Lords Chamber

Tuesday 7th July 2026

(began 3 weeks, 2 days ago)

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None Portrait Oral questions: British industry and services: public procurement
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My Lords, I beg leave to ask the question. Standing in my name on the Order Paper.
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None Portrait Oral questions: Findings by the National Crime Agency regarding an international network of men who are drugging and sexually assaulting women
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For Oral Question Baroness Hazarika. standing in my name on the Order Paper. >> Sexual violence has a devastating impact on victims and
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Baroness Smith of Basildon Portrait Baroness Smith of Basildon, Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal (Labour)
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Street, I met some of the mothers and adult adoptees harmed by historical adoption practices in historical adoption practices in England. They are here with us in the gallery today, and I had the chance to talk to them privately. chance to talk to them privately. They are the most remarkable women, and I know the whole House will want to join me in paying tribute want to join me in paying tribute to the extraordinary courage with which they have shared the harrowing testimonies and fought for the truth time and time again.

I have to confess that, as I said to those mothers this morning, I found it hard to read the testimonies and to hear their stories. I find it particularly hard as a dad, but how much harder it must have been for them to go through that, to set out the testimonies and to tell their stories over and over again. As they said to me this morning, this is something which is so intensely private, having to be public, the courage and resilience they have shown and others alongside them is absolutely incredible.

And I want to mark that. What happened to them and to tens of thousands of mothers, children's and families should never have happened. It is a stain on our history. Mothers, many young, vulnerable and without support were coerced, bullied or misled into feeling they had no choice but to have their children taken from them. What a thing to do. These were not isolated or accidental acts. They were practices embedded within the systems, across local authorities, across voluntary and faith based institutions, and in health and social care services, including parts of what is now the NHS.

They were all institutions operated with power over people's lives, yet they did so without compassion, without consent, and without dignity or proper safeguards. These practices were particularly prevalent between 1949 and 1976, but also extended beyond those years. In some cases, women, including those placed in mother and baby homes and other institutional settings, were cut off from their families relationships, from education and employment, and subjected to harsh and isolating conditions. Some experienced treatment that amounted to exploitation and abuse.

Many were made to feel ashamed. That came through very, very powerfully in the discussions I had this morning, silenced and unworthy of care or dignity. Children grew up believing that they were unwanted. Young mothers were told that they were immoral and that their babies were better off without them. As they told me this morning, that lasts a lifetime and has a huge impact. An Lord Keen is in the gallery. It, of course, formerly of this House described to the Education Committee how she was stitched without anaesthetic and was told you will remember the pain.

You've been a bad girl. Many of those harmed in this way feel a gut wrenching sense of shame, and others have said that this has stayed with them. She says that she still feels it today. I know that this apology will not be able to lift it completely. It will help a little, I hope, but it will not lift it completely. I say this to Anne, to everyone with us in the gallery, and to all those impacted and affected, that wherever they are in the country, there are many thousands of them, including some who still to this day have not been able to speak about what happened to them.

I hope that this statement and apology perhaps gives some of them the confidence to speak about what happened to them, because it will help in a small way. The shame is not yours, the shame is ours. And I say that on behalf of the whole country, and I say it to every single person impacted, we are deeply and profoundly sorry to the mothers who were told they were unfit, who were prevented from caring for the children they desperately wanted to help and to keep, and who have carried this loss for decades to those who have not given the information they needed to provide informed consent, who faced pressure or coercion, who experienced practices that were unethical to the sons and daughters.

The children who are now adults who, through pressure and coercion within these systems, were taken from their families and denied their identity, their history, and sometimes their safety. To those who grew up believing they were unwanted, some of whom were even told directly that they were second class. To those who have carried a burden of loss, confusion and stigma, or who experienced neglect and abuse without the protection or oversight that should have been there. Right? To those who have experienced lifelong uncertainty, loss, or questions about identity and belonging, or whose mental and physical health, relationships and sense of self across their lives has been affected.

To the fathers who were denied a voice, excluded from decisions, or separated from their children, to the siblings, grandparents, partners, extended families and future generations who have lived with the consequences of these practices to those who experienced harm from these practices, even while being brought up in loving homes by their adoptive parents, and to those who adopted across borders or cultures who lost connections to their heritage and racial and personal identity, and to those from ethnic minority backgrounds who experience racism or are treated differently within those systems, and who, as a group, were less likely to be adopted or grow up in stable family homes.

I am struck by the words of of Debbie I who met this morning. She says she was raised with racist views towards her own biological family. How do you even begin to comprehend that? To each and every one of those affected, we collectively say a deep and heartfelt sorry. Let me be clear and unequivocal. Those harms were compounded by the actions and the failures of the state. Governments funded, enable and relied on systems that were not consistently or effectively overseen.

The state did not prevent harm from continuing. The state bears responsibility for the systems it funded and legitimised, which enabled those practices to occur. The state did not do enough to protect mothers, children and families from harm. And for that systemic failing, I'm truly sorry. Many of those affected have suffered a further injustice. They have had to fight for basic human right to know their own story. As Sally Els puts it, we are treated as if the information about our own lives does not belong to us.

Debbie. I was told her birth mother's life would be in danger if she tried to search for her. Barriers were put in place every twist and turn records have in some cases been lost, altered or not been made fully accessible to those seeking answers. And the whole process is painfully slow, traumatic and dehumanising all over again. We are. We say we're sorry and we mean it, but sorry is not enough. This must also be the start of real change, working with those affected and their families to improve access to records and provide the care and support that people need.

So today, I can tell the House that we will fund the development of a national online resource, creating a single access point to locate records wherever they might be held across the country. We will consult on requiring existing records to be retained for 100 years, so they remain available across the lifetime of those affected. Today, the Education Secretary is writing to all local authorities, regional adoption agencies and voluntary adoption agencies, setting out the expectation that requests for records should be responded to swiftly and with compassion and consistency.

We will expand access to fully funded intermediary services, with a particular focus on pre 1976 cases where access to support is currently the most limited. We will establish national virtual peer led support groups for mothers and adopted adults to improve access to ongoing trauma informed support across the country, and we will work with NHS England to ensure those affected are taken seriously when they seek help. That includes new support for clinicians to better understand the impact of forced adoption and respond appropriately in their care.

NHS England will also explore how those who wish to do so can have their experience of forced adoption, appropriately recorded in the health record. Finally, to further recognise those affected and ensure we learn the lessons of the past, we will commission a testimonials project to capture the stories of those with experience of historical forced adoption practices. For all of this and more, we will continue to meet regularly with those who have lived experience. We will be guided by them to get this support right and learn from our past that nothing like this can ever happen again in this country.

Finally, this national apology reflects and builds on the approaches taken by Scotland and Wales, whose devolved governments have also issued apologies for these practices, and we fully endorse that. I welcome the process underway in Northern Ireland to establish a statutory public inquiry into mother and baby institutions, Magdalene laundries and workhouses. I also thank the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Education Committee for all they have done to shine a light on this injustice. But most of all, I want to thank those who have campaigned for so long to have the truth recognised, including those that are no longer with us, to hear the apology they fought for.

It should never have happened and have not, should not have had to fight so hard for this day to come. Today.
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Baroness Cash Portrait Baroness Cash (Conservative)
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Finally, I say, on behalf of the state and the nation as a whole, we see you, we hear you, and we are see you, we hear you, and we are truly sorry. I commend this statement to the House. >> The.

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The. My Lords, I sincerely thank the Lord Privy Seal for repeating the statement and taking the time to statement and taking the time to read it today, as made by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons. These benches associate ourselves fully and without reservation with the apology. The statement contains. My Lords, the scale and pain of the harm is impossible to comprehend. 185,000 children taken between 1949 and 1976. Perhaps more, the Prime Minister fears the records understate the number from mothers who were coerced, bullied or misled into giving them up to imagine the brutality of mothers being stitched without anaesthetic as a punishment and told they deserved it.

To think of those nearly 200,000 children across our nation growing up believing they were unwanted. Some who have given evidence, like Debbie, that they were raised with racist attitudes towards their own family of origin. Grief has followed all of them through a lifetime of everyday cruelties. The Prime Minister spoke of mothers who still dread the simplest question do you have children? The damage is irreparable, and that there's been an apology at all is down to the mothers and the adopted children who have campaigned tirelessly over many years to raise awareness of the scandal over a decades.

My Lords, I wish to pay tribute to their courage, in particular to the founder of the movement for adoption apology, Veronica Smith, who sadly died before she could hear the words. She fought 16 years for. And also I pay tribute to those who repeatedly, repeatedly had to give evidence and relive their trauma before the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Education Committee testimony. Among the most harrowing. This Parliament has ever heard. The Prime Minister was candid that an apology is not enough, and I agree with that.

The measures he announced, however, are genuinely welcomed. The records platform, the consultation on retaining records for 100 years and the undertaking to help locate the graves of babies who died in the homes. It's so awful to say, and so little so late. But as the surviving mothers are now in their 70s 80s and 90s, time is of the essence, and we need to know that these steps will happen promptly. So I know that the Lord Privy Seal will understand that I have some questions about these particular matters on the records platform.

The Prime Minister said in answer to questions that it would happen as quickly as possible. Can the Lord Privy Seal give the House a meaningful timeline? And of course, data helps. Nobody who does not know it exists, and those affected. For some of them, they have never yet spoken from shame about what happened to them. So if the Lord Privy Seal would be able to help the House with how the government will communicate that this information may be available to them.

Many babies were sent to homes across our internal borders between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so we would be grateful to know from the Lord Privy Seal how information will be tracked between the devolved nations and where many records sit at the moment, how they will be communicated. Then, on support for victims, there is to be a funding of 4 million over three years, which we welcome, but the need is going to be lifelong. The Education Committee recommended a dedicated mental health support pathway.

While the package offers guidance for clinicians instead. And so I was curious whether whether the Lord Privy Seal can tell us why that recommendation was was adopted instead of the mental health support pathway, and what survivors will be offered in its place on redress. The Prime Minister told the Other place that the government are looking at redress schemes. These two. We would welcome. Can the Lord Privy Seal expand on what he meant by that? What is being considered and when any appraisal will be published.

My Lords, we are yet again shamed as a nation. Giving evidence to the Education Committee this March. Ann Lloyd Keen, already quoted by the Prime Minister, asked a question of her own. Why do we have to keep repeating our evidence? The Prime Minister, when answering questions on his statement, identified the reason he said, and I agree. We got this wrong as a state. So often we circle the wagons and protect the decision makers and wrongdoers.

Instead of asking ourselves the question where is the injustice here and how do we put it right? That has to change because it has happened in this case and others. All those words are the Prime Minister's, and I agree with them wholeheartedly. My Lords, the Prime Minister is right. The House. This House knows only too well the scandals. Infected blood with the risks were known from the 1940s. The Post Office, which prosecuted a thousand innocent people. The grooming gangs were. 16 years of recommendations were actioned.

Nottingham were a statutory duty of candour. Has banned every NHS trust since 19 since, sorry 2014. And yet here we are again with the Ockenden review finding ten days ago that 520 mothers and babies suffered potentially avoidable harm. 162 died and nearly half the trust senior directors simply refused to engage. It seems as in this terrible scandal, that neither codes nor duties, nor even laws are enough to stop this institutional rot. And even with the proposed Public Office Accountability Bill, I fear that deeper cultural change is needed.

And I say this in a collaborative, supportive spirit to the Lord Privy Seal to please tell us what the government is going to do to change the culture, attitudes and behaviours of our public sector employees so that they start by asking the Prime Minister's question, how do we put this right? Instead of how do we protect the decision makers or the wrongdoers? Nothing the state does now can ever right the profound wrongs done to these mothers, their children and their families.

But we can and we must deliver the sport support they still need. I look forward to the response of the Lord Privy Seal.
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Lord Mohammed of Tinsley Portrait Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (Liberal Democrat)
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Yes. >> My Lord. Can I also thank the Lord Privy Seal. >> For. >> Repeating the statement? I think it was moving to hear, particularly the examples of the parents and the mothers, and it just absolutely. Was. It was difficult to hear, particularly those young mums who were basically stitched back together again without any help and support. It was really moving. And you know something? It's a dark period in our nation's history that we have to acknowledge.

And on these benches we warmly welcome the government's apology. It is long overdue. For decades, thousands of mothers, children and families have lived with the pain of what happened. Women were made to feel ashamed simply because they had children outside of marriage. Many were put under enormous pressure, as we heard earlier, to give up their babies, the ones they loved and they wanted to keep at a time when they needed compassion and support the most. Too many instead face judgement, cohesion and silence.

The state actually helped create the conditions in which this happened. And it's right that this has finally now been recognised. I also want to pay tribute to the mothers, adoptees and campaigners who never give up. For years we've fought to have their voices heard and their experiences acknowledged, and they've shown remarkable courage in speaking up about events, about what caused lifelong grief and trauma to them. Sadly, as we heard, some of them are no longer with us. However, they've long campaigned for this, and it's a reminder of how long sometimes justice can take and an apology matters.

It's important step, but it will mean a great deal for many people. But it cannot be the end of the story, my Lords. It must be followed by practical actions that help those still living with the consequences of those historic wrongs. We welcome the measures announced, including improvements to access to adoption records, better support from the NHS. Those are positive steps and we hope they will make a real difference to people who have spent decades searching for answers and trying to reconnect with their families.

I do have some questions for the Lord Privy Seal. Firstly, on mental health support. Many of the people affected have lived with the trauma for more than 50 years. Some have struggled with anxiety, depression and unresolved grief throughout their adult life. Others may not only feel able to come forward because the government has finally acknowledged what happened to them. So can the Lord Privy Seal tell the House what dedicated funding will be available for specialist, trauma informed mental health support? Just as importantly, how will the government ensure that survivors can access that support wherever they live, rather than being left to rely on overstretched local health services? Secondly, on the record adoption records, we know that many mothers still face long delays and unnecessary barriers when trying to find information about their families.

Records remain scattered across local authorities, charities and voluntary organisations, many of which are already under significant pressure. So can the Lord Privy Seal say a bit more about the government's ambitions for a properly funded, centralised digital system that will bring records together, making it easier and more consistent for families to access information where possible, reconnect. And finally, the Joint Committee on Human Rights encouraged the government to consider the approach taken by other countries, including Ireland and Australia, where financial redress has been introduced.

We recognise that decisions on compensation ultimately for the government. However, can the Lord Privy Seal confirm that Ministers will continue to examine the experiences of those countries carefully and keep the question of financial redress under active consideration? My Lords, this was a deeply shameful chapter in our history. It affected not only mothers but children, fathers, grandfathers and whole families whose lives have changed forever. While we cannot undo the suffering that was caused, we can ensure that those affected are treated with dignity, compassion, respect they should always have received.

The government's apology is an important milestone. They should also be the beginning of a wider commitment to justice. Survivors deserve support, straightforward access to truth about their own lives. Confidence in the government will continue to work with them in the years ahead. This is how we can begin to rebuild trust and ensure that this painful chapter is never forgotten and never repeated.
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Baroness Smith of Basildon Portrait Baroness Smith of Basildon, Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal (Labour)
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Again. for their comments and for the welcome statement and nobody quite right. The apologies. I started the process and I think we all agree that everyone has waited too long for this. Whenever I've read this, I've spoken to women I know have been affected. I always go back to that frightened young woman who finds that she's pregnant, and society, and often her family are not willing to support her, and society as a whole was complicit in this, in that the way we treated as a whole, women who were single, who were young, who were scared and didn't know where to turn, and the very organisations and that they thought could help them were the ones that they suffered most at the hands of.

And, you know, you just have to hear these stories. I think we all felt quite emotional hearing some of those tales. Just imagine living through it. So noble, noble Lord, right to pay tribute to those women and the adoptees for what they have gone through. There's a number of issues to address there, and I can say some. The noble Lady talked about behavioural change in public sector employees. It wasn't just public sector employees, it was across society. I remember speaking to one lady who was telling me that her relationship with her mother never recovered after this because her mother allowed her to go and also forced her to go into the home.

So the repercussions have been through family life, through generations. And trying to address that. You can never there's nothing you can do or say that can change. That hurts been done. But we can try and do something to make a difference. The issue about records is nobody's right to challenge you, mum, because records are held in different formats by different organisations across the country. So bringing those together is going to be quite something to achieve. To get them in one place I think is absolutely crucial and we're focussed very much on.

And he asked about compensation, redress. We're really led by those who've been affected. And I think it's the three biggest things this this package of support. One is that improving access to and safeguarding adoption records and getting them into one place so they can be accessed, expanding access, including mental health, access to specialist services, but also reconnection services to help those who want to trace their families to do so, and improving access to NHS services. This isn't about individual compensation we're seeking to do is give the support they need.

I don't think there's any money at all in the world that can address the kind of hurt and problems that have been caused by this, the can I just say? Lord Brady asked about what was the support. Some of that is in place already. I mentioned to a family connect, which is already expanding the use of a national advice line because there's no point having information available that's not easy to access. So we're funding intermediary services, effectively funding family finding services for historical adoption cases, because I think people need support and help to navigate their way around the information.

But the more we can get it into one place, it's going to be much easier to access them. And also through Family Connect, we'll have a national peer and support group offer as well. The support to be there. The trauma services in the NHS, there is a specific kind of trauma that noble Lord references. I think we have to have to recognise, and we'll get this through guidance in the NHS and specific tools to recognise the experience of those affected by the historical forced adoptions, so clinicians can better understand the impact of how it's impacted because it impacts on different people in different ways.

But giving clinicians that information and also set up a range of support that may be relevant. And there's got to be some kind of consistency of care through GP services. One of the things that's always been a problem for those who are forced adoptees is knowing the family medical history, because that's going to be so important, and there may be a medical condition later in life. And knowing your family's medical history beforehand is absolutely crucial. So we are going to give the option of a marker to put a marker as a person wishes on their NHS record.

So that's something the clinicians can take into account. The other thing I'd just like to reference, well, first of all, I'd say all of this has to be led and have a strong input from those who are directly affected, because we can all stand here and say what we think is appropriate. But if you've been part of the cohort, whether you're a mother, whether you're an adoptee, you know how you've been affected and you need to lead on what is needed. Another important part is the issue of testimonials that people that want to tell their story, either to be acknowledged personally and say or not just do so privately.

So that can be recorded. And the mood in this House, when I read out that statement, you felt the temperature lower. Anyone who heard it in the House of Commons last week would have seen an unusual degree of support. Across the House, particularly, women gave their personal stories to be able to to do that and bring people together, I think is something very important. So the testimonials, I think is a really important way forward. So my Lords, you know, this is a start of a process to recognise the hurt, to apologise for the state's role in it, but also do whatever we can to try and bring all these measures I've spoken about into being as quickly as possible.

There's no there'll be absolutely no delay. I think what the lady was hinting at, I think she will know from the tone of the statement and the work that's gone on before this was brought forward, there's a determination across government to ensure we do what we can now to address and try to give some redress for the for the problems

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and the wrongs of the past. My Lord. The.

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My Lord. The. My Lords, before we move on, can I remind the House that the next 20 minutes are reserved for questions from backbenchers only? I know the from backbenchers only? I know the whole House would appreciate these rules being adhered to to ensure as many noble Lords as possible get a many noble Lords as possible get a suitable opportunity to ask questions to the Lord Privy Seal. Thank you.

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Thank you. I thank the noble Baroness, the Lord Privy Seal, for the tone and the manner in which she has repeated the Prime Minister's statement in your Lordships House this afternoon. She'll be aware that in 2022, the Joint Committee
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Lord Alton of Liverpool Portrait Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench)
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on Human Rights described forced adoption as, I quote, the violation of family life, and I'm glad that of family life, and I'm glad that it's recommendation that the state should recognise its culpability has been accepted. It's been a has been accepted. It's been a pleasure to interact with Helen Hayes, member of Parliament for Dulwich and West Norwood, who's the Dulwich and West Norwood, who's the admirable chair of the Education Committee. In another place, my Lords, is the noble Baroness aware. Lords, is the noble Baroness aware.

But our 2022 report also called for more concrete action. It asked for much wider provision of counsellors to provide post-adoption support, help for families to access adoption records and to find out important medical information and improvements in the way in which intermediaries operate to support contact between family members when that is wanted. It also called for the government to find ways to alert those mothers who wish to be told in the very sad and painful situation where an adopted child has died.

Actions, of course, are always more convincing than words. When harm has been done, my Lords, perhaps the leader would write to the Joint Committee on Human Rights to say how the government is now addressing those challenges. And given that one of our other recommendations, following a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cash, is the early implementation of the Public Accountability Bill, perhaps you can tell the House why that legislation continues to be stalled, when we would hope to see the so-called Hillsborough law on the statute books to stop the circling of the wagons, as the Prime Minister rightly put it.
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Baroness Smith of Basildon Portrait Baroness Smith of Basildon, Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal (Labour)
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Yes. very much valued the work of our findings, Joint Committee's findings, and that that and the Education Committee's work has informed the package that has come through. And I do think the first for me, the first step seems to be to have as much information as possible in a central place, and he will understand how challenging that is going to be. But the determination and the work going into that now to ensure that can happen. Well, I think address a lot of the points that he raised on that.

In answer to the Hillsborough bill, I think the only delays have been to get it right. You know, he will know from his experience and people he has spoken to about this, the complexities in this area. When I was a Northern Ireland Minister a very long time ago now, in the last Labour government, I initiated a report into the deaths of a number of children who died in hospital for a condition called Hyponatraemia. And there was, it felt, not full information was given to the parents.

The report followed from that and one of the first recommendations the report. Why I'm never entirely happy with public inquiries took something like 17 years. I was in your Lordships House before the report came was published, but one of the first things was a duty of candour. And part of that isn't to say that people are not given information, it's to protect those who want to come forward with information because they are doing the right thing and their duty. So but it's a complex area.

So the only delays is trying to get it right and make sure we address the points that have to be addressed, because such a lot of that has to work properly. Otherwise, if it's if it's ineffective, it serves no purpose. It's just want to get to that, right.
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Baroness Smith of Basildon Portrait Baroness Smith of Basildon, Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal (Labour)
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I don't know if the noble Lady heard that part of the statement, heard that part of the statement, but the Education Secretary has written to local authorities, adoption agencies, where we have adoption agencies, where we have information to say they must keep the records. So that work is starting now because, you know, times have changed. And the organisations that have records, we want them to offer up those records to bring them centrally and ensure that as much information is available.

But I think 100 years seems the appropriate time. But she is right to reference the impact on families through generations. I'm of an age where I can remember friends from school, not many who had children, sometimes with a loving support from their families. And they kept the child and we saw them at school and events. But others who went away and you didn't hear anything about it, you know, just disappeared for a while. And I'm sure I'm not the only one in this house who has those kinds of memories.

And thinking back, we think we didn't really understand then what happened. But for them all those years later, they will still be living that. So I think 100 years retention of records is appropriate. I don't think we want to have a particularly long consultation. We want to ensure we can get on with that as quickly as possible. So I can't give an exact timescale, but I can assure her there is nothing here that anybody wants to see any delay on.
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Lord Bishop of Winchester Portrait The Lord Bishop of Winchester (Bishops)
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I welcome the Prime Minister's apology last week, and thank the Lord Privy Seal for reading it with Lord Privy Seal for reading it with such empathy and compassion. The House will be aware, I'm sure, that last month, Archbishop Sarah issued an apology for the Church of England's involvement in these practices and specifically for the pain, trauma and stigma experienced and still carried by many people as a result, she said. What the Prime Minister also said in his apology the shame is ours, not yours.

So today I add my voice to and apologising to all people who experience loss or receive poor care in homes affiliated to the Church of England, where the mothers or adoptees. We are deeply sorry. The Diocese of Winchester ran a maternity home alongside a small number of other shelters, and today I want to pay significant tribute to those people for whom this was lived experience and who have shared and recorded their own painful and very moving stories with us, with great courage and great grace over many months.

As a result, we're holding a service at Saint Bartholomew's Church this Saturday, the 11th of July, so that people can gather together to reflect, lament and be present for the unveiling of a plaque. And to anyone listening who is affected, please know you can speak to your local vicar or contact your local diocese. They will, I trust, listen sensitively, offer pastoral support and in some cases may suggest you seek specialist services. Pastoral support matters, but in some instances, access to professional therapeutic services will be required.

So could the Minister describe what financial support might be allocated to increase capacity amongst professionals, providers of such support?
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Baroness Smith of Basildon Portrait Baroness Smith of Basildon, Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal (Labour)
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I'm grateful to the right Reverend Prelate, and for the way that he and the Archbishop of Canterbury have issued their Canterbury have issued their apologies as well. I think when we say and we rightly say, the shame isn't theirs, it's ours, we ought to say how much pride we have in those women who have spoken out. This isn't an easy thing to do, because many of them still felt the shame of those years ago. And I think society has moved on.

But we should recognise, I think, the pride we take in them and how they should feel pride in themselves for for the way they have campaigned to get to this point. There's a number of areas where there's extra funding, whether it's an improvement in the adoption and care services we have at present, improvements in mental health provision as well with with increased mental health spending by an extra six to a record £16.1 billion. And the need is there for this particular area.

I think I've already asked around some of the specialist services, particularly by working with the NHS that will be available. I hope as more women come forward, we will be able. The shame that they felt in the past will start to recede for them, because to carry that shame for so long is something that must be so debilitating in everyday life. So I hope by moving forward, we can actually try to just change the culture of how these women feel because they've carried too much and too heavy a burden for far too long.

My Lord.
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire Portrait Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Liberal Democrat)
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There are painful personal interest. My mother was working as interest. My mother was working as a volunteer for the Church of England Moral Welfare in the 1950s. I didn't fully understand what it I didn't fully understand what it was about, and I now look back at that very inhibited and illiberal period in our society. And this was part of what was so inhibited. The Church of England in those days preached that sex was sinful, and there were a whole range of other things.

Since then, we have become a far more liberal society, and the position of women in our society in particular, has been changed radically. I look at my daughter's opportunities compared to those my older sisters, and I'm delighted. Does the Minister not think that we now need to think about the broader social context of the sort of society we live in now that our liberal society is under attack by misogynistic movements, both in the United States and in Europe, certainly very strongly on social media, and that we all in different parties need to defend the principles of private life, of toleration, of the rights of women, as well as of men from the attacks which are coming from reactionary

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forces on all sides of the Atlantic. Noble Lord, I would correct him. I don't think the church ever I don't think the church ever preached that sex was sinful. It was only sinful. He didn't have got a wedding ring. I think they were a wedding ring. I think they were quite happy about it. Once the wedding ceremony had taken place. wedding ceremony had taken place. But it was a site in cultural issue. He's right on that. And, you know, as I said before, I think parents colluded in that because of the
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, Minister of State (Department for Transport) (Labour)
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today. Before turning to the substance of the Bill, I would like to acknowledge that today marks the 21st anniversary of the 2005 attacks on London's transport network. As a former Commissioner of Transport for London, my of Transport for London, my thoughts are with those who were and continue to be affected by that day. I also pay tribute to the day. I also pay tribute to the extraordinary courage and resilience of Londoners, including those in emergency services, transport staff and members of the transport staff and members of the public who responded in the face of events which were completely shocking to this bill.

