Railways Bill

Lord Harper Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 16th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I intervene briefly to speak to my noble friend’s Amendment 63A, on innovation and new technology. This country has had a fine tradition of both innovation and technology in the railways, right from the beginning. We have had the finest engineers—in Victorian times, and then, in the last century, in the 1920s and 1930s, we produced the fastest steam train.

Under British Rail, the engineering was of the highest quality, but it was focused on the heavier end of the rail industry: rolling stock, signalling and track. Post privatisation, innovation and technology switched to customer service, marketing and cutting costs. That was because, under the franchise system, which you did not have under a monopoly, there was an incentive to win new customers, improve customer service and reduce running costs. None of that was there with the previous monopoly, and there is a risk that once you move again to a state monopoly, the incentives we had in the private sector to innovate and use technology will fall away.

There is a risk of losing another change that happened post privatisation. If one franchise, such as Chiltern Railways, introduced a new innovation or service, customers would then expect the same, or an improvement, on Greater Anglia or Great Western Railway. Once you move to a monopoly, that sort of competitive advantage within the industry falls away, and you rely on looking at what happens overseas. That is why I wanted to intervene: to underline the importance of driving forward innovation in technology in the absence of the drive of the profit motive and the need to win business—a motive that risks falling away once we move over to GBR.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to this group. First, I echo what my noble friend Lord Moylan said about the courtesy of the Minister. I thank him for the two letters I received this week. One, which I think was also sent to my noble friends Lord Moylan and Lord Lansley, was about GBR subsidiaries and clarified in a helpful way that those not doing railway functions can be majority owned by a body other than GBR. The Minister has satisfied me as far as that goes. There was also his further letter to me on licensing, which again was helpful and clarified matters to my satisfaction. I am grateful to the Minister for his courtesy in responding so promptly.

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[Lord Harper (Con)]

Before the Minister moves on, I will add to my noble friend’s point—and this is also aimed at the Whip. The danger for the Minister is that if we debate the amendments on the long-term rail strategy, as we will today, and then we study the document published today and decide that there are matters that we wish to raise, all the Minister is going to discover is that further amendments will be put down. Then, we will have a rather repetitive debate about the long-term rail strategy, when we could have had a single debate about it. This will elongate the length of the Committee and we will end up sitting for longer, which is not enormously in our interest, if it is something that we could have dealt with earlier, and I am sure will not be welcome to the Whip. I put that on the record and we will hold that in our back pocket, if required.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

To which I respond to the noble Lord that I believe that the publication is helpful and that the remarks that I am going to make in respect of the debate on the group today—and indeed others—will help in any event and will replicate what noble Lords will find in the document from today.

Amendments 63A, 91A, 116A and 130 relate to innovation. I agree completely with the important role that technology and innovation can play in improving passenger experiences and railway operations. From digitalisation supporting simplifications in fares and ticketing to AI enabling more efficient and safer monitoring of the network, technological innovation will present new opportunities for GBR across all its functions. That is why the Bill already includes a function for GBR to carry out research and development and to support innovation in relation to railways in Clause 3(1)(f). That means that a core responsibility for GBR will be to support and promote innovation on the railways, including the potential development and adoption of new technologies across infrastructure and passenger services.

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[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

I will make a brief intervention. This is the first time I have spoken on the Railways Bill and I am generally extremely supportive of it.

I have listened with great sympathy to all the amendments put forward. I understand the motive of most of them, but I worry about the general principle of loading the Bill with lots of duties that Great British Railways has to follow. One of the reasons why the British state is failing and has been failing for some time—this is a criticism of both Conservative and Labour Governments—is that we have got into the habit of wanting to include everything that the state is trying to achieve; it all has to be there. If we want effective public sector organisations, a lot of that everythingness has to be cut away and the board has to decide on its priorities, be accountable for its priorities and be challenged in that way. If we put a lot of statutory duties on the board, that is the road to the bat tunnel—look at the £100 million wasted on HS2. We should be very careful about how we load up this Bill with contradictory duties, putting lots of difficult choices on the statute book. It would be much better to have an effective board that made those choices.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the short but well judged speech of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I think he will discover it is not enormously dissimilar to one or two of the things that I am going to say.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

I find that very reassuring.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

From the little frisson I have created here, I hope I have not damaged the noble Lord’s reputation among his Labour colleagues by agreeing with him. I do not wish to do that. Noble Lords should wait for my remarks and see how in line they are.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, for her extensive recounting of the considerable progress that Network Rail made on environmental matters, under the leadership of the board by the Minister when he chaired it, and of course under a number of Conservative Secretaries of State. I thank her for recognising the considerable environmental progress that was achieved, which I support.

