Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Grayling Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grayling (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege and honour to make my maiden speech in this House, having moved up the Corridor after 23 years on the green Benches, and to do so following two distinguished figures in the transport world, the noble Lords, Lord Faulkner and Lord Young. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, he and I served together briefly during my time in the department; he knows a huge amount about this subject. It is a particular pleasure to do so sitting alongside my noble friend Lord McLoughlin, who was the formidable Deputy Chief Whip when I arrived in the Commons as MP for Epsom and Ewell in 2001, who became a good friend sitting alongside me in Cabinet and was, of course, my predecessor as Secretary of State. In many ways it is also a relief to be here, because I have the privilege and honour of having been the only person to serve as both Lord Chancellor and Lord President. That meant that I was constantly introduced at events as “Lord Grayling” and spent quite a lot of time explaining to people that I was not. It is a relief, having arrived here, that I now am.

I would like to express my thanks to all of those who have assisted me in my first few days in this House—in particular to Black Rod and her staff, to the clerks, doorkeepers and members of the House staff who helped me with my introduction and with getting used to this place. It was a particular pleasure to have two very old friends as my supporters when I was introduced: the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, who was elected to the Commons on the same day as me in 2001, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, who has the misfortune—or fortune, depending on your view—to have been introduced to the Conservative Party by me in our mutual home area of Epsom.

It is a particular honour to be appointed to this House, and one I shall always be grateful to the former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for. In my last few years in the Commons I focused particularly on two issues, and I hope to do the same in this House. The first is international conservation, something I am very passionate about, which in my view is crucial to the future of the planet and of mankind, and also to the future of the aviation sector in this country, which is the other area I have focused on particularly. To some people there may appear to be a contradiction between those two things, but an end to aviation would mean an end to the tourist trade, which eases poverty in so many places and, in particular, is so vital to supporting and sustaining conservation efforts around the world. If there were no tourists, much of the conservation effort in the developing world would not be there. It is my intention to continue to work in these two areas in this House. In particular, I am looking forward to being part of the debate on the sustainable aviation Bill. I am very grateful to the Government for having followed the work that I and others did in the Commons before the election in looking to bring forward that Bill quickly. I urge them to get on with it; it is extremely important.

As a former Lord Chancellor, I very much recognise the need to uphold the rule of law in this country. It is one of the things that makes us strongest as a nation. It is one of the things that has created one of the world’s most highly regarded legal systems. In this House I see one or two familiar faces from my time as Lord Chancellor. I should also say that it is the role of this House and of Parliament to challenge and sometimes disagree with the view of the courts. That constructive tension lies at the heart of our democracy. It is part of the strength of our democracy, and it should never be lost.

As a former Lord President and Leader of the Commons who co-chaired, with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, the first Joint Committee on the restoration and renewal programme, I also intend to play an active part in pushing for us to get on with that. It is far too many years since we started that process. I find it very frustrating that eight years later we still have not made progress. It is vital to the future of this historic building. We are all guardians of an essential piece of our history here, and it is our duty to make sure that it is sustained, maintained, improved and protected for future generations. We must do that.

As a former Secretary of State for Transport, I could not pass up the opportunity to make my maiden speech in today’s debate. I am very pleased to see the Minister in her position. We know each other well from my time in government when we debated the future of transport in Bradford. I very much hope that her time in government will lead to real work. Bradford is a great city that needs better transport links, which I wanted to see and was moving towards trying to achieve. She was part of the review process after the 2018 timetable issue, and I was always grateful to her for the work she did then. Of course, she and the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, are now going to have to deal with the challenges of overseeing an industry in which somehow it is always the Minister’s fault if something goes wrong. I particularly remember being blamed by one of the unions, which called for my resignation after a freight train derailed in the morning peak, causing massive delays in south-west London. I am afraid that kind of joy lies ahead for her, and I do not think these reforms are going to take away the reality that the buck still lands on the Minister’s desk, however much they might wish to change that.

Clearly there are disagreements across this House and the other House about the best way forward, though I think there is no division between us about the fact that franchising has run its course in its current form, or rather the form that it existed in before the pandemic. Change was needed, which is why I commissioned Keith Williams to do his review. Whether the approach the Government are taking is the right one is a different question, because—I have to say to the Minister—I do not believe that the issues on our railway today are about ownership. The reality is that the people who have been running the railways are going to be the people running the railways in future. The issue is all about capacity and constraints. Frankly, we have had too many trains on too little space, and it just does not add up. Trying to get many trains through our busiest junctions at peak times has been an impossibility. It is what has caused so many of the delays, and that is what is going to carry on happening. Ultimately, if the Government are to deliver what they say they are going to deliver, they will have to invest in extra capacity as well.

The second issue is that, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, said, renationalisation brings the railway back into competition with other areas of government at Budget time. Ministers must not close the door to private investment in the railways. If they do, they will find that services do not improve, costs do not come down and capacity challenges remain. If they shut out the private sector from the railway, in my view they will come to regret it. But that is all for another day. The debate will continue, not just on this Bill but on the Bill that the Minister has said will come before this House, and the House of Commons, in due course.

I finish by reiterating that I regard it as a huge privilege to be here, and it is good to be alongside many friends on different sides of the House. I very much look forward to taking part in debates here in future. It is an honour and a privilege that I am very grateful to have been given.