My Lords, this bill has been a long time coming and it's my absolute privilege to speak to it today. I look forward to to the debate to come on the detail, but for now, I'll speak to the bill in general terms, the need for reform of our railways is clear. Parliament, including noble Lords in this chamber, regularly draw attention to service shortfalls, poor and inconsistent customer service and very substantial costs costs for the taxpayer. All realities that ion this government accept, and which stem from the fragmented system that has been in place for decades, and which leaves no one but the Secretary of State ultimately responsible.

No one takes responsibility when things go wrong. Indeed, it was the noble Lord Lord Grayling who first commissioned the independent review by Keith Williams that would lead to the recommendation to create GBR Great British Railways. After the timetable fiasco in 2018. The issues are myriad. Passengers are consistently faced with a confusing ticketing system, which we're seeking. The fairest price and a valid ticket are often a trial, and the timetable and performance to it is a source of disagreement and chaos, meaning disruption and cancellations are far more frequent than they should be, thanks to reforms this government has already made via the Passenger Railway Services Public Ownership Act, which your Lordships' House gave assent to in 2024.

We are already beginning to see progress. Nine passenger train operators are now in public hands and performance amongst public sector operators is outstripping those still in private hands. More operators are continuing to move into public ownership regularly. Once all these services are in house, the taxpayer will save up to £150 million a year in fees that would otherwise have been paid to private franchise owners. Passengers will also find more money in their pockets due to the first rail fares freeze in 30 years, but these measures aren't enough.

Much more work still needs to be done. There is only one solution to fix these problems fix the railways, put the customer first, and restore the industry to a place of national pride. And it's this bill. This bill builds on and replaces the Public Ownership Act. That act was a vital step that allowed us to bring passenger services into public ownership and proceed with some degree of integration. This bill goes further and will give the Secretary of State the powers to create Great British Railways, one public body that will act as the directing mind for the railway.

GBR will bring together 17 different organisations involved in the day to day running of the railway, harmonising track and train, and seizing opportunities that would not be possible under the current system. And the Bill does far more than just establish GBR. One essential element is the powerful voice of passengers in the form of the passenger watchdog. The watchdog will set consumer standards for the railways, investigate poor service and provide an independent ombudsman service to resolve disputes between passengers and operators, including GBR and its subsidiaries.

It will have a specific duty to consider the interests of disabled passengers and will have tools to act where there are repeated issues affecting passenger experience. The watchdog will be a champion for passengers passenger interests, ensuring that the reformed railways deliver on the promises to passengers we make here today, I'd like to speak about accessibility and underline that it will be at the heart of what GBR is and does. I know that passengers with accessibility needs often find rail railway travel challenging, frustrating and distressing.

I know that all too frequently facilities and assistance don't meet expectations, so accessibility will be part of GBR DNA. For the first time, an accessibility duty will apply directly to a body responsible for both the operation of passenger services and the management of railway infrastructure, information fares and ticketing have in many ways become the face of the industry's problems, with many different websites offering conflicting information and fares. The bill enables GBR to simplify the customer offer. A new GBR ticketing app and website will make it easier to plan journeys, purchase tickets and access a range of support consistently in one place.

GBR online retailer will charge no booking fees, and it will enable disabled passengers to book passenger assist in the same place as their ticket. This means in the future, passengers can better understand the fare system and be confident what they're getting is correct and good value. The railway hasn't had the ability to plan ahead for many years, leading to much less than optimal spend on railway enhancements and higher project costs. That's why the bill also requires the Secretary of State to publish a long term railway strategy.

The strategy will be the first of its kind. It will give GBR clear direction on the government's priorities for the railway over the next 30 years. It will guide the long term choices GBR makes, ensuring that the railway is aligned with wider government goals such as economic growth, jobs and homes, and the environment. The railway undoubtedly faces challenges ranging from climate change to technological change, and demographic demographic shifts to financial sustainability. And that's exactly what the long term strategy will examine and consider.

The bill gives GBR and its stakeholders the tools to solve these challenges, placing them on the front foot from the very beginning, and obliges GBR to consult on and publish a business plan, setting out how it will meet the strategy. I'll turn now to network access. The existing process of allowing access to the track, the valuable infrastructure owned by the nation just doesn't work. Currently, Network Rail designs the timetable, but the Office of Rail and Road takes access decisions, and both organisations suffer from not having sight of the wider context of the network.

Applications to run trains on the network are, in effect, considered on a first come, first served basis, rather than by reference to any long term plan for how to make the best overall use of the network. And no one is considering which services are actually best for the public. That's bad for passengers, bad for freight users, bad for taxpayers, and it's bad for the economy. A single directing mind is the only answer to this problem. In the future, GBR will be able to strategically plan access to the network and implement a reliable, achievable timetable to make best use of our limited capacity.

This improved coordination will reduce delays, reduce costs and improve reliability. It will stop nonsenses like the ORR prohibiting the oh 700 Manchester Piccadilly to Euston from carrying passengers and me as rail Minister, having to authorise the East Coast main line timetable. And, crucially, the ORR will hold GBR to account for taking fair and even handed decisions on access, ensuring that it acts lawfully, fairly and reasonably. I am sure we will discuss this at length during the debates on this bill.

Moving on to devolution, this bill is not about centralising power. Quite the opposite. In fact, it brings a whole host of benefits to the devolved nations and regional governments across the country. In Scotland and Wales, the Bill enables further collaboration with the Scottish and Welsh governments, with Transport Scotland and Transport for Wales, including further potential for the integration of both operations and infrastructure which can which can lead to improved services and coordination within and across our shared borders. In England. The Bill empowers GBR to work in a more integrated and accountable way locally and to address the place making and economic and spatial development plans of strategic authority mayors.

This means a statutory basis for structured partnerships with major strategic authorities, and a duty for GBR to have regard to their local plans. The approach enables a full range of partnership options, enabling ensuring that GBR can reach agreements that are suitable for those ambitions of mayors. This includes the ability for mayoral strategic authorities to directly fund GBR activity. There will be clear expectations for GBR to meaningfully engage with all local authorities, both with and without mayors. GBR will in any case be more locally focussed with its local business units directly involved in the areas they serve and with local management engaged with local people and their elected representatives, meaning that the needs of the community are never ignored.

I want to highlight and underline the benefits this bill will bring to rail freight, which is and will remain a commercial activity critical to improving economic growth and meeting our net zero targets. GBR will have not one but two statutory duties regarding freight. The first is to promote rail freight and second, to have regard to the statutory rail freight target set by the Secretary of State and any freight target set by Scottish Ministers. GBR will be well placed as the single strategic body to fulfil our ambitions for freight and have the levers to drive progress towards our set targets.

Before I close, I would like to say how I'm looking forward to hearing the valedictory words of the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, later on. He has dedicated his life to public service, and I am pleased that this bill, Second Reading, provides the opportunity to hear his remarks. My Lord, this is a major. My Lords, this is a major step forward, and whilst it will undoubtedly require a detailed scrutiny of its contents, something I'm looking forward to taking on, it's also something I know I have the support of the general public in doing.

Public ownership of our railway continues to be popular, with over three quarters of the public consistently supporting public ownership since this government was elected. As I opened the debate to the floor, I would like to leave noble Lords with a final thought. The fragmented nature of the railway industry is plain to see, and it needs to change that fragmentation began with the last major railway legislation in 1993, which resulted in over 100 companies being formed. This bill establishes just one, a single directing mind that can get to grips with the mess, mismanagement, the misery so many rail users have experienced for years.

We can together rebuild the railway so that the public can

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finally have a railway they can be proud of. I beg to move. That this bill be now read a

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That this bill be now read a second time. My Lords, may I. First declare my interest as a

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First declare my interest as a member of the GWR Stakeholder Advisory Board, a board that is ably and knowledgeably chaired by ably and knowledgeably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Falconer of Worcester. Can I join my voice to Worcester. Can I join my voice to the remarks that the noble Lord the Minister has made in relation to the 21st anniversary of those terrible attacks on our transport system? Can I also reference the fact that this is the debate in
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Baroness May of Maidenhead Portrait Baroness May of Maidenhead (Conservative)
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which the noble Lord Lord Wilson of Dinton will be making his valedictory speech? He and I have not overlapped for long in this in not overlapped for long in this in this chamber and didn't overlap in government, but I know that he brought to this House his brought to this House his experience as a distinguished public servant, and he will be missed. My Lords, when I became a Member of Parliament, I did not expect to spend so much time dealing with the issues of trains.

dealing with the issues of trains. I did so not just as Shadow Secretary of State for transport for a period, but also because my constituents, a lot of my constituents, were commuters and the train service mattered to them. But I had the advantage of dealing with those issues. In an era of privatisation. I remember British Rail. I always used to say that British Rail was run for the interests of those who enjoyed playing trains, rather than the interests of passengers. Privatisation changed that because for the companies, the service to passengers mattered.

And as a local member of Parliament, I was able to work with the train operating companies first Thames Trains, then GWR to ensure that services were improved, timetables were changed, new trains were put on in the interests of local people. That ability is going to be wiped away by this Bill and by the creation of Great British Railways. It is an issue. I argued with Keith Williams when he was producing his report, and I recognise on this side of the House our hands are not entirely clean in relation to the concept of Great British Railways, albeit with differences from the Bill that this government is introducing.

But what is being created here is not something that puts the customer first, but a centralised bureaucracy that will determine all the issues that matter to passengers, fares and train times and the timetable. And so it is not putting the customer first. I say to the Minister, but I fear that it is, in fact, putting the passenger last. Now, that relates to my second concern with this bill, which is about accountability and interference. First of all, I worry that this bill is removing yet further powers of the Office of Rail and Road to hold the railways to account, and to hold Great British Railways to account.

I remember when Tom Winsor was the rail regulator and a rather determined rail regulator. He was too. But after him things got a little bit mushy. The teeth were drawn from the Office of Rail and Road as it became, and I fear the teeth are going to be further drawn in this bill. And then there is the aspect, and that matters, particularly because of the aspect to the attention to which has been drawn by the Transport Select Committee in the other place, who fear micromanagement of the railways by the Secretary of State, because this bill gives considerable opportunities for the Secretary of State to interfere with Great British Railways and to and to make determinations which otherwise should be being made in the interests of passengers.

And my third concern is this last week the new Member of Parliament for Makerfield, who, it is widely assumed will soon be our Prime Minister, made a speech in which he applauded and spoke up for the interests of. Place, of locality, of that sense of belonging to an area of local identity. This bill sweeps away the ideas of local identity in our railways because it centralises those decisions. It sweeps away the traditional historical names of and regional concepts of structures for our railways.

And the Minister will not be the noble Lord. The Minister will not be surprised to hear me say this, because I have said it to him on a number of occasions, and obviously I am concerned about this issue. The symbolism of this is perhaps best seen in the fact that suddenly all the trains are going to be repainted in the colours of the Union Jack and the livery. The traditional liveries will go. Not only will that cost the taxpayer money completely unnecessarily, but it's as if somebody in the Department of Transport, maybe the Minister or civil servant, or perhaps a special adviser, has suggested that actually, if we're going to make a change, people need to see there's a change.

So let's repaint all the all the trains. People will know there's a change when their services are no longer as good as they should be. They will know there's a change when they can no longer raise their voice, and their MP and others can take that up and work with the companies to bring about a change and an improvement in their services. So what does this bill do? Well, far from prioritising passengers, it prioritises government. Far from increasing accountability, it reduces it.

Far from creating independence. I think it creates dependence far from localising it centralises and far from respecting local identity. It destroys it. This bill. In this bill, the passenger interest is given less priority. The regulator's ability to challenge is reduced and the government's ability to interfere is increased. And that, my Lords, bodes ill for the future of our railways.
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Lord Bradshaw Portrait Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat)
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It will perhaps not surprise. >> The last speaker that I find her remarks so far from the truth about what really is happening on our what really is happening on our railway. Since before and after this bill was published, I have been approached by a number of lobbyists and companies seeking to inhibit Great British Railways Organising Railway, which works through a majority of users. The aim is for railway that operates express services to and from the capital, fast into regional services.

Local services planned together with regional mayors, better connections and ambitious freight growth target and some elbow room in the timetable to cater for the occasional aberrations. Together with some engineering work, all this can be achieved and still leave room for open access operators who are able to pay a fair price for access, and that abstraction of revenue from other operators must be compensated for paths in any timetable, particularly on our congested network, are a scarce commodity, and running short trains on busy routes gives rise to opportunity costs, which means, for example, running two short trains coupled together over the busiest sections may commend itself.

I hope the Minister will underline the fact that this does not give the regulator power to determine the basic structure of the railway, as what nearly caused a crisis in compiling the 2025 timetable to which he has referred. I am only resolved by executive action and left many loose ends behind it. The regulator may hear claims of unfairness, which are clearly demonstrated, and recommend that these be corrected. It will be Great British Railways to demonstrate it has been fair, bearing in mind the pressure on a constrained network, Great British Railways will have many other names, names and among these, to keep one major route open between important hubs so as to avoid, as far as possible, the need for bus substitution.

People prefer to stay on a train on a diversionary route, provided they are informed in advance of a longer journey. We want to see fast Anglo-Scottish journeys and internal journeys by air and freight reduce in the interests of reducing congestion and improving air quality. If we add to this desirable features such as a passenger growth target and incentives to use rail more, this will require faster, larger and more frequent trains, better freight facilities and depots.

All this can be achieved by the early 2040s, which is in railway terms, where we should be aiming. We need vision to achieve this, not a lawyer driven nightmare driven by a legalistic regulator. There is one issue on which I shall press him to provide an answer. As I understand the future, Great British Rail Railways will have a five yearly allocation of funds. This will be contained in a statement of funds available set by the rail Regulator.

After considering the proposed expenditure submitted by Great British Railways. My question concerned the words which permit the Secretary of State to reduce the amount of money set aside for the railways, railways and their supply chain are a long term industry and need some certainty about future levels of investment. If the Secretary of State interferes with the process, he should refer the matter matter back to the regulator. So he made the advice how industry will be affected, particularly the operation and maintenance of the railway, and likely effect on the agreed business plan.

I would remind the House that the two major developments which have affected the railways in recent years concern H two and the Intercity Express programme. Neither of these were carried out by railway professionals, but were dictated by government and have proved costly and, of course, vastly outrun their timescales. Great British Railways needs to start with a clean sheet and be able to make its own decisions about how the money is spent.
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Baroness Grey-Thompson Portrait Baroness Grey-Thompson (Crossbench)
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Start by drawing your attention to my register of interests. I'm chair of the Commission on Accessible Transport and a board Accessible Transport and a board member of Active Travel England. The Disability Discrimination Act The Disability Discrimination Act was passed in 1995. It was the bare minimum of what was possible to get through Parliament at the time, and I sat on the National Disability Council, which oversaw the implementation of the DDA that said all trains would be step free by January the 1st, 2020.

In 2020, we were told it would be 100 years before I could get on a majority of trains in the UK without the

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permission or Support of a member of staff. My Lords, I only need to live another Lords, I only need to live another 96 years. I do look forward to working with the noble Lord, the Minister, who has extensive knowledge in this space. But every knowledge in this space. But every government for the past 30 years has allowed derogations. Basically, they've kicked the can down the they've kicked the can down the road. And a very simple question is, we as a Parliament going to keep doing that? We should acknowledge doing that? We should acknowledge the transport gap for disabled people.

2.8 million people are locked out of the workforce because of inaccessible transport. Making it accessible could boost the economy by £176 billion. And I have said that investment of between 20 and 24 billion could generate another 10 to 34 billion in revenue. So, my Lords, this is just a political choice. The disability tax, the extra time for planning lifts not working for me is a personal cost of 2 to 3 hours every single week. And the Transport Select Committee, in their Access Denied report, has highlighted many of the issues.

Getting on and off a train in a timely manner is not exceptional. It should be the norm. I've had some great experiences and many that are not, and I've been asked many times what is it that you want? Most people were expecting a technical answer. My Lords, it's simple. I just want the same miserable experience of commuting as everyone else. I don't have that. I aspire to that. And at one mainline train station, I'm known as the woman who tweets. But I am optimistic because there is a chance that this government can make a change that will have a significant impact.

Passenger and disability rights need to be strongly established through this bill, and rights enforcement should be given greater weight than duties for cost cutting and competition. It means legal rights such as Consumer Rights Act 2015 and data protection legislation should be the basis for all standards. The Accessible Travel Charter needs a defined review point and legislative force behind it, and we have to ensure the Equality Act 2010 duties are strictly adhered to by transport providers, requiring them to anticipate accessibility needs rather than waiting for formal complaints.

Change comes in different ways and collaboration works, and I'd like to thank Tony Jennings, who led on the work to change the discriminatory scooter policy in Scotland. Mobility scooters do not automatically have the same legal rights as wheelchair users on public transport, and while wheelchair spaces are guaranteed by law under the Equality Act 2010, bus, train and tram operators can set their own specific policies regarding mobility scooters and further enforcement of the wheelchair space. For example, not filling it with luggage should not be left to disabled people to police.

I do welcome the Dft's consultation on micromobility. I have an attachment and it's revolutionised my travel. But recently a staff member who did not know their own accessible transport policy tried to stop me taking it on board. So as a disabled person, you have to be an expert in all aspects of policy, procedure, ticketing and access. A multi-mode assistant failures cannot keep being just passed off between train companies and be a blame game. Nobody would design a system the way we have it.

And years ago my photo was sent to all members of staff at particular train station, and they were told to get me off the platform as soon as possible. Great for me, it worked for a while, but that is simply not possible to do at scale. So level boarding should be a priority. It should be mandatory that all procurement for passenger trains touching any Network Rail track or low floor. One company who did it well done, didn't actually design the inside of the carriage to be accessible, and we were told don't worry, you will be in sight of the cafe bar.

My Lords, in all my years of campaigning, being in sight of a cafe bar was not on my list. Being able to see it, but not actually buy anything from it was not what we really wanted. And the Lords. I do try to book assistance, but it's exhausting to negotiate, and the number of times I have to say turn up and go is a legal right. And when assistance fails, the question is, did you book well? If I'm on a train, somebody put me there.

I didn't magically teleport onto the carriage, and for every time I book, I receive at least five emails per journey and questionnaires about the process. But I'm only often asked about the actual train journey weeks or months later. So for every time I book, I get an email telling me the bookings unconfirmed, then it's been confirmed. Then I get various emails from the train company. But my Lords, I've had assistants confirmed with stations that are completely inaccessible and it's essential that we have up to date information on lift and toilet availability, or where lifts are turned off when stations are not staffed.

Disabled people have been told to return to their home station before 6 p.m. at night, because the lifts are turned off when there's no staff there, and disabled people should not have to have a curfew. An example of the horrendous experience of lifts is in Pancras Station, which has been out for seemingly months. People have been told the mitigation is to go to Farringdon. Well, last week all the lifts were out of Farringdon and a recent experience and this is the reality of my week.

I was turned up and go at a station. The assistance desk couldn't check whether the wheelchair space was free. I was told to go to the ticket office where they can check, but they weren't able to do so at the time. They could sell me a ticket, except the train was technically sold out, so they'd only sell me an open ticket, which is much more expensive. The wheelchair space is not even on the ticketing system, so I could buy a ticket for a train that I didn't know if there was space on, nor whether someone could actually help me on it.

And this is a system that just has to change, and the complaint process is just too hard. Train companies often try and bat people away and make them believe that it's a one off, and the only time some companies wake up is when you mention Vento. And we should not have to raise compensation to get a complaint sorted. And some disabled people do decide to sue. It doesn't change as much as it should, and some disabled people are able to successfully sue, are derided and often mocked within the industry.

But we should look at this a different way. The industry should quite simply do its job and stop making it possible for the courts, not some random friends, the courts, to make judgements in favour of disabled people who have failed on the network. I welcome the words of the noble Lord, the Minister on the app, where we'll be able to buy tickets and assistance at the same time. That's another issue that has been kicked down the road for a little while. My Lords, I have at least seven apps and six of them show different prices for every single journey.

Ticket vending machines need to be accessible. Most of them I can only they're not designed for people who are sitting down, and we need to have better understanding of the ramps on the network. I've heard that there's 56 different ramps on the network. I'm not sure if that's the right number, but the rail Delivery universal Ramp project seems to have stalled. We should have ramp trained staff on every platform, or staff should absolutely do a walk through of a train. So my Lords, what do we really need? We need legislative deadlines for level boarding and step three stations, an accessible charter which should be the floor, not the ceiling of our aspirations.

And we need to promote and protect the rights and interests of disabled passengers. My Lords, back to the simple question is this government going to be different to every other government since 1995 and commit to accessible transport, or are they going to keep kicking the can down the road?
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Baroness Alexander of Cleveden Portrait Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Labour)
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My Lord Flight Baroness Grey-Thompson. I'm going to start with personal anecdote that they will not be either as moving or as will not be either as moving or as consequential as the ones we have heard from her today, and I pay tribute to her campaigning work on tribute to her campaigning work on this issue, and I'm sure that is shared by other members of the House. My Lords, on a Friday when I House. My Lords, on a Friday when I get to Euston heading north, I yearn for the toilets to work.

Effective wi fi and a quiet coach. And by the time I get back to London on a Monday and I'm a computer, a commuter, I'm looking for, am I going to get a seat? Is it reliable? Is the price fair? And of course, arguably a top class railway that is spending £22 billion annually, half of it, more than half of it. Taxpayer subsidy can and should provide all of those things and more. And I, of course, have not mentioned the other neglected priorities of electrification, extreme weather, resilience, modal shift, new services, safety speed, fresh sandwiches, so on and so on.

All of these competing ambitions make a wider point. All of them concern the choice of priorities. And yet the essence of the claim in this bill is that the delivery of future policy priorities can only follow from getting the basic underlying structure right. This bill is a fresh start. It legislates for an outcome that the Conservatives conservatives recognised the case for, but did not act upon the need to end the fragmentation and to bring track and train together.

Baroness May graciously, in her remarks, hinted at the value of bringing track and train together, and I share her concern for passenger voice as being a live issue and indeed regional influence. But I am mindful I am to be followed by Lord Redwood, who I anticipate may have a slightly more ideological engagement about the merits of privatisation versus nationalisation, and I promise to say a word on that later in my remarks. But I think the public's first concern is simply a service that works, and the bill builds around an evidence case that fragmentation is holding our railways back.

The Minister noted. The fact that we have 17 different bodies, so unifying track and train under a single organisation is designed to work for passengers, for freight and the taxpayer. For the first time in a generation, we will have a single arm's length body unambiguously accountable for making the railways work. The new structure can, of course, potentially drive out very large in existing inefficiencies, and it is the prerequisite for dealing with the prevailing culture, which is one of blame, then negotiation, then compensation.

Now, despite those vital changes, the trade offs will remain between affordability and reliability, between subsidy reduction and network upgrades. So I do welcome that. When it comes to setting priorities, the government has given us a flavour that they are about to publish a long term rail strategy that will have five core objectives, two of which deal with long term economic growth and reducing regional inequality. Because we do need to re-orientate our railways to our long term ambitions for the nation.

200 years ago, railways were the new purpose general purpose technology of their day. And today's general purpose technology is AI. Quantum will follow and again we face as a country the creative destruction that is changing our economic geography in the same way that railways first shaped our economy, our geography, our leisure and our landscape. So it is right that Great British Railways should be tasked with supporting a faster growing economy. This is a time of profound change. We need it to break down barriers of opportunity, reduce journey times, improve connectivity and stimulate regeneration and house building next to stations.

But let me come beyond the rhetoric. The other side will be relieved to the challenges that come with establishing a single organisation. Great British Railways, when it is fully established, will employ 100 000 people. It will be the country's largest arm's length body, so the stakes are high. On the plus side, public ownership avoids siphoning off of dividends and profiteering. But we must also mitigate the known risks. Monolithic organisations can be deaf to key interests, captured by other interests, slow to innovate and risk averse.

Now, these are not insuperable challenges. Many nations manage to have fast, reliable, successful railway systems, and so should the nation. Where it all began. The structural changes will need to be coupled with political and organisational leadership to meet public expectations. We will need better regulation rather than more regulation, and to encourage the self-sufficiency of the system and manage the burden on the taxpayer. The House of Commons Transport Select Committee suggested that we should be setting a passenger growth target to incentivise commercially minded improvements when it comes to nurturing innovation, the Minister will be aware of the on going anxieties, notably from the open access operators.

They do account only for 1% of services, but they are responsible for 19% of the new train orders in recent years. And so we do need to make sure that they find their place. They have been successful in securing modal shift on the Edinburgh to London route and elsewhere. Can I come just with my few minutes remaining to the issue of devolution, of decision making, clear accountability and speed of decision making, and this touches on some of the anxieties that Baroness May raised about the regional input.

Britain's devolution landscape is complex, it is highly varied and it is very fast evolving. Others have referenced the new member for Macclesfield. I welcome that the Bill does provide for the devolved governments in Wales and Scotland, and the combined authorities to have a statutory role in the rail network, but I would welcome reassurance on how this will work in practice. Can we expect to see any of the mechanisms for clear accountability, both locally and nationally, by the during the Committee stage of the Bill and as a signal of intent of its commitment to working with the devolved governments and medical authorities, will the government look at developing shared evidence bases that.

Shared evidence base allows for the stronger business cases that will allow us to move over time to local commissioning? Finally, on ticketing, I will say a little beyond simply saying that it has to be right to consolidate 55 million different ticket types currently allegedly available, and make it easier for the passenger to find the most affordable fare. In conclusion, this bill is a bold statement, and that is important. It is not always that members on this side can stand and say, this is a bold statement about the way forward.

We have been, as a government accused of timidity. This is a bold statement to fix the problem that has frustrated passengers, railway staff and the railway industry for too long. It begins a process of evolution from today's Semi-privatised rail network to a nationalised railway. But the essence is to bring track and train together and end 30 years of experimentation, unlocking growth and delivering efficiency in the network. I commend the bill and look forward to its committee stages.
16:54
Lord Redwood Portrait Lord Redwood (Conservative)
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I agree with the Minister's three main aims for railway three main aims for railway improvement. He is right that punctuality is insufficient. Last punctuality is insufficient. Last year, under 85% of trains arrive within three minutes of timetable and over 4% of services were and over 4% of services were cancelled altogether. He is right that we need to improve the quality of the passenger experience, and to do that, it's going to require innovation. It's going to require new services geared to people's lives and their travel demands, and delivering them a travel offer at an affordable price, at an acceptable fare.

The railway is too detached and is running far too many nearly empty trains around to fill a timetable. Interspersed at popular times of the day, with too few popular trains. With 169,000 people standing in very cramped and unsafe conditions on a typical day. So there are a lot of work needs to go into getting into the modern world and understanding travel patterns. And above all, the Minister is right that there needs to be a revolution in value for money.