On this group of amendments, I am supportive of GBR—Network Rail in its new incarnation, as far as the infrastructure is concerned—continuing to have an important eye to environmental matters. But I want to flag pretty much the same concern as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, to recognise that rail travel is a relatively low-carbon form of transport. When we were discussing the civil aviation Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, was obviously very critical of aviation. One of the dangers here is that if we load lots of responsibilities, costs and burdens on to the rail industry, and we make it very expensive to build and deliver new infrastructure, we are making it harder to get more people on to rail, which means that we will be taking fewer of them away from aviation and the roads.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, gave me a perfect example by referring to the bat tunnel of HS2. One of the problems with HS2, and one of the reasons why I took the decision to cancel the second phase of it, was that the costs had run out of control. Although the present Government were critical of the decision at the time, I notice that in the two years they have been in power, they have not reversed the decision and show no sign of reversing it, because they recognise the same cost pressures. The only word of caution that I would have on framing these amendments is that, if the Government are tempted by the thrust of any of them, my advice would be to bring back some amendments that are more tightly focused. We do not want to make it more costly and difficult to build and operate railways, so that we have fewer of them, fewer services and less investment in infrastructure, which will push people into higher-carbon forms of transport. That would be shooting ourselves in the foot.

There are one or two aspects where I wanted to flag up some concerns. In Amendment 130A, for example, I notice that there is a reference to transition to a zero- carbon railway, as opposed to one that is net zero. I flag that as important for this reason. It talks about generating electricity on railway land, for example, which obviously makes a contribution. If you are trying to get to a zero-carbon railway, I am not sure that that is achievable, but, if you strive to do that with no eye on the cost, and given that public money is not infinite—it is limited—the effect is that you end up making less investment in railways than you otherwise would, which is a bit self-defeating. That is where I would be a little concerned.

There are two other areas about which I am concerned. One is whether this ends up making it so difficult to develop on railway land, either by selling it to others or using the joint ventures that we referred to in an earlier day of Committee, that we end up stopping development, reducing the income to GBR and making it more expensive to own and operate a railway, which is not helpful for the taxpayer. The positive thing, which I absolutely support, referred to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis, and a number of other noble Lords, is recognising that our climate has altered. The work involved in looking at and identifying the parts of the network that are particularly vulnerable to different forms of weather, then putting together a plan to deal with that, so it can be costed and judged accordingly, is very sensible. I know that Network Rail already does a lot of that work, but putting it all together in a coherent way is very sensible.

My final point concerns electrification, which I support. Much of the electrification on the railway in England and Wales was done under a Conservative Government—the Labour Government pre-2010 had done very little, leaving the bulk of it to be done under us. Again, one must have an eye for practicality and cost. Something like 70% of passenger journeys take place on trains that are electrified. Because of the nature of our network, and the years in which it was constructed, electrifying what has not already been electrified will be increasingly costly. That is due to bridges and the rest of the infrastructure. You get to the point at which it just does not make any sense, and this is where our earlier debate on innovation is very helpful.

Noble Lords may have seen some recent rolling stock procurement news, where trains were going to be battery electric. That is helpful, as you enable the train to be electric, without having to electrify the infrastructure. Electrification is not a problem, but we must be careful not to insist that every railway line has an electrical cable running above it and insist that that be how power is delivered. The principle is okay, but you need innovation and flexibility on how you deliver it. There are some parts of the network where trying to do overhead electrification is simply not sensible. It is either impractical from an engineering perspective, or so costly that it would make no sense to do it. Innovations like battery electric trains or tri-mode trains—where you enable that technology to best use the existing network—are the way to go. There is a risk of being too specific in primary legislation about the way we deliver some of these things, albeit that the overall objective is one that I support.

