Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Baroness Pidgeon and Lord Moylan

Report stage
Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, our Amendment 7 is about rail devolution, discussed extensively in Committee from all sides of the Chamber. We believe it is really important that this first piece of rail legislation from the new Government not only meets their manifesto commitment to public ownership of the railways but allows further rail lines to be transferred to metro mayors and local and regional authorities where there is a strong case, and a desire, by the locally elected members. Local accountability is key.

I remind the House that we have discussed in detail the huge success of the Overground and the Elizabeth line in London and of Merseyrail in the Liverpool region, and the desire for metropolitan areas such as Greater Manchester to deliver a truly integrated public transport offer, branded under one logo and accountable to the mayor. These not only improve transport but contribute to housing and economic growth. I hope that the Minister can offer some stronger words today about future devolution, not just the limited existing devolved lines. The Minister started to outline this in response to the previous group, and I hope to hear more.

We on these Benches want our railway to become a reliable, fast, cost-effective and efficient service for everyone, with local services run in a way that serves the needs of local areas and local communities. I sensed in Committee that the Minister was listening very carefully to the points that were made, especially given his direct experience in a former role of running and expanding the Overground service in London.

I thank the Minister for his time, since Committee, meeting with my noble friends to discuss our amendments further and the assurances that we would like to hear at this stage. I hope the Minister can today assure the House that, as franchises end and come into public ownership, there will be genuine consultation and discussion with devolved authorities on how future services should look, and indeed on how best to run them—including the option for locally run and accountable devolved rail services, in addition to those already devolved. We believe that this will help bring about the transformation of the railway that is the aim of this Bill. I look forward to hearing from the Minister real assurances in this area. I beg to move.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in this group, particularly Amendment 12 standing in my name. I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. Both amendments are aiming at the same thing.

I said earlier today that there are a number of crucial things missing from this Bill: one is staff, and we will come to that, and another is the passenger, and we have dealt with that. The third is the local authorities, the regions, the metropolitan authorities and devolution as a whole. On this side of the House we have always had great aspirations for the powers of combined metropolitan authorities and regional government, and for their expansion. We are largely responsible for promoting and establishing mayoralties in Manchester and the West Midlands, and in other places as well, such as Teesside and so forth. We have done that with a view to expanding their powers, and part of that was to take on a greater role in transport. We are seeing the beginning of that in Manchester with the buses, and Merseyrail is operated by the combined authority.

In doing that, we are coming from a successful metropolitan model, London, which already has many of these powers. As far as we can make out, these powers, where rail is concerned—not buses—are effectively to be closed down where they do not already exist. They will not be expanded further—the Minister has been quite clear about that—and we will not see the growth of rail on a metropolitan basis.

My Amendment 12 is simpler than that advanced by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. It would require a preliminary report that outlines the proposed framework in which Great British Railways is going to communicate with local authorities and regional authorities about passenger railway services. That it is going to communicate is something that the Government have committed to, as the Labour Party document Getting Britain Moving said so. There is going to be a great deal of consultation and involvement on every possible front, but, again, we are told that we have to take all of this on trust—that none of this will become manifest until we see the great rail Bill that will come in the future, with a bit of consultation but without seeing a proper text in advance for pre-legislative scrutiny.

We are trying to get it established now, as a principle at least, that the Government can initiate these communications before that Bill comes into effect. They can set up structures that allow those communications to take place; this amendment requires the Government effectively to do that.

If the Minister cannot agree to the precise amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, I very much hope that he will at least be able to agree to my amendment, which asks him to get those structures—which he envisages happening—in place as soon as possible, so that local authorities and the relevant regional authorities can be involved.