I note that the rail strategy set out in Clause 15 relates to the Secretary of State’s long-term strategy for “the railway services that the Secretary of State wishes to see provided in Great Britain”. We are much heartened that the present Rail Minister and the Secretary of State want to see heritage rail services continuing, but we are legislating for an Act of Parliament that will long outlast their services in Government. It would be useful to know whether every subsequent Secretary of State also wishes to see those services continuing, hence the probing that we have done there. We will return to this issue in the debate on access and use in later stages. With gratitude to the Minister and all those who have spoken, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 90.
Amendment 90 withdrawn.
Lord Katz (Lab)
My Lords, given the lateness of the hour and the nature of the topic that we will be discussing, I suggest that we adjourn the Grand Committee.
Committee adjourned at 8.50 pm.
Source: UK Parliament Hansard API. Debate ID: 5408640.