We are paying far too much as taxpayers and in some cases far too much as fare payers. In other cases travelling on heavily subsidised fares in relation to the amount of work that the railway is able to do. Last year, taxpayers had to put in £21.6 billion to this railway system, and fare payers were only persuaded to put in 11.5 billion. So limited was the offer that was made available on this vast network that taxpayers are paying twice as much as fare payers, general taxpayers twice as much as the more limited number of people who were actually using the railway.

So we do need a revolution. I share some of my noble friend, the Baroness May scepticism about whether the right revolution can come from nationalisation in itself, and I think the government here needs to describe more accurately to the public the nature of the railway, that they took responsibility for some two years ago. I'm the first to confess that the government's I supported didn't get it all right. And there were many failings that needed to be corrected. But the Minister should be honest with the public and remind them that all the track, all the signals, all the structures, all of the stations were taken into public ownership in 2002 by a previous Labour government.

And he should also point out that many of the problems, many of the delays and the interruptions of service have in recent years been created by failings by the nationalised part of the system, as well as some of them, as he will rightly point out, being created by the train operating companies, which the predecessor government was gradually getting rid of and which it is also his policy to complete that task, to get rid of the train operating companies. But this great controlling mind they're going to find.

I trust that this lady or gentleman exists, is going to need o of drive to get that this extraordinary network, all these thousands of miles of track that go into the very hearts of our cities and towns and not being used properly and nearly enough, they are far too empty. If you see a bird's eye view from a camera or a plane with a camera of our country at Morning Peak, and there still is a bit of a morning peak on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays.

So Covid has made a bit of a difference on Monday and Friday. If you look at the morning peak, you see inadequate roads increasing, reduced in scale and size by Liberal Democrat councils with huge traffic jams and queues, making it very difficult for people to drive to work or drive to the shops or do what they want to do, and you see largely empty, fabulous, straight track ways into the centre of our cities, with trains spaced out at a two mile interview interval or whatever it is, because the signalling is pretty primitive and for safety reasons, they're very worried about running more trains on the same track, even though they're all going in the same direction on that bit of track.

And you'd have thought with modern digital signalling, if we're going to get it, you could actually run more trains safely on that track to take more of the strain for travel. But the travel opportunity for the railway is enormous because its market share has sunk so far. If you look at trips in the last year, only 2% of people's trips were by train and 59% of their trips were by car. And then there was walking and cycling and so forth.

And even if you take miles where the railway do rather better because people tend to go on trains for rather longer journeys, people are still travelling seven times as much in a car as they are on a train. This is the business opportunity. So my suggestions to the Minister with this piece of legislation is that it does need some quite big tweaks in order to make it more likely that a controlling mind can come up with a way of selling all that empty rail and track space to enough people and organisations that can run trains to service the true travel needs of the public.

And so the first thing it's going to need is it's going to need access to private capital. If nationalisation means no more private capital, the railway is going to be even shorter of capital than it has been to date. I would urge the Minister to allow for private capital, which must mean allowing for challenger companies to offer services and facilities on the properties or on the tracks to bring in that innovation and that extra capital capacity that is going to be needed.

Given that we're going to need a lot of innovation. I, again, as part of that package, say that what is vital in this is open access. And once the Minister has completed his great train set under nationalised control, he must allow others to say, I can do it better. I can do it differently. I can make proper use of this track, which the nationalised industry is not using properly in order to bring in that innovation and that extra service quality we are going to need.

And I do hope a nationalised industry will want to take more pride in the railway than Network Rail takes to date. When I go on a rail journey, I'm absolutely horrified. Quite often looking out of the window, seeing the rusty old rolling stock in the siding, just just wasting away. The old sleepers just piled up as if nobody owns them. The brambles and the weeds growing out of the parallel track that isn't used very much. The uncared for look of the whole place, the peeling paint on the stations, the rusting iron on some of the very old stations.

It is a mess with graffiti over everything. So I say innovate, allow contestability, bring in new services, clean the place up. Let us be proud of it. Then the public might want to use it.

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I'm grateful to the Minister for. Introducing this bill, and I'd like to start by acknowledging his like to start by acknowledging his deep knowledge of our railways. Few in either House are better placed to steward legislation of this kind, and I hope that expertise will make him receptive to the constructive him receptive to the constructive scrutiny these benches intend to offer. Can I can I also say it's an honour to speak in the same debate honour to speak in the same debate as the noble Baroness, lady May of Maidenhead.

I'm sure she won't remember. But nearly 20 years ago, speaking at an event to encourage more women to stand for elected office, she discovered her train home from Temple Meads had been cancelled. So I had the pleasure of giving her a lift to Bristol
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17:03
Baroness Leaman Portrait Baroness Leaman (Liberal Democrat)
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Conservative Party. My Lords, this bill will not be judged by the structures it creates, but by the difference it makes to passengers. difference it makes to passengers. For most people, railway reform isn't about the machinery of government, it's about whether the train arrives, when it should, train arrives, when it should, whether disruption is explained clearly and whether when the service fails, passengers are treated fairly and swiftly without having to fight for what they are owed. That should be our starting point.

Today, Great British Railways is being created because fragmented accountability has failed passengers. If it is to commend command public confidence, GBR must do more than bring track and train together. It must rebalance the relationship between the railway and the passenger. Nowhere is that imbalance clearer than in delay. Repay. In principle, the scheme is sound. Passengers delayed by 15 minutes or more are in most cases entitled to money back. But in practice too many never receive it. The latest joint research from Transport Focus and the Department for transport found that nearly 45% of passengers with an eligible delay actually claimed what they were owed, a figure that has fallen since 2023.

And of those who did not claim, nearly half either didn't know they could or wrongly believed that they weren't eligible. That is a remarkable failure. The problem is not the absence of a right. It is that the right is hidden behind process. A passenger must know they're eligible for delay. Repay. Know which operator to claim from. Find the correct form. Find the reference number, their ticket type the time they should have departed and arrived. How late they were, then upload images of their ticket along with their bank details.

Even if they've managed all of that, the passenger must submit this within a certain time limit, and if they don't, the money simply stays with the railway. My Lords of Sainsbury's fails to deliver my milk. They automatically reimburse me if a concert I booked is cancelled, I receive an automatic refund. If I switch energy providers and the process falters, I'm automatically compensated. So why must it require such a Herculean effort to get a partial refund from London Northwestern? When the 747 from Leighton Buzzard is delayed for the third time in a week? My Lords, this is not a passenger failing.

It is a system failing compensation that depends on knowledge, persistence and administrative skill is not good enough for a modern railway. The creation of GBR gives us the chance to fix this. GBR will know when a train was late, which services were cancelled and which journeys were affected. Increasingly through digital ticketing and online accounts. It should also know which passengers bought tickets for these services, so the burden should no longer sit with the passenger. It should sit with the railway, where GBR has the data to identify an eligible delay.

Compensation should be automatic, not advertised more clearly not placed behind a better form for automatic. If a passenger books online, the refund should go straight back onto their card or onto their account. And where automatic payment genuinely isn't possible, they should receive a proactive notification with a simple route to claim. The test should be this if the railway knows it has failed, it should not wait for the passenger to complain. There are, of course, practical questions. Paper tickets will still exist and not every journey will sit on a digital account.

And we mustn't design a system that excludes those who are less digitally confident. But these reasons to design automatic compensation properly, not reasons to avoid it. GBR should provide one clear, universal and accessible compensation scheme, one standard, one trusted process and a single route for claims. With the complexity of the industry resolved behind the scenes, rather than left for the passenger to navigate. My Lords, this is not merely about money. The sums involved are often modest, but the principle matters enormously when a passenger has had a bad journey.

The compensation process is the railway's opportunity to restore trust. If that process is slow or obscure, it compounds the original failure. It tells the passenger that not only were they delayed, but now they must chase the railway for what they're owed. This is exactly the culture this bill should end, delay, repay should become one of the clearest tests for the GBR is truly passenger first because it's concrete, measurable and visible, and goes directly to the question of accountability. I would therefore ask the Minister to address four points.

First, will the government commit to automatic compensation as the clear direction of travel for GBR? Secondly, will the Passenger Watchdog have the power to monitor not just whether delay repay exists, but whether passengers actually receive what they're owed? Thirdly, will GBR be required to publish regular data on eligible delays, claims made, compensation paid and rejected, and the proportion paid automatically? And finally, will the government consider placing a duty on GBR to make the compensation process simple, proactive and passenger centred from the outset? If we do not measure this properly, we won't fix it.

The public should be able to see whether the new system pays passengers fairly, or whether millions of eligible claims are still going unclaimed. My Lords, the railway asks a great deal of its passengers to tolerate disruption, engineering works, cancellation, overcrowding and rising costs. When things go wrong, the least they should expect is to be treated with respect. Great British Railways has the potential to end the buck passing and fragmentation that have made the current system so frustrating, but that potential will only be realised if passenger rights become real in practice.

I hope this Bill will be strengthened to make automatic, simple, transparent compensation. Central duty of the new railway. If GBR knows a passenger has been delayed, GBR should pay. That's fair, it's modern and it's the kind of railway

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passengers deserve. Hey. My Lords, it's a pleasure to follow the. The noble Lady who makes some very good points about passenger rights and. Can I start passenger rights and. Can I start by declaring an interest as a member of the UK and Ireland leadership team of Atkins and also leadership team of Atkins and also an adviser to Hutchison Ports? For me particularly, this is somewhat of an end point since, as the of an end point since, as the Minister rightly said, I started the process back in 2018 through the Williams review, which was intended to address the issue we all touched upon tonight.

I never believed that separating track and train was the right thing to do. It was right, in my view, to move away from a state run monolith, and it distresses me enormously. We've ended up going back to a state run monolith, but it was absolutely not right in the end to fragment the railways as much as did happen. The other reality is, in the decade post two decades post-privatisation the railways turned around under British Rail, they declined. Lines were closed, passenger numbers fell under the privatised railway, passenger numbers grew, the number of trains expanded.

We ended up carrying more passengers on the rail network today than travelled in Victorian times, when the railway was twice as big as it is now. And therein lies the problem. Because I don't believe this bill and the route the government is taking will actually get to a position it wants to, and we all want it to get to a position where it works well, delivers for
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Lord Grayling Portrait Lord Grayling (Conservative)
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passengers and delivers for freight. The problem, though, is that it's not just about who owns it. When not just about who owns it. When Williams was set up, he and I sat and we talked about different options and we agreed. There's options and we agreed. There's basically four ways to run the railway. You either continue with franchising, you go back to British franchising, you go back to British Rail, you have the model that John Major advocated, which I believe was the right one, to have regional was the right one, to have regional integrated companies that control both track and train, or you take the model that actually ought to be quite close to the minister's heart, the TfL model, whereby you do have a guiding mind, but it actually operates concessions for the different parts of its operation.

Now, funnily enough, that model is in use elsewhere in the country. In Manchester, by the immediate past mayor and his B network, which is indeed established by conservatives, the powers provided by conservatives. And he took rather a long time to take them up. But now he talks lovingly about the state owned, state run bus network in Manchester. It's not. It is basically a TfL style concession whereby the private sector operates the buses. This is not what this bill does.

And actually it's going to be quite interesting to see for the Minister and perhaps less for him. And I do very much hope that in the changes that lie ahead of us in a few days time, the Minister does retain his position because I think he does command respect from all sides of this House, even if we may not totally disagree with him. All that matters in the bill. But the reality is it's going to be very interesting to see whether this bill survives in its current form.

The change of Prime Minister that lies ahead, because this is absolutely not consistent with the model that he was following in Manchester. But the real problem on our railways isn't really just about who owns it and who runs it. It's about capacity. The reality is, as I say, today's railway is not really fit for the level of demand on it. We closed as a country too many lines in the 1960s. There are too many routes that are too congested. You can't easily get 19 or 20 trains through Wimbledon.

In the peak. You couldn't easily get the number of services needed into Manchester Piccadilly, which is why, in the end, some degree of capacity enhancement is needed is needed there. So actually, government should be focusing on how it breaks down the capacity constraints. And I have to say to the Minister, with all due respect to his previous role as chair of Network Rail, Network rail has not done us well in that respect. We need to put extra capacity into the network.

It needs to be done in the most cost effective way. It needs to be done with a bit of vision, with digital signalling, for example, that increases capacity and not simply replacing the stuff that's there already. Network Rail costs are far, far higher than they should be. So East West rail, which I tried to get out of the Network Rail system and I admit to having failed it has cost much, much, much too much because it was done to standards set by Network Rail.

Beyond that which is realistically needed today, it's an existing railway line. You can even operate. What was their orbit at slow speeds before? Was it really necessary to ship millions and millions of tonnes of earth to make the embankments broader? I really do think that there needs to be a challenge to the engineering standards not to create an unsafe railway, but to ask is, is everything Network Rail does in process terms and in planning terms and in engineering terms absolutely necessary and consistent with the need we have to generate additional capacity, and that is the state run bit of the railway.

And there is no evidence as yet that a state run railway delivers a quantum better performance. And indeed, I'm sure the Minister himself knows South Western Railway 14 months into the private sector, into the public sector, its performance has gone down. Why is that the case? Surely the opposite should be the case. So I think the Minister is going to have a job as we go through this build process, to really explain to us why a return to British Rail has got a great on the front of it, but it is basically a return to British Rail is going to deliver the passenger improvements that we need.

I want to touch briefly also on the issue of devolution. The model in this bill is absolutely inconsistent. So how can it. And it's certainly inconsistent with the arrival of a new Prime Minister that believes in devolution. How can it, for example, be appropriate to have a system in London that is fine, where you have the TfL TfL style concession system, but you can't have it in Birmingham, even though it's perfectly possible, given the size of the West Midlands area, to have dedicated services like the London Overground in Birmingham.

I really don't understand the logic. If the government believes in devolution, do it and if it doesn't believe in devolution, don't do it, but don't create an odd hybrid. And I would say to him about the the system of consultation, don't believe that always works. Because in 2018, when we had all the issues with the timetable, the northern franchise was equally the responsibility of transport for the North and the Department for transport. But I have to say, northern leaders held all the abuse at me and the Department of Transport and took no responsibility themselves for their own accountability for the performance of that franchise.

Now, frankly, it was a disaster in every respect. But do not believe that consultation powers under the umbrella of devolution are actually going to be transformative in any way, because they aren't. The government's going to be blamed anyway. If something goes wrong. So what I say to the Minister is I'm looking for bold plans to expand the capacity of the network. I very much regret what's happened with HS2, sucking up all the budgets for control, period six that I hope could make a difference.

And I have to say, I openly say I personally believe HS2 should have been scrapped in 2019, when it was clear that the costs were out of control and that money should have been spent on capacity enhancements. I give Lord Bach the credit for that. He was right on that point, but we are where we are now. We have to focus on capacity enhancements, and people and passengers have every right to expect better. But they should not believe that simply changing from private control to state control is what's going to make the difference.

We have a rail network that's simply not big enough for the demand on it today. And until that is fixed and that's fixed in a whole series of ways across the whole country, rather than simply with big projects, then it will not make the difference the passengers deserve.
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Lord Wilson of Dinton Portrait Lord Wilson of Dinton (Crossbench)
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Yeah. >> I am most grateful for the opportunity to say a few words, valedictory words, before I retire as an active peer, and I'm honoured to have followed some very penetrating speeches from all sides of the House. The data I have chosen to retire from active service in the House is the 6th of September. I chose it because it's the 60th anniversary of my joining the Civil Service as an assistant principal in the Board of Trade.

At a salary of £900 a year. I have spent a lot of my early years in this House. I was private secretary to two peers, and I spent my much of my swinging 60s in the official box, and it's been a great pleasure to have been a member as well for the last 23 years, and a great privilege. My crossbench colleagues are an impressive group, rich in talent, and I thank them warmly for their comradeship.

Particularly, of course, my former colleagues from the Civil Service and from the diplomatic service. I've also much enjoyed seeing my former ministerial bosses sitting quietly, glittering on their benches on both sides of the house. I occasionally see a complete bench of people who have worked for, and I call it a full house, and I feel lucky in the Ministers I've served, and I thank them most warmly. I can see several here today. The world of government. Over the 60 years that I've been a member of the Civil Service and of this House, has, has, has changed profoundly.

That's not a complaint. The world keeps changing. Governments have to keep up with it. The civil service, which I left in 2002, was not the civil service, which I joined in 1966, and it's not the civil service now which is in operation in government. But the change of it is, although profound and important, does not change the world in which we work. And under the surface of government, there are always the same issues which successive governments have to tackle.

Successive Ministers have, in their short time in office to tackle, and the railways are a good example of this. Successive governments have been debating the position of the railways in our economy and how to run them successfully for so many decades, I suspect, since the 19th century. But I can't swear that certainly since the Beeching Report, I recall that in 1988, the Secretary of State for transport, the late noble Lord Cecil Parkinson, wrote to the Prime Minister proposing that the government should privatise the railways.

I was working in the Cabinet Office and I was asked to give her advice. I suggested that she should have an away day at Chequers, with all the interested parties to go over the options and to discuss what was the right way forward, as she had already done with electricity privatisation. She had a small meeting. We went through the options with her. She listened carefully and at the end she said she shook her head and she said no.

Privatisation of the railways is a bridge too far. It's a privatisation too far. And those remarks, coming from an unexpected source, echo through my mind when I listened to the comments which we've had today, there was a. And then 2 or 3 years later I was in the Treasury and we had an instruction from number ten asking us to put forward proposals for privatisation. And there's a great debate. I remember that the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, was part contributed.

I think he wanted to go back to regional railways, but that may be wrong. Some wanted some privatised monopoly. But the argument and I was moved on before this concluded. The argument came in favour of separating track and train, and I don't hear many people arguing for that now. The point I'm making is that the issues which we're discussing today are ones that have been with us for a long time, and the penetrating arguments that have been we've heard, I mean, that we haven't yet got the answer.

Yeah. And I think that the the issue I want just to spend a couple of minutes on is the difficulty and the burden which Ministers in high office carry the. We live with. The change we've seen in the last 60 years is nothing compared with the change in the turmoil, which is going to face Ministers in the next decade or two. Not only do we have war in Europe and war in the Middle East, we have the end of NATO as we knew it.

The alliance is weakening. We also have the problems of climate change, and we have the challenge of technology, which changing the working place very fast and Ministers have jobs are almost impossible. I think the learning curve for a Minister is probably in a ministerial office is at least a year, sometimes more than that. And for a Prime Minister, if I may say so, I think it's 2 to 3 years. It is very hard from outside to understand what the pressures are, what the range of issues are and how the permanence of the problems which you have to deal with and try and solve.

The role of the civil service is crucial in supporting successive governments. It provides corporate memory. It provides experience, it provides advice as well as the ability to deliver results. Once decisions are taken. I believe that the model we have, I just want to say this for the record, is the best model we could find. The Northcote-trevelyan reforms, I think, still have stood the test of time and been a success. I know that people there's always a tension with patronage.

People have. Even at the time when they were introduced, people wanted to have the ability to bring in their political friends or their allies or their stooges. Disraeli invented the post of first Civil Service commissioner for a friend of his who needed a job. That says it all. It was always very tense, but. And there have been many changes, and rightly so, in the way we operate. But the basic model has proved itself over and over again and must be safeguarded.

What's the model selection on merit through fair and open competition, a civil service which is politically impartial but committed to giving the best service it can to the government of the day with integrity and objectivity and honesty. It's a winning formula. I am very proud of the civil service we have and proud to have been its head. It has an outstanding new leader in the new Cabinet Secretary, Antonia Romeo, and I support her decision to conduct a review of performance and organisation to fit it for the future.

I wish the Civil Service every success in going from strength to strength under her leadership, in accordance with its best traditions of continuity and change. I wish the House of Lords all success as its own reforms move forward, and I thank the doorkeepers, the staff of the House of Lords and the police because they keep the show on the road

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while we talk. Thank you very much. My Lords. It is a privilege,

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My Lords. It is a privilege, though one tinged with sadness, to follow the valedictory speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, who has just reminded us of the the great, gentle wisdom and the the great, gentle wisdom and huge experience that he's brought to your Lordships House and which we are set to lose in September we are set to lose in September when he retires. The noble Lords and my association. Our friendship goes back not just over the seven years that we've overlapped in your Lordships' House, but nearly a quarter of a century, for it was in 2002 that he came to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where I was an undergraduate, as our 27th master and a hugely popular one at that.

Emma prides itself on being the friendliest college in Cambridge. It became friendlier still when Lord Wilson was our master. Within weeks of arriving, he seemed to know everybody by first name, a feat that he repeated over the ten years of his stewardship of the college. He did that at the same time as we managed to top the Tompkins table. The league table for the best degree results in five of the ten years that he was master not. I should help, I should say, helped by my own meagre two one behind his genuine friendly exterior is, as we've just heard again, a forensic mind and a wealth of experience.

My noble friends, Lady Berridge and Lady Blackwood of North Oxford, are among those in this House who know what it is like to stand at the despatch box and worry about a probing question coming from their former master. My noble friend Lord Howard of Lim, is among those who look at a man who was permanent secretary, and not one but two departments when he was in the Cabinet, and noble Lords from across the House, I'm sure, feel the same. The man that they sat around the Cabinet table with during his time as Cabinet
17:27
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Portrait Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Conservative)
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Secretary. His advice, as today is always offered with great kindness, great tact and in a constructive great tact and in a constructive spirit. If we fail to heed it, then the fault is ours. One particularly precocious undergraduate seeking a precocious undergraduate seeking a career in politics was sternly advised not to do it straight after graduation. Noble Lords may think, graduation. Noble Lords may think, perhaps I should have listened a bit more carefully. But even after disregarding that advice, the noble disregarding that advice, the noble Lord was very generous and has always been very supportive.

He was master in the time when noble Lords could choose to receive Hansard in hard copy. I don't know if he remembers, but he very kindly offered few volumes of it to go on the bookshelves in my rooms that probably should have been full of history books and lecture notes. I took him up on the offer. I turned up at the master's Lodge to find some 60 or 70 volumes, each the size of a telephone directory waiting for me. I had to borrow a shopping trolley to bring them back to my room.

So my advice to any noble Lords who's helping, who are helping him move out of his office here. I'll be very careful what you get into. We shall miss him greatly, but I hope that he will not be a stranger here, as he's not to his former college. We look forward to breaking bread with him at the long table, just as at High Table. And after a lifetime of political service, we wish him and Cairo and the family a long and well deserved and happy retirement.

My Lord. I turn to the bill at hand and do so in my capacity as the chairman of the Heritage Railway Association. It is an unremunerated position, so it doesn't need declaring. But as the noble Lord, the Minister knows, it is a richly rewarding one because he indeed was my immediate predecessor. He had to give it up in order to become our rail Minister in that capacity and in his time at Network Rail, he did a huge amount to make sure that the celebrations last year for the 200th anniversary of the railways were so richly marked.

And of course, this year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of Heritage Railways with the the celebrations at Talyllyn in Wales, the first of the preserved railways across the United Kingdom are. Heritage Railways welcome more than 13 million visitors each year and generate upward of £600 million for our economy. They do so against great challenges. There are. We've made great strides, not least with the government's support in making and the long running campaign of the noble Lord Lord Faulkner of Worcester to make it easier for young volunteers to help out on our heritage railways.

That was clarified in the Employment Rights Act last year. But there are many challenges still. The government support this year through the Great British Summer Savings Scheme, alas, does not help most heritage railways because transport is zero rated for VAT, they are unable to to pass on any savings because they don't get any from the scheme, the government has announced. If they're holding a static event, they often do so with an external provider. If that provider, often a large multinational, is selling the ticket, it is the the provider that accrues the benefits in VAT.

The Heritage Railway Association I know have written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on these matters, but not yet had an answer. I hope the noble Lord the Minister could encourage his colleagues at the Treasury to do so. On these detailed points. My Lords, there are three areas I wanted to touch on in looking at the bill with sort of a heritage lens. The first, I hope, is the easiest to deal with that is in section 32 of the bill. The potential powers over rail assets, the.

The wording at 324 describes an additional railway asset as any network station or light maintenance depot. I'm not certain, and nor are many in the heritage sector. Whether that also covers assets that are not part of the. The mainline, whether today at Second Reading or later in the stages, this bill, the noble Lord, the Minister is able to clarify that that would be helpful reassurance. The second concerns mainline access. Most heritage railways operate on preserved stretches of the line, but a large number do so also on the mainline network.

Vintage trains LSL West Coast Railways. The Minister, noble Lord. The Minister will know the Polar Express, the Jacobite and many more. He'll be aware of the potential implications for those that, such as the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, the North Norfolk Railway and the Swanage Railway. The granting of licences is covered in this bill, but the onus is placed on the Secretary of State now, rather than the Office of Rail

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and Road. A number of mainline steam operators therefore worry that this removes the Certainty that they've enjoyed

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Certainty that they've enjoyed regarding access for heritage operations. In particular, they operations. In particular, they look at section 59, which of the bill, which means that GBR will be in an intolerable position having in an intolerable position having to decide on the allocation of capacity, while at the same time capacity, while at the same time being a major operator. The architecture of this bill sets up a tension there that is different from we have under the 1993 act. There are no written in, and I hope in the later stages of this bill, Parliament should look at how it might give guidance on how these priorities should be applied.

I hope whether in the face of the Bill or in the discussions we have, we'll be able to talk about the the importance of leisure travel and heritage operations to our visitor economy, to inspiring the the rail employees of the future. And I hope that we'll be able to give some certainty to those who run those operations. The third issue is one that was touched on in another place at Second Reading by Liz Saville Roberts MP, who chairs the all party group on Heritage Rail and.

And that is the possibility of a Heritage Rail Safety and Standards Board. The noble Lord will know that many examples of the progress that we have made in driving up standards and safety on the Railways have sadly followed tragic incidents. In June 2018, in the wake of the Croydon tram accident at Sandilands, the consequent Rail Accident Investigation Branch report led to a recommendation that there should be a Safety and Standards Board dedicated to heritage Rail. There is a Light Rail Safety and Standards Board, which was set up after that accident, which is publicly funded.

There is a Rail Safety and Standards board for the national network established following the public inquiry into the Ladbroke Grove disaster, which is also publicly funded. And I hope to explore through this bill whether we can make some progress on safety and standards for the heritage sector itself. The Heritage Railway Association at the moment fill that gap on a voluntary basis through the provision of volunteer run safety and standards boards and consultation across the sector. But that is a burdensome and slow process for volunteers to run.

