Railways Bill

Debate between Wendy Morton and Richard Holden

Report stage
Wednesday 10th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I do not know what my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) and the hon. Member for Selby (Keir Mather) are going to do when they are not spending so much time together, week in, week out.

We are gathered here to witness this slowly-collapsing Government put passengers and taxpayers on the hook for, over time, more expensive fares and more subsidy—or both—for fewer trains, and for a service run in the best interests not of passengers but of the Labour party’s union paymasters.

Opposition Members all know, as perhaps do some on the Government Benches—perhaps even the Secretary of State, who has reportedly had some doubts about total state control—that the Bill is not the answer. If Labour really cared about passengers, wallets and purses, Labour Members would have backed our amendments on railcards to protect young people and our brave veterans. We know that “no plans” does not mean no: just ask farmers and small businesses up and down the country about the promises from this Labour Government.

That is the bigger story about the Government’s plan for state control. The Bill is not about bringing track and train together—something I think we can all agree on. This Labour Government have no qualms about concentrating power, no concern about removing independent challenge, and no thought for the taxpayers who will be asked to foot the bill if and when their experiment goes wrong.

Under the Bill, the organisation that runs the trains will also decide who else gets to run the trains. The organisation that sets the fares will also dominate selling the tickets. When something goes wrong, the Secretary of State will have nowhere to hide.

[Wendy Morton]

The shadow Secretary of State is willing to give way to a Back Bencher and listen to their perspective. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government are far from offering passengers hope, particularly when they will not even answer questions from Back Benchers about simple constituency matters?

[Mr Holden]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point.

If the Government truly believe in putting passengers first, why are they making life harder for the very operators that have delivered some of the lowest fares and highest levels of passenger satisfaction on the entire network? Why are they squeezing open access operators off the tracks? Why are they creating a system in which GBR will be both player and referee at the same time? It is just ridiculous. We were told that Great British Railways would be accountable, but accountable to whom? The regulator loses powers, competitors lose protections and the Secretary of State gains more control.

Labour came to power promising to change the railways for good; it has accomplished a Bill that will reduce passenger rights and, at the same time, lead to fewer services. By gutting the ORR and letting GBR be judge, jury and executioner, the Secretary of State is ensuring that on her watch, everyone but the unions will be worse off.

We tried to rectify this blatant power grab with our amendments, supported by the Liberal Democrats, to make it easier for others to appeal against the GBR overlords after removing the bizarre judicial review benchmark. To no one’s surprise, Labour Members—all of them—voted against every single one of the very sensible Opposition amendments. That is the problem that Labour MPs have: they were forced to sign up to an ideological experiment, and it is going against everything that their constituents and the country desire.

When the complaints start arriving, when the cheaper rail fares disappear, as they are doing already, when services are cut to make the statistics look better and when passengers discover that Great British Railways is more like “Little Britain Railways”, I hope the Secretary of State will appreciate that this is no way to run a railway.

The Opposition are voting against the Bill because state control is not the same thing as improvement, because bureaucracy is not the same thing as accountability and because putting major decisions in the hands of one giant state body is a retrograde step, not a positive move. When all is said and done—when the fares rise, the services shrink and the complaints pile up—the Secretary of State and the Labour party will have nobody but themselves to blame.

Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.