Railways Bill

Debate between Lord Moylan and Lord Holmes of Richmond

Committee stage
Wednesday 16th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 63A I will speak to other amendments in my name in this group.

Before I start, I express my gratitude to the Minister, not only for the very fine cushion he has provided me with for the course of Committee today, to match his own, but for the meeting he gave me yesterday, in which we discussed the general functions of Great British Railways, a subject that came up on the first day in Committee, when the noble Lord offered that meeting. I discovered in that meeting that the question of GBR’s functions is a great deal more complicated in the noble Lord’s mind even than we discovered when we debated it here. I discovered that there are functions of GBR that are not functions, and that some activities of GBR are subject to the Secretary of State’s direction while others are not. I cannot force the noble Lord, and I would not want to, but I wondered whether he wishes to take, at some point—not necessarily today—an opportunity to introduce into our debates in Committee a reprise to some extent of what was debated rather messily on the first day. We would then have his whole view of the question set to music, so that we can all understand it. I leave that thought for the noble Lord to take up if he wishes.

In this group, I will start with Amendments 63A, 91A and 116A, all of which are related to innovation. It is only a few years ago that people in the industry were debating what a digital railway would look like—what would that expression mean? Everything was very forward looking. But I look in this Bill, which is about the future of the railways, and I find nothing at all about innovation. I find no obligations on the part of Great British Railways to innovate, no policies directed towards innovation, no mandate on the Secretary of State to include innovation in the long-term rail strategy, and so forth. That is missing.

I do not want to be too difficult about this, but it is part of the general pattern of this Bill, which is very “back to the 1970s”—a theme of this Government under Mr Burnham. He has made that very clear. We could go back to the 1970s technologically as well, but I do not think that is the Government’s intention, although there is no intention here to make any progress. So these amendments, which I will not go into in detail, are tabled with a view to encouraging the noble Lord to make a statement about the Government’s intentions and how they might be reflected in the Bill in any changes he might bring forward later in Committee or on Report.

Amendments 330D and 330E have been put forward by techUK. It is anxious about the information and data gathered and generated by Great British Railways, and it wants to ensure that that data is in the public domain and is transparent. I hope the noble Lord will have no difficulty in accepting that principle—completely free and open access—because that, after all, is the policy he introduced for TfL data when he was commissioner. It led to an explosion in apps in the private sector, some of which turned out to be very useful to members of the public—some fell by the wayside, but that is the way of technological development—helping them find their buses, connect their trains to the buses, make the most intelligent choice of door to get on the Tube in order to make a quick exit, and so forth. All these things are done in the private sector, and they are possible only if the data is provided. So that commitment to completely open data, and its inclusion in the Bill, would be extremely helpful.

Amendment 330E, also suggested by techUK, is about smart data schemes in which rail planning and integrated ticketing are identified as candidate use cases. The rail data marketplace itself falls within scope of the work. This amendment is intended to ensure that the relationship between the two is resolved and reported and would commit the Government only to considering their own policies. Again, I hope that it would be easy for the Government to accept this amendment.

Finally, Amendment 89A is on a slightly distant subject—but that is the way our groupings often work—and is to do with steel. The Government have shot British industry in the foot by imposing tariffs on imported steel. That is the policy they have gone for. It is reminiscent of the 1970s, I might say, and would not have been possible, naturally, had we stayed in the European Union. It is a Brexit bonus, as far as the Government are concerned.

This amendment responds to the Government’s new steel trade measures, which came into force on 1 July this year. Those measures reduce the overall tariff-free steel import quota by 51% compared with the previous safeguard regime and impose a 50% tariff by value once the relevant quota is exhausted. In other words, there is much less tariff-free steel available to British industry, and the tariff on that which comes in is higher than it was before. All very bad news.

One of the Government’s central arguments for the creation of Great British Railways has always been that bringing the railway together would reduce costs. The Government say that their reforms on the railway will secure more than £1 billion in savings and efficiencies by the end of the decade. For the railway, the Government’s own document on the UK’s steel trade measure, from 1 July 2026, specifically identifies product category 19 as “railway material”. That is significant, because Network Rail has already contracted almost 450,000 tonnes—that is, European tonnes—of rail over the five years to 2000, including at least 78,000 tonnes from Germany and 8,500 tonnes from Austria. Network Rail has said that these European suppliers are important for specialist products and security of supply—of course they are. The issue here is where GBR needs imported railway steel to maintain, renew and improve the network. Should the taxpayer bear an additional 50% cost simply because the relevant quota has been exhausted?

The amendment would exempt steel imported specifically for GBR railway infrastructure from that additional tariff. It should therefore, and I imagine will, be welcome to the Minister and to everyone in the railways. I hope the Minister will explain why the taxpayer, who will be paying for GBR, will also have to pay higher costs due to a separate and distinct government policy. I hope he will explain that he is willing to take this opportunity to remove that difficulty. With that, I beg to move.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to make the first contribution from the cushion-less seats—perhaps that will change for me when we get to day 4 of Committee.