This bill, I hope, presents an opportunity to build on the work that they do to establish a professional and publicly funded safety and standards board for the heritage rail sector, and to follow up a recommendation that has been outstanding since 2018. I look forward to discussing all this and more with the noble Lord, the Minister, over the course of the Bill.
17:35
Lord Wigley Portrait Lord Wigley (Plaid Cymru)
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My Lords, I to congratulate Lord Wilson on his valedictory and wish Wilson on his valedictory and wish him a very happy and long retirement. My Lords, this Bill has retirement. My Lords, this Bill has had a long gestation period, but if anything that has made such legislation, or at least parts of it, all the more necessary as far as comedy is concerned, the bill is very much a parson's egg. There are parts we welcome, such as those elements which consolidate aspects of the of the service into public ownership.

It is my party's view that what is an essential public service and in many cases, a monopoly public service should be in public ownership. There are parts of the bill about which we have reservations, such as the failure to involve the Government of Wales in decision making on key rail issues, which was highlighted by Plaid Cymru MP Anne Davies in the Commons on 9th December. And she said Wales does not seek a token consultation which delivers nothing at all. And that is what very often we have had.

Wales wants and needs a control over rail services in Wales, and this was also demanded by Labour Senate members on a number of occasions. And then there is the very strong feeling in Wales. And this isn't just implied memory, that the Bill misses an opportunity to put right a long running sore about the totally cynical manner in which railway services in Wales are funded. The financial settlement between the Treasury and Wales, based on the Barnett formula, which has been tweaked a couple of times, is based on providing Wales with a tranche of cash to counterbalance a railway expenditure on rail services meant for England.

That's usually about 6% of the sum total, which in itself is a reasonable sum. But if projects are deemed to serve rail users in both Wales and England, that funding formula does not apply. So that gives an easy escape hatch for the Treasury to avoid providing rail funding for Wales, they just designate railway investment in England as being there to serve Wales. My Lords, this is quite outrageous and was a factor in the recent election result in Wales.

I have no doubt at all. It means that projects such as the Oxford to Cambridge rail upgrade is seen as one which exists to serve Wales, so we get no Barnett consequential. No. We'd get bonded. Consequential for the Northern Powerhouse Rail, nor for the huge HS2 project linking London and Birmingham. If Wales got its Barnett entitlement, we would be getting £6 billion more for railway investment in Wales. Labour, a Senate members last year pressed for this injustice with Prime Minister Starmer, but they were ignored.

They, like Welsh Labour MPs, have zero clout with the present UK Labour government. That is why, in part, they were swept out of office in May's elections, and why they will lose most of their common seats in Wales in the next election. My Lords, it is little short of a tragedy that Labour has fiddled the Barnett formula in order to deny Wales the railway funding which it needs. I would at this stage just ask the noble Lord, the Minister, if he will ask the new Labour Government when it comes into office.

A government may be faced with a strategy for fairer regional policy. If you will ask them to look again at this issue and so enable Wales to develop its railways in a manner which answers the social and economic needs of Wales. Wales's population settlement pattern is ideal for railway services. 80% of the population live in linear communities along the coast, lines on the valley floors, where people are within reasonable walking distance of railway lines. Now, I readily acknowledge that rail services in Wales have improved since devolution.

In 1999, when I entered the Assembly, as then was, there was only one through train each day between Cardiff and Holyhead, and that was a poorly overcrowded and in filthy green carriages. Baroness Humphreys is nodding. She will well remember this a screeching brakes, broken toilets and totally uncomfortable seats. My Lords, not only has transport for Wales provided far better rolling stock and schedules to serve Wales, but it is also reopened services which had been abandoned, such as the Ebbw Vale to Cardiff, Link and the Canaan Valley Line and the Cardiff Valleys Metro is moving ahead, though we do need a North Wales coast side and Wrexham Metro, which could also act as an upgrade on a cross-border basis.

There is one other rather important aspect which I shall seek to raise in committee, and that is in regard to the safety considerations, and this stems out of the tragic fatal accident in Mid Wales in October 2024, and concerning which I shall table amendments in committee if I have an opportunity. The issue which I would wish to pursue is that. Involving what is known as dynamic passing, and I shall seek assurances that that wasn't a factor in the tragic accident to which I referred.

I would ask the Minister if between now and Committee stage he can get briefed on that issue. We imply we will not oppose a Second Reading to the to this bill, which has been backed by the elected House, but I do appeal to the Minister to consider the issues, particularly with regard to

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Wales, which I have raised. My Lords, I, too, would like to

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My Lords, I, too, would like to congratulate the noble Lord Wilson of Dinton on his outstanding valedictory speech. Not for the first time in this chamber, my Lords, I am left humbled by his 60 years service and privileged to be listening to his wisdom and his humour in his last speech. Here. We humour in his last speech. Here. We will miss you. I'm also humbled as I am not an expert in the railways. I'm afraid I didn't even have a train set.

I wasn't expecting to speak in this debate. And what has brought me here is not the physical
17:42
Baroness Harding of Winscombe Portrait Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Conservative)
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railways itself, but the retail ticketing of our travel. Before I ticketing of our travel. Before I get to that, I would say I am also not a huge fan of creating a single, large state owned monopoly and wholeheartedly endorse the remarks of my noble friends, the Baroness of my noble friends, the Baroness May of Maidenhead, Lord Redwood and Lord Grayling. But that is what I don't know much about. My Lords, I don't know much about. My Lords, I would like to focus on what I do, which is retail ticketing.

It might seem small and insignificant if you like playing trains, but actually as passengers, our ticketing services are our first contact with our train journey and sadly, because of delay repay, they are often our last contact as well. And they really matter to us as passengers. It shapes our confidence in our railway network and therefore drives all harms demand. It's an area where private sector competition has delivered substantial improvements for passengers over the last decade. Now, my Lords, I do have considerable experience of the value of competition in retail services and the dangers of a vertically integrated monopolist using their control of the end to end value chain, to stifle competition at the retail end.

That's called British Telecom and Openreach. And I did as I declare my interest, spend eight years battling them when I ran TalkTalk. We've also seen it in other travel markets. When Google launched their Google Flights tab and in one stroke attempted to remove all competition in flight, flight, retail, ticketing. None of this was good for for consumers. So my Lords, whatever your views on the value of a state monopoly management of the physical network of the railways, I do hope we can all agree that retail booking services do not need to be provided by a state monopoly, and I'm afraid, my Lords, there is a real risk that, as currently drafted, that's exactly what this bill will do.

Not, I think, intentionally, but by mistake. We have one of the most dynamic retail rail markets in the world. Private sector investment in user friendly apps, in journey planners, in real time. Information has been outstanding over the last decade. The government itself. This government has recognised the significant value that the role of independent retailers play because they help to innovate and drive up standards for passengers. In the other place, the government relied heavily on a promised code of conduct to ensure that Great British Railways would not abuse its vertically integrated monopoly in ticketing.

My experience, my Lords in telecoms and digital markets is that a principle based code of conduct or code of practice without a clear enforcement regime and ex-ante powers will not deliver a competitive market? And I am not alone in this. The CMA is very clear that this is a real risk. In April 2025, the CMA set out in writing their concerns that, as currently set out, the bill could undermine incentives for third party retailers to invest and to compete.

And I quote the role envisaged for GBR as a ticket retailer gives rise to the risk, either actual or perceived, that GBR will self preference its own retail operation or otherwise have advantages over other third party retailers that are not based on merit e.g. for example, better access to relevant information, I continue. It is therefore important to give the right signals from the onset that third party retailers will be competing on a level playing field with GBR. I'm afraid, my Lords, the bill does not give that reassurance from the outset.

International comparisons are very clear that integrated state monopolies will abuse this vertical integrated power in both Germany and Spain, where there is no separation. The same basic approach as proposed in this legislation has required competition authorities to intervene. Deutsche Bahn breached competition law because of restrictive marketing and pricing practices, and the Spanish monopolist had to agree specific behaviour changes with the European Commission because of competition concerns. Whereas in France, where the French SFR I'm going to get this all wrong.

So I'm not a retail rail person. Sniffer connect is a separate business. The ticketing business is completely separate, as it should be to ensure that the vertically integrated monopolist can't abuse that power. So, my Lords, will the Minister confirm that all retailers will compete on equivalent economic terms and that GBR own retailer will not benefit from cross-subsidy without structural separation between GBR online retailer and the wider organisation. Self-preferencing will be very difficult to detect, let alone remedy.

So will the Minister confirm that GBR online retailer will be required to maintain separate governance and accounting arrangements, so that the regulator has the transparency it needs to monitor and enforce compliance with its code of conduct. And finally, my Lords, will the ORR have ex-ante powers under the code, not merely the ability to investigate after harm has already occurred, by which time you will ensure no investment from the private sector into this sector at all. I know these are very detailed issues.

They might seem unimportant if you're more interested in the big physical infrastructure of the rail network, but ticketing experience to passengers really matters. And creating an unwieldy public sector monopolist in a

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service sector where competition is mistake. Yeah.

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I wish to join in the appreciation for Lord Wilson. As a former civil servant, I want to say former civil servant, I want to say how much his observations rang true for me. And as a new member of this for me. And as a new member of this House, I want to also say how much I hope to have learned from him in the short time that we have
17:48
Lord Dixon of Jericho Portrait Lord Dixon of Jericho (Liberal Democrat)
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the short time that we have overlapped together. I also wish to speak on a similar issue to Baroness Harding, although I think I will take a slightly different approach. Probably as someone who has spent time working in Citizens Advice for a considerable period of time about the experience that people have of of things as they as they appear to consumers, this this bill is welcome because at their best, train journeys are a source of great pleasure. At their worst, they are a source of huge frustration.

So I spent last week writing parts of this speech on the floor of a carriage with inadequate air conditioning, trying to make myself as small as possible on a train that was scheduled to last 52 minutes and was half an hour late. And too many people have that experience as a rule, rather than the exception. My Lords, I trust in the wide and deep experience of this House to solve those issues, so I don't propose to go into them. Instead, I want to focus on a small part of the bill on which I hope I can be both somewhat knowledgeable and constructive.

So within the last few months, it has become straightforward for anyone with access to a coding agent and a good idea to produce software that makes that happen with a minimum of effort and expertise. And certainly it's been much quicker than it ever has before. And although I'm not a trained software engineer, in the last year, I've produced ten applications that now work to do things. So this should be a golden age for technology entrepreneurs in our country. And one choice we make here on this bill will decide whether we have a flourishing ecosystem of world class firms that do this to provide a world class experience for passengers, or whether we end up on the receiving end of technology that's fundamentally been owned and developed elsewhere.

So this bill currently proposes that Great British Railways should own both its own ticketing system and provide the data and systems that third parties can use to offer competing products. I sincerely hope that Great British Railways produces a completely world class, brilliant app. I'm very supportive of that and hope it works really well. But I think we shouldn't put all our eggs in that basket. And as the noble Baroness mentioned, there are deep concerns about that from both industry and from the Competition and Markets Authority.

I think we should be very wary of creating a public sector body deliberately, that has both the power and commercial incentive to stifle competition. Having said that, I'm very sympathetic to the view that one particular company in the UK has dominant market share and that is a problem. But limiting access to data and opaquely subsidising a public sector competitor will in practice just result in bad experiences for customers with less choice, especially for those with more complex needs and no meaningful integration with other transport modes or the things that people want to do in their lives.

So I think the right solution is to make sure that Great British Railways has the right incentives to open up data APIs and platforms so that new and existing companies can compete on a level playing field. And, and really importantly, that they provide the best possible experience to customers. So we should want more British technology success stories. We should want them to start here, stay here, employ a thousand people, more than half of whom are skilled engineers and export products and services to many other countries.

And that's why this bill needs to make it easier and not harder for new start ups to compete with Trainline, or do things that Trainline would never consider, in that the current data architecture is a real problem. So fares routeing and availability data exists, but only in formats that specialise. Sorry that reward companies that have spent millions of pounds interpreting that data and making it usable. So ticket issuing system, which is the thing you need to do, the thing you need to get access to, to get the data about what is happening in our railways and what the fares are.

The accreditation fees for that start at £950 a day. It takes 12 months for a new provider to be accredited, and you have to get bonds that are scaled to your turnover, that are estimated to be £400,000 for a new entrant to the market, meaning you take on substantial financial risk and focus capital on meeting regulation rather than finding improving market fit. If you try and start up in this area. So to make that sort of real, a new Start-Up would need to sell the equivalent of 600 000 off peak tickets between Oxford, which is where Jericho is to London, just to cover the initial regulatory costs in that market.

That is a huge barrier to entry. And frankly, no small Start-Up is going to risk that, which will just end up with only Train line and others. Other apps are available and and Great British Railways app. And that is before we consider the many features that would benefit passengers that are currently in defensively locked within individual companies and not available to competitors such as automatic delay, repay, advanced passenger information, crowding information, passenger assistance, accessibility and electronic cycle booking.

So just to give one example of this on the rail data marketplace, Avantis fleet accessibility data is an Excel file. LNER is a spreadsheet that's mislabelled as a CSV, Greater Anglia as a PDF. And there are separately, amazingly differently formatted Excel files from all other operators. No two companies provide that in a standard format, and that is why no app can reliably tell a wheelchair user about their whole journey. This is not something that has to happen, and Trainline has a competitive moat, partly because the data is so hard to work with, and government has made the regulatory barriers to entry too high.

It is just too hard to scale and start companies in this market, let alone if you're a third sector or voluntary organisation that wants to make a good thing for a particular set of users. So I don't think this is a question of ministerial will or good faith. Lots of people have tried to solve this over the years. It's a question of the economic incentives in the system, and I'm deeply concerned that great, great British Railways has no meaningful incentive to make the data open, to be well structured or to encourage competition.

And I think it probably has the reverse. So the House rightly has concerns about the threats posed by AI, but we also have to ensure that we structure the fundamentals of our public services in ways that British firms and the public can use to realise the benefits of AI, too. And that fundamentally means a modern and forward looking approach to data. So I hope the noble Lord, the Minister can confirm in in his winding up speech that the Bill will both prevent unfair self-preferencing by Great British Railways.

In the relatively niche issue of ticketing and make sure that it's properly incentivised and not just required to increase the scope, consistency and openness of data and APIs in this area, because that is how we make ticketing at least a world class experience for passengers. So I look forward to working with him and experts across the house on this narrow niche. But in my view, crucial issue.

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tribute. To the noble Lord Lord Wilson of

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To the noble Lord Lord Wilson of Dinton. He was the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office when I was the Minister of State there for four years. He was an excellent civil servant, diligently and neutrally delivering our policies. He was also kind and helpful to me He was also kind and helpful to me personally. I've always remembered that and will not forget it. I can also tell the House that under his also tell the House that under his leadership and my noble friend Lord Howard and I, the Home Office was fit for purpose, then I wish him.

I wish him well in the future. Yes, my Lord, before younger members of your Lordships House waxed lyrical about the brilliant opportunities of a new British Rail, or older members, look at the past through rose tinted spectacles. Let me tell the House what the government owned British Rail was really like. I travel on British Rail trains 60 to 70 times a year, from Penrith to Houston from 1983 when I was elected, and they were the absolute pits. Never mind, never mind the jokes about British Rail sandwiches, which were true, but there were symptomatic of a nationalised state run monopoly.

This is the food. It may be rubbish, but so what? You've not got any choice. The trains were clapped out and the organisation was corrupt, not financially corrupt. Except that the Communist train drivers unions got whatever they wanted. But it was politically corrupt. My Lords, I recall on many occasions when the train made additional stops because the minister's office phoned the department and the train made an unscheduled stop to pick up or drop off a Minister on the West Coast mainline that was merely doing what they did in the Soviet Union, and it was done in this country until privatisation.

My Lords privatisation was absolutely brilliant. We got Virgin on the West Coast and Gner on the east. Gner revolutionised East Coast mainline services by elevating customer service, introducing premium onboard catering. The refurbished carriages rolled out Wi-Fi and operated some of the fastest scheduled passenger trains in Britain. Virgin were an absolute godsend on the West Coast line. They got rid of the government slum trains. Virgin completely transformed the line by introducing the Pendolinos and the Super Voyager trains. They expanded train lengths, improved stations and provided a wide range of quality food, and they grew passenger numbers from 8 million to over 42 million annually.

They were brilliant operators, but Virgin lost its franchise, and I'd argue that it's one y. Basically, the government got too greedy and demanded too much money from the companies. I know that the common myth is that the shareholder shareholders of privatised train companies were making too much money, but it was government greed which brought them down. They demanded that NER pay £1.3 billion for its franchise and achieve 10% growth. Lord Crisp demands from civil servants who had never run anything. They sacked Virgin because Virgin refused to accept long term pension liabilities for railway workers.

There are 350,000 retired railway workers on index linked defined pension benefits and who in their right mind would want to accept that liability? Well, Avanti did and provides a cheap cheapskate service to cover the cost. There was one big mistake made with privatisation that was
17:59
Lord Blencathra Portrait Lord Blencathra (Conservative)
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making the maintenance of the railway lines into a different company, rather than tying it to company, rather than tying it to the train operators. Of course, the last Labour government wound up Railtrack for bad financial management and said that the costs management and said that the costs were out of control with a massive £3.5 billion debt. Now that the £3.5 billion debt. Now that the costs for the rather slow running costs for the rather slow running HS2 are 30 billion, 40 billion, 50 billion or 60 billion out of control, can we look forward to that company being put into administration? Also, I have some questions for the noble Lord, the Minister.

Rather than throw more money at the rail unions who have now got the government over a barrel, will he actually invest in schemes to get level access onto our trains? I get it all the time in France, Germany and Switzerland with many trains. And in this country, the step up from a platform to the train is only about 12in apart from Eurostar, which are about three feet high for some unknown reason. So when we look at three options, one is lowering the trackbed where it is possible to do so, two, where the trackbed cannot be lowered, like in Euston or Saint Pancras.

Then look at raising platform heights or three research and buy two tier trains which they have on the continent. These are not any higher than ours overall, but they've got low level access between the bogies. Now, I'm not demanding that at every station, but there are hundreds where lowering the trackbed is possible at little cost. Now, I have used assistance for about 15 years now. I paid tribute to the fantastic team at Penrith, who have never failed to get me on and off the trains, and also the buggy drivers at Euston.

Now, before anyone seeks a safe space for the use of my terminology, let me make it clear that I don't consider myself disabled but just a wee bit crippled. I hope that clarifies matters for everyone. However, Minister, please make it simple. If we phone in to get assistance. Virgin had a dedicated number, but Avanti have one number for everything. And after 2.5 minutes of messages about the Rail Ombudsman, about strikes, about not travelling in hot weather or cold weather, and why we should not be falling in the first place.

You have to press button one and then button three, and then button one again and you get through. Can the new British Rail have a simple online form and a direct phone line to book for assistance? How much I pick up the point made by my noble. My noble friend Baroness May. How much does it cost so far to repaint or redecorate the nationalised trains with the new British Rail logo? Why is that necessary to do it before the existing paintwork or decals are worn out or pasted? And let us look at other money may be wasted.

We have a demand from the London Underground Tube drivers, surely the most overpaid and underworked people in London, that they and their partners get a 75% discount on all the new British Rail trains. That's another 8000 people to add to the 350,000 railway pensioners and their partners, who also get the 75% discount, the 66,000 staff and partners working for the current train operating companies get free travel on their own lines and 75% discount on other lines. And not to be outdone, Network Rail have given all their 40,000 staff and partners the 75% discount.

Also, of course, when all the train operating companies are nationalised, all 120,000 train staff and partners will either get the 75% discount or, more likely, free travel anywhere in the UK any time. My Lords, we are heading to a situation where well over a million people connected to the railways will be getting free, or 75% discounted travel to anywhere in the UK for the rest of their lives. So will the Minister confirm whether this perk will be extended to HQ staff or British Rail, or to any dot civil servant? My Lords, my greatest.

The current train operating companies supply food from businesses along the line, some better than others. I suspect we're heading to a government approved homogenised, healthy menu for all. No salt, no sugar, no calories and no flavour and no taste. But that's a small point. I conclude with my major concern. My greatest concern of all that there'll be a drive to cut train running times. Well, I can save 30 minutes on the Glasgow on the London to Glasgow run. If we don't stop at the smaller stations along the route, like Wigan or Warrington, or Lancaster, or Oxenholme or Penrith.

But we just stop at Euston, Preston, Carlisle and Glasgow. That's not. That is not fanciful. We've already had some trains not stopping there in the last few years, and civil servants will force British Rail to extend it to more trains. They've done it with the privatised companies and they will have a free hand with the nationalised ones to do even more of it. So I conclude, my Lords, that I have no great optimism that we will enter a brave new world of better rail travel in the UK once we have the dead and incompetent hand of the government running it.
18:03
Lord Lansley Portrait Lord Lansley (Conservative)
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Amen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> My Lord, great pleasure to follow my my noble friend Lord Blencathra. I can remember British Blencathra. I can remember British Rail, but I think any of us want to go back to British Rail. We want to go to something altogether better. We need the railways to succeed. And I think we can see that when people feel that they have a reliable, punctual and enjoyable railway available to them, they will use it. Look at the rail passenger journeys on Elizabeth's line that has, I think it's reaching something like a million passengers a day.

So where we create a railway that is, that people can rely upon and can use, we can succeed. We need that to happen. Now. I don't want to. I do think on our benches on this side of the House, we are we've already arrived in these fascinating speeches already at something of a consensus view, which is that we ought to have recreated the vertically integrated regional companies. But we didn't. John Major may have been in favour of it, but he managed to be Prime Minister when that wasn't what was put into the Railways Act 1993, it should have happened, I think, if I remember correctly, my noble friend before the 92 manifesto, we were arguing for exactly that.

And the manifesto more, more or less reflected that. But it didn't happen. But that didn't mean that privatisation didn't succeed. My noble friend Lord Grayling was absolutely right. Passenger numbers doubled the investment by something between 3 and 4 times. Investment in infrastructure went up 3 or 4 times. The the the the train miles increased by 30%. So there was a dramatic increase. But what was that essentially about? It's what my noble friend Lord Redwood was saying, because privatisation led to substantial investment of private capital.

And the first question, which I think we must examine during the course of the of the passage of this legislation is is there where is that capital going to come from in the future? And are we going to be able to sustain the investment that we need in the railway network for the future? And the bill doesn't tell us that. It tells us the processes, but not the outcome. And I have in my in my days as a civil servant, just with expressing my appreciation to the noble Lord Lord Wilson, we may miss him here.

We will miss him here, but I'm looking forward to seeing him in Cambridge. I hope that will. We will continue to have that pleasure. But as a civil servant, I have literally sat in a meeting where the investment programme of one potentially successful nationalised industry was rejected in order to provide an investment into a failing nationalised industry, which had a political reason for investment. So let's not kid ourselves. If this becomes a state controlled industry, it will become subject to state control of investment, and that may mean state rationing of investment.

Now, the noble Lord Lord Hendy, who I thought introduced the bill in an admirably concise but also very helpful way, will remember that in the. When we examined the Public Ownership Bill, he very skilfully enabled the government to reverse out of franchising into public ownership and the remaining. Whether franchises ended. But he didn't tell us really what was going to be the long term structure. This bill is about the long term structure and who the single directing mind will be, and how that single directing mind will be subject to checks and balances and challenges.

In my view, privatisation can work only successfully in the long run, where it is subject to competition and monopoly. Always, in my experience, offers short term benefits, sometimes provides short term benefits, but always leads to a lack of long term investment, a lack of long term innovation, and a and a lack of long term consumer benefit. So if we are going to get the consumer benefits, as I think my noble friend Baroness May of Maidenhead was stressing quite rightly, if we're going to get the consumer benefits, if we're going to get the innovation, if we're going to get the investment, we have to bring the private sector on board as well.

So some of the challenges in the passage of the bill to which I will devote my attention are, for example, in creating the regulatory structure that enables this to happen. Firstly, the rail strategy at the moment is simply what the Secretary of State chooses it to be. There is no parliamentary scrutiny. There's not even any requirement for consultation, not even with the Office of Rail and Road before the strategy is published. I think we're going to have to look very critically at this and and look at the analogy of national policy statements, which in the energy sector, for example, are subject to examination in Parliament and to scrutiny, if not to a parliamentary veto.

Secondly, the rail freight target, there is a target. It is that it increase the rail. The level of rail freight in this country has increased in the last decade, but lamentably, only 1% per year on average. If we are to reach the target of a 75% increase by 2050, it requires a 2.5% annual compound rate of rail freight growth. So perhaps that target should be set as not less than a 2% increase per annum per annum. Otherwise, how will the government really be, or indeed Great British Rail be held to account? Thirdly, the Office of Rail and Road.

We heard a little about that. I won't repeat what I. What we've heard from noble Lady Baroness May, or indeed from my noble friend Baroness Harding of Winscombe Baroness Harding absolutely right about ticketing. I won't. As I say, I won't repeat that. But I think we really need to press very hard on that. And that issue of avoiding Self-preferencing is not confined to ticketing. The Office of Rail and Road may have continuing concurrent jurisdiction with the CMA in relation to the CMA's own powers, but the Bill expressly removes the promotion of competition duty from the Office of Rail and Road in relation to such important things as access, infrastructure, timetabling and charging schemes.

So if we are going to avoid self-preferencing, I think we need to ensure that the competition duty is brought back on in those as well, and the open access operators, clearly they will not have confidence that they will be able to exploit the opportunities for private investment and private competition unless and until the Office of Rail and Road has those powers, the additional power it should have is where the appeal to the ORR is concerned. It should not be limited to judicial review grounds.

There must be elements of those decisions made by GBR, which should be appealed on their merits to the Office of Rail and Road. Those are. It will not surprise the noble Lord the Minister, that I plan to test him on some of those competition related issues. We've happily worked on that before. Final point on devolution. There is. There is reference to. Of course, this carries forward the opportunity for services not to be designated and therefore to be available for the Metro and passenger transport executives to be able to provide those services themselves.

But the relationship with local government in this bill so far, it seems to me, inadequate. Clause 85, for example, limits the relationship with local government to mayoral combined and strategic authorities. And clearly there are many more local authorities than those which are mayoral strategic authorities.
18:12
Baroness Brinton Portrait Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat)
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And my Lords, Baroness Brinton is taking part remotely. is taking part remotely. >> My Lords, it's good to follow Lord Lansley, even if I think that perhaps processes have been somewhat neglected in the privatisation in recent years, often to the detriment of passengers. I also want to echo the thanks that have been made to Lord Wilson of Dinton as he leaves this house. His distinguished experience has been of great value to the House over the years, and I wish him well.

I want to start by thanking the Minister and his officials for a meeting with disabled peers prior to the Second Reading, and for those of us who were involved in the Passenger Services Railway Act, the paving bill for this one, which was in our your Lordships' House 18 months ago. This is a welcome day along with other noble Lords. My focus of this bill is to ensure that the strong promises from the Minister and the Labour Government to improve rail services for disabled passengers and others who need assistance, will become a reality.

However, the noble Lord, the Minister, knows that we will hold him and his government to account to ensure that the improvements that I know he wants will actually happen. We need to ensure that the warm words spoken here turn into reality for every disabled person's journey, and clause three in the Bill is vital to ensure that Great British Railways runs passenger services effectively for all passengers, but for passenger who requires assistance, whether that's infrastructure or practical arrangements, far too often the service is not good, creating barriers for those who just want to get on a train to go from A to B.

