Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Andrew Snowden and Nusrat Ghani

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 19th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I remind colleagues that their contributions should relate to the Lords amendments.

[Mr Snowden]

I want to speak to Lords amendment 2. I will briefly make a few points first, but I fully understand that I should not go through the debate we have already had on this Bill. That debate was about Conservative Members’ belief that we will drive improvement in the railways by putting the passenger at the heart of things, and by ensuring greater competition and private sector investment, while the Labour party argued through its manifesto that it can do that through the nationalisation of rail. We have had that debate, but Lords amendment 2 is about pragmatic ways in which the proposals can be better implemented, with the passenger at the heart of them. I fully accept that we are not having the debate over again; in fact, it is quite refreshing to see the Labour party not breaking one of its manifesto promises, but instead actually pushing on with the Bill.

As I said in my intervention, c2c has a 94% passenger satisfaction rate, but it is one of the first franchises that would lose its licence. Labour’s Lord Snape said on 6 November that it would make no sense to remove a franchise such as the Greater Anglia one, which has great public support for the way in which it operates its services. In response, the Minister said that amendment 1 would not make sense, because we could simply play the game of targets. However, the Government can play the game of targets whether or not the amendment is made. It does not really matter whether the Government can stack targets or cut data a certain way. We need to call things out, and put passengers and improved services at the heart of the Bill. Lords amendments 2 and 1 are pragmatic steps to take. We accept that the Labour party is implementing a manifesto promise, but the Lords have made reasonable recommendations on how things could be done better, and how we can put the passenger at the heart of the Bill. The amendments look at where passengers already get good services, and stage changes in a way that will not be disruptive to passengers who already get a good service on the railway network.