I congratulate the Minister on everything he did when he was in charge of TfL on innovation and the smart use of data. There is nothing smart about data in itself; it is the uses we put data to that make it smart. That is what is behind my two amendments and those to which my noble friend has eloquently spoken in this group. When the Minister was in charge of TfL, he transformed how the network ran and, critically, the passenger and user experience. His legacy lives large today on that network.

But when we come to this Bill, we do not see very much of that at all—there is nothing that is even a distant echo of what was achieved at TfL—so my amendments are somewhat probing but also offer some solutions. Amendment 130 seeks to put a technology and innovation imperative on GBR. I have set up some technologies but the key when drafting amendments and indeed legislation is to be tech-neutral, because by being tech-neutral we have a good chance of being tech future-proofed.

Whether it concerns passenger safety, passenger experience or the efficient running of the rail network itself, you would imagine that all forms of AI would have a role to play. My second amendment, Amendment 329, goes to the heart of the issue of cyber. We currently have a cyber Bill in your Lordships’ House, but I would really like to see specific cyber requirements across the slate of legislation coming through. Otherwise, how will we have a sense that something as critical as the rail network has the protection and the posture it requires in the face of the key cyber risks? Those risks are here today; this is not something for tomorrow. Surely that must be a key consideration and function, or perhaps direction, for GBR, because without it, we will leave the railways open or with optionality to take a view on this. Cyber is critical, so there should be something in the Bill to this effect.

This is perhaps even more significant than the other technology and innovation amendments in this group. I look forward to the Minister’s response to them all.

Railways Bill

Debate between Lord Moylan and Lord Holmes of Richmond

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group, but I will not speak to them because right at the outset my noble friend Lady Harding said that there were quite a lot of amendments in this group which offered different means of achieving the same thing, and it was hard to say which were the better ones. I am not claiming that mine are better than others, and I think my noble friend Lord Harper said something along the same lines. We have put them down because we feel strongly about a very important issue, we want it debated, we want the Government to take note and to do something about it before we get to Report. Whether they do what my amendment or somebody else’s amendment says is something we might have a chance to debate and discuss privately before we get to that point—I do not know—but I am not wedded to my particular solutions and therefore will not speak directly to them.

I will say that we on our side support everything that has been said, in that we are curious about why GBR is doing this. I will come back to this point; I will make the Minister’s case for him in a moment, rather against my own interests. We are curious as to why the Minister wants to do this in the first place but, if he is going to do it, there has to be a level playing field for those who are already in the field and other new entrants, because they have demonstrated the advantages they can bring to passengers. The difficulty here—it will arise in the next group—is that GBR is effectively a huge bear sitting in your front room. That bear is both a competitor and a regulator, and its slightest twitch, even unintentionally, could do serious damage to your business. There are a lot of private sector businesses, not just in ticket retailing but those who want to have access to freight and for other purposes, which we will come to later—open access and so forth —which are very worried about what is being created.

The only assurance we are getting from the Minister is essentially, “We are decent professional people; we will do this well”. That is fine. The noble Lord is a decent and professional person. Having worked with him for many years, I am happy if it is of any value to him to give him that endorsement. However, he lacks the quality of immortality. It is necessary to give at least 30 years’ guarantee, if this is going to be the legislative background for 30 years.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

He could do that.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

He may do that. He lacks the ability in himself to give us the level of assurance that we and various aspects of the industry—not just retail—want.

I am grateful to the noble Lord for having held a meeting, which was open to all interested Peers, last week. I will say something that I raised then. I have to say that I had to slip out briefly during my noble friend Lord Holmes’s speech. He may have said something along these lines. I know he spoke about data.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

It was very good.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

It was a very good speech that I will read several times in Hansard before tomorrow is out. I just wanted to address what I would do if I were in the Minister’s position—and he and I have been in a similar position together when we were responsible for Transport for London. One of the interests you have as a business in operation is that you want the direct contact with your customers. You want direct customer contact, partly because you want the data. The noble Lord has said this—we have had some conversations, both privately and in that meeting. You want their data. This is perfectly obvious.

In my pocket now, I have a Nectar card and a BP card. I am carrying these things around, not really for my benefit but for the benefit of the companies, which want lots of data and information about me. GBR will be in no different position. Therefore, in one sense, it wants to be, like TfL, a monopoly supplier of its own tickets. The temptation to be a monopoly supplier of its own tickets will be huge, quite apart from any pressure that might come from the Treasury or anywhere else, because it wants that data.