So I want to start with infrastructure. In 2020 for the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, DPTAC commissioned a survey with Omeo, which found that the UK stations were the worst in Europe, having alarming accessibility inadequacies. And in 2021, a couple of years earlier, the Department of Transport had commissioned at Alice to assess every station in the UK for accessibility. And I note that they had completed over 1000 by 2022, but I cannot find an overall publication of the findings, nor any further report on stations now fully accessible after improvements have been made.

So can the Minister say, if there is such a report on the overall condition that has been published, and will there be updating as stations are improved? But my Lords, it isn't just older stations. In 2023, Thanet Parkway opened in Kent for the first time. The website Every Last Station quoted Lord orc, a disability campaigner, who said, quote, regrettably, Network Rail have again cut costs by treating passengers with reduced mobility compliance as a target rather than a minimum standard.

Disappointing disabled people have been treated as an afterthought at this new station and will suffer the consequences. For example, he said, it is outrageous that a new station has no accessible or changing places toilets, no EV chargers. In the blue badge bays. Platforms are narrow, so wheelchair users and scooter users have reduced turning circles for boarding and their legal right to turn up and go or tug has been eroded at this unstaffed station. This government has in started to improve matters, and I see it at my local station, Watford Junction, with BSL interpreter videos, alongside some key station announcements, for example.

But these are now urgent everywhere and must be part of any new station. So can the Minister say if this bill will ensure that from now on, no new station will be built without lifts, without level boarding and fully accessible features for those with mobility, visual and hearing impairments. And I do agree with Lord Blencathra comments about solutions for level boarding. Lady Grey Thompson referred to the assistance app and I echo every single one of her points. And I say the assistance app.

But the reality is a number of operating companies still run their own apps, which don't always have access to book, say, wheelchair spaces on another line. And that's my experience on a regular journey I do leaving Watford Junction on the West Coast Line to travel to York via King's Cross. I have to use the lNer app or phone number because if I don't, no wheelchair space will be reserved for me on that leg of the journey. And it was good to hear the Minister talk about just one app that will also cover buying tickets and assistance that was promised years ago but never appeared.

But can I check that passengers with a range of disabilities will be involved in the development of that app? Booking a wheelchair space on an app is useless unless the train staff ensure that the space is free of large suitcases. Now, it's not too bad when you get on at Kings Cross because you. Wheelchairs are usually first on. But at a station further up the line, assistant staff with the ramp often have to leave swiftly, leaving a wheelchair passenger to have to shout down the carriage to ask for cases to be moved.

It's funny how deaf people get. When that happens. I turn now to a key element of support for all passengers, but essential for those with reduced mobility, and that is staff on a train and on the station. I will now do anything I can to avoid travelling on southeast trains because there are not staff and most stations don't have staff either. This means that your journey time is in the lap of the gods. Journey time from Charing Cross to Lewisham could easily be doubled because in order to get to Lewisham you need help with a ramp.

But there's nobody there, so I have to get off at Hither Green, wait for staff at Hither Green to be free to take me on to the next convenient train for Lewisham. Even longer in reverse, when you have to phone for Lewisham to ask them to find someone to get on a train from Hither Green to come and collect. You and staff are needed on stations too, to help with ramps to guide passengers who may not know how to get off the platform safely.

But they are needed just as train staff are too, for protecting and guiding all passengers, whether it's because of an emergency, as in the recent crash near Bedford, or as I have seen a crime with a dangerous weapon in progress, I've also witnessed the enormous bravery of staff jumping down off the platform to rescue a passenger who also jumped off a platform in great distress. That staff member did not think of his safety, only the passenger. And this bravery is extraordinary.

But those stations and trains without staff can put passengers at risk. I echo Lady Grey Thompson's frustration with failed lifts. For six months at my local station, trains had to be brought in to a different platform whenever there was a wheelchair on board, because two lifts were out, and that also affected the elderly too. But they weren't in a position to ask for a train to be rerouted. The problem exactly the same as the House of Lords. Current lift problem. The lift companies do not keep spare parts at the factory in Italy, and they have to be made each time.

And I find it extraordinary that Network Rail, who hold the contract for all station lifts, cannot insist on a better service. Under the old system. Passengers had no voice on this. So can I ask the Minister if this will change under GBR? Because I have to tell you, six months without a platform lifts affects everyone's journey and morale. Finally, my Lords, a while ago now, when my train from Edinburgh came into King's Cross two hours late after midnight on a Sunday, the train start had.

Staff had dashed off to hand out taxi vouchers at the exit gates to all passengers, not realising that there were no assistance, duty staff left on duty. Myself and another wheelchair user realised when everything went quiet what had happened, we couldn't get off the assistance phone line at the station wasn't answered, nor was the station general number. I asked noble Lords, what would you do in this situation? And it clearly wasn't a 999 matter. The 111 line wasn't staffed that late and the other passenger was getting very anxious.

Was it scary? It certainly wasn't much fun, but not unusual for wheelchair passengers when they get left on trains. So I tweeted the disabled community always helpful with suggestions, but one person went even further. Lady Grey Thompson saw my tweet and passed it on to the Chief Executive at lNer at about 1 a.m. Of course she had his number. It was helpful that he knew how to find someone to come to our rescue, but if Lady Grey Thompson hadn't been so well connected, I think my fellow traveller and I would have greeted the early shift of cleaners.

Thank you, Lady Grey Thompson. And to the Minister, I say the aspirations of GBR should mean that this sort of problem of abandoning disabled passengers should be a thing of the past. I think that would be a good yardstick of accessibility.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Baroness Brinton has just made a. everyone. Who. Listened to that will agree that

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Listened to that will agree that that state of affairs is simply not acceptable. My Lords, I join others in paying tribute to the valedictory speech of the noble valedictory speech of the noble Lord Lord Wilson. He was an excellent Permanent Secretary at the Department of Environment in the Department of Environment in the 1990s, when I was Minister of Housing and Planning. He was a source of wise advice and he kept source of wise advice and he kept me out of serious trouble for 3 or 4 years.

My Lord, speaking in this debate is a bit like attending one's own funeral, because the bill basically undoes the reforms, which I oversaw as Secretary of State between 1995 and 1997, and it is just worth reminding the House what those reforms achieved. As my noble friend Lord Lansley said, passenger numbers were doubled. Services improved by a third, and operating deficit under British Rail was turned into an operating surplus. Investment in rolling stock, electrification, signalling station modernisation improved as the dead hand of the Treasury was removed from the capital programme.

Passenger safety, improved, industrial relations, improved, branch lines were reopened and passenger fares were capped at RPI -1%. A reform abandoned by the incoming Labour government, who actually kept everything else the same for about four years. And it's just worth making the point that many of those improvements and reforms are post-privatisation were actually driven by former employees of British Rail, who welcomed the challenges and the freedoms that came with the policy. But my Lords, we are where we are.

The government has a mandate for what is in the bill, which is basically to bring the system under one ownership. On that, I was struck by what the noble Lord, the Minister said in response to a recent Oral Question I quote, virtually the whole of the world in countries that run railways, is incredulous that this country managed to separate the infrastructure from the operations for more than 30 years. End of quotes. But, my Lords, that simply is not the case. Most European Union members have legally separated their rail infrastructure management from their train operations, as mandated by the European Union directive.

In fact, we can only do what's in the bill because of Brexit, something which I'm not sure the Minister mentioned in his speech. The countries that have done what the Minister finds incredible include Sweden, who actually did it before we did
18:24
Lord Young of Cookham Portrait Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative)
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France, where SNCF had two separate subsidiaries to promote competition subsidiaries to promote competition Spain, Italy, Denmark and Finland. Which brings me to the related argument that underpins the government's policy. And I quote government's policy. And I quote from the White Paper A railway fit for the future. I quote this is a for the future. I quote this is a necessary first step towards ending fragmentation. That is why we will establish Great British Railways, a establish Great British Railways, a single directing mind.

But my Lords, this is not the model used by successful companies throughout the world. What the Minister calls fragmentation, they call specialisation the ability to secure the component goods and services needed from a variety of sources, ensuring innovation, competition and resilience in this country. British Aerospace, AstraZeneca abroad, Apple. They don't do everything themselves. They outsource, they commission. They buy in the marketplace. They have actually been successful because of what the Minister calls fragmentation. Now, the Minister may say that this doesn't apply to transport because it's different, but actually it isn't the safest and cheapest form of transport in this country is actually by air.

But you could not find an industry that is actually more fragmented. The airlines don't own the aircraft, they don't own the terminals. They don't run the national air traffic system. They don't do the security or the handling. Some airlines don't even employ pilots. They employ self-employed, qualified pilots. So I challenged the assertion that an industry which is fragmented or specialised is less efficient than an integrated one. Nor, incidentally, does aviation have a single directing mind, something with Orwellian overtones.

But, my Lords, my concern is that the three Cambridge three main benefits that came with privatisation will be lost under the reforms. Investment in rail was taken almost entirely off the public sector balance sheet in 1995. It created a market of train operators to replace a public monopoly, and the business model forced the industry to look outwards towards its customers, not inwards, to the sponsoring department. On the first, I had the pleasure of negotiating the transport budget with the Treasury, both before the railways were privatised and after.

Before privatisation I would go to Star Chamber and they would say, George, we're really pleased to see you. We've just had the Health Secretary who wants more doctors and nurses. We've had the education Secretary who wants more teachers. We've had the Secretary of State for defence who wants more soldiers. Priority is the language of politics, politics, the language of priorities. I'm very sorry, George. You cannot have your new train set for Christmas now after privatisation. That dialogue simply didn't take place.

The market responded to the business case that was made. There was also a risk that the ONS, the Office of National Statistics, will put the rolling stock companies onto the government's balance sheet, as they did with housing associations, because of the degree of control over the investment the government proposes, and that will play havoc with their borrowing requirement. The second advantage was to bring in other successful transport operators people around buses, airline shipping or people around train services overseas, and those skills were applied to running the railway here, breaking the British Rail monopoly.

The government is not even adopting the concessions. The management contracts. With the private sector so successful, the bus companies in Manchester, in London and in Manchester. As my noble friend Lord Lansley made at a meeting with the Minister last week, and the Minister has been very generous with his time. He said that the franchise model or concession model was not adopted for the GBR because the train operators were not interested in the deal. That's strange because those train operators are the very same companies who run the bus operators that have successfully run exactly those contract arrangements in Manchester and London.

Perhaps they overplayed their hand, but we are now back to a monopoly with the risk of a national strike by train drivers, which was avoided by franchising or indeed concessions. My Lords, the third innovation was the incentive to grow the market, to look outwards towards the customer. Under privatisation, once a company had won the franchise, the only way they could increase turnover and profit was by winning more customers. But when I was transport secretary before privatisation, it made little difference to British Rail whether they had more customers or fewer.

It just meant they got more or less subsidy from the Secretary of State. I was their real customer, not the passenger. So, my Lords, for me, the jury is out as to whether what is proposed is going to give the industry the secure, efficient and customer focussed future that it really needs.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Very good. My Lords, I'd like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton on his valedictory speech. It was great fun and I don't think we've ever met, but there's plenty of time before there's plenty of time before September, so perhaps we can get that in our diaries. Now, I don't often say this, but I welcome this bill. The Green Party has long argued that our railways should be run as a public service and not for private profit.

After decades of failed fragmentation, spiralling
18:30
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Portrait Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (Green Party)
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costs and confusing accountability, bringing the railway back under public ownership is important and public ownership is important and overdue, and therefore this bill is a step in the right direction. But a step in the right direction. But if we are creating Great British Railways, then we must create a railway that's genuinely great, one that's affordable, accessible, integrated and capable of helping to meet the defining challenge of to meet the defining challenge of our age the climate and nature crisis. At present, the bill doesn't achieve that.

It actually lacks ambition. For example, Great British Railways will have numerous duties, so why doesn't it contain a clear duty to increase passenger numbers? I welcome the target on shifting freight from lorries onto trains. But why no equivalent ambition to encourage more people out of their cars and onto trains? To do that, we must make train travel cheap and easy for millions of people. The biggest barrier to travelling by rail isn't whether a train exists, but whether they can afford the ticket.

Affordable fares are perhaps the single most effective tool available to increase passenger numbers, tackle inequality and reduce car dependence. Yet the bill contains no explicit duty to promote affordable fares and changes to Great British Railways licensing arrangements could actually see fares rising as there's less focus on public duties. There seems to be even less ambition on creating one system that covers the whole journey that someone might take. It works in Greater London as a noble Lord. The Minister knows very well where TfL runs London Underground, overground under the mayor's control.

Manchester is moving that way. But what about democratic control over integrated transport for the rest of the cities and regions? People don't think in terms of operators or transport modes. They simply want one journey. Whether someone is connecting from a local bus, a tram, a cycle route or a ferry, the system should feel seamless. Integration should be one of the central purposes of Great forms of transport. We should be supporting every passenger to choose rail over driving or domestic flying. If we are to meet our legally binding climate targets, then modal shift cannot simply be left in policy papers.

It should be a statutory objective of the organisation responsible for running the railway. Staggeringly, environmental responsibilities appear only fleetingly within the Bill. There's little recognition that our railway must become climate resilient as extreme weather becomes more frequent, or that it should contribute to restoring nature. Alongside the lines, it manages, 10% of all train services were cancelled or severely delayed just in the most recent heat wave in Britain. I spent six hours getting home last week instead of three, and I felt myself lucky to actually get home at all.

Great British Railways should have a clear public mission that recognises its contribution not only to transport, but also to our economy, our environment and our wider society. Passengers deserve the reassurance that a publicly owned railway will be judged not simply on financial performance, but on whether it provides affordable access to work, education, leisure and family life. Profitable routes should be able to support socially essential services in rural and underserved communities, where success is measured not only in ticket revenue but in reducing isolation, supporting local economies and giving people a genuine alternative to cars.

High ticket prices mean empty seats. Equally important is protecting the workforce that keeps our railways running. I welcome the reassurances the government has given regarding the future of the railway pension scheme, providing valuable certainty for thousands of rail workers. The future of Great British Railways will depend as much on the people who run it as on the infrastructure they manage. And then, of course, the bill also misses one of the biggest opportunities of all, setting Britain on the path towards a fully electrified railway.

Britain has spent decades pursuing a stop start approach to electrifying its rail network, and only 39% thereabouts of our railway is electrified, well behind many comparable countries. We know what needs to happen. The Climate Change Committee has made clear that substantially more of the network will need to be electrified. If we are to decarbonise rail and meet our climate obligations. And yet the bill is silent on this. Finally, I hope the government will look carefully at how passengers themselves are represented.

A publicly owned railway that fails to listen to the public would have missed the point entirely. Public ownership should not simply be changed for who owns the railway, it should change who the railway works for passengers, disabled people, local communities, rail workers, devolved governments and regional authorities should all have meaningful opportunities to shape services, investment priorities and future strategies. And of course, improving accessibility will be a huge benefit for our ageing population. We also need more clarity on how mayoral, local and combined authorities will be able to control investment plans and services.

The Green Party has long argued that rail should be viewed not simply as a transport system, but as essential national infrastructure for delivering economic opportunity, social justice and climate action. So public ownership is not the destination, it's the foundation. This bill moves us away from the disastrous experiment of fragmented privatisation, and for that it does deserve support. But we should not settle for a railway that merely functions better than before. We should build one that actively reduces carbon emissions, restores nature, connects communities, integrates public transport, makes travel affordable, and expands opportunity across every part of the country.

And those ambitions really must be written into the bill itself. I therefore welcome the Bill Second Reading and hope that during its passage through this House we can strengthen it so that Great British Railways truly lives up to its name. A railway run in the public interest, serving people, communities and the planet for generations to come.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Good to follow the noble Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb. And there's a huge amount in what she said that I agree with, and I welcome her support for the bill. I also want to, as you still in the chamber, pay my own tribute to Lord Wilson of Dinton, who I first had the pleasure of meeting, we reckon the pleasure of meeting, we reckon about 40 years ago when he was a senior civil servant. And I was a lobbyist for a particular interest which had had had had which was
18:37
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Portrait Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Labour)
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which, which was affected by his Department for Home Office. He will he will be missed. But that was a he will be missed. But that was a wonderful valedictory speech. I also want to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Hendy of Richmond noble friend Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, for the way he introduced this debate, and I endorse the this debate, and I endorse the compliments paid to him from the benches opposite. He is an extraordinarily successful and extraordinarily successful and popular Transport Minister in your Lordships House, and I hope it won't blight his career.

If I say that. I hope he remains where he is when Mr. Burnham forms his new government in a couple of weeks time. I have a number of railway interests. I should declare the noble Baroness, lady May of Maidenhead, referred to one of them. I chair the Great Western Railway Advisory Board, and she is indeed, indeed, a most diligent and valued member of that board, and I'm delighted that she is on it. I'm president of the Cotswold Line Promotion Group and of the Heritage Railway Association that was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, and the issues of heritage railways which he raised.

I'm sure we will come come to in committee on the Bill. All of these organisations, along with numerous, numerous others which have written to me, have interests in this Bill and the House will consider issues which relate to them in committee. The most important matter for me is the issue facing the railways is to ensure that they can rise to the challenge of constantly growing public demand from passengers and the freight industry in a cost effective and well managed way, an essential ingredient in this renaissance will be to ensure that Great British Railways is the industry's directing mind, firmly in charge of the railway.

Otherwise, capacity will not be enhanced and performance will not improve. It must have the power to decide how the network is best used, as is defined in clause 50, and doing that is likely to produce more capacity than we do now. The other great issue is that the long term rail plan from the Secretary of State will give GBR the opportunity and the obligation to form a business plan, which carries out the enhancements which improve the network the most, and the right money to keep the network running reliably.

Neither of these documents exist now, and they haven't for over 30 years, and that's why the network is less than optimal, and why the need for a future list of enhancements with business cases is so important. And if we have this list, we can then solicit third party contributions through section 106 and other agreements. We all know how landowners and developers benefit from railway improvements, but are seldom asked to pay anything towards them. Take the Cotswold Line between Oxford and Worcester as an example.

The case for enhancing this route is overwhelming, but it hasn't made the cut as far as the Department for transport is concerned. Over the last 15 years, even though the line's popularity has grown year by year, trains are regularly overcrowded, but the service's reliability is undermined by two stretches of single line working. Developers have great plans for house building, particularly at the western end of the line, including a new town on the edge of Worcester, and they have the strongest possible incentive to contribute.

And and and and yet it is an easy win. And yet, for some reason, it seems to be very hard to persuade the Department of the case. I have no doubt that the principles behind the Bill are right and only effective approach to simplifying and reducing the huge cost of our railways, which were which is required by the complex structure set up when BR was privatised. I don't share the view that Lord Young of Cookham has of the merits of the privatisation that he introduced, for reasons that I've explained to him, but there are no other credible alternatives being advanced to take them into their next stage of development other than those proposed in this bill.

In 2023, I co-authored a book on railway power and politics called Signals Path to Danger. Our conclusions in relation to privatisation were that the policy of privatisation was quotes a leap in the dark, a radical experiment where neither the government nor the British Railways Board could predict the outcome. Well, this time round we know the results of the privatisation experiment, and that's why the principles of this Bill have widespread support from the public and throughout the industry.

It would be wrong not to recognise that some good results were achieved over the last 25 years, and I'm very happy to recognise those. Notably new trains reopen lines, more services and a dramatic improvement in state in safety standards. But these costs have been high, involving levels of financial support. The British Rail, in its day could only dream about. Too much has been spent on lawyers, consultants and administration to meet the plethora of new regulations, and this bill offers the chance of radically simplifying the structures and reducing unnecessary regulation and costs.

Much of the debate has been about passenger services, and on these, I encourage my noble friend, the Minister, to build on the brand strength and loyalties built by the talks. But let's turn finally to rail freight. The bill gives us the opportunity to see that it takes a much larger share of the nation's transport needs than it is currently the case. And here I endorse what the noble Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb has just said. The political view was always that freight does not vote, and it's true that the financial targets set by set for BR for freight back in the 90s, 80s and 90s met them.

Much of the infrastructure had to be abandoned as it failed to meet the government's stringent financial criteria. Despite the strong environmental advantages over heavy rail heavy lorry traffic. Some of this has been regained by rail, and efficiency has improved so much that more traffic has been won by the freight companies, particularly for intermodal traffic. More more can be done and with active government support for rail freight terminals, electrification and full length freight loops, the growth can be even greater.

The great underused asset is the channel Tunnel, and it is shocking that less rail freight currently passes through the Channel Tunnel and was carried across by the train ferries before the tunnel opened. GBR will be able to help the development of international freight in in gauge clearance work to carry the largest containers to provide wider access to the rail network. The inclusion of a requirement to set a rail freight rail freight growth strategy is welcome, and a complete change from the framework of the 1970s, when when rail freight was seen as the lost cause and not worthy of support as much in this bill to welcome the bits in it which we shall want want to achieve in improving committee.

But overwhelmingly I give it my support. Very good.
18:45
Baroness Humphreys Portrait Baroness Humphreys (Liberal Democrat)
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My Lords. It is the passenger that should be the focal point of that should be the focal point of this Bill, and their needs and experiences should guide the developments and improvements to be developments and improvements to be implemented. The needs of passengers are clear. The ability passengers are clear. The ability to access stations, platforms and trains, lifts at work, comfortable conditions in which to travel, a regard for their personal safety, and trains which arrive and depart on time.

National rail and the operating companies try to meet those needs with varying degrees of success. For example, Motability Mobility Assistance at Euston, run by National Rail and the train operating companies, helps at least 1600 people a week to board their trains. The service is run efficiently by a dedicated team who are helpful, professional and above all, respectful and kind, and this is reflected in the performance of staff at the various stations along the route. However, the Office of Rail and Roads Research report published this month shows that 10% of those who had booked a service had not been met at all.

For those who have been abandoned on their trains late at night, the experience must be terrifying. The suspicion is that the system of notifying the arrival station of the passenger's arrival time has broken down, and perhaps the Minister could tell us if he can foresee any ways in which this system could be improved under GBR. Could I also add here how pleased I was with the noble Lords emphasis on accessibility? In his opening speech, the Avanti West Coast service between London Euston and North Wales has seen much improvement since the days of Covid and the strikes.

Their trains are newer, air conditioned and clean. Their train managers keep passengers informed and are there to help if needed. I hope there will be no further discussions about manager less trains on GBR. Their presence provides a sense of security, especially to female passengers. Many users of the West Coast service hanker after the days of Virgin Rail and its two hourly direct trains from Holyhead to Houston. Can I ask the Minister whether that's a possibility that this valuable service will be restored? The most common cause of delays to journeys appears to be the perennial signalling problems, perhaps a cover all excuse, but it points to a very real problem.

Another of the Office of Rail and Roads Reports tells us that pockets of signalling systems from the 19th century remain active, and that roughly half of the UK's rail network relies on signalling infrastructure that is more than 30 years old, an age at which the infrastructure could be deemed to be obsolete. Running a modern day Great British Rail on a signalling system which is 50% obsolete, seems designed to fail. So what plans does the Minister have to upgrade the signalling system, and over what timescale? As you Lordships will be aware, in Wales, responsibility for rail infrastructure is a reserved matter, with only responsibility for the rolling stock being devolved to Welsh Government, which is responsible for the Wales and Borders passenger services which transport transport for Wales operates as TfW rail.

It's a strange semi devolution being all the more bizarre when compared compared to Scotland, where the whole railway system is devolved. There's been a history of under-investment in Welsh rolling stock, with the Welsh Government having to take funding from other devolved areas to make up the shortfall, and the boneshaker of a train I travelled in from Chester to London Junction last Thursday was testament to this underinvestment. On the same day, service services on the branch lines between Wrexham, General and Chester, and between North Junction and Blaenau Ffestiniog were reduced or cancelled as there were more trains than usual needing repairs.

All system, all symptoms of a system and distress. So this bill's introduction of a long term, £14 billion investment plan for Wales is very welcome, particularly the approval of seven new railway stations, mainly in South Wales, to ease commuter pressure on the M4 corridor and major infrastructure upgrades include in future plans to electrify the North Wales coast line. The problem is, however, that beyond the 445 million committed to by this bill, funding for future plans is not guaranteed.

The rest of the programme is not legally mandated by this bill and will remain entirely dependent on allocations in future UK Treasury spending reviews. The remaining 13.5 plus billion is therefore currently unfunded. My Lords, we've been here before. Welsh Railways have seen promises and disappointments over recent years. The Tories promise of the electrification of the North Wales line and the electrification of the Cardiff to Swansea line came to nothing. The Tories cynical designation of HS2 as an England and Wales project.

This Labour government's equally cynical collusion with this, and their subsequent outrageously cynical designation of the Oxford to Cambridge line as an England and Wales project have added insult to injury. This latter designation alone robbed Wales of some £360 million of consequential funding through the Barnett formula. Excuse me, the investment, the investment plan is in fact the work of transport for Wales, their long term master plan today, Tomorrow Together has been endorsed by the UK government.

Which begs the question if the plan has been created in Wales by transport for Wales, why cannot it be delivered in Wales by Welsh Ministers? The investment plan is underpinned by a memorandum of understanding between the UK and the Welsh Governments, and, of course, it maintains the current devolution settlement instead of, as many people would wish, transferring full network ownership and funding powers to the Welsh Government. The MoU was signed by Welsh Labour Transport Minister in the dying days of the last Welsh Labour Governments.

So could I ask the Minister, given Plaid Cymru's commitment to the devolution of the rail network to Wales, what discussion has he had with the new administration about changes to the MoU?

**** Possible New Speaker ****

They have. My Lords, it's a great pleasure to follow the. The noble Lady who to follow the. The noble Lady who resides, I think, on the other side of the Welsh border from me. I still live very close to it in the still live very close to it in the constituency I had the pleasure to represent for nearly 20 years. I represent for nearly 20 years. I mention that because I share the minister's. The noble Lord. The minister's sentiments about the minister's sentiments about the work of those who helped all of those affected by the terrorist attack on seven seven.

It's
18:53
Lord Harper Portrait Lord Harper (Conservative)
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particularly memorable for me because it took place relatively shortly after the 2005 general shortly after the 2005 general election. When I first joined the House of Commons, it was my first experience of how, as a experience of how, as a parliamentarian, you end up dealing with the impact of a terrorist incident, and I will remember it incident, and I will remember it very clearly, and the impact on the transport system. And I remember, transport system. And I remember, which was a very small price to pay, walking all the way from here to Paddington and walking and seeing the enormous numbers of people whose lives have been disrupted that day, sometimes permanently, by that terrorist attack.

