Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Gascoigne Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Snape’s Amendment 43 and will speak to many of the other amendments in this group. I support most of the statements that have been made from all parts of the Committee in this debate.

We have been talking about devolution for years. It started off as levelling up—and we can debate whether it was levelling up or levelling down—with the last Government. But the Labour Party has been very keen on what I would call devolution for a long time and has supported the mayors of Manchester, Leeds and the West Midlands in trying to get control of their transport services, as the noble Lord just said. It is equally important to be able to decide what services are provided and who pays for them.

One of the key things which we have been debating for some time is these so-called regional authorities being given a lump sum, if one likes, and told that they can spend it on transport and then be allowed to get on with it—let them decide, on the basis of local elections and local politics, what they want to provide. Everybody’s objective would probably be to see in the north and the Midlands a general quality of service compatible with and just as good as that provided in the south-east, around London. It is not all provided by TfL—although much of it is—and I think most noble Lords would say that it is very good. I do not understand why the Government do not go the whole hog and say that they will give these regions a lump sum, to be negotiated, and let them get on with it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, asked whether Manchester could deliver. The answer is that it cannot deliver if Whitehall is in control. We have quite a serious problem here and I do not know what the answer is, except to say that I am convinced that some of the clauses we are debating tonight are counterproductive to what I thought the Government were trying to achieve.

What is the point of taking certain rail franchises into the public sector and turning them into something else if, next year, a Bill will give them a new franchise or concession? The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has not mentioned the word “concession” yet today, but I expect he will. Concessions are very good in some places, but the key is this: what is the point in making this massive change now and then coming back in a year or two to say that we will let the West Midlands run all local services—it can put them out to tender, and have the money to provide the service with the frequency and fares that it wants—and ditto in the north west and north-east?

We really need to know the final outcome planned by the Government before we can know whether the Bill will be helpful or not. If we make a change now and then another change in two years, the people who will be damaged are the passengers on the railway.

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Moylan on Amendments 12 and 13 and I echo some of the great speeches in this group. As my noble friend said, it is right to ensure that, through some mechanism, the nations and regions are consulted, and, crucially, engaged, to ensure that they are brought into the decision-making process so that the service which eventually emerges is as effective as possible.

I am sure some will hark, yet again, that we are calling for more consultation and bureaucracy, but let us be clear: we on this side have always believed in devolution and power to the people. As my noble friend Lord Moylan said, the Government themselves have committed to the concept of devolution when it comes to transport. Therefore, is it not right that we utilise the opportunity to bring the Council of the Nations and Regions into discussions to ensure that we have the best services possible where there is overlap between the nations? Everyone is citing different quotes, but the PM said when the council was created that “we work as one team” and a “partnership”. If it is the view that that is too onerous, as I am sure the Minister will say, then we could at least try to engage the much- trailed but lesser-spotted envoy to the regions.

I support the noble Lord, Lord Snape, as I always do, in his Amendment 43. It calls for the Secretary of State to produce a report on whether a service could be devolved when it awards it to a public operator or renews a private franchise. That is wise and right, and I assume the case for doing so would be to assess the pros and cons for commuters, which we on this side of the Committee believe should be the focus of the reforms.

Supporting this amendment takes me back to what was said on day one of Committee on my amendments, when it was deemed that:

“Amendment A1, to which the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, spoke earlier, would create another bureaucracy”.


Later, this noble Lord hoped that the Minister would

“not get too bogged down in the bureaucratic desires of the party opposite”.—[Official Report, 21/10/24; cols. 433, 435.]

Who was so opposed to putting in a mere purpose clause, lest it be too bureaucratic? Lo and behold it was the one and only noble Lord, Lord Snape, who is now calling for an amendment to include a report when a rail service is awarded to a new operator. I welcome this Damascene conversion from the Labour Benches; I say yes to the noble Lord’s amendment but yes to Amendments A1 and 48A.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

Before the noble Lord ruins entirely my career, such as it is, with his praise, I must tell him that he is comparing lemons with oranges. More accurately, what I said last time had nothing to with the devolution of railway passenger services to our great conurbations. I am rather against bureaucracy; it is the party opposite, as far as this legislation is concerned, that seems to be obsessed with it.

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

I do not know what the protocol is but I find it novel, if I may say so, that the noble Lord opposes bureaucracy when this side proposes it and yet supports it when it is convenient to himself.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Gascoigne Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support my noble friends Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Moylan on their Amendment 42, which calls for an annual statement setting out the liabilities to the public purse.

As I said on day one, the whole rail system is duplicated, messy and costly. Given that this Bill is piecemeal and without the other substantive and necessary reforms, it runs the risk of not fixing the problem but making it worse and costing the taxpayer even more. As has already been noted, in the Labour Party’s Getting Britain Moving document, there is a section titled “Failure is increasing costs”, which talks about the savings to be made. The Government’s September press release hails the Secretary of State as having

“fired the starting gun on rail reform”,

and clearly notes that it will be

“saving taxpayers up to an estimated £150 million every year in fees alone in the process”.

So we will bank that—well, the Treasury will, rather than the taxpayer—but the indication from that is that there will be savings of at least £150 million every year. I am not disputing that figure, but what other savings will there be?