In conclusion, I very much support the work we have done over the years in recognising that GBR will be a very big public landowner, and it absolutely should continue the work that it is already doing. I just say that the existing legislative framework and the duties that fall under it have done a very good job, so I am not sure that we need to pile loads of extra duties on top, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I want to continue that work. I just have a note of caution, as he did, about making sure that we do not overdo it and make it so costly that we either do not develop the railway or reduce the number of people shifting from cars and planes on to a relatively low-carbon form of transport. That would be rather shooting ourselves in the foot. While supporting moves to be environmentally friendly, conscious of changes in the climate, we have to be a bit cautious about the practicalities. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government will balance those two competing objectives.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate, and I congratulate the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis of Summertown, on making strong points about the need for environmentally friendly policies to justify the ongoing construction and development of railways. As the noble Lord, Lord Harper, and my noble friend Lord Liddle referred to, there is always a risk that if you took the 300-odd amendments in the Marshalled List and applied them to roads, you would be laughing yourself silly. There is far too much detail, much of which is totally unnecessary. That is a different point to take forward.

My concern with Amendment 130A is that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is basically saying that the environment, nature, is more important than humans. That is a pretty rough thing to say. I am sure she will have a go at me when I have finished.

If you apply some of these provisions—I compare them with the recent policy whereby our Government have been encouraging people to develop housing near stations—there is a conflict, not everywhere but in certain places. The idea that you can have a nice place to live near a station, so that you can use a more environmentally friendly means of transport to get wherever you want to go, seemed a good one from our Government.

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[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to several amendments in this group. They cover the role of the ORR. As my noble friend Lord Grayling has just said, it is arguably a bit weird continuing to have a regulator when you are bringing track and train together in GBR. He also highlighted the reason why it matters: the ORR has an important role in making sure that fair decisions are made. We will talk about it a bit at various stages during the Bill. Fair decisions should be made for access to the network for open access operators and freight, and that those powers are exercised in a fair and reasonable way. We will have some debates later about whether the way in which the Bill is set up for GBR means too much marking of its own homework.

I speak first to Amendment 134 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley; he is sadly unable to be here today and asked one or two of us to speak to his amendment. It has been co-signed by my noble friend Lord Moylan. It would have the effect that the ORR’s duty to promote competition continues to apply to its functions under Chapter 1 of Part 3, relating to access and use policy, infrastructure capacity, the working timetable, the capacity duty, the charging scheme, the performance scheme and appeals in respect of those policies.

I shall listen carefully to what the Minister says when he responds to this group. It may be that he says that the reason why the role of the ORR is being constrained in the way it is in the Bill as drafted is so that the ORR does not use its powers to undermine the directing mind of GBR. That is a flawed argument. The great majority of passenger services and ownership of assets are in the hands of GBR, or will be when the remaining franchises have expired and GBR has taken over those routes. The promotion of competition operates at the margin. However, that does not mean that competition does not have enormous value because its role can demonstrate the value of particular routes, and more efficient and consumer-responsive services.

Let me give an example that may appeal to those who are particularly keen on the European Union. The European Commission, in a report based on services in Spain and Italy, found that open access on their high-speed rail network could reduce prices, improve quality and frequency, enlarge the rail market and passenger numbers and—this should be attractive to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones—encouraged modal shift. It is important to recognise that the duty to promote competition is linked to the benefit to consumers. It is important to preserve that element of potential challenge. The ORR has limited powers, but we should maximise the extent to which it can use them.

I shall give an example in this country. The importance of capacity—we have had this debate previously—is that you cannot have competition unless there is capacity. It is important that when decisions about capacity are being taken, they must make sure that we can have competition. The line that has capacity is the east coast main line. There, three open access operators—Grand Central, Lumo and Hull Trains—all provide competition against LNER. That is valuable not just because those three open access operators provide different types of services to those of LNER, and a number of them are focused on providing very low-cost rail services, but the effect of having those three operators—this has been documented by independent economic analysis, I understand—is that it holds down ticket prices on LNER. Even people who never use open access operators but use the existing main operator benefit from the existence of the open access operators. That is why it is important to make sure that we preserve that element of competition.