So I'm pleased about what the Minister said. I will just say at this point, I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Grayling said about about the minister's capabilities in this particular area. And I'm pleased that the noble Lord Lord Faulkner of Worcester added a cross-party. Aspect to that, because I was fearing that if only a conservative colleague had had said nice things about the Minister, we may perhaps have been doing him a disservice. But the fact that I can add my support to what the noble Lord Lord Grayling said, but also note that it was supported from the other side of the House, I hope means that when there's a change of Prime Minister in a couple of weeks time, I very much hope, in the nicest possible way, that we'll see the Minister still sitting in his place.

I had the great pleasure to work with him very closely when I was Secretary of State, and he was the chair of Network Rail, and also in his capacity of the work that he did in chairing the Eastern Partnership. And we worked very well together. And and I have great respect for his knowledge and capabilities, particularly in the the rail arena. Now, I was listening very carefully to what my noble friend Baroness May said about the importance of putting passengers first or customers first, actually, because it's important to remember that the rail network is not just about passengers, it's also about freight customers.

And both are equally important. And that's where I have some broad welcome for GBR. But I have some concerns about the way the government's going about doing it. I support bringing the operation of track and train together, and we've already heard the arguments about why a regional model of keeping those together might well have been a better solution. Of course, the Minister will know that this bill is not necessary, and I had this debate in the Department actually to bring track and train together.

One of the things that has been a very good thing started under us and has continued under the present government, is joint appointments of individuals running the train operating companies and a Network Rail operations in that region to get rid of the buck passing and the shifting, shifting accountabilities, and actually having a single individual who's responsible for infrastructure and the train operations, which has actually been very successful. And I welcome that. So to the extent the bill is delivering, bringing track and train together, I welcome it.

Obviously, it's not this bill. It was another bill, but I don't support the removal of private sector operators. I think the government will rue the day that it nationalised or continues to nationalise the passenger operating companies. And we've heard there are other models. I think the franchising system perhaps had reached an end and certainly had a enormous damage caused by the pandemic. But there are other ways of doing it. And several members that have spoken have talked about, for example, the way it's happened happens in London, and I think it's just worth the enormous success of of privatisation.

And I'm not going to do it at length because my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham did it admirably. I just want to focus on one aspect of it, which effectively is the the clearest exposition of the passengers response to privatisation, which is that more than doubling of the number of rail journeys from privatisation to the peak before the pandemic. And I mentioned the pandemic again, for this reason, the pandemic has had a massive impact on the rail network. It drove away literally overnight.

80% of passenger rail journeys 80% of passenger rail journeys caused us to spend £30,000 million, £30,000 million of taxpayers money just keeping the rail network going, for which I note, which is a, you know, a responsibility that we bear on the conservative benches. We didn't get anything for that in terms of productivity improvements or reform in how the system was run. And we still haven't quite recovered the passenger volumes even now that we did before the pandemic. And that's important because it means that the system requires more subsidy.

And I heard a number of members talk about profits being extracted. The real problem post pandemic is there haven't been any profits before the pandemic. The passenger operating companies overall made profits and returned money to the Treasury. That's right. For the benefit of the taxpayer post-pandemic. Overall, the passenger operating companies lost money and have been subsidised every year by the taxpayer, and that is not sustainable, given that most people in the country either never use or very rarely use trains.

The vast majority of people outside London, the most common method of getting to and from work and doing your daily business is to get in your car, and if you don't use the car and you use public transport, you don't use a train, you use a bus. Buses are much more popular forms of public transport than trains. And I think it's important to remember that I haven't got time to to go on at length. Now about the the three areas I want to focus at at Committee stage.

One of those is about the retail operations and the Baroness Harding of Winscombe set that out extremely well, so I won't repeat what she said. I when I was Secretary of State, officials were very keen that it was an official thing, not a Minister thing. Very keen on GBR having its own online retail operations. I directed that to be removed. I thought it was a terrible idea. I thought the idea that the state could be nimble enough to run a fantastic digital operation when we already have some very good ones run by third party retailers.

It was completely pointless activity. And upon the change of government, I see officials have snuck it back in again. And I would say to Ministers, you should challenge that. I don't think it's going to add anything. And one of the areas I'm going to come back to is, is trying to reinsert competition in this area, and I was very pleased to hear the speech from the noble Lord Lord Dixon of Jericho. And I hope that means that that if we can craft some sensible amendments along those lines, that they'll get the support on these benches, on his benches, and hopefully from enough crossbenchers to encourage the government to change its mind.

The other areas I want to look at are going to be on rail freight, to make sure we have a system where fair decisions are made about allocations and also about open access. And my final point will be the test that I think are important to judge this bill. Firstly, does it drive up the volume of passengers? Does it reduce the cost to the taxpayer? Does it, as my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham said, does it make sure we can get private capital involved? Because if it all relies on investment from the taxpayer, it will be a failure.

And will it deliver a better rail system for all rail customers, both passengers and freight? Those are the tests that we should use to judge this bill, and we look forward to doing so in its next

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stages in this House. Yes. It's instructive. To follow the noble Lord, Lord

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To follow the noble Lord, Lord Harper, with his detailed knowledge of the subject, but I have rather more enthusiasm than he does for more enthusiasm than he does for the bill. I think this magnificent bill is what the country has been waiting for. It is one of the key measures from this government to restore public services to decent restore public services to decent standards and sensible structures. The benefits of this comprehensive
19:02
Baroness Whitaker Portrait Baroness Whitaker (Labour)
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and and simplified system have been well set out by my noble friends well set out by my noble friends and some other speakers, so I'll focus briefly on only four aspects. focus briefly on only four aspects. I'm particularly reassured by the bill's contribution to reaching net bill's contribution to reaching net zero, carbon net zero, and its general impact on the economy, general impact on the economy, especially with regard to freight transport. Can my noble friend the Minister, say a bit more about what the impact the very welcome targets for rail freight will have on the economy, and what the plans for further electrification are.

I hope he agrees with me that a rolling programme for electrification will be the cheapest way to achieve the maximum contribution to net zero. The role of the Passengers' Council is also very constructive. One of the defects of the pioneering British Rail of earlier times was the lack of a strong route to accountability, and I see this as a strength of the new structure. Much will depend on who is on the council. I can see that disability representation is guaranteed on the actual board of GBR.

But can my noble friend say what categories will play a guaranteed part on the Council? I make a plea in my own interest for somebody who understands the difficulty old people have in minding the gap between the train and platform, ever more perilous, and I trust the Council's report will be published. Another issue with with British Rail and indeed with all the earlier quasi monopoly nationalisations was incentives for. For efficiency. Oversight of the strategy should encompass this. But how would it be built into the process? Finally, Lords, my last professional involvement with railways was very many years ago concerned the position of railway employees.

The risks many of them took were covered by the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, as were risks to the public from their activity, and all employees rights still apply, of course, but I think it may be the Transport Inspectorate which sits within the office for Rail and Road that enforces them now. So may I ask, what are the liaison arrangements with the Health and Safety Executive under the under the new regime, how would any prosecutions or enforcement work? This bill will steer our railways to the future.

We need for this essential part of our national life, and I am

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delighted to commend it here. My Lords, it's always a pleasure to follow Baroness Whitaker, and I to follow Baroness Whitaker, and I would like to associate myself with the chorus of praise for my noble friend Lord Wilson of Dinton, who friend Lord Wilson of Dinton, who was fascinating to hear, his memories and his opinions. My Lords, memories and his opinions. My Lords, I am one of the rank of non-experts here. I am a train user, a frequent here. I am a train user, a frequent user of London Overground, and the very wonderful Elizabeth line.

One of my favourite activities is watching the world go by from a train, particularly if you're lucky
19:05
Lord Hampton Portrait Lord Hampton (Crossbench)
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enough to get a seat with a table. I've travelled some of the loveliest routes in the UK Exeter loveliest routes in the UK Exeter to Newton Abbot, Shrewsbury to Bournemouth, Gloucester to Paddington via Stroud, Oxford to Great Malvern. And I commend the work of the noble Lord Lord Faulkner of Worcester on that one. Faulkner of Worcester on that one. I've even done the sleeper from Glasgow to London, whereas the Glasgow to London, whereas the noble Lord, Lord Redwood, sees dystopia out of his window.

I am back in the world of P.G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Flanders and Swann. Flying is a chore, my Lords. A train journey when it works can be a pleasure. But I'm old enough to remember British Rail ending, unloving and unloved. This is why I welcome the bill because it is so important. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to fix public transport infrastructure in this country. Now, the Bill, my Lords, has a lot of talk in the duties about railway infrastructure, but it lacks detail.

Will new or reopened branch lines be planned to get people on the railways earlier in the journey? If we learned one thing from Beeching, it is that people who get in a car, stay in a car, and these need to be truly linked with buses. One of the recommendations of the House of Lords Special Committee on Social Mobility that the noble Lord Young of Cookham and I sat on was. It highlighted the needs of joined up transport in rural areas. There's little point running buses to stations if they are not linked to train times.

There's been very little talk about resilience, my Lords. Last week I was travelling on a train and it was late. Other trains were late or cancelled apparently because the rails are now much longer. So they expanded more. This was below 30 degrees. European rails are subject to much higher temperatures and also contrast with cooler nights. How do they cope? And let's not even talk about snow. Why Lords, is there going to be a playing field? A level playing field for non GBR activities? The noble Lord, the Minister talked about trying to grow rail freight, but to quote logistics UK, clause 63, for example, requires GBR to reserve capacity for its own services.

As such, without amendment to that and other areas of the Bill to strengthen governance, accountability and regulatory regulatory balance, there is a risk that freight will be deprioritized in capacity allocation, planning, charging and investment decisions, and I believe this is also a worry for other passenger rail companies as well. What will happen to apps like Trainline when the aim is that GBR ticketing website will combine the existing 14 rail operator websites and apps into one. Lord Harper mentioned this.

According to Trainline, this creates an unprecedented structural conflict of interest and risks. GBR favouring its own retail channels over competitors. Now, the bill still talks about upgrading stations but doesn't mention property. What will happen to platform for the merger of London and Continental Railways and Network Rail's property business? And I quote from their website. Over the next decade, platform four plans to unlock surplus railway land for up to 4000 new homes and around 10,000,000ft² of commercial space, including mixed use neighbourhoods with homes, green spaces, shops and hotels in locations such as Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Nottingham and Cambridge.

What is to happen to railway arches? At best, railway arches are an excellent community asset. Near to me there's one with a butcher, a carpet warehouse, a prop manufacturer, sheet metal fabricators and numerous panel beaters and car repair shops. The Lords and Commons cricket team nets weekly in two railway arches in Wandsworth, and at this point I would like to shout out for new era training have improved my batting enormously, so I'm now merely rubbish. But the arches by me in Hackney are being redeveloped, so their occupants are being forced out by sharply rising rents.

There must be a supersaturation of microbreweries and coffee shops, and there's a real danger that these then lie empty. And, my Lords, what about complex developments such as Hampton Court Station, which I coincidentally went through on Sunday? The scale. The station is held up by scaffolding linked to. It is a site that has been derelict for over 40 years, mired in planning issues recently described by Andrew Roberts of Hampton Court Rescue Campaign as a national disgrace. At the very least a national embarrassment.

With all the tourists getting off to go to Hampton Court Palace. But my Lords, possibly the biggest opportunity for GBR is in the skills sector, and this doesn't seem mentioned in the impact report or the bill itself. There is such an opportunity here for GBR. At the moment, the British Army is the biggest employer provider of apprenticeships in Britain. GBR should make beating that record their target. I would like to ask the Minister, is GBR talking to the DfT DWP and Skills England to provide all level apprenticeships, including the badly needed levels 2 to 4 across the board.

My Lords, with the formation of Great British Railways, we have the opportunity to provide a longed for efficient national transport network, boost employment, apprenticeships and social mobility, and grow the economy in a true renaissance of the nation's public transport system. My Lord, my Lords, let's not waste it.
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Lord Berkeley Portrait Lord Berkeley (Labour)
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My Lord. It's a pleasure to follow. To follow Lord Hampton and. follow. To follow Lord Hampton and. Hear his comments about the particularly the training of the railways, which, incidentally, has railways, which, incidentally, has been, I think, modernised dramatically with by HS2. But that's a slightly separate, separate issue. My. Just like to say a few words today about questioning what is the point of this bill, which may seem a bit dramatic, but. I've been working on the railways probably for nearly 50 years, since I was building the Channel Tunnel, and I've noticed that the railway has effectively been controlled by the government for at least 20 years, as many noble Lords have said, timetabling charges, ticketing, investment in the track and in the rolling stock.

For many trains, and they may have say it's in the private sector, but in fact it is controlled behind the scenes in many in many instances. So I wonder whether we should be talking about ownership or control, because we got control at the moment. And listening to many noble Lords speaking this evening, it occurred to me that most of the changes that they, in my view, quite rightly recommend, could be done without the primary legislation. But what I spent, I suppose, several decades, if not more, working in the rail freight industry, and now the European.

One more lately, and the passenger and the passenger all rail, which is a. An association of. Companies across Europe who believe in open access and competition. And I suppose I can claim some small input into the European Commission bringing liberalisation to the continent after it was seen by me in those days, and I still think it is as an important element here. And we were telling our friends in the continent, why don't you follow the Brits now? It's the other way round, but we'll see how that goes.

So I don't know why the government is trying to go the opposite way. And in my book, in many instances it's tried to stifle competition. And many noble Lords have talked about competition. But it's it's a very important issue. So I've got questions from my noble friend Prime Minister. Many more expect. But as GBR actually going to save money by bringing efficiencies beyond what we have at the moment, all effectively government controlled. When the complaints that many noble Lords have have said about what's wrong with the railway, it's.

That's why government controlled. Will it bring increased numbers and freight volumes? I know, my noble friend, the Minister says it will. But where's the evidence? Because open access passengers in many routes have delivered very significant. Passenger growth doesn't happen on all lines. But it's the the the operators who have tried and failed, they've stopped, but there's not enough revenue. But I got the impression that the part of the content of the bill is actually to prevent open access, passengers and freight that make life as difficult as possible.

So I suppose the bill appears to me to be an attempt by the government to implement what is, frankly, a dogma of nationalisation without looking at the alternatives. And I think there are many alternatives open access with a proper regulator. We've got a good regulator at the moment, but he's going to have his hands tied behind both backs if we're not careful in the bill, because he's actually. Not able to regulate access to the tracks because for the train operators who are effectively GBR.

He cannot decide who gets the next access on tracks or whether it's passenger or freight, because that's done by GBR, who are also going to be the operator of the trains. It seems to me that if we're not careful and we need to obviously dig into this a bit more in in later stages of this bill, the extent of the monopoly being created by GBR is probably something that should be referred to the CMA, but I suspect that's for not not for today.

There's also a lot of criticism about Network Rail or not, and many of the comments made by noble Lords refer to what is Network Rail, rather than any of the train operators. But I want to know. I want to ask my noble friend the Minister, what evidence is that Network Rail's performance will improve, because the last week's report by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee on Network Rail's performance on the Northern Powerhouse project is hardly reassuring.

Now. The Northern Powerhouse is a is a much smaller version of the HS2, which we've talked about ad nauseum, and it's a very important project. And my noble friend the Minister has spoken about it in in your Lordships House on many occasion. But the report by the PAC. Said that the PAC is not going to quote, is not confident that d f the Department of Transport has learnt all the lessons from its past failures in its management of other rail projects.

Now. That's clear, and it carries on to say there's clear risks that the full programme and its benefits cannot be delivered within the 45 billion funding cap. Now, HS2 was a disaster, and we've all hoping that this Northern Powerhouse rail will be done properly. But the PAC's conclusions are actually, I think, quite worrying. The another couple of issues of about the charging and compensation scheme in the Bill. Which seems to suggest that operators are not, and therefore passengers are not compensated for delays outside their control, which might be weather or whatever they are compensated at the moment.

Is that a good thing to change? We can we can debate that. So, my Lords, I think we've got a lot of work to do to talk about the. To talk about the future of the competition issues and the and the rail regulator. But I would suggest that. The conclusion for what we want to aim for is that GBR should act fairly and non-discriminatory. Network access should remain impartial and independently Challengeable I mean, independent capacity should not be reserved indefinitely for unspecified future GBR services.

Charging should be neutral and predictable and existing rights protected and public money subject to genuine value for money tests. My Lords, we've got a lot to debate, but I hope that my noble friend will be able to convince your Lordships House that the Bill is necessary and that the most of the issues raised by noble Lords cannot be

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done without legislation. My Lords, before turning to the

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My Lords, before turning to the substance of the Bill, I wish to begin by paying tribute to those begin by paying tribute to those who lost their lives in 7721 years ago, and our thoughts and prayers are still with those families that are still with those families that were affected. And similarly, the more recent train accident on the more recent train accident on the East Midland Railway line near Bedford. It's a line that I regularly use to come here every
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Lord Mohammed of Tinsley Portrait Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (Liberal Democrat)
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week and go home, and our thoughts are with the victims of those that are with the victims of those that would have in volved in that train accident, and particularly want to pay tribute to the emergency pay tribute to the emergency services and their staff, who actually responded in a very professional manner, and incidents professional manner, and incidents such as the recent Bedford train crash, a solemn reminder about safety must always, always remain safety must always, always remain the first duty of our railway.

And talking of railway, I just want to declare an interest to my eldest son. Does work for one of the railway companies in the North of England. This bill presents an opportunity to reshape Britain's railways for a new generation. It is therefore right that we approach it not through the lens of ideology, but through the experience of millions of passengers rely upon railways every day. Much of the political debate surrounding this legislation will Earl Attlee focus on the question of ownership and structure.

Others will argue on the merits of nationalisation versus privatisation. From these benches we take a different view. We are not interested in in-fighting in fighting yesterday's arguments. The real test is whether the Railways delivers a service that is affordable, reliable, accessible and worthy of public confidence. Passengers must be at the heart of Great British Railways. That is why we will seek to strengthen this bill by ensuring that Great British Railways has not only a freight growth target, but a statutory passenger growth target.

If we are to hit our climate change targets, as well as ensuring that people have choice in terms of how they get about the freight deserves clear objectives and it does, then surely passengers deserve the same ambition. Success should not simply be measured by trains running, but by more people choosing rail, because it is the most attractive option that that matters. Nowhere more than in the north of England. For far too long, passengers across Yorkshire, and particularly those travelling to and from Sheffield, where I'm from, have endured unreliable services, overcrowding, ageing, rolling stock delays that have become too familiar.

My Lords, the pacer trains that many of you might have remembered for decades ago. Sometimes they're still a reality in the North, and people are just amazed that these things

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are still, sometimes still going. Too Often journeys that should be straightforward become an exercise straightforward become an exercise in frustration. I have to say, as someone of my colleagues in front will probably be smiling at the will probably be smiling at the moment, will know that often I've missed Oral Questions because I did. The train has never left Sheffield The train has never left Sheffield station, or if it does leave Sheffield on occasions it stopped Sheffield on occasions it stopped at Chesterfield or it stopped at Derby or it stopped at Leicester, where we've had to get off and often some of those trains are severely overcrowded and I have had to be.

Well, how can I put this, given the upbringing I've had from both. My parents were told simply if people need those seats, you need to get up. And we've had to sit on the floor. And that's the experience that some of us have had. And members of the public will be shocked to learn that that is the reality that we have. And it doesn't matter what class of ticket you buy, by the way, you know, sometimes it's been first class and you're still lost.

You've not had a seat. So there's clearly work to be done there. And compare that with what our European neighbours, their rail systems, which are punctual, frequent and integrated and regard us not as a luxury but a basic expectation even with our own country passengers in London. And I am mindful of my colleague Baroness Pidgeon now that benefit from far greater frequency in my opinion, investment and connectivity. The many communities in Yorkshire can only dream of. The truly national railway must not be entrenched.

Those inequalities, but it must help eliminate them. If we are serious about encouraging people out of their cars and onto trains, we must also address the passenger experience. We believe this bill should include a comprehensive passenger charter, setting out clear and enforceable rights of those who use our railways. Passengers deserve certainty about standards, services, service, compensation, accessibility and information when things go wrong. Affordability is equally important. Britain's fares system has become bewilderingly complex. Too many passengers still find themselves asking whether they have bought the right ticket, or whether there's a cheaper option exists.

Simplicity builds confidence. We will therefore advocate for greater innovation in ticketing, giving passengers clear and more flexible choice. Alongside the introduction of a national rail miles scheme that rewards loyalty and encourages more people to choose rail for both work and leisure. Innovation, however, must not be confined to Great British Railway itself. I welcome the bill's recognition that independent ticket retailers should continue to operate in a fair and open market. That commitment must now be translated into reality. Independent retailers have driven innovation that has benefited passengers through better journey planning, smarter ticketing and increased competition.

Organisations representing ticket retailers, transport technology companies and online travel businesses have all argued that Great British Railways must adopt an open by default approach to data and ensuring genuine competition across ticket retailing. That means a genuine level playing field. My Lords, GBR should not be the regulator, the operator and the competitor. Simultaneously, independent retailers must enjoy fair access to data, transparent commercial arrangements and equal opportunities to innovate. The Office of Rail and Road Code of Practice must provide meaningful safeguards to ensure that passengers continue to benefit from choice, innovation and value for money, rather than drifting towards a state monopoly in ticket retailing.

They are, however, wider concerns about this bill. We are troubled by the concentration of power in the hands of the Secretary of State. There is real danger that Ministers become judge, jury and executioner of significant parts of the railway system. Operational decisions should not be subject to day to day political intervention. Railways require long term planning, professional expertise and operational independence. We will therefore scrutinise carefully the responsibilities of Great British Railway, the Office of Rail and Road and the Passenger Council to ensure there is clarity rather than duplication.

Likewise, we remain concerned about the extensive reliance on secondary legislation throughout the Bill. Parliament should not be asked to sign a blank cheque on matters of considerable significance that deserve full parliamentary scrutiny through primary legislation, wherever possible. Our Lord, this Bill has the potential to lay the foundations for a railway fit for the 21st century, but that will only happen if passengers, not institutions, not ideology and not Whitehall, remain at its centre. If we can create a railway that is reliable, affordable, innovative, accountable and genuinely passenger focussed, then Great British Railways can be become not simply a new organisation but a catalyst for restoring confidence in one of our nation's greatest public services.

I look forward to working constructively across the House to ensure that this legislation fulfils that ambition. My Lords, pleasure to take part in this Second Reading debate. In doing so, I declare my interest variously as adviser to the Crown Estate and to Simmons and Simmons LLP. Like other noble Lords, my thoughts are with all those who are affected on seven seven. I remember that day so clearly. It was less than 24 hours after we won the right to stage the
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Lord Holmes of Richmond Portrait Lord Holmes of Richmond (Conservative)
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2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and in that 24 hour period, we saw and in that 24 hour period, we saw the best of humanity in the bid. We saw the worst of humanity in those saw the worst of humanity in those terrorist atrocities, and instantaneously we saw the best of humanity in all of those first responders, members of the public who all ran towards danger to help who all ran towards danger to help all of those affected on the transport network and beyond.

Can I congratulate the Minister on the way in which he introduced this Second Reading debate? I would introduce a slight note of discord into our Second Reading proceedings, and I hope the Minister doesn't keep his job. When the new Prime Minister comes in. I hope he doesn't, because his experience, his expertise and his enthusiasm for transport needs to be recognised and I hope he can come back to our Lordships House as Secretary of State for transport. Of which I know he shares that political ambition.

I was also delighted to listen to the valedictory of Lord Wilson of Dinton. I had the great good fortune to work with Lord Wilson many, many years ago, when he was doing some excellent work on inclusion and accessibility as Cabinet Secretary. It was an honour and a pleasure to work with him, though, having heard some of the other contributions in this debate this afternoon, I do feel somewhat slighted that at no point did he ever try and shove into my hand a copy of Hansard again demonstrating his wisdom that he obviously understood it would have been of absolutely no use to me whatsoever.

My Lords, we're in the midst of a transport legislation movie. We've had the civil aviation bill, we're now on the rail bill, and later down the track we have a road bill. It really is planes, trains and automobiles. In my Second Reading contribution, I'd like to consider how we, in the midst of an AI revolution and how rail was the white heat technology of its time. And through that, what lessons we can learn from that revolution in rail, both for rail and this bill, but also for our approach to artificial intelligence, being.

No doubt rail was extraordinary. Steam literally changed time. What did we learn in terms of safety and security? Brunel's brilliant bells and whistles system still, in reality, an extraordinarily effective way to do signalling and how we need to communicate the benefits and the possibilities of rail. At a time when rail emerged, a thought that you would get mortally injured probably not reach the end of your journey on these horror machines from hell. What did Brunel do? He didn't build stations.

He built cathedrals to the railway at London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads. What extraordinary demonstration of innovation, of technology from both Brunel and the extraordinary Daniel Googe. That innovation needs to be brought right up to date with our approach to the railways and indeed to artificial intelligence, because what we saw with rail is when you have that innovation and you connect it through communicating it to the public, a glamour emerges. Look how we were getting nostalgic about the railways so early in their operations.

The Railway Children, 1905. Later than that, Auden's night Mail crossing the border, or Philip Larkin coming down late one term from Cambridge in a button studded leather carriage, witnessing all of those wonderful Whitsun weddings. Why do we have this glamour around rail, around the technology, around the innovation? Because fundamentally it's a human connecting a social experience, not just taking us and connecting us geographically, connecting us socially. It's what Richard Branson fundamentally understood when he took over the franchise, for which I had the great pleasure to discuss it with him some many years ago.

What did he understand? He understood that he couldn't control the track, the signals, the stations, that everything he controlled. He trained his staff. He understood this was about service. This was about the passenger experience. And I suggest that the best thread, the golden thread to run through all of this bill is passenger X, how we absolutely deliver to that passenger experience. From the first touch point of considering buying a ticket, that end to end service, if you get passenger experience right, you will get accessibility, right? Because what is accessibility? It's just delivering excellence in passenger experience and passenger service.

As we've already heard, not least from my noble friend Baroness Grey-Thompson and Lady Brinton. We are some well way off from that. And that cannot continue. It's as good a measure as any of success as to how accessible, how inclusive a service is. In this case, the railways, the growth agenda of this government is critical. Rail can deliver to that. But again, tying it to access this could easily be summed up with a government desire to get more disabled people into work.

But it's quite right for a disabled person to say, how can I get a job when I can't even get onto the train? And yet, how enabling, how empowering rail could be? This bill needs to speak far more to that and beyond passengers to freight, can I ask enable Lords Minister what's happened to all of that work around digital rail? Where are all the principles from that project? I think the ambition then was to get 40% increase in freight through digitising the signals.

That would be transformational for rail, transformational for our economy. There's so much work being done with autonomous vehicles at the moment to have a truck, which can lead a convoy of, say, 20, 30, 40, 50 trucks, 20, 30, 40, 50 trucks. My Lords, that sounds very much to me like a train. We need to get freight back onto the rail. More effective, more efficient, more able to drive economic activity. I finally asked the Minister an anomaly he quite correctly suggests, and it makes sense from an integration perspective, where we have track and train connected.

