Great British Railways

Lord Lansley Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to have this opportunity, which my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham has afforded us, to further consider the role of open access operators. Many of us were participants in the debates on the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, where we had at least two opportunities to talk about this—from my point of view, always in the context of the role that open access operators have played and can continue to play in enabling the passenger railway system to have competition as an element in its activity. As I said during the course of that Bill’s passage, privatisation has not always worked. In particular, it has not worked where there has been an inability to secure competition. The key to privatisation is the link to competition. Where competition can be achieved, it is the most effective potential outcome.

In this particular instance, while the Government are, effectively, taking back into complete public ownership those areas that they regard as not susceptible to competition, it would be a serious mistake to remove opportunities for competition, because they drive innovation and better passenger outcomes. Indeed, in their briefing for the King’s Speech, the Government more or less said exactly that. The question is: are the Government now committed to that?

Only a few weeks after we completed the passage of that Bill, we found that the Secretary of State was sending a letter to the Office of Rail and Road—the Minister kindly sent it to us, to remind us—in effect saying that she had priorities. When I read the letter, I find that her priorities are not the same as what the Government said in their manifesto and King’s Speech briefing. They are particularly focused, and are intended to focus the Office of Rail and Road on what she regards as the difficulties associated with it not covering the cost of fixed-track access, which my noble friend talked about. She said that her expectation was that

“you give due consideration”—

to these priorities—

“whilst respecting your statutory duties. I wish to see the impacts on the taxpayer and on overall performance for passengers—such as potential congestion on the network—given primacy”.

This is clearly in order to say, “Don’t consider all your statutory duties. Don’t consider the statutory duty on competition”.

During the passage of the Bill, the Minister very kindly responded, saying that it was not the Government’s intention to remove the statutory duty for the promotion of competition. There is a real risk that the Secretary of State has put herself in a position where she has asked the Office of Rail and Road not to undertake its statutory function in balancing its statutory duties in considering open access applications.

Happily, the Office of Rail and Road issued its guidance at the end of January and made it very clear that it will continue to balance its statutory duties, and rightly so. I cannot see that it has any option to do otherwise. In my view, the Secretary of State’s letter was wholly inappropriate and should not have been issued. If the Government want to change the decisions being made in the interim by the ORR, they should have issued new guidance. They had the power to do so, but they chose not to.

When we see the Great British Railways Bill and changes to the Railways Act, I hope we will continue to see competition, and the benefit that open access operators can give to the network in promoting competition.