I listened very carefully to the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, on his Amendment 142 about promoting regional growth. He is right that there is a lot of evidence that improving rail connectivity—it is true of improving road connectivity as well—can deliver economic growth. We have seen that very clearly in what happened—and it is not even complete yet—once we got to the point where we were constructing the first phase of HS2. Anybody who has been to Birmingham will have seen that, even before the rail line is completed, once it was clear that it was going to happen, there has been an enormous amount of investment and economic development in central Birmingham with companies relocating their operations. That has happened on a prospective basis because people knew that that was going to happen, so the noble Lord is correct that regional economic growth is driven by rail.

I think I can reassure him a little bit. When the Government make these decisions about where they invest—the investment that Network Rail and GBR make in the infrastructure is public money—they look at the cost-benefit ratio. Some of the things they look at are not just time savings, but wider economic benefits. That is not the easiest thing to capture when you are looking at prospective benefits and economic growth. Being able to nail that down and produce an economic analysis that is robust that you can turn into numbers that you can then weigh up against the cost is not that straightforward. I do not know exactly how many, but the Department for Transport has a significant number of economic analysts who produce all this information for Ministers when they are taking these decisions. Whether we need to add it to the Bill, I am not quite sure, but the thrust of the noble Lord’s arguments about the importance of the rail network for regional economic growth is absolutely spot on. There are already a lot of things that make sure that that is taken into account, but I support the thrust of what he says.

I will listen, as will the noble Baroness, Lady, Jones, to the Minister’s response, but I take a much more positive view about the benefits of competition on the rail network. As I said in the points I just made, competition helps to keep down costs to consumers and drive passenger growth, particularly by attracting people on to the rail network who perhaps cannot afford to travel on some of the existing services. Some open access operators have specifically gone for no-frills, low-cost services that attract people who would not otherwise use the rail network. You therefore get modal shift, with people shifting off more environmentally impacting forms of transport that produce more carbon per passenger mile on to the rail network, which I think is a good thing. It is good for consumers and the environment, and competition helps to drive that. That is, in effect, as I know my noble friend Lord Young would say if he were here, what happened post privatisation. There was a vast increase in investment and in passenger numbers, which took a lot of people off roads and aviation and put them on to the rail network, which was good for them, the economy and the environment. I want to make sure we maximise the extent to which competition exists with this new model as we move to GBR.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments on the Office of Rail and Road is clearly seeking a different role or structure for the office than that envisaged by the Government. For many, it is more of the same. The amendments are, on the whole, trying to allow the Office of Rail and Road to assess competition on the railways to allow, it seems, more open-access operators. While I absolutely understand and have seen the benefits that open-access operators have brought to the railway, as noble Lords have described—and I hope those operators can continue to bring their services to passengers—there is the issue we have debated on the setting up of Great British Railways and the Secretary of State having so many powers. We have warned about the marking of their own homework.

I think the Government will not move on these amendments, because this is an area they set out clearly in their manifesto, but I fear there is a real challenge here in how the structure will work in reality and what open access will be allowed. The clarity that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is seeking will be helpful. Freight is also an open-access operator, although obviously a different type of service. I think the freight industry would appreciate some assurance from the Minister about its role. We have other groups on this issue later, because it is concerned about the legislation as drafted.

I am interested in Amendments 286 to 288, which would give the ORR a role in monitoring and auditing Great British Railway’s statutory functions. That could help with this whole issue of being judge and jury, while marking one’s own homework.

I really like Amendment 142 from the noble Lord, Lord Boateng. First, I should welcome him to the transport enthusiasts’ club, which has many members across all sides of the House. He is welcome to stay through the many other days of Committee on this Bill.

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[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, the Committee will be relieved to know that I am going to be brief. Noble Lords will have observed that my name appears on two of these amendments, the lead amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and the excellent amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Beith.

First, on the heritage amendment, I express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, for many of the nice things he said about me and heritage railways. As far as they are concerned, I agree completely. I also alert the Committee to the extraordinarily beneficial effect of the amendment that was passed to the Employment Rights Bill making it legal for young people under 16 to volunteer on heritage railways and tramways, which has led to a substantial increase in the number of young people coming forward. The Heritage Railway Association is devoting its annual conference to the subject of volunteering. That was made possible as a result of the amendment that the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and I managed to persuade the House and the Government, with, I think, some help from this Minister, to see included in the Bill.