What happened, where we have the situation, particularly in London, where we have shared track use between London Underground and Rail. And it's often the case when you have these instances, things fall between the cracks. Who's responsible when a signal goes down? Does it get fixed in hours? Oftentimes it can be days and that cannot be acceptable. So what does the bill do in terms of delivering to that currently anomalous situation? My Lord, rail matters. Thus this bill matters.

Extraordinarily. Rail enables us to get about rail, enables us to get on. Will this bill succeed? Well, as any prophet has to say to any sceptic, time will tell. There's plenty for us to discuss in committee across all of these issues at this stage. Perhaps it could be seen as probably the greatest real time experiment in

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rail politique. My Lords, it's a pleasure to

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My Lords, it's a pleasure to follow Lord Holmes of Richmond, who made a typically thoughtful made a typically thoughtful contribution to the debate, and can I fully associate myself with his I fully associate myself with his remarks around the anniversary of seven seven, which was a time when I was working in government and
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Lord Doyle Portrait Lord Doyle (Non-affiliated)
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I was working in government and certainly will never forget. Can I also associate myself with the remarks of Lord Mohammed of Tinsley in terms of the recent rail crash that there was near Bedford? Like him, I use that line to travel home regularly, and our thoughts are obviously with all of those who are affected by it, and our thanks go out to the emergency services who responded so heroically. My Lords, it is a source of real pleasure to be able to speak in this debate on the Railways Bill, which delivers a crucial manifesto commitment for the government, and there can be no doubt that taking back control of our railways and ending one of, frankly the most disastrous conservative privatisations of the 80s and 90s was one of our most popular policies at the last election.

And I would argue for good reason. We know that that privatisation was flawed from day one because of the split between track and train. This bill will bring the management of those back together to improve performance, with Great British Railways managing day to day operations and taking long term decisions in the public interest, which mean that we will have a more reliable and accessible railway with better value journeys. And I just want to mention on that word accessible the contribution of the noble Baroness, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, who any of us who follow on Twitter will know the regular stories that she tells of just how much the railways are failing at the moment, and just how much we need this bill to succeed.

My Lords, that is one example of how the structure of the railways at the moment is a mess, with passengers at the mercy of a myriad of organisations, from buying a ticket to finding out who is responsible for a delay, there is a Kafkaesque process of opaque rules and shifting blame. That's the reality of the current fractured system. Let's take the example of Network Rail and train operating companies, employing hundreds of full time staff, simply to establish who should cover the costs of delays.

And given that the pessimism that we have seen about the bill from some of those on the benches opposite, I do just want to stress three of the reasons why I think these changes are so welcome. Great British Railways will create a single organisation to operate, maintain and improve our railways to ensure smarter decision making around interchanges and reliability, and to align incentives ensuring that action is taken against the common causes of delay. Providing access and accountability to passengers and taxpayers alike.

My Lords, taking back control of our railways under Great British Railways will have the potential to deliver the improvements that customers and taxpayers rightly expect to see now. It will need hard work and hard thinking and, yes, hard choices. Great British Railways is a great opportunity, but is it incumbent on the all the industry stakeholders to grab it? Costs across the railway are too high, rightly infuriating taxpayers and fare payers who see their bucks deliver far too little bang, as the cost of building a mile of rail in Britain is the highest in the world.

And let's be frank, industrial relations are not where they need to be. All sides must embrace the new era of Great British Railways. If we are to have a truly new start that our railways need now. Fortunately, this is all in the very capable hands, as we've heard of my noble friend the Minister, who I have will have no doubt in resolving these issues. But having paid the. Him that compliment, can I use this debate to ask a few questions about a project that is close to my heart, and that is crucial to delivering the government's growth ambitions, one that I hope will benefit from the new strategic coordination through Great British Railways, and that is East West Rail.

The line will transport people and from Oxford to Cambridge as the core of that growth corridor, as we replace the much missed varsity line. Firstly, can my noble friend the Minister, give an update on the Oxford to Milton Keynes section, where construction has finished, but operating contracts seem to still be being negotiated. What is his latest estimate of when we will see services running? Secondly, on the Bedford to Cambridge section, this is a wonderful and much needed opportunity to reopen a line that was closed back in the 60s.

But again, I hope my noble friend the Minister won't mind me pushing on delivery timetables and plans. Given this, given the centrality of this project to so much of Bedfordshire's ambitions, it's very welcome that the government has pledged 1.3 billion towards transport infrastructure for the new universal United Kingdom resort, especially the much needed station at Wixams. Of course, that station is not just supposed to be a simple addition to the current north south line, but also an east west junction.

Given my. Given that the development consent order for East West Rail isn't going to be submitted until 2027, what is my noble friend? The minister's level of confidence that both lines will be operating at Wixams when the universal UK resort opens in 2031 and there is a second government ambition, the East West Rail is crucial too, and that is the new town at Tempsford. The feasibility studies for that new town have focussed on the great potential of Tempsford as the junction point between the London to Edinburgh East Coast Line and East West Rail, so the early development of the station is crucial, not just as a station but as the anchor project for the development of Tempsford new town, which the government has said it wants to be underway by the time of the next general election.

Can my noble friend the Minister, express confidence that this timeline will be sufficient to deliver these two crucial projects? My Lords, I just want to touch very briefly on the issue of open access train operators. That has also been mentioned by a number of people during this debate, and we've seen the success of open access operators such as Grand Central and Lumo within the current railways landscape. Can my noble friend the Minister, reassure that the. That the new setup will ensure that there is a fair basis for open access operators to come into the system, that they will be able to provide a form of competition and choice for customers in the new service.

And as someone who particularly likes taking railway journeys for fun, can my noble friend the Minister, reassure what the what the capacity will be for heritage operators within the new system and that those won't get squeezed out, but there will still be a chance for us to have those routes that benefit tourism and travel around the country. To conclude, the railways have long suffered from misaligned incentives. Thanks to this Labour government, no more passengers will benefit. Waste will be cut, fares will be lower.

The new Great British Railways Act will simplify booking. The Passenger Watchdog will give travellers recourse. My Lords, this really can truly be a new golden age for our railways and our country.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

My Lords, we all say to Lord Wilson of Denton's valedictory Wilson of Denton's valedictory speech thank you for lifting our spirits. We will miss you. Thank spirits. We will miss you. Thank you. It's also very good to follow you. It's also very good to follow Lord Doyle and all 26 noble Lords who've spoken. Some of you have who've spoken. Some of you have stolen my words, so it's no good me repeating them again, my Lord, in my contribution to this Second Reading of this very important bill, I want to begin by recalling an event on Yorkshire Station on the 23rd of April 2017.

It involved four generations of trains on the same track, East Coast Main Line at
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Lord Sentamu Portrait Lord Sentamu (Crossbench)
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the same time travelling in the same direction, celebrating the same direction, celebrating the past, the future and the present. A total five trains took part in the total five trains took part in the historic four trains event. The occasion was also a celebration of occasion was also a celebration of the East Coast Main Line, where four of the trains travelled side four of the trains travelled side by side. The four trains featured in the Line-Up included the Flying Scotsman, the iconic steam locomotive, Virgin Trains East Coast Class 43 HST that is, high speed trains.

Intercity 125, nicknamed the 125 because of their nicknamed the 125 because of their top operational speeds of 125mph. Intercity 225 class 91 designed for maximum of 140mph. However, due to British railway signalling regulations, its operational top speed is restricted to 125mph in regular service. However, during testing it achieved a record speed testing it achieved a record speed of 162mph. What a pity, Hitoshi Azuma, Class 800, which had yet to come into service but did so in 12 months.

Operating speed is 125mph on sections equipped with in-cab European train control systems, signalling it is capable of reaching 145 140mph. Now, having arrived, I arrived early. We saw class 55 Deltic CD 9002, King's own Yorkshire Light Infantry being used to hold the Flying Scotsman into position before all four trains were lined alongside each other. My Lords, I want to suggest that that historic event should remind us, as we consider this bill, to celebrate the past, the present and the future of our railroads.

To move forward demands us to know where we are coming from, but not to be enslaved by the past. It should not just be grumbles. There must be some elements of celebration of the amazing engineering that created trains in this country. My Lords, the passengers and customers and workers held a very clear and firm view that the best period for the East Mainline was when it was under GNER Great North Eastern Railway between 1996 and and 2007.

The leadership and the management and the leadership of its chief executive, Christopher Garnett, brother of Baroness Virginia Bottomley, who was head and shoulders above anyone before or since. As with all enterprises, if we have the right leader at the top, all is possible and that is not linked to ownership again. Also, as the noble Baroness Leman ably reminded us, success will not be purely the structures we have created by this bill, but the results of satisfaction of passengers and customers.

Again, as a Yorkshire farmer said to me, I plant grass for my dairy cattle and I only know that the grass is good. When I see the smile on the face of When I see the smile on the face of a cow. My friends, on my Lords, may we, in what we are doing, create a similar reality. So my Lords, wholeheartedly endorse clause three of chapter one of part one, which sets out Great British Railways seven functions.

And my Lords, I declare an interest as a regular user of trains in London and from the East Coast Main Line, even when on one occasion the train I was on was delayed by 666 minutes. Oh yeah, yeah, they could do better. All our trains, all our trains could do better. That's what this bill is about. May this bill actually do what Christopher Garnier did. I know British passengers and customers have the capacity to put up with what is intolerable.

My Lords, let us improve the bill to become a clarion call to our trains, saying enough is enough. We want you to be the change we want to see. But, my Lords, this will largely depend on finding leaders whose actions will inspire others to dream more, to learn more, to do more, and to become more. Nudging everyone towards that horizon of hope. My Lords, with the noble Lord, the Minister assure your Lordships' House what this bill will do, and give him the tools he needs to bring about the change.

Actually, he knows in his heart must happen. Lord Hendy you have what it takes, please do it. And politicians may not want to go all the way with they should go, but you can actually pave the way to do it. Be like the English football team. And I want to say to you, come on, Lord Hendy. My Lords, it is a delight to speak in this debate and I wish it great success as there is no holding back, because this is a critical time for us to be the greatest, the greatest people who run trains, unlike those who just

**** Possible New Speaker ****

followed us. Yeah, yeah. Rather.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

Yeah, yeah. Rather. My Lords, I must confess I had mixed feelings when I saw I'd been mixed feelings when I saw I'd been drawn 30th out of 31 contributors to the debate this afternoon. But to the debate this afternoon. But in fact, it has been a huge pleasure. And I think it's been an excellent debate and a very well informed debate. And it's a privilege to take part. I was particularly taken with the valedictory speech of Lord Wilson of Dinton.

Thank you for your service. We. I can tell the House, even as a new member, a relatively new member, I can tell he will be missed by the House. And it's also
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Lord Evans of Guisborough Portrait Lord Evans of Guisborough (Conservative)
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been a privilege to take part in a debate which has included contributions from a number of contributions from a number of former Secretaries of State for transport. They made the case for transport. They made the case for privatisation, I think, very well, using hard numbers, increased using hard numbers, increased numbers of passengers, increased projects, improving reliability on projects, improving reliability on the the railways savings made all hard numbers, whereas from the proponents of this bill, I fear they are largely relying on nostalgia.

The reputation of British Rail, back as it was in the 70s, appears to have undergone something of a renaissance in recent years, and I'm pleased that my noble friend Lord Blencathra, in his speech, managed to puncture that particular balloon and remind us all of exactly what it was like back in back in that time, I had the privilege to work for the Royal Mail in the 80s and the early 90s, and we had a lot of dealings with with British Rail.

I would come into the office, I was private secretary to the director of operations here in London, and I'd be faced every morning with a tray full of telexes. My Lords will recall Telexes, I'm sure every one of them was some form of delay or disruption to the mail overnight, and a very large proportion of them were due to failings on the part of our partner, British Rail. I would have to assemble those into a file and present them to the rather sceptical director when he came in later during the day.

And I can remember well how incandescent he was when I had to tell him that British Rail had forgotten to put fuel in a train, and it had ground to a halt just outside Birmingham with its. With its load. I remember a particular day with some pride when we launched the mail train, which ran from Euston station to Carlisle. We had a train full of bigwigs, directors from British Rail, directors, from the Post Office. We had my noble friend Lord Jopling, who was the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry at the time, and the noble Lord Clinton-davis, who was his Labour opposite number, and we set off from Euston with our.

Our hearts high. Looking forward to reaching Carlisle. Unfortunately something fell off the train at Nuneaton, and we ground to a halt and sat in a field for an hour, with nobody telling us what the reason for that was, and nobody on the train knew. Least of all. Of course, the senior British rail operators who were panicking somewhat about the experience, and it was a constant source of of controversy and difficulty for us, because we knew as a as a nationalised organisation that if we wanted to please the government, we would put all of our letters onto the trains if we wanted to help the environment, because we cared about that even in those days.

Then we'd put all our mail onto the trains. But if we wanted the letters to get there the next day, we'd put them in a van and drive them ourselves, because that was the only way that we could guarantee the quality of service that people required from us. I particularly enjoyed the early contribution from my noble friend Baroness May. She raised the issue of devolution and the the contradictions that that is is going to raise the noble Lord. The Minister, having run transport for London, will be only too aware, I'm sure, of the contradictions and the challenges this puts in place for London and for other major cities around the country, because when he was running transport for London, he would have wanted the trains to stop at every single stop going into London, provide a metro service and pick up the maximum number of people possible.

But when he becomes the one controlling mind that he presented to us running the trains on behalf of the country, no doubt he will want them to run express services and stop in as few places as possible to keep to the timetable and connect the the cities. And that that's before the the contradictions and the challenges raised by increasing the amount of freight on the rails as well. I do wonder if the Minister can explain to us how the concept of one controlling mind will meet what is being known as the Makerfield Test.

Lord Lansley my noble friend Lord Lansley and my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham raised the issue of investment. And again, this is a serious, a serious problem. Public money is paid by taxpayers, by and large, because they expect it to be spent on schools and hospitals, and those things will have the priority. This is why the old British Rail was always so badly underfunded. And when we look forward to situation facing us now in the UK, we're looking at a world where we need to boost our defence spending, where there are all sorts of other demands on the budget.

Great British Railways is going to be very fortunate if it gets much money out of a government settlement with all of those other high priorities competing. Furthermore, there is an issue of London versus the regions. I know when I was deputy mayor for London, we could always make a good case for investing in London Railways, because if nothing else, if you put the money into London, you know you're going to get it back. Eventually there will be a return on that investment.

That's how we got the Elizabeth line, although I'm sure the noble Lord, the Minister remembers that was quite tough to get. It's going to be even harder to get investment in projects outside London, which will not cost in so easily because they won't meet Treasury Treasury rules. From my point of view, I would say some advice to the Minister. Perhaps transport professionals should rely a bit less on putting in massive projects. Big, big toys for boys if you like, and look at breaking that money up and spending it on smaller projects which may not get the headlines, but which can be completed much more quickly and will have a demonstrable effect improvement on the reliability of the rail services.

Thank you. He was heard in silence. Almost. What we often hear in debates like this is we've not heard it too much today. It's about how much better the rail services are in other countries. And I just wanted to let the House know that that's not just a debate. That's not just an opinion, which is voiced by people in the UK. I remember quite a few years ago and the noble Lord, the Minister will recall this as well. We brought in a man called Bob Kiley from New York to run transport for London, and I was in a hotel in the West End talking to some New Yorkers at the bar, and they said to me, I said to them, we've got we've got Mr.

Kiley coming over to run our services. And they said to him, well, he's made a much better job of your of your tube than he ever did with our rail services in New York. I said, well, the only problem is that he's actually not arrived yet. So I think it's a truth that when we travel, we see the best of people's rail services. When we live there, we don't quite get the sort of service that we would expect. And if the bill is to be successful, I hope that that is the situation that will be corrected.
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Lord Tunnicliffe Portrait Lord Tunnicliffe (Labour)
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Well done. My Lords. It's a privilege to be the last speaker. privilege to be the last speaker. We all know. At least it's almost We all know. At least it's almost over. I'm going to start by saying I'm totally in favour of this bill. It it will create a much better situation. It will create a much better structure than the one we have at the moment. There's a wonderful myth that's gone through this debate that privatisation was a great success.

It wasn't quite said in so many words, but somehow by involving the private sector, things change massively and and they were wonderful days. Of course, what they really were, were an opportunity for financial manoeuvring, privatisation essentially was a financial and operational failure. If you go back to when it started, there was a company called Railtrack that looked after the track. It started operating in the April 1994 and it had very good results.

Initially it borrowed money and the government gave it various guarantees. And it was it was sort of a proper company in terms of legal structure. It eventually fell apart in 2002, and out of it, we created another company called Network Rail in 2002, and I don't think anybody actually got to the bottom of what sort of company that was. It clearly wasn't a proper PLC. It it we lost sight of worrying about that for some reason, but we were still in the European Union at that point, and we were part of an organisation which I believe was called Eurostar.

And in the 1st of November 2014, they said, that's a nationalised industry. All the money is guaranteed by government. All the subsidies come from government, all the rules of what they are supposed to do come from government. It's a nationalised industry. So we nationalised it. And it was fascinating because it was one of the biggest nationalisations ever. It cost the country £34 billion, i.e. that was transferring the guaranteed debt that Network Rail had at that point to the Treasury.

And barely nobody noticed it. But that's the sort of money the privatised railway consumed and the train operating companies, the all these, you know, wonderful companies. Well, let's not lose sight that many of them failed the state of play in May 2024 was. Four of them were being operated by the government with an organisation called the Operation of Last Resort. So I actually believe the one thing. No, no, not the one thing. One of the things that this bill will produce is much more clarity of the money, and that may not be a happy experience.

The. But I believe we'll be in a much better place. And why will we be in a better place? Because the best brains in the so-called privatised railways are the ones that compete against each other to win the point, and who to blame, or how to get the best guess. Best paths. When the debate over the timetable, which we used to go on for 18 months or so, how do we will we having a situation where the top people in Great British Rail will all be trying to achieve the same thing? And the top teams will share those objectives? And I know I've done it.

I was 17 years in the railway business, and you can have a publicly owned railway and you can manage it. You do have to obviously break it up into manageable chunks, but you can transmit a common objective throughout the organisation. And we did. So the not only will the team see the value of working together, workers will see the value of working together and everybody. My prediction that everybody passengers, particularly passengers, including disabled passengers, and I, very sensitive to the case that's been made for a better handling of it.

Disabled passengers, everybody will get a better deal, including the taxpayer. I have one. Well, I have two concerns actually. One is the level of consultation and involvement that involved. If you go through the whole document from cover to cover, you discover that 34 clauses where the Secretary of State has decisive authority. There are 11 clauses where the Office of Rail and Roads has decisive authority, and ten where Great British Railways has. There are six clauses where the Office of Rail and Road have consultative rights, and two, where GBR has.

There are four clauses where GBR is expected to originate action and at least one where ORR is similarly expected. The whole consultation process is incredibly complex. Now. It is possibly necessary for it to be that quite. Perhaps it's inevitable because of the multiple stakeholders, but it will create friction. It will create noise. And the most important set of skills that will be necessary in this new organisation is managing that diversity of consultation. And some of the best people in Great British Rail will be needed there to manage those various relationships and consultation like that is not a bad thing.

It's the thing that has to be very carefully managed. But one of the problems I would put to you about this organisation is the money will become very clear and operating railways is expensive, and the only way to pay for railway to pay itself is very high. Volumes and high volumes will work, and everything else, virtually everywhere in the world has to be subsidised. And we need to have a debate about what the railway does for us as a society, and we need to look at the real value it produces.

We don't get away from the best speech, getting the best chunk of money out of the Treasury, and get back to a consensus of the criteria. We need to measure that debate. And with that hard financial reality on the one hand, and a unified organisation that can see the whole operation with an absolute commitment in the top team to the passenger and to society, I believe this will be a success.

**** Possible New Speaker ****

My Lords, this has been a very interesting and wide ranging debate, interesting and wide ranging debate, and I would like to thank the noble Lord Wilson of Dinton for his valedictory speech and his really valedictory speech and his really thoughtful words today, and I wish him well in his retirement. The him well in his retirement. The focus from these benches is on how we improve train services for passengers and indeed freight. How passengers and indeed freight. How do we ensure the passenger is at the centre of Great British Railways and that it operates in a transparent and fair manner? And I agree with Lord Lansley.

We need the railway to succeed. If we're to see more people using the railway to travel around our country, it needs to become a more attractive offer. That means reliable services, more carriages where needed, comfortable seats, easy storage for luggage and bikes on board, catering for longer distance journeys. As I've raised many times with the noble Lord, good value fares that are easy to understand and high speed Wi-Fi an attractive experience that rivals using the car, which for many people outside our cities, as we've heard, remains their go to mode of transport.

Though I have to say, I think today, today, in hearing many noble Lords experiences, Lord Sentamu 666 minute delay feels like the record stations need to feel safe as well. Be well lit and staffed where possible. The accessibility of train stations and surrounding areas needs to be improved for those who are mobility impaired, and it was very good to hear from the noble Lord, the Minister, his commitment and his opening words in this space, and Baroness Grey-Thompson highlighted the impact of this on the economy, as well as passengers.

And a modern railway is going to need significant planning and investment,
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Baroness Pidgeon Portrait Baroness Pidgeon (Liberal Democrat)
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over budgets to run the railway each day, budgets for investing in rolling stock and infrastructure and, dare I say it, budgets to grow the railway or make improvements that allow greater access for freight and passenger trains, as highlighted by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, we will be tabling amendments about funding for the railway at Committee stage. And ahead of that, I would like to ask the noble Lord, the Minister, whether the rolling stock strategy would be published by September, so that noble Lords can see how it sits alongside this legislation, and it can provide certainty for industry.

But one thing that is a glaring omission from this bill is the absence of a passenger. Growth due to rail reform isn't just about stabilising the system. We strongly support calls for passenger growth targets, equivalent to the duty for freight in the bill, and we believe that embedding growth for passengers would send a strong message that this is about expanding and growing the railway, rather than managing decline. And as my noble friend Lord Mohammed of Tinsley mentioned, we want to see rail miles introduced on the railway because a key part of passenger centred railway is the need to offer incentives to passengers to try the railway, and that loyalty scheme for regular passengers.

We believe Great British Railway needs to look at how to get more people using the railway, rather than simply cutting trains to reduce costs, and there are good initiatives in other European countries, such as the Netherlands, and I hope this is an area that the noble Lord, the Minister, will be sympathetic towards as we move to Committee stage. Now, my noble friend Lord Dickson has highlighted the importance of a level playing field for apps and others who sell train tickets and the wider opportunities in this area to improve services for passengers.

We have seen such progress in recent years centred around the consumer. We must not go backwards and likewise, my noble friend Baroness Lehman rightly described the importance of a quality passenger experience and issues around delay, repay and the need for automated refunds. My noble friend Baroness Brinton talked passionately about the importance of GBR to become a truly accessible railway in every sense and, along with Baroness Grey-Thompson, described the daily realities for disabled passengers and Lord Holmes of Richmond talked about rail giving access to work for disabled people.

I recently met with a young accessibility campaigner from Manchester, Nathaniel Yates. Nathaniel has been campaigning for accessible stations across Manchester. He has been championing the concerns of many young people who attend specialist colleges and are prevented from using the railway, despite stations being nearby, and this can be due to a lack of staffing or limited step free access. And there was a mixed experience of using passenger assistance, and some felt that the accessibility challenges led to them using different rail stations or different, often more costly modes of transport.

So we need to see an improvement in accessibility and we will really return to this important topic at Committee stage to ensure that our railway is fit for everyone. But passenger safety is also critical. In the latest passenger survey published by Transport Focus last month, it showed that personal safety and security on the train and at stations is an increasing priority for passengers. 12,000 rail passengers took part in the research, and they ranked various aspects of travelling by train. These safety concerns came second and third, behind only trains running on time and not being cancelled, and for some personal safety and security on trains topped their What Matters list, including in particular women, disabled people and passengers from black and minority ethnic communities.

And passengers have said that they feel that increased staff visibility, including ticket checking and challenging low level anti-social behaviour and the use of CCTV in the moment, would really help. So Great British Railways must ensure that stations are well lit, have CCTV and look at staffing levels across the network. But turning to other parts of the bill, there remain concerns over the scope of the clauses in the bill and the unintended consequences. As drafted, we've heard support for growth in freight from Lord Faulkner of Worcester, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb and Baroness Whitaker.

But for example, in the world of freight ports and freight terminals often own and operate rail infrastructure that connects directly to the wider rail network, but has been funded and developed privately for the private sector to continue to invest in this rail linked infrastructure. The language in the bill has to be precise and not allow for GBR to potentially intervene in private rail infrastructure and create that legal uncertainty. London Saint Pancras High Speed also has concerns with the language in the bill, which could unintentionally create uncertainty for specialist infrastructure that sits outside the new GBR access and charging framework.

We will seek clarity at Committee stage and as the government creates this new organisation, it's important it has the right culture from the start open, transparent and accessible for all its business and to its core. And I hope the noble Lord, the Minister, will be able to assure the House of this. At this stage. We on these benches do have some concerns over the shift in power between Secretary of State, the Office of Rail and Road and the Passenger Council, as the noble Lord.

Lord Barclay also raised concerns about the Office of Rail and Road and its reduced role. We are concerned that Secretary of State is effectively judge and jury in some areas. We also want to see that the passenger council has the teeth to do its job well, and we want to see decisions published and evidence that has supported any decisions, as well as real engagement with passengers and representative bodies. My noble friend Baroness Humphreys and the noble Lord Lord Wigley, highlighted the needs for Wales and the sort of semi devolution that they have in Wales, but across the House we've heard a number of different concerns from the noble Lady Baroness May of Maidenhead, Baroness Alexander, Lord Grayling, Lord Lansley and others on the issue of devolution and my maiden speech in this House focussed on the issue of rail devolution and the noble Lord.

The Minister said at Report stage of the Passenger Railway Services Public Ownership Bill on the 6th of November 2024. In responding to my amendment on rail devolution, and I quote, I can reaffirm to your Lordships House that the Railways Bill will include a statutory role for devolved governments and mayoral combined authorities. They will be involved in governing, managing, planning and developing the railways. And yet the bill as currently drafted, and in the view of a number of mayoral authorities, does not provide the statutory powers mayoral strategic authorities require.

Rather, they are consultative. It is permissive rather than mandatory. GBR may enter into arrangements with local government bodies or I guess it may not. It is consultation based rather than commissioning based. It does not provide a clear role for devolving rail funding, and it's clear as this government is moving towards establishing more mayoral strategic authorities, that we need statutory powers designed in from the start, rather than a bolt on after transport for London, and the Mayor of London are concerned that, as drafted, the Bill would give GBR extensive control over network access for both GBR and non GBR operators without sufficient safeguarding for devolved or open access services.

