Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very wide-ranging debate. We have strayed across the world, as far as Japan, and as far back as Gladstone. It is worth mentioning that Gladstone was born before rail systems were invented. It has been an excellent and well-informed debate. How could it be otherwise, as so many speakers have had considerable experience in the rail industry? A whole gallery of ex-Secretaries of State have spoken as well.

I must start by congratulating those noble Lords who made their maiden speeches today, including, of course, the insightful contribution from my noble friend Lady Pidgeon. Her considerable experience as chair of the transport committee of the Greater London Assembly will clearly add considerably to our analysis in this House of the transport challenges we face. I also congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Cryer and Lord Grayling, on their contrasting approaches to the issues.

Contributions from these Benches have made it clear that the Liberal Democrats are agnostic about who owns what within the rail system. Our priorities reflect the concerns of the travelling public—indeed, of the public who would like to travel but all too often find that they cannot, because current systems are too expensive, too slow or too unreliable to be a viable option. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, about the possibilities of public-private partnerships. The noble Lord, Lord Young, raised a very valid question about how to unlock private investment in a nationalised railway system.

We strongly support the Government’s intention to overhaul the system as a priority, but we are concerned that they have chosen to focus on re-nationalisation as a starting point. Their chosen method—allowing each franchise simply to die away at the end of the contract period—may superficially seem a clever way of enabling a relatively low-cost renationalisation but, as other noble Lords have said, it will still come at a price because it will create uncertainty, not least for staff. Ironically, the worst performing train operators, for example Avanti, may by chance be allowed to survive much longer than much better operators such as Greater Anglia. My noble friend Lady Scott made this point. We are in danger of having to wait over four years before some vital aspects of reform can be implemented.

My noble friend Lord Bradshaw once told me about working for British Rail through the years of stagnation, as staff waited for privatisation and worried about their jobs. The Government are in danger now of repeating that, but in reverse. Most of us here are old enough to remember that the old British Rail was not a shining example of success. It is important to remember that our rail system now carries twice the number of passengers; it is a very different beast, so we cannot simply go back to the future. Undoubtedly, the first stress the Government will face is to reconcile the terms and conditions of staff as they bring together very different working practices across the train operators. I ask the Minister: how do they intend to implement TUPE in a way that is affordable to passengers and taxpayers? How will they ensure that they keep the best staff when redundancies are inevitable?

As we look across Europe, there is a wide range of ownership patterns, although most countries have a mixed market, as we do here in the UK. The UK is not out of step on ownership; where we are out of step is on reliability, cancellation levels and fare levels. We have, as many noble Lords have mentioned, by far the most expensive rail journeys in Europe. UK fares are the highest, and the cost to taxpayers in subsidies is 30% higher than in any other country.

I say to the Government: the public do not care who owns our railways. They just want a good, reliable service with a simple fare structure that is value for money. Can the Minister give us details of government plans to reform fares? I appreciate that this is something for the future, but the Government must surely have plans in place. Fares need to be frozen in order to start providing a better deal for long-suffering passengers. Privatisation per se is not the problem; as several noble Lords have mentioned, it is fragmentation.

Compare this system with Transport for London, as my noble friend Lady Pidgeon did. Transport for London operates as a co-ordinated service but with a great deal of private sector input. All London buses look the same and operate to the same standard model, but they are run by different companies. The people of London I have talked to are blissfully unaware of that, because of the system. As my noble friend Lord Bradshaw said, the current UK railway system, introduced under privatisation, was overly bureaucratic and focused on the blame game. It is not about ownership but the way it is structured and the internal reaction between the parts of the whole.

During this debate, noble Lords have raised many unanswered questions, and my noble friends have drawn attention to what we regard as the key issues we are looking for answers to, and which the Bill, of course, does not begin to provide. My noble friend Lady Scott raised the issue of safety, which is not a problem on our current railway system but must not be ignored for that reason. The Government appear to believe that open access can continue alongside nationalised services. We need a detailed explanation of how that will work in the future. Who will decide what open access services can be provided?

My noble friend Lady Pidgeon raised the issue of devolution. As Liberal Democrats, we believe strongly that local areas generally know best what services they need, so we want transport devolution to thrive in the new system. We will be looking for cast-iron guarantees that renationalisation will not lead to even more Whitehall-centric control and decision-making than we already have. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, referred to the concentration of power in the current system.

My noble friend Lady Brinton raised vital issues of disability access. In this shake-up, we must not allow to pass by the golden opportunity we have considerably to improve access for people with disabilities. We must use this opportunity to spread best practice.

If we are to move to a greener Britain, rail freight has to prosper, yet the freight sector is untouched by this Bill. We need to hear more about government plans, and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, emphasised the need for investment in freight.

How will the British Transport Police be funded in the future? Currently, it is funded by the TOCs. What about stations? Currently, they are largely, but not exclusively, leased to train operators. Possibly the strangest omission from the Bill and the Government’s stated plans is what happens to the roscos, which, as many noble Lords have mentioned, have been earning extremely high profits, despite all the problems facing the rail industry.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, told us the story of the transformation in Wales. As a Cardiff resident, I agree wholeheartedly with him that significant changes are happening in Wales—it is a useful story that noble Lords should look at in detail—but I stress that it has needed considerable investment.

In conclusion, from these Benches we congratulate the Government on finally starting to tackle the mess on our railways. It is a national embarrassment that the country that invented rail travel can no longer manage to build a new line to modern specifications —I refer of course to HS2. Since the Williams report, the previous Conservative Government twisted and turned, dithered and delayed, and wasted billions of pounds by doing virtually nothing. Great British Railways should have been fully up and running by now, and a simpler fare structure should also have been fully implemented—but we have seen no progress. Instead, they got hooked on being the motorists’ friend and talked only of how much they were subsidising the railways.

I hope that the new Government will change the rhetoric and talk instead about investment in our railways. That means investment in our economy, which simply cannot grow or function properly on our crowded islands without better rail infrastructure. We need that for both passengers and freight, and we need investment in our environment to reduce carbon emissions. That should be done by extending our rail infrastructure.

Renationalisation was a Labour manifesto commitment, and we accept the Government’s right to implement it. But, by asking the questions I have outlined—and some more—we will seek to probe the crucial details of the Government’s vision for rail and to find out how it will work in practice. We hope that constructive probing will improve the final result.