Yet the position of the noble Lord seems to me slightly incoherent. He could step forth boldly and say, “We want that data. We need to be a monopoly supplier, and all these private companies, whatever they do, have to go, because they are getting in the way of what we want. You cannot buy your groceries from Sainsbury’s through a third-party retailer—you can only buy them from Sainsbury’s”. He could say that. That would be a coherent position, although not a politically very easy one in current circumstances, I have to say. Or he could say that he is happy to have a large amount of competition, which is what he seems to be saying.

I can be corrected if I am wrong—I have heard this figure without absolute certainty in it—but I understand that close to 90% of tickets are currently sold by third-party retailers on the railways, so when the noble Lord starts, he will be starting from a very low base. To get any useful data at all on his customers, he will have to build up a huge customer base from a very low start. Is that his intention? Does he regard that as a business goal, and if so, what does it say about his strategy for dealing with the private sector?

I do not know what the answers to these questions are. It is difficult. It is right to look at this, as noble Lords have, from the point of view of the benefits of the customer. However, it is also worth thinking about the commercial imperatives that GBR will have and whether it should be allowed to pursue those commercial imperatives, or whether it should be constrained in order to benefit a competitive field.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Moylan and Lord Holmes of Richmond

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th February 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

Despite that enthusiastic welcome, and despite the fact that it is normally a great privilege to speak first to any group of amendments being debated in Committee, I am fairly inadequate in opening this group, given that many noble Lords who wish to speak have direct experience of issues to do with disability and access to the transport system. Consequently, if noble Lords do not object, I intend to speak briefly to the two amendments in this group in my name, and I will then take the opportunity to respond later to remarks made by others who have amendments in this group.

Amendment 11 is about a condition that we propose should be placed on a local transport authority before making a direct award of a franchise, which it is allowed to do under the Bill. The direct award means that there will be no competition, no tendering of the franchise: it will be given to an incumbent operator, and perhaps even to an in-house bus company set up for the purpose, but without competition. There is considerable anxiety and concern about this proposal in the commercial sector generally, because of its non-competitive character. Our suggestion is that, where there is an incumbent operator whose services you can examine and there is a proposal to make a direct award, at the very least, there should be an additional condition whereby an evaluation has to be made of the services it provides to people who are disabled, of the need for accessibility targets, and of what specific improvements it might make to its existing services to meet accessibility targets. I very much hope that the Government will accept the amendment or look at something very similar to it. I look forward to hearing what they have to say.

Amendment 42 is also related to accessibility and fits into the broader picture of demand-responsive transport. When I said on Second Reading that the Bill has an old-fashioned, nostalgic air reminiscent of the Attlee Government, I instanced that it seemed to make no reference to demand-responsive transport, which many people feel is at least one of the ways we could provide a public transport network, especially in less populated areas. The Minister seemed to be affronted and said, in effect, that the Bill was full of references to demand-responsive transport. I could not find any, so I am trying to sneak at least one in here. The amendment says that the guidance the Government expect to issue under the Bill on bus infrastructure, stopping infrastructure, stops and so on should at least look at demand-responsive bus services in meeting the needs of disabled bus users. I hope the Government will accept that argument, although I fully take the view that a larger rewriting of the Bill is required not simply on accessibility but to give it that reference to demand-responsive transport that the Minister thinks is there but I think is absent.

Those are the two amendments I wish to mention at the moment. I look forward to hearing what other noble Lords have to say, and I will respond to their amendments later, on behalf of the Official Opposition. I beg to move.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Moylan. I will speak to Amendments 35 to 39, 43, 45A and 79A, in my name. I thank the noble Lords who have countersigned my amendments. I also support all the amendments in the name of my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and have signed them to that effect, but will leave their introduction to her in due course.

Amendments 35 to 39 are on floating bus stops. It seems only right and proper to start by answering the question, “What are floating bus stops?” In essence, where a blind person, wheelchair user or, in fact, anybody has to cross a cycle lane that is part of the pavement to get to the bus, or has to cross part of the carriageway to get to an island representing a bus stop some way into that carriageway, those are floating bus stops. In reality, they are dangerous and discriminatory—a disaster for inclusion and accessibility, not just for blind people, wheelchair users and disabled people but for all users: parents with toddlers in pushchairs and prams, older people and younger people. In fact, anyone who crosses a live cycle lane takes their life in their hands, with not just pedal cycles but e-bikes and delivery bikes going in both directions, often at speeds of 20 mph and above.

So-called floating bus stops were born to fail, built to fail and bound to fail. Why? Tragically, they are predicated on a simplistic solution to a relatively complex issue. They fail on “inclusive by design”, on “nothing about us, without us” and on any concept of accessibility for all road users.

My amendments suggest that the Bill include the concept of inclusive by design. Without it, how can we have anything in this country that is worthy of the title “public transport”? If we continue to have floating bus stops, we will have transport for some of the people some of the time, which is transport for some of the people none of the time. That cannot be the society, communities and transport system we want in 21st-century Britain.

