Railways Bill

Lord Evans of Guisborough Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Guisborough (Con)]

My Lords, I must confess I had mixed feelings when I saw that I had been drawn 30th out of 31 contributors to the debate this afternoon, but, in fact, it has been a huge pleasure. It has been an excellent and very well-informed debate, and it is a privilege to take part. I was particularly taken with the valedictory speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton. I thank the noble Lord for his service. I can tell, even as a relatively new Member, that he will be missed by the House.

It has also been a privilege to take part in a debate which has included contributions from a number of former Secretaries of State for Transport. They made the case for privatisation very well, using hard numbers: increased numbers of passengers, increased projects, improving reliability on the railways, and savings made, whereas, the proponents of this Bill, I fear, are relying largely on nostalgia. The reputation of British Rail, back as it was in the 1970s, appears to have undergone something of a renaissance in recent years. I am pleased that my noble friend Lord Blencathra managed to puncture that particular balloon and remind us all of exactly what it was like.

I had the privilege to work for the Royal Mail in the 1980s and the early 1990s. We had a lot of dealings with British Rail. I would come into the office—I was private secretary to the director of operations here in London—and I would be faced every morning with a tray full of telexes; noble Lords will recall telexes, I am sure. Every one of them was about some form of delay or disruption to the mail overnight, and a very large proportion of those was due to failings on the part of our partner, British Rail. I would have to assemble those into a file and present them to the rather sceptical director when he came in later during the day. I can remember well how incandescent he was when I had to tell him that British Rail had forgotten to put fuel in a train and it had ground to a halt just outside Birmingham with its load.

I remember a particular day with some pride when we launched the mail train which ran from Euston station to Carlisle. We had a train full of bigwigs—directors from British Rail, directors from the Post Office; we had my noble friend Lord Jopling, who was the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry at the time, and Lord Clinton-Davis, who was his Labour opposite number. We set off from Euston with our hearts high, looking forward to reaching Carlisle. Unfortunately, something fell off the train at Nuneaton, and we ground to a halt and sat in a field for an hour, with nobody telling us what the reason for that was. Nobody on the train knew, least of all, of course, the senior British Rail operators who were panicking somewhat about the experience. It was a constant source of controversy and difficulty for us, because we knew, as a nationalised organisation, that if we wanted to please the Government, we would put all our letters on to the trains. If we wanted to help the environment, because we cared about that even in those days, we would put all our mail on to the trains. But if we wanted the letters to get there the next day, we would put them in a van and drive them ourselves, because that was the only way that we could guarantee the quality of service that people required from us.

I particularly enjoyed the early contribution from my noble friend Lady May. She raised the issue of devolution and the contradictions that that will raise. The Minister, having run Transport for London, will be only too aware, I am sure, of the contradictions and the challenges this puts in place for London and for other major cities around the country. When he was running Transport for London, he would have wanted the trains to stop at every single stop going into London, provide a metro service and pick up the maximum number of people possible, but when he becomes the one controlling mind that he presented to us, running the trains on behalf of the country, no doubt he will want them to run express services and stop in as few places as possible to keep to the timetable and connect the cities. That is before the contradictions and the challenges raised by increasing the amount of freight on the rails as well. Perhaps the Minister can explain to us how the concept of one controlling mind will meet what is known as the Makerfield test.

My noble friends Lord Lansley and Lord Young of Cookham raised the issue of investment. Again, this is a serious problem. Public money is paid by taxpayers by and large because they expect it to be spent on schools and hospitals, and those things will have the priority. This is why the old British Rail was always so badly underfunded. When we look forward to the situation facing us now in the UK, we are in a world where we need to boost our defence spending and there are all sorts of other demands on the budget. Great British Railways is going to be very fortunate if it gets much money out of a government settlement with all those other high priorities competing.

Furthermore, there is an issue of London versus the regions. I know that when I was deputy mayor for London, we could always make a good case for investing in London’s railways because, if nothing else, if you put the money into London, you know you are going to get it back eventually—there will be a return on that investment. That is how we got the Elizabeth line, although I am sure the Minister remembers that it was quite tough to get. It will be even harder to get investment in projects outside London, which will not cost in so easily because they will not meet Treasury rules.

From my point of view, I would perhaps give some advice to the Minister. Transport professionals should rely a bit less on putting in massive projects—big toys for boys, if you like—and look at breaking that money up and spending it on smaller projects, which may not get the headlines but which can be completed much more quickly. That will have a demonstrable effect in improving the reliability of the rail services.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

Hear, hear!

[Lord Evans of Guisborough (Con)]

Thank you. He was heard in silence, almost.

We often hear in such debates—we have not heard it too much today—about how much better the rail services are in other countries. I just want to let the House know that that is not just a debate or an opinion which is voiced by people in the UK. I remember that quite a few years ago, and the Minister will recall this as well, we brought in a man called Bob Kiley from New York to run Transport for London. I was in a hotel in the West End talking to some New Yorkers at the bar, and I said to them, “We’ve got Mr Kiley coming over to run our services”. They said to me, “Well, he’s made a much better job of your Tube than he ever did with our rail services in New York”. I said, “The only problem is that he’s actually not arrived yet”. So it is a truth that, when we travel, we see the best of people’s rail services; when we live there, we do not quite get the sort of service that we would expect. If the Bill is to be successful, I hope that that situation will be corrected.