Railways Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Leaman

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate and I fully support comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, from her experience in telecom. I have suffered a bit myself from them, and what she told the Committee is no surprise.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, is also absolutely right that we need a level playing field. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, probably hit the nail on the head when he said that the sooner we do this, the better, so I definitely support his Amendment 48.

It is worth reminding ourselves that there is not just one big private sector retailer and all the ones that retail for the TOCs at the moment, but there are lots of smaller ones as well. The ORR will have to look at making sure that the fair competition between the big ones and the little ones is kept in line with competition policy and that we do not have one of them running away with everything else. It would be no good having one private sector company becoming a private sector monopoly—you might as well have a GBR monopoly—but we do not want monopolies. That is my message.

One noble Lord who spoke was concerned about the workload that may be coming to the ORR. I have had many experiences with the ORR over the years and it tries very hard, but it needs to be prepared for an extension to its scope. However, one thing I know is that it is capable of doing it and will be interested in doing it. I am sure many noble Lords have talked to it in the last few months. I think the ORR is also quite relaxed about the involvement of the CMA, because the CMA needs to be there as well, possibly as a second line of defence. It will just not work unless the level playing fields are separated from the great work that GBR will do in running trains and making sure the infrastructure works and things like that. Having a separation, including the accounts, as some noble Lords have said, is really important. I hope my noble friend will come back with some positive views on competition, and we maybe will even have to have a meeting or two before Report.

[Baroness Leaman (LD)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendments 208 and 339 in my name in this group. I set out the case for automatic Delay Repay at Second Reading, so I will not repeat that ground today save to say that I doubt I am alone in having abandoned a claim because the process took longer than the journey was delayed. Instead, I will use this stage to explain what these two amendments would do.

Amendment 208 would place a duty on GBR and open access operators to pay Delay Repay compensation automatically, wherever they hold enough information to identify that a passenger’s journey was delayed by 15 minutes or more and have the means to pay them. Where an operator does not hold that information, it would still have to take reasonable steps to let the passenger know they are entitled to claim, so the burden of finding out does not fall on the passenger alone. No one would receive less under the automatic route than under operators’ existing schemes, and payment would default to digital means to reflect the way that most fares are already bought and refunded today. None of this asks GBR to invent a new right. It asks operators to use data that they already have to give effect to a right that passengers already have. I am open to a different mechanism if the Minister has one in mind but the underlying case is straightforward. Whether a passenger gets money back that they are owed should not depend on which operator runs their line or on their persistence with a claim form. A right that exists on paper but which is rarely exercised in practice is not really much of a right at all.

My proposed new clause would also leave the Secretary of State flexibility to set timescales, notification methods and exceptions by regulation. Amendment 339 follows from that. As drafted, those regulations would be subject only to the negative procedure, taking effect unless the House objected. Amendment 339 would instead require debate and approval by both Houses under the affirmative procedure. Given how much of this scheme’s substance would sit in regulations rather than in the Bill, Parliament should scrutinise and approve them properly, not simply have the chance to object afterwards.