Similarly, there is an even more unfortunate concept at the heart of so-called floating bus stops. It is the sense that, because of this planning folly of a change, a piece of the public realm that was previously accessible and could be used independently, not just by disabled people but by all people, is no longer accessible and can no longer be used independently and safely.

I suggest in further amendments that we should look at issues of accessibility, wayfinding, advice and audio and visual signals around bus stops. I suggest that the guidance principles set out currently at Clause 22 need significant strengthening to the extent that there need to be cardinal principles in the Bill, not least that the bus must be able to pull up to the kerb—not the kerb at the side of a cycle lane but the kerb of the pavement—and that users need to be able to access the bus from, and alight it to, the pavement without having to cross any cycle lane.

I suggest that we need to have proper, meaningful and ongoing consultation around these so-called floating bus stops. Will the Minister say what happened to the consultation around LTN 1/20? How can we have these pieces of public realm imposed on us without effective, meaningful consultation, not least with DPTAC, organisations of and for disabled people, disabled people and all citizens who rightly have an interest in this matter?

In Amendment 45A, I suggest that on the passage of the Bill we have a moratorium on all new so-called floating bus stops and a review and a refit programme of all existing unsafe, non-inclusive sites. We need a retrofit within a year of the passage of the Bill because floating bus stops are not fit for purpose, not fit for inclusive by design and not fit to be part of a public transport system.

Finally, in Amendment 79A, I suggest that all buses up and down the country have meaningful audiovisual announcements on board within 12 months of the passage of the Bill. Yes, this is a question of accessibility and, yes, this is a question of inclusion, but more than that the great concept underpinning all this is that when you make a change that, on the face of it, is seemingly presented as just for disabled people, everyone benefits. From tourists to people new to an area, audiovisual announcements benefit everyone. I very much look forward to this debate and to the Minister’s response in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 22 in the name of my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I do so because, in simple terms, it seems logical and sensible to go to what we could describe as the Beeching bus routes. They obviously had sense and users at the time. It seems a logical place to stop, alight from the vehicle and consider how they could be brought back into being. When the Minister responds, will he agree that when considering the cost of not having such bus routes, that cost should be measured economically and also socially, environmentally and psychologically, not least the impact on the mental well-being of that local area?

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, in this group we are debating one of the principal means by which local transport authorities can intervene in existing provision in order to change it. They would change it by the use of socially necessary routes and networks. That potentially means that it has very powerful ripples in how the rest of the market operates.

I have a number of amendments in this group. In my Amendment 24, I take the opportunity to keep hammering away at demand-responsive transport as a potentially important way forward in trying to ensure that local transport authorities consider demand-responsive services, not simply fixed-route services, as means of meeting social necessity and social need. Again, this is an important point that is not mentioned elsewhere in the Bill, so I have inserted it here as a means of meeting social need, which it must be. Surely anyone who thinks about this for a moment must regard demand-responsive transport as simply being something that whoever drafted the Bill just forgot about. Anyone who understands transport and how it operates nowadays must realise that that has to have its place in the Bill, not least in relation to socially necessary routes.

My Amendment 25 considers a different angle and concerns competition in the market. How are the contracts for these socially necessary routes to be awarded, and to what extent will they effectively allow large operators to lever off existing resources to exclude smaller operators entering the market? No consideration is given to these market issues in the Bill. It is simply assumed that with the state in charge, everything will be absolutely fine. That might be so if you had a completely communist system where all the buses belonged to the Government and nobody was allowed to run a competing service, but that is not what we will have as a result of the Bill. We will have a mixed system, and the effects of the big beast, which is the state throwing itself around the room, on the rest of the market system need to be considered, and it seems that no thought has been given to them. This is one of the areas where those effects might be biggest.

My final amendment, Amendment 29, goes to the heart of the problem that this Bill presents us with, which is that socially necessary routes are possible only if somebody is going to pay for them, and there is no funding in this Bill. Of course, I would not expect a funding package to be in the Bill itself, nor am I proposing that one is inserted into it. My amendment does not do that, but it requires reports on the funding that is being made available for these socially necessary routes. The simple fact of the matter is that there is no promise of funding for this. The £1 billion that was allocated in the October Budget—£750 million to local authorities and £250 million directly to bus companies—is spent. A much larger amount is going to be needed if these provisions are going to have any real effect. Of course I know that a spending review is happening and that the Minister will not be able today to pre-empt it, but unless he addresses these issues head on and give some sense to the Committee and your Lordships’ House on Report that there is real money behind this, he is simply holding out a bogus prospectus to the public. That is why I have tabled Amendment 29, so that the Government would be under an obligation to report on the money that they are making available to support socially necessary services. I think that is the heart of the whole thing in this group, and I hope that the Minister has more to say about it than he was able to say at Second Reading.