Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Cryer Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cryer (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

Thank you—my Lords, I nearly said, “Thank you, Mr Speaker”. That is what comes of spending 20-odd years at the other end of the Corridor: you develop certain conditioned reflexes, as many of us know.

I start by offering my thanks to Black Rod, her staff, the clerks, the doorkeepers, the security services, the police, many members of staff and Peers for the help, support and warmth that they have given me since I came to this place on 9 September. I also thank my two supporters, my noble friends Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lady Smith of Basildon. My noble friend Lord Kennedy and I have known each other since roughly 1986; the exact date is lost in the mists of time, it is that long ago. My noble friend Lady Smith and I were elected in the Blair landslide of 1997. She was the MP for Basildon. I was the MP for Hornchurch for eight years before I lost Hornchurch to James Brokenshire, whom many of you will remember. James and I became friends—at least, I like to think that we were. Sadly, James died very young at the age of only 53. I was then the MP for Leyton and Wanstead for 14 years. Leyton and Wanstead is probably one of the most mixed constituencies not just in Britain but on the face of the planet; if you pick a particular community, it probably has representatives in Leyton and Wanstead.

During nine of those years, I chaired the Parliamentary Labour Party. It is good to see my opposite number, the noble Lord, Lord Brady, in his place. He chaired the 1922 Committee for 14 years, I think. It is fair to say that, during the first half of my tenure as chair of the PLP—during the previous leadership of the Labour Party—chairing the PLP had its interesting points on Monday evenings at 6 pm in Committee Room 14. During the second half, in the run-up to 2024, life got a bit quieter and more boring for me—but maybe a bit livelier for the noble Lord, Lord Brady.

I cannot speak today without mentioning the anniversary of 7 October. A year ago, there was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community that the world has seen since 1945. It was right up there with the activities of the Nazis and the pogroms perpetrated on Jews across the globe and down the centuries for all that time. However, before I finally get on to the Bill, which I will do, we must remember that anti-Semitism has been on the rise in this country for some time. It is getting broader and deeper. If you do not believe me, just look at the figures produced by the Community Security Trust. It is there for all to see.

I do not enjoy saying this but I point out that anti-Semitism seeped into the pores of the Labour Party—my Labour Party—for a number of years under the previous leader. Nor do I enjoy saying that, as chair of the PLP, I found not just an unwillingness to tackle racism among the then leadership of the party but an obstruction to those of us who wanted to tackle the anti-Semites and kick them out of the Labour Party. I remember once being shouted down at a party meeting because I suggested that, on balance, it maybe was not a bad idea to kick racists out of the Labour Party. Regardless of what happens in the next few years, Keir Starmer deserves every credit—and always will—for tearing anti-Semitism out of the Labour Party by its roots, to use his phrase. He will always have my support and my loyalty for doing that alone, regardless of the other things he has done to great success. Even so, it remains a source of anger and resentment that we had—I emphasise “had”—members of the Labour Party who supported Hamas, Hezbollah and the clerical fascists who run the regime in Tehran. I will return to anti-Semitism and racism generally another day but, for now, I turn briefly to the Bill.

The railways have had a central part in my life since I was born, really. My dad was a founder of the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway in the 1960s; it was one of those railway lines that was closed under Beeching, which I view as a disastrous period in British transport policy. He set up the Keighley & Worth Valley light railway. He then—I do not know how—persuaded EMI to film “The Railway Children” on that railway. He then got himself a job as the technical director on the film, then got the entire family jobs as extras on the film. My sister and I never saw the money but that is another story. It was an absolutely extraordinary experience. It was pointed out to me a while ago, in the run-up to the previous general election, that that general election was the first in Britain since 1970 in which a cast member of “The Railway Children” was not standing as a parliamentary candidate in the election campaign—so that is something to conjure with.

I support this Bill and have always supported the public ownership of rail. However, worse than the privatisation of the railways was the fragmentation of the railways. There are two quick historic examples that I can pray in aid. The Governments of the 1920s generally tended to subscribe to free market economics and, to some extent, politics. Yet, in 1921, the then Government passed the grouping Act, which brought more than 100 railway companies together into the big four railway companies, because it was seen that fragmentation was not working. The railways were literally grinding to a halt in many cases.

I will finish with this example. Arguably the biggest fan of the free market to occupy 10 Downing Street was William Ewart Gladstone, yet even Gladstone thought that the fragmentation of the railways in the 19th century was a mistake. Perhaps it was not a mistake originally, but in 1844, before he was Prime Minister, when he was a Secretary of State in the Peel Government—some of your Lordships will know this —he presented the Railways Bill to Parliament. What noble Lords may not know is that that Bill originally provided for the public ownership of the entire rail network.

The Bill was important, because it ended up being the first Bill to be introduced that represented government intervention in rail transport. It provided the parliamentary train which meant that working-class people across Britain could afford to take at least one rail journey a day. That was its intervention, but it originally had provisions for public ownership. Gladstone abandoned that as Secretary of State, because in those days the whipping system in the House of Commons was not as firm as it is now. There were semi-independent MPs, and he decided that he could not get it through the House of Commons, so he watered it down and moved on to introducing purely the parliamentary train. Nevertheless, if public ownership and a more homogenous network were good enough for WE Gladstone in 1844, they are certainly good enough for us in the 21st century.

It is a huge honour and a privilege to deliver my maiden speech today in front of my friends, many of whom I have known for many years in the other place and, to some extent, in this place. I look forward to future debates.