The other aspect of heritage railways that I want to mention is the fact that there are already a number of operations where heritage railways and the national railway are working closely together and providing timetabled services. I hope very much that it will be possible for those to continue under the new arrangements. North Yorkshire Moors Railway is running into Whitby, as it has done for a number of years, and Severn Valley Railway has just announced a new service in the timetable that is giving people in Bewdley the opportunity to commute to Birmingham with just one change at Kidderminster. This is a step forward, as it means that for the first time for many years Bewdley is going to have a decent train service at times when people want to use it, rather than one that is available just for heritage purposes.

On the excellent amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Beith, I remind the Minister of a letter that I forwarded to him from Moreton-in-Marsh Town Council last week. I spent considerable time in Moreton a couple of weeks ago to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Stratford-on-Avon to Moreton tramway, which they claim to be one of the earliest railways in Britain. It opened in 1826. Great events went on at both ends of the line, including a visit by the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, to the town where many of the public buildings bear the name of his family. Moreton-in-Marsh Town Council is asking for the Minister’s support for its application for funding from the Cotswold District Council’s community infrastructure levy to provide a community rail hub in Moreton-in-Marsh to bring railways and buses together and provide an integrated service. The council has already gone a long way to doing that and has expanded bus services, but if the Minister is prepared to give a nudge in that direction, that will go down extremely well. I thank the Committee for its indulgence in allowing me to, as the noble Lord, Lord Beith, said, Box and Cox in the chair.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I want to touch on four parts of this group. First, Amendment 90, which I strongly support, was ably moved by my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. The constituency I represented in the House of Commons for many years, and in which I still live, has a heritage railway, Dean Forest Railway. Although most of its services run on its own tracks, it interacts with the main railway at Lydney and has a decent relationship with Network Rail. I support everything he said in his speech, particularly about the impact on getting volunteers and interesting people in working on the railway. I am afraid the railway indulged me by allowing me to do one of the things I always wanted to do, which was to drive a steam train—I see the Minister is finding that amusing—and shovel coal into the fire as well. It was fantastic. Of course, they do that all the time.

I mention that because it is a big tourist attraction in the area. They run lots of themed days, such as Thomas the Tank Engine days, and bring a lot of people into the area; it is very significant. That interaction of heritage railways and tourism is powerful. If you go to London Paddington, it might not be quite as impressive as platform nine and three-quarters, but you will see the number of tourists taking pictures of the sculpture of Paddington Bear. That interaction of railways and tourism is very powerful, so I absolutely support the amendment. Even if it is not acceptable to the Government as drafted, I hope very much that the Minister will consider it. In the same way that the noble Lords, Lord Faulkner and Lord Parkinson, were able to get the success on the Employment Rights Act that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, explained, perhaps the Minister could come back with a government-drafted amendment or some other way of delivering this important benefit for heritage railways.

Secondly, I want to touch on Amendment 95 in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley and Amendment 101 in his name and that of my noble friend Lord Moylan. The effect of these two amendments would be to require the rail strategy to be laid before Parliament and for there to be the opportunity for a debate. At the moment, Clause 15 requires the Secretary of State to publish the document. As it is currently set out, there are some consultation requirements but there is no requirement for any parliamentary process attached to the rail strategy, and it would be helpful if there were. The amendments do not trespass by insisting that Parliament approve the rail strategy, but it would have to be laid before Parliament and available to the Houses to debate, and the Secretary of State would have to respond to any resolution made by either House. That would force the Government to have a better relationship with Parliament.

Other significant statements by the Government have far more extensive parliamentary processes. The energy national policy statement has substantial consultation requirements, including a Select Committee review. The Planning and Infrastructure Act says that national policy statements must be approved by a Commons resolution. Amendment 101 wants a much lighter touch. It would enable a debate but would not require approval or enable Select Committees to make recommendations. The structure is based on Section 9 of the planning Act for national policy statements. It seems to me that, given the importance that Ministers have placed on the rail strategy, they should embed in the Bill that requirement for Parliament to at least be involved in the process in this relatively light-touch way. That would be welcome. Again, if the Minister does not find this particular solution acceptable, it would be helpful if he could indicate that he is at least willing to have a look at what he might be prepared to put in place.

