Great British Railways: Rolling Stock

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, EUROFIMA is a long-established, supranational financial institution, established as a joint stock company by an international treaty, the convention, signed by 25 European member states. It is dedicated to financing public passenger railway rolling stock and related infrastructure, as well as the modernisation and renewing of related equipment. As part of developing the rolling stock and infrastructure strategy, my department is exploring a range of financing structures to support investment in partnership with private finance. This includes active engagement with EUROFIMA to assess how its financing mechanisms could support future investment in the UK rolling stock market. If, following due diligence, EUROFIMA is considered an appropriate avenue to go down, then we would aim to accede by the end of 2026.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, now that the Government own South Western Railway, they have inherited about 4,000 trains that were manufactured four years ago and have not carried any passengers at all. Can my noble friend the Minister tell the House when these trains are likely to enter service?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is accurate: 90 trains were procured; some of them were delivered five years ago. At the time that the South Western Railway operation reverted to public ownership, six out of the 90 were in service; as of today, 23 are now in service. The new management is doing what the old one did not, which is to put the new trains in service and have the old ones taken out of service and scrapped. The rest of them will be introduced as fast as the drivers can be trained, which will take a little time because that had not been done either.