Great British Railways

Lord Gascoigne Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that he is not alone in feeling a little nervous in speaking today. Like everyone else, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Young on securing this debate. It is an honour to briefly take part in what feels a bit like a relaunch of the band that we had for the passenger railway services Bill.

Like others, I express my gratitude to the Minister for circulating the notes yesterday. Today I would like to talk about the future confidence in open access. As recently as last month, the Minister in the other place said that open access operators “can also abstract revenue”. It is not the first time that such words have been mentioned. There are also examples of new bids being opposed by DfT. When you combine that with the noise and broader sentiment of the wider public ownership reforms, a narrative—at least to me—begins to build that one day, despite all the assurances, the beady eye of government will fall on them as the last bulwarks of capitalism, which have escaped public ownership up to now.

As has been touched on, investment from a private sector entity requires certainty if it wishes to invest and even expand. That made me think of one related example that is in the news: Heathrow. I am obviously not involved in the discussions on expansion, but surely a key part of the success of the current, and potentially larger, airport will require long-term assurances of open access, not only as part of the feasibility of the proposed expansion but for the success of what would become a larger airport, and having the connectivity it needs. The same issue of certainty applies to all providers, to secure investment and, ultimately, a better service.

What assurances can the Minister give to existing services that open access is here to stay? Current open access providers may well be safe for now, but what happens when their agreements come up for renewal? The Government state that economic growth is their priority, so when there is a discussion on the so-called abstraction of a provider, do they take into consideration the wider financial benefits that these services provide to areas as well as the negative impact that the withdrawal of the service would have on the cost to taxpayers in providing an alternative?

I am also grateful, as ever, to the Minister for recently forwarding a copy of the current rail consultation document. I do not wish to rehash the debates that we had on the rail Bill, and I am sure the Minister is unbelievably delighted that when the GBR Bill comes forward we will have plenty of the opportunities to talk about wider reform. Can the Minister give any indication of when that Bill will be introduced and when the Government see it taking effect?

Is not the point of the whole reform agenda to fix problems with our rail system? Today the Government announced that they are cutting NHS England, which has around 13,000 staff, and they are doing so for efficiency reasons. Later this year—soon, we hope—we will see GBR, but when you combine Network Rail and the TOC staff, you are potentially seeing over 80,000 staff. What assurances can the Minister give that, when we see this reform, there will be speedy change and costs will be kept down, when we have such a vast quango?

Finally, as has been touched on, the consultation refers to the importance of freight and says that there would be a growth target, which the previous Government also talked about. Does that mean that that target would be included in the Bill when we see it?