Thirdly, I listened very carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who spoke to her Amendment 101A on a railway accessibility strategy, and I think the thrust of her amendment certainly has merit. Again, I would be happy to listen to the Minister. He has a very good track record in this area, in all the roles that he has held, both at TfL and in his capacity as chair of Network Rail, and in his current role. The only point I would add to what the noble Baroness said is that the reason for putting this in the strategy is that the earlier you think about accessibility, the better it will be delivered and at the lowest cost—both of which are very important. Also, if you make the railways more accessible for disabled people, they will be more accessible for everybody.

On thinking about this early, it is not just about the requirements for dealing with people with a physical disability; it is also important to think about things such as signage, information systems, announcements and the data that is available to people with a visual impairment or a hearing impairment, for example, or someone who has a learning disability but is in the workforce. They cannot drive, perhaps, but need to get to work and may find some of the traditional ways we communicate that information difficult to handle. All those things need to be thought about. As the noble Baroness said, there are lots of people for whom public transport is the only way they can get about, until perhaps we have more automated vehicles on the road. That is why this is important. I will touch on that theme in a later group with one of my trade union amendments about consulting disabled people.

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased that there is so much agreement that we need a genuine long-term plan for the railway. Indeed, the counterpart of the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, in the other place called it the strongest element of the Bill. I believe we share the same vision for the genuine change that a long-term rail strategy can provide for the industry and the country.

I am sorry that noble Lords have not received the consultation document—for that is what it is. It is not the strategy itself but a document about the strategy. To the extent to which noble Lords have not received it at all, I will make sure that they have a copy in a form that can be read, either this evening or tomorrow morning. I am sorry about the timing.

Amendment 90 is on heritage rail. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, and other noble Lords here know that I am a strong supporter of these services, but the strategy is not the right place for consideration of heritage rail. The strategy is intended to be where the Secretary of State sets out the strategic objectives, priorities and challenges of the railway over the next 30 years. These are very much at the macro level, such as societal, technological and environmental trends over the coming decades. The strategy will help GBR make choices that have a fundamental impact on the British economy and society for future generations.

While I absolutely agree with the noble Lord about the past informing the future, I hope he will agree that heritage services are more appropriately dealt with at the next level of operational detail down. Rather than being included in the strategy, heritage services are better considered as part of, for example, the access and use policy. That is where GBR can effectively safeguard the provision of those services and ensure that they have enough access to continue providing the benefits that they do. I hope the noble Lord is as pleased as I am to see that the draft access and use policy published last week included mention of heritage services, showing that they are considered at the heart of GBR’s access decision-making, alongside freight and other non-GBR passenger services.

I would want to avoid too hasty a consideration of heritage railway routes as part of the national network, where, at least at present, that poses significant challenges to some of their finances and existence. I will return to this subject in group seven, and Amendment 118, which will deal also with points that my noble friend Lord Berkeley raised.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

Before the Minister moves on, perhaps I may raise one point and then the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, will respond at the end. I follow the Minister’s argument about whether the strategy is the right place. The only thing I would be concerned about is whether achieving things in the strategy means GBR taking decisions that have not the intended consequence but the consequence that they impact heritage railways, without GBR having thought about that or taken it into account at that stage.

It may be that it is not right to include full consideration of heritage railways in the strategy document. What I would not want is to have it done at a level down, and then decisions be taken about the overall network that impact it. I will throw that one out there, and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, can no doubt respond when he sums up at the end.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill]

I thank the noble Lord. I was looking at what I might say in group 7 about Amendment 118, which might well deal with that. Clearly, the access sought on the national network is access for specific trains at specific times, and therefore it is in the access and use arrangements that that is formalised. Of course, those services pay track access charges, so on the whole it is in GBR’s interest to want to run the services, providing that it is capable of finding the paths. We will come to that in Amendment 118.