As other noble Lords have mentioned. Lord Parkinson also flagged issues with the heritage railway sector, which is relevant here too. So this could allow GBR to prioritise longer distance services over metro style services such as the Elizabeth Line, potentially resulting in fewer passenger journeys in and around London. Reduced service frequencies and and constraints on future growth. And I would just like to flag to the noble Lord Evans when he talked about the Elizabeth line, two thirds of the investment in the Elizabeth line came from London.

Businesses and development and borrowing from TfL, not national government. And that is how you build a really successful railway line. So I hope the Minister will be able to reconsider the wording in this bill around devolution, given his assurance to me previously in this House, we on these benches want to see Great British Railways succeed and deliver improved train services for passengers and expanded freight, removing lorries from our roads. We look forward to working with the Minister to help improve the Bill and secure the transformation that passengers need and deserve.



**** Possible New Speaker ****

Yeah. My Lords, may I start by associating myself with the remarks made by noble Lords and particularly the noble Lord, the particularly the noble Lord, the Minister, concerning the doleful anniversary we're marking today of anniversary we're marking today of the attacks on London's transport 21 years ago. May I also
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Lord Moylan Portrait Lord Moylan (Conservative)
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21 years ago. May I also congratulate the noble Lord Lord Wilson of Dinton on his valedictory speech and his service to your Lordships House over so many years, and his broader public service as well. I'd like to thank all noble Lords who've contributed to this wide ranging debate. I don't propose in this wind up speech to respond to each of them individually, but I. I do think it's worth saying that I was very touched, as I think all of us were, by the remarks made by our our colleagues, our noble colleagues who have been affected by the poor service, very poor service that the railways often give to those who are in wheelchairs or disabled in other ways.

And I'd like to thank the noble Lord in particular for the way he introduced the bill. I personally, you'd understand in my position, would be delighted if Mr. Burnham would replace the noble Lord on the frontbench in speaking for transport, but I entirely understand why that is not a widespread opinion across your Lordships House. Perhaps I can start with a point of agreement. The existing model of privatisation, although profoundly successful, Transformatively successful over 20 or 30 years, is not fit for purpose currently because it depended on very high volumes of passengers.

And of course, during the pandemic, those volumes collapsed and they have not recovered since, and it is not possible to maintain the financial model that the privatisation was based on in current circumstances or indeed in foreseeable circumstances. I will grant that point to the Minister from the outset, as I did when we discussed the the previous Railways Bill that the Minister introduced the transfer under the existing privatisation scheme of fares risk to passenger to train operating companies who are not able to bear it in a crisis was was was a flaw.

And although it appeared to work for a very long time, that is, as I say, because the railways are doing very well in terms of in terms of passenger demand, but it's not capable of being sustained at the moment. And a degree of reform is needed. And it is worth congratulating, if I may, the previous government and perhaps my noble friend Lord Grayling on recognising a need for reform and setting it in hand. And so we had the Williams review, which

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recommended Maintaining private sector involvement, but having the the involvement, but having the the operations conducted on on what is often referred to as a concession often referred to as a concession basis, that is the basis used for the Docklands Light Railway, the Elizabeth Line, the London Elizabeth Line, the London Overground and so forth. The. And London's buses and Matt Greater Manchester's buses on a concession Manchester's buses on a concession basis, where the fares risk is retained by the franchisor.

Otherwise it operates in a very similar manner to what we have at the moment. Nobody recommended going back to British Rail, but that is what this bill gives us. At the heart of the government's argument is the claim that managing the track and train together is more efficient than any alternative. But my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and I was not aware of his speech in advance by my noble friend, simply tore that argument to pieces with complete forensic acuity in explaining that what is regarded by as fragmentation by the noble Lord is a specialisation which works and it works in so many other areas of our life.

But but it is to be. It is a complete ideological position on an unevidenced ideological bet that the government is taking on a particular model that has been tried in the past and failed, but this time, somehow it is going to work again. Look, the Minister needs to explain why the European Union is moving in. The opposite has moved in the opposite direction. He needs to explain why train services are getting better with private competition in the continent of Europe not getting worse.

And he needs to tell us what would happen if we did rejoin the European Union to this bill. It wouldn't simply be the detail that would need to be changed. The whole structure would collapse. Let me move to the detail. The first question that comes up obviously, is devolution. We want the right to specify timetables rather than a right to request. The onus should be the other way round. There should be the right to refuse. From our point of view, we would want a joint decision making.

These are the words of Andy Burnham in giving evidence to the public Bill Committee in the. In the other place. How is the. How does the government still adhere to the principles in this bill on devolution, given that. That is what the incoming Prime Minister said just a little while ago. But he's not he's not alone. The Mayor of London, hardly a person I'd expect to be quoting. The mayor of London has said this very similar quoting favourably, hardly expecting to be quoting favourably.

The Mayor of London has said that as drafted, the Bill would give GBR extensive control over network access for both GBR and non GBR operators. The difference between the Mayor of London and the mayor of Greater Manchester, of course, is the Mayor of London actually runs passenger rail services. And he goes on to say that there is no sufficient safeguard for devolved or open access services. So it isn't simply a sort of right wing fantasy that the express services might be given priority over local services.

I'm asking the Minister plainly, will the government now concede that clause five must become a genuine right to devolution, or is he going to come back to the despatch box within months, explaining why the government has changed its position? My Lords, on the ORR, the Bill effectively discards years of economic regulatory expertise of the ORR has built up on track access and charging decisions, handing that role instead to GBR to be judge and jury in its own in its own operations, and where the ORR can still act under the bill, its powers are illusory.

It may quash a decision, but that appears to mean no more than asking GBR to reconsider with substitution of the own judgement reserved only for cases of legal error, a very high threshold and and a very difficult bar to be met. And that brings us then to understanding the policies that underlie this bill. My Lords, five of the documents most central to how this bill will actually work in practice have, all we are told, been pushed back to spring of 2027.

Now, the rumour is that we're not going to have committee on this bill until October at the earliest, but even that isn't good enough. It won't be spring 27. We still won't have the documents we need. The ORR consultation on its own appeals function, the very process that freight and open access operators will be depend on to challenge. GBR is not due until spring 2027 2027. The Retail Code of Practice, which will decide. My noble friend Lady Harding of Winscombe brought this up, and others.

The noble Lord Lord Dixon of Jericho, for example, is not due to be published until spring 27. GBR own access and use policy. The document meant to stop it favouring its own services over freight and other users, will not appear until spring of 2027. The long term rail strategy will also not be out until spring 2027. So I asked the noble Lord, the Minister, how are we meant to be giving serious and detailed scrutiny to this bill when so many of the documents are still missing? Let's turn to freight in that case, I accept.

I'm happy to accept the minister's personal commitment to the role of rail freight and to increasing it. But there is a clear risk that freight will be deprioritized within Great British Railways, particularly given network capacity constraints and GBR control of both infrastructure and passenger services. We come to open access the passenger focussed innovative railway, the government promises, from GBR already exists. Lumo and Hull Trains scored 90 and 94% respectively, respectively, for overall satisfaction in transport focuses.

Most recent survey outperforming most of the contracted network, and they have delivered it through competitive fares and genuine value for money, not through a single national monopoly. Yet this is the sector now being asked to withhold investment, to withhold investment in the railways, because the bill built around GBR vertical integration, signals precisely the animosity towards open enterprise that these operators have warned against throughout its passage. And, of course, access charges can be set as high as GBR decides it is a matter for them.

There is no cap. I'd ask the Minister has he costed the cost to the country of the loss of private investment from open access, that this uncertainty is already producing. And that brings us, perhaps, to the passenger. My Lords passenger numbers have gone up since privatisation as journeys have roughly doubled over that time. The government's answer to any problems that passengers have is a problems that passengers have is a new Passenger Watchdog expanded out of Transport Focus, and it is going to cost a large amount of money to run.

But what is the passenger get for this expense? A watchdog with no enforcement powers of its own. This is. Enforcement stays with the ORR on referral at the ORR discretion. So I ask the Minister, what precisely is the watchdog for if it cannot actually make GBR do anything? We'll turn to industrial relations. Even the noble Lord, Lord Doyle, admitted that industrial relations needed proper attention to. I mean on that. This bill is an absolute gift to the trade unions.

One almost detects their hand in the drafting of it. The government have removed in other legislation the 40% support threshold for strike ballots in important public services, including transport. They have scrapped the 50% turnout threshold as well, handing trade unions considerably greater latitude to shut down passenger services at will and still no requirement that pay rises be linked to productivity. And indeed, the Rmt's own Network Rail settlement, which the union openly celebrated, secured a 3.8% RPI linked rise with explicitly no efficiency or productivity conditions attached.

And the RMT has said it now expects similar deals from the train operating companies. I've asked the government twice at the despatch box, where the pay awards under GBR will be linked to productivity and twice receive no answer. Will the Minister respond to that? And there's the further question for the government that the government cannot dodge indefinitely. The RMT has threatened national strikes capable of shutting down the network entirely. So will GBR bring about standardisation of terms and conditions as the sole employer, and if they're going to do so, on what terms? At what cost and in exchange for what productivity benefits? I come to the GBR website and app mentioned by my noble friend, Lady Harding of Winscombe and the noble Lord Lord Dixon of Jericho.

This is a solution in search of a problem. We already have a range of innovative retailers, and passengers are perfectly well served by them. Competition has built Britain a world class rail retail sector, with passengers as the primary beneficiaries. I've asked the Minister several times now in written questions, how much the government is spending on the GBR website and app, and I have not been told. Can the Minister answer today? Now GBR will will compete in a retail market.

It also controls. Having simultaneously taken over the industry management functions currently held by the Rail Delivery Group, including licensing retailers and managing access to data, which is an unprecedented structural conflict of interest. With GBR own retailer embedded in its operational business and no requirement for independent governance or accounting separation, and no safeguard against public funding. Cross-subsidising its it's cross-subsidising it against competition. Let me ask the noble Lord a question. When he was Commissioner of Transport for London under the wise guidance of Boris Johnson, he made all the TfL data, journey, data and fares data became open free to app developers and and and that was of great benefit to passengers.

We see the apps on our on our phones. Is he willing to make all the GBR fares data and journey data without restriction open to app developers? Is that something he might be willing to consider? My Lords, I conclude as I started, I hope by trying to find a point of agreement, I will concede that there are certain aspects of the railway where a single controlling mind is beneficial. For example, the timetabling. For example, potentially the management improvement and expansion of the infrastructure.

But there is no logic in the single controlling mind. Also, being the largest operator of passenger services, it is that decision to make the single controlling mind also the largest, but not the sole operator of passenger services. That sets up all the contradictions and conflicts in this bill, which is going to keep us so busy in committee. committee.

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Yeah. Well. My Lords.

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I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this thorough and thoughtful debate. I'd like to start by paying tribute to the start by paying tribute to the remarks of the noble Lord Lord Wilson, his distinguished record of service both in this place and the service both in this place and the Civil Service before. It is a beacon of dedication and commitment to public good. He has brought to to public good. He has brought to our proceedings a deep experience in the heart of government, and his contributions are always thoughtful,
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Portrait Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Labour)
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measured and influential. As always, he's well informed about the railways because Gladstone made railways because Gladstone made provision for the nationalisation nationalisation of railways in the 1844 Regulation of Railways Act. It wasn't pursued, but it was an early indication that running the railway indication that running the railway as one system might be a good idea. I know that the House will join me in thanking Lord Wilson for in thanking Lord Wilson for everything he's done, and wishing him all the best for the future after he retires in September.

Turning to the debate at hand, I think we've heard that everyone across the House can agree that the railways require reform. The current system is clearly no longer working for passengers, operators or taxpayers. Services have been unreliable, customers have been unhappy, and the system has provided poor value for money. We've begun taking services into public ownership, but that was never a long term solution. This bill, the Railways Bill, is the answer to the issues that have plagued our railways for far too long, providing new leadership, accountability and long term thinking to the sector and better meeting the needs and expectations of those who rely on it.

The Bill continues the great work of the Passenger Services Public Ownership Act of 2024, enabling us to finally reform the wider railway and providing a better service to taxpayers. I'm grateful for all all the noble Lords who've who have expressed support, with one exception, in my doing this job in the future. I'm sure everything they've all said will have no effect whatever on the new Prime Minister. And I also won't tell my wife. And I would just say to the noble Lord Evans of Guisborough, he referred to me as the guiding mind.

The one thing that this bill is designed to produce is to stop Ministers being the guiding mind of the railway. The purpose of this bill is to have a body that can run the railway of people who are professional and committed to it. This has been a very good debate. I'm going to do my best to cover as many of the topics that were raised as possible. As ever, it's subject to my handwriting and the, the vagaries of of of my notes.

And I, I may write to noble Lords as well on some, on some cases. I wanted to start with access reform because the noble Lord Redwood said that the infrastructure wasn't used efficiently. And he's right, actually, the. He talked about he talked about digital signalling, as did Lord Holmes of Richmond. And. And they're both right. One of the issues that we've had is we haven't had a long term plan for the railway. We haven't had a long term strategy in which to decide where to put those investments and where the capacity that they that they will give would be best.

You would be best utilised. And that's one of the reasons for the for the provisions in this in this bill, so far as open access goes, the noble Lord Lansley raised it. The noble Lord Berkeley and others, and. And indeed the noble Lord Moylan. The truth is this, that actually open access has been severely constrained recently, and most of the applications that have been made to the ORR have been declined simply because the view of the ORR is that the.

There is insufficient capacity on the main lines in Britain to accept more trains, and I would contend that one of the reasons for that is that without. Without a whole system. Look at the use of the infrastructure. We will never create more paths. Interestingly, that whole system. View of the infrastructure on the East Coast main Line, which took place several years ago but wasn't implemented because it couldn't be implemented, implemented because there was nobody to, to authorise it until until I did did create more capacity.

And I think the chances are that if the if GBR looks at the job that this bill will give them to allocate to correctly look at capacity across the railway, I think it's far more likely that there will be capacity on the main lines, and that therefore, that therefore open access will in fact be, be, be, be, have more chance in the future than it's got in than, than it's had in the recent past. In terms of freight, I welcome all those who said that the freight target is, is, is, is welcome, as the noble Baroness Whitaker said, it will drive the government's net zero policies.

The the Baroness Pidgeon, the noble Baroness Pidgeon was looking for clarity that there was no intention to interfere in private sector infrastructure, and I'm happy to give that to her. There is no intention to interfere in that. The private sector has invested in rail connections to the rail, connections to warehouses and so forth. So I'm I'm happy to give that to give that assurance. The noble Baroness Leaman fares and particularly delay, repay. And I think there is a great inconsistency in the way that this is that this is done currently.

And I, I welcome her support for some consistency as we as we will talk about elsewhere in this bill, because consistency is one of the things that's simply lacking in the whole of the retail arrangements of the railway. And it's one of the reasons to move forward with with this bill, the noble Baroness Harding of Winscombe talked about ticket retailing, as did the noble Lord Dixon of Jericho, the noble Lord Harper, and indeed the noble Lord Moylan. We have asked the the Office of Rail and Road to provide an industry Code of practice, which will also have a clear enforcement regime.

We remain in discussion with independent ticket retailers, including the one dominant player, and there will be separation of decision making between GBR retail and and other functions. The noble Lord Moylan is right. I'm keen on open data. It is important that GBR will share open data as the noble Lord Dixon of Jericho says, open data is absolutely vital and I'm very sympathetic to the development of alternative websites. But it's equally important that we rationalise the 14 that we've already got, which will either are or come into public ownership.

And if you listen to to if a noble Lords listened to, particularly to the noble Baroness Grey-Thompson, they will have heard the inconsistency in those approaches to, to ticketing and particularly for, for the for people who need help and the disabled. And that is one of the things that we that we propose to remedy that subject of accessibility. As I said, when I introduced the bill, it is a major issue, and a number of noble Lords. Baroness Thompson, Lord Blencathra Baroness Brinton, Baroness Humphreys and Lord Holmes of Richmond all remarked on the need to get this better and do more, and I completely agree with them.

It is really important and. And again, the. The fragmentation of the railway has led to great inconsistency. And it's one of the things that badly needs to be sorted out. And I'm sure we had a debate. We had several debates in the public ownership, in the progress of the Public Ownership Act, and we'll have some more this time. But I agree with the noble Lord Holmes of Richmond that getting passenger experience right will also get accessibility right, and we will come back to that subject.

I know we will. And it's and it's a subject on which the government places great importance. As to a passenger target, the implication that somehow, if it's not written in the bill, there's no incentive to do it. I think he's I think he's wrong. The noble Baroness Jones Lewis Silkin and noble Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, and indeed the noble Lord, the noble Baroness Pidgeon all, all raised this. There's going to be a great incentive to grow passenger passengers for GBR, as well as to reduce costs, because GBR will need, will need growth and will need to treat passengers properly in order to reduce the cost to the taxpayers running the railway.

I think there are sufficient incentives in here, but I'm sure that we will. We will discuss them further. Several noble Lords have referred to the possibility of the Secretary of State micromanaging the railways. I think the first thing to say to them is that is that that is already the case. The. The present circumstances leave civil servants reporting to me and the Secretary of State deciding how long trains are, where they stop, and what the timetable looks like at every station in Britain.

And you can't get more micromanagement than that. And actually, the intention of the Bill is to turn that round. We don't want we don't want the Secretary of State to be deciding those sorts of things. We don't want the Rail Minister to decide them, and we don't want civil servants to decide them. We we need a body that will take a an overall view of the value of the provision of passenger services and freight on the railway, and derive the best timetables with the best train service to achieve it.

And I'm very, very clear that actually one of the intentions of this bill is to stop that the Secretary of State will, of course, have significant powers, as you would expect the Secretary of State to bearing amount, bearing in mind the amount of public money that goes into the railways. But these powers are these powers do exist in other places in in government, they're not commonly used. The Oil and Gas Authority has only received one ministerial direction in its ten year history, and that contrasts with the situation for several years now, where the Secretary of State or the Rail Minister has been invited to approve detailed business plans every year, which more or less go down to train stopping at every station.

And that is something that we do need to we do need to stop. There are clearly different views about the powers of the regulator, the Office of Rail and Road. The noble Baroness May depreciated as other noble Lords have done, the apparent reduction in their powers, but I. I listened very carefully, always to the noble Lord Bradshaw, who's got long experience in this. And he's. He's said to me both out with the the discussions today and. And in the course of this debate that the regulator shouldn't be in charge.

Of course, there's a role for regulation, but the regulator shouldn't be in charge of the railway. And the the sad history of the fragmentation of the decision making on the timetable is really very good evidence that actually having the regulator deciding how the system is used is not the best way of doing it. We come to a long term railway strategy, which of course we haven't had for 30 years. The noble Baroness Alexander of Cleveden is right that the that that the long term railway strategy makes it possible for GBR to drive economic growth and regional and local communities.

The noble Lord Grayling raised the question of enhancements. I agree with him about the challenges to standards. I don't think the fragmentation of the railway, actually between operations and infrastructure led to any significant challenge in standards, and it was certainly difficult to achieve it in a railway infrastructure organisation. And and actually the there's more likelihood of this challenge in the future. Where operators will be will be challenging the cost of both running and enhancing the railway. And there's also far more chance of the right schemes being authorised, because the long term plan will set out the best things to do with the best returns on the railway.

The best capacity increases in a way that we haven't seen for a very long time. We can

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discuss them over Lord Lansley. I hate to disagree with him, but he will know the programme of he will know the programme of enhancements set aside for CP six was carefully discussed with was carefully discussed with himself, with the executive of Network Rail, and represented a significant plan to do precisely the things that the industry said would make the most difference. The tragedy is, of course, it didn't happen and. And even now, under

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this government, it's still not happening. Yeah, recollections are a great thing. I recollect that the list of schemes that I was invited by now, the noble Lord, his noble Lord Grayling's predecessor, not one of them had a business case attached to it, not one of them. It was a list of schemes that was just a list of schemes. And and I think that actually we can do a lot better, better than that. And I think that actually a long term railway strategy that invites the railway to list and make business cases for the right schemes is, is entirely right.

But the noble Lord Faulkner of Worcester had the most important point of all, which is that if you don't have a list of a list of schemes prioritised by business cases, you have no chance at all of getting private sector contributions to railway enhancements which create growth and wealth. And that's a really important point. And that's something which, with a long term railway strategy and the resulting GBR business plan will, will, will, will deal with. In terms of private sector involvement.

I think the first thing to say is that is that actually this government is not is not, is not fundamentally opposed to it at all. At the end of this process, when this bill becomes an act, 60% of the expenditure by GBR, once established, will be spent in the private sector. The the balance sheet implications that the noble Lord Young of Cookham raises. The railway Bill will not impact the way that the rolling stock leases will be classified by the ONS.

And I've previously discussed with him that the confidence of the rolling stock leasing companies that that that that won't be the case. But actually the story that the noble Lord Tunnicliffe told about the about how Network Rail crept back into the public sector in 2014 is absolutely right. It did go back on the balance sheet. No fuss was made about it at all. And and, and it and it turned out to be all the time a nationalised industry, the.

The experience of the, the franchises that have been that in recent times is really interesting. A number of noble Lords said that concessions could have been adopted. Of course, the the last government had the chance to do that. It already had for private sector operations in its control, but it didn't choose to do anything with any of them, which is a really interesting feature. And of course, I think a noble Lord said, and I'm afraid I admitted, that the name that in fact, the the private sector operators before the last election were not enamoured at all of that model, and therefore they weren't very keen on it.

And I think the truth of it is that that actually the railway had stagnated and that this bill is the way of retrieving the retrieving the situation in. In answer to the noble Lord Hampton platform, for which is a successful amalgamation of the Network Rail property function and London Continental Railways will undoubtedly continue because the railway does have an important role in developing land on and around stations and the rest of the the rest of the railway land, and it's very important that the railway plays its part in the in the economic development of the places that it.

That it serves. And the noble Lord Bradshaw raised the question of funding certainty. And of course, the bill does continue. The. The infrastructure funding in in five year periods, and it's shown through the provisions of the Bill to continue. The bill also gives the opportunity for Ministers in due course to give longer funding periods for the operations. But I think that most Ministers would want to see GBR making a success of its a success of its job. Job to do so.

As to passenger safety, the noble Baroness Pidgeon is rightly. Rightly draws the importance of noble Lords to passenger safety. I think GBR will have to face this subject directly. I think it will be more equipped to do so than the current railway is, and she's. She is absolutely right that the safety of women and girls is crucially important, both actually for for personal safety, but also for encouraging more travel, more travel by, by, frankly, half the population. The noble Baroness Whitaker referred to staff safety.

And I'm happy to confirm to her that the Office of Rail and Road will continue their function of of managing safety on the railway and indeed prosecuting where that's where that's the appropriate thing to do. A number of noble Lords raised the question about the raised questions about the passenger watchdog, and I know that we will have a lot of discussion about this, at least in my view, the noble Lord Mohammed of Tinsley and the noble Baroness Pidgeon raised a passenger charter and the importance of passengers, which is, of course, right.

And I'm sure that we'll have some discussion about how much power the passengers, the Passenger Watchdog should have. I disagree as as I generally do actually, sadly, with the noble Lord Moylan, I think enforcement of what the passenger watchdog wants to do. But the Office of Rail and Road is quite sufficient, and I don't see any, any, any, any problem in doing it. The devolution issues. So the noble, noble Lord Grayling raised devolution, I think for the first time the limitations of some of this are the limitations of railway geography as opposed to political boundaries as the current.

Still current Mayor of Manchester has discovered. Mayor of Greater Manchester has discovered very few train services within mayoral boundaries are wholly within the boundary and there. And the other point, of course, is they run on lines which are part of a national network. That doesn't mean at all that devolution can't be done with success, and it doesn't mean at all that mayors can't have the passenger services that they want. But if you look at the at the growth of the Overground network in London, which several noble Lords will recall through their history in London government, then the way that we achieved that.

And in some cases, those services go outside the London boundary, is an intelligent discussion about the balance between the network and its local influence, and the network and its national influence. I think the provisions in this bill are currently quite sufficient, and they will allow a discussion between mayors who have an aspiration for economic development in their parts of the country and the connections that their that their cities and towns need to have with other parts of the country. And the bill is drafted in precisely the way it is, because my my current belief, at least, is that is that the bill allows that to happen and gives them sufficient powers to influence how the railway is structured.

In terms of Wales, the noble Lord Wigley raised several points. He will know, of course, that the Barnett formula and how it's applied is a matter for His Majesty's Treasury and the Chancellor, and I'm sure that the new First Minister in Wales will be asking any new Prime Minister shortly about about that. Not only that, but fiscal devolution in general. All I can say is that the 445 million that this government has provided for, for rail enhancements in Wales is far in excess of any previous government.

It does include the North Wales coast and Wrexham, and it is a very good start to what the noble Baroness Humphreys referred to as the. With the TF transport for Wales Investment Plan and I'm. I'm sure that we will continue like that. I have already met the new Transport Minister for Wales and I'm sure we'll have some powerful, powerful discussion as to the design of of GBR, I. I hope that noble Lords will know that actually the the the firm intention of the government is to devolve GBR to a root and regional basis, because it is quite clear that it should not be some grand, centralised, distant organisation.

There will have to be functions that are centralised and actually the. The access and use of policies are one such example. But in general, this government wants the railway run by people who are who are identifiable to to elected politicians and the local communities that they serve. And the noble Lord Sentamu is right that actually it is about leadership. It's not about mine. It's about the leadership of people who can be appointed to run both operations and infrastructure and produce a better service.

And I would say this, that one of the things that was lost in the previous 30 years is that franchisees changed quite regularly. So did their managements, the local communities and elected members could never quite get used to who was in charge, because quite regularly they changed. That's not right. And actually, the people we're appointing now are to integrated business units. I am looking to. Well, I certainly told them they should behave as though they're there for the rest of their careers, and they should get on with it.

I'm told my time is up, so

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there's a limit to what I can answer other than in. And we very briefly.

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And we very briefly. Oh no, I won't take any more. I

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think that. I just wanted to ask the Minister. There has been a discussion, I know, about whether discussion, I know, about whether this bill and there's no motion tonight before us, is going to be committed to the the Moses Room or to the chamber. Could you just reassure us that the the Committee

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stage, the discussion now is with a view to having it in the chamber. I'm sorry I gave way because I

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I'm sorry I gave way because I can't answer that question. It's not for me to answer what I'd say in conclusion, and I meant to say in conclusion, and I meant to say more about this. I'm sorry that I didn't. Is is that actually a didn't. Is is that actually a number? A large number of noble Lords talked about the history of the railway, whether it's good or the railway, whether it's good or bad, and it is clearly part of the British society, and we do need to run it properly.

I'll talk to the noble Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay separately about heritage railways, but what I should say is that actually it's got a glorious past. It could be better in future. This bill is designed to make it better. It puts forward the tools in which we can shape the railway future. And I encourage all noble Lords to

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support the Bill. The question is this bill be now

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The question is this bill be now read a second time, as many opinion will say, content of the contrary,

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not content. the contents have it. Well, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn.
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