I was reading the other day that nationalisation could be costing the taxpayer £1 billion per year by the end of this Parliament. There is an argument that it is only because of privatisation that we can see what the system costs and what is profitable and what is not. There is a legitimate concern that the cost will once again become opaque, with the passing of this Bill and when it starts to take effect. In assessing the virtue of these reforms, not just from an ideological point of view, the country should know what else it is taking on, not least because it will effectively be the owner or shareholder, not just of the railways but now the liabilities of the companies which will be transferred on to the Government’s balance sheet.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, the amendment and the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Young, indicate the obvious advantages of nationalisation in terms of greater access to information and transparency; it has disadvantages, which the noble Lord set out, but it also has advantages. The speech by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, was compelling: the evidence and information he gave us illustrated much better than I have heard before the issues that have been referred to—I referred to them on Second Reading and on Monday—regarding the imbalance between the attitude of the Government towards the speed of taking over the train operators and the fact that they are prepared to leave well alone the roscos, which can quite clearly be seen to be exploiting their situation and therefore getting excess profits as a result. I will be very interested to listen to the Minister’s explanation of why that is happening.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Gascoigne Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Gascoigne]

A1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Purpose: improvement of passenger railway services(1) The purpose of this Act is to improve the performance of passenger railway services in the United Kingdom.(2) The Secretary of State must, in taking any actions under the provisions of this Act, have regard to this purpose.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to have regard to the purpose of improving passenger railway services when taking any actions under the terms of this Act.

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, in moving my Amendment A1 I will speak also to Amendment 48A in this group. First, with permission, as it is the first time that I have addressed the new Minister in the House, I congratulate him on his promotion—I think it is a promotion—in joining the Government. I have had the absolute pleasure of working closely with him and knowing him personally since 2008. I saw at first hand his sterling work when he ran Transport for London, alongside the equally impressive Mayor of London, Boris Johnson—something on which I know the whole Committee will agree with me. There are few people in the land more knowledgeable, so it is the country’s gain in having the Minister help tackle our many transport issues.

I declare that I am a regular commuter, and have been for years, travelling in and out of London from home almost daily—not least today, when I had a 15-minute delay to a 25-minute journey. It is because of my time as a commuter, as well as my time in London City Hall, working alongside TfL and many others, and my time in Downing Street looking at rail reform, that I am speaking today.

I turn first to Amendment A1. I do not intend to rehash the universal view that something has to change when it comes to our rail services, and I shall park temporarily whether I believe that the Government’s plan in this Bill is the right one. For now, I will take them at their word and do them a favour by setting out at the outset what this Government believe that the Bill will achieve. It is worth reminding ourselves that the Labour manifesto said that the Government will

“put passengers at the heart of the service”.

In April, the then shadow Secretary of State, who is the current Secretary of State, said in Labour’s Plan to Fix Britain’s Railways that:

“Public ownership for our railways is about the practical need to deliver better services where they have failed”.


My amendment tries to encapsulate that in something concise, setting out that the overall aim of these reforms is improving service. It does not set out every promise that the Government have made in trying to deliver these reforms, such as saving tens of millions of pounds and having more affordable tickets and even better mobile connectivity—more power to your elbow on that one. Amendment A1 is simple, short and streamlined. The Bill would open with what its purpose is and what the goal is, so that, in effect, like Ronseal, the Bill does what it says on the tin.

Some have already quizzed me on whether this purpose clause is necessary in the light of the Bill’s tight scope and focus solely on the effect of nationalisation of passenger rail services. In answer to that, I draw the attention of the Committee to those clauses relating to the temporary extension of privately run franchises. In that part of the Bill, it is clear that the Secretary of State will have to make a judgment on whether it is practical for a service to be provided by a public sector operator. With the addition of the purpose clause and the connected duty, the Secretary of State will have to have due regard to the improvement of passenger services under the Bill when making these decisions.

Turning to my second amendment in this group, Amendment 48A, as I have already said, and as was well covered at Second Reading, no one can deny that the current system is not working. It is fraught with endless delays and cancellations, yet year on year we have fare increases, so my amendments today are not done to halt reform of the railways and certainly not done from an ideological position, even if it has been said that the Government are driving this policy for ideological reasons. For me, it is quite the contrary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Well, the noble Lord should not be, because it is quite clear to me that the Government intend to take a large amount of activity out of the Department for Transport and put it in a body that is responsible for the performance of the railways. That being the case, it would be extremely logical that monitoring performance is done by GBR but properly scrutinised by others.

Lastly, I simply say to the noble Lord opposite that there has been a change of government. The policies that this Bill and the railways Bill will seek to enact are the policies that the Government were elected to carry out.

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to everyone who spoke in what I thought was going to be a relatively brief debate, but I think we have clocked up over an hour and it has become far-reaching, showing the wealth of knowledge in your Lordships’ Committee.

I will cover some of the points that were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, raised HS2 and my own position. As a northerner, I have my own personal views, but I have to say that I was merely a Whip on the Government Front Bench and, as powerful as I may have been in controlling speaking times from the Dispatch Box, I did not have the power to control spending. It is something I will raise with the Opposition Chief Whip, my former boss, later. With respect, perhaps the noble Lord may want to speak to his own Front Bench about future spending plans. If I may say so, I think the Prime Minister’s own position on HS2 has been perhaps confused over the years.

Turning back to the debate, I think this group was about the future plans covered by this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, suggested that my Amendment A1 would create bureaucracy, and I think the Minister said that it would not; it is merely a purpose clause. I repeat what I said earlier: my only wish is to make it clear that services will improve.

I am grateful for the Minister’s response, but I would have thought that the Government could have at least supported Amendment A1 as it is a purpose clause. It could demonstrate that the Government do not believe that the Bill will improve services. Although the Minister said at the Dispatch Box that it would improve services, he then listed a number of other things it would do. I do not know if I should take that as meaning that the Government will accept my amendment but also list all the other points they believe it will do as a purpose clause. That said, obviously this will be an ongoing conversation and for now I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment A1 withdrawn.