Railways Bill

Lord Grayling Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 16th September 2026 Grand Committee

I am sure that the noble Baroness will have a go at me after this, but there needs to be a balance. I am not sure what that is, but on reading this amendment, it is out of balance.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I have to say that I take great issue with what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has just said. It is perfectly possible to have sensible housing development that is wildlife friendly; indeed, we have to have that. I remember in my days of political campaigning walking around a new estate in my old constituency and meeting three deer running through. It is correct that we have to develop housing around stations, and in a sensible way that does not damage biodiversity but encourages it. That is just plain common sense.

While I sympathise with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, and my noble friend Lord Harper said about writing too many duties into law, the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis, have rightly raised some extremely important issues that need to be a part of what Great British Railways does. We cannot have the country’s major landowners not focusing on protecting biodiversity in the land they control. The research the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, has done highlights that it is indeed important to do just that.

While I am sure he will not accept the detail of the amendments, I hope the Minister can set out for us how, in the duties the Secretary of State provides in the various strategies for Great British Railways, they will make sure that the issues highlighted in this debate are reflected. It matters particularly to ensure that Great British Railways develops the network for the future. Where I probably do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is that, for me, capacity development is the number one priority, as it always was when I was Secretary of State, because the more people you get off the roads and on to the railways the better. There are hard choices to be made about which projects you spend the money on. My personal view is