Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Baroness Pidgeon and Lord Bradshaw

Committee stage
Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 40, which is focused on the issue of policing and safety on the railways. I welcome the Minister to his new role; I look forward to working with him, asking him many questions and debating the issues, as we have done elsewhere over the last 16 years.

As noble Lords have interrogated this legislation, safety has been a feature of our deliberations. However, safety is not just about the infrastructure and rolling stock; it is about the safety of passengers and staff on our railways. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the impact of this Act on the British Transport Police. The British Transport Police provides a policing service to Network Rail, rail and freight operators and their passengers and staff throughout England, Wales and Scotland. It is also responsible for policing other parts of our transport network including the London Underground, the Glasgow Subway, the Tyne and Wear Metro, the West Midlands Metro, the Docklands Light Railway, London trams and even the cable car in London.

What is different about the British Transport Police is that it is primarily funded by the railway industry, not the public purse, and it sits within the Department for Transport, not the Home Office. The train operating companies, Network Rail, other operators and Transport for London, through either police service agreements or different funding agreements, pay for the British Transport Police—its latest budget shows annual funding of around £416 million.

On these Benches, we are concerned about two specific areas. First, we are worried about the impact on policing the network, and the safety of staff and passengers as they use and work on our railways, as these changes to franchising take place. Secondly, we are deeply concerned about the potential significant funding gap, which had not previously been identified, as a result of taking public ownership of the railways. I hope the Minister will be able to provide assurance in this area and explain the Government’s thinking about the future funding of the British Transport Police.

Furthermore, there is the issue of the British Transport Police Authority itself and how it is structured. It consists of 15 members, often with railway expertise from the train operating companies, who ensure value for money for the policing service they provide across the network. It is not clear how this will be structured going forward to ensure the right level of challenge and independence from the Department for Transport, given the department will now be effectively running the railway in public ownership. I hope the Minister can reassure noble Lords that the funding and oversight of the British Transport Police has been considered as part of this legislation, and that he will respond to our specific points.

My noble friends will speak to our Amendments 41 and 6 regarding freight operators and the impact of this legislation on their operation.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, on the issue of freight, the intention should be that the freight service is given dedicated paths in the timetable. The timetable is the key to the whole issue. For freight to have a dedicated path, we need to use the paths that are available, or potentially available, to the best advantage.

To take the east coast main line as an example, it is possible to run quite a lot more trains along that line if the open-access operations are run by 10-coach trains which are divided en route. If the investment in the east coast main line is carried through, and if, for example, the Newark flat crossing is removed, I am sure we can get at least three, possibly four, more paths in every hour. The removal of the Newark flat crossing would greatly enhance the ability of freight to run inland from Immingham.

The Government have proposals before them to undertake very small pieces of electrification which would better connect freight services to the electrified network. They also have proposals, which the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has mentioned, to get the route between Felixstowe and Nuneaton working properly. That is an appalling railway—I have ridden across it on a locomotive—and it inflicts enormous delays on freight trains. If there is any money to spend, a good deal of virtue would come from spending on enhancing the freight network and creating more paths on the east coast main line, because they are scarce and very valuable.