Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Baroness O'Neill of Bexley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to add a few words to the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Baroness. I, too, get confused about what the Government’s long-term objective might be for devolution. There was an attempt a few years ago —I cannot remember whether the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, was in charge of the railways then, or London—to extend the network down to the south or south-east somewhere, and the Department for Transport opposed it for very many reasons that were probably quite good. All these issues will need discussing when we start talking about Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham and other big places.

I hope my noble friend can give some idea of who will be in charge of setting the fares; who will be in charge of running the timetable; what the access charges might be for the trains on the track—assuming that GBR will still be running the track; who controls it, and who can get decisions changed if they do not like it. In other words, who is in charge? It is very difficult to have a debate without knowing some of these basic facts. Whether it is a concession, or a franchise, or run by GBR, I hope that my noble friend can give us some further thoughts on where he thinks this is all going. If he cannot do so tonight, when will we hear a bit more so we can have a proper debate about the regional element with, I hope, lots of consultation?

[Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, I rise in support of the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Moylan, in seeking some clarity and assurances about transport in London, as a result of the Government’s plans to renationalise our railways. Before doing so, I will remind your Lordships’ that I am the Leader of the London Borough of Bexley, which is an outer London borough, so many of my experiences are driven by that.

It would be helpful if the Government could set out the intended relationship between them and the Mayor of London and Transport for London, should the renationalisation go ahead. Will the mayor and TfL’s powers be impacted and, if not, who will advocate for those in outer London or, indeed, outside London? The recent introduction of the Superloop showed how the Mayor of London and TfL do not understand the needs of outer London, especially in places like Bexley, Bromley and Sutton where there is no Underground infrastructure. The original TfL proposal was to take the Superloop to Bexleyheath station, where it would have been difficult to turn around, instead of taking it to Abbey Wood, where the recently completed Elizabeth line is now operational.

Your Lordships will know that Sir John Armitt of the National Infrastructure Commission will tell you the value of linking up transport options—that is what we sought to do. Fortunately, TfL did agree to our suggestion, and there is now a cross-borough connection linking the main transport hubs—that is, apart from Bexley Village, where that discussion continues. The lack of any Underground stations—something that the first Mayor of London tried to find in Bexley—also means a dependency on cars, especially with a high percentage of elderly residents. The mayor’s introduction of ULEZ charges, as well as the threat of road user charging, is therefore very unpopular and, again, shows a lack of understanding. This introduction also impacted those who live outside the London borders so, if the mayor and TfL have greater powers over the train infrastructure, who will advocate for those who live outside London but use services in London?

I recall being a commuter in the days of nationalised train services. It was great fun jumping off the trains before they reached the platforms. While you can argue that technology and change would have brought about some of the improvements that we see nowadays, there is no guarantee that Governments of all colours would have invested the money to make those changes.

There is a lot to be said for holding to account through contracts and performance reviews. As we know, investment in transport can bring about housing delivery. That has definitely been the situation in Abbey Wood post the Elizabeth line, which is why we want the original business case to take the Elizabeth line to Ebbsfleet to be completed. We know that it will bring about regeneration in Bexley and elsewhere, and bring about some of that housing delivery that London desperately needs.

Another case of opportunity missed is the Docklands Light Railway. The Mayor of London and TfL are proposing to extend the DLR across the Thames to Thamesmead town, which is a dead end. Our suggestion is that, if it were extended to Belvedere, it would not only link to Southeastern trains but, with a quick change, to both the Elizabeth line and Thameslink services—coming back to Sir John Armitt’s point. We know that the Government will need to invest, but who will determine that priority?

In addition to future planning of services, there is also the question of accessibility. If the proposals go ahead, who will determine when we get step-free access at Erith, Falconwood and Albany Park stations?

I am afraid that I have posed more questions than answers, but they are legitimate questions that need to be answered if the residents are to be protected from the Mayor of London. I support my noble friend Lord Moylan’s amendment.

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Moylan’s Amendment 47, which addresses the interaction between Transport for London and public sector companies. There are three points I wish to make.

First, if, in future—as the Minister knows all too well, having sat in on these conversations—the Mayor of London wished to build an entirely new part of the network and go for, let us say, Crossrail 2, what would be the Government’s position on that? Would they allow London to retain its independence and choose between public and private or insist, not least because projects require significant government funding, that the Bill takes effect across all new infrastructure and future services in London?

Secondly, and linked to that—as again the Minister knows all too well—infrastructure in London requires the private sector to play its part and contribute at least to help unlock wider renewal and regeneration. I referred to Crossrail, of which, from memory, London businesses paid about 40%. Has there been an analysis of the Bill’s impact on the ability to raise funds from business? I imagine that the Minister will say that that is a matter for the mayor, but there surely must be wider read-through from the Bill to the country far beyond London.

Thirdly, I wish to seek clarity from a policy point of view. My noble friend’s amendment exposes a real problem with the entire premise of the legislation. After all, it does not merely address what the relationship will be between one entity inside London and another that falls outside, which takes precedence. In the main, the amendment demonstrates why London is an anomaly that undermines the coherence of the Bill and the credibility of the whole policy. Ultimately, we are having the debate on this group because London is exempt from nationalisation.

As we heard repeatedly in Committee, part of the agenda for reform is to try to bring all the transport network together and make it less fragmented, yet London is exempted from this for whatever reasons. I make this point because, with this Bill, we are enacting a two-tier system. Choice is gone, and we are strengthening or at least reinforcing fragmentation. I can almost sense the response from the Benches opposite. It will be, as we heard before, that their manifesto talked about this, but it talked about public ownership, not the retention of freedom of choice in London.

Next we heard—not today, sadly—that public opinion polls said that people want nationalisation. When we heard this the other day, the only thing that struck me in my mind was this: are we really governed by public opinion? The other day—it might have been yesterday—there was a poll in which, I am afraid, our illustrious Prime Minister had fallen behind and was now more unpopular than Rishi Sunak. Does Labour, as it believes in public opinion, now believe that Rishi should be the Prime Minister?

Next is that the capital is so important, and that is indeed correct, but Liverpool is granted these freedoms too. Next it will be that I want to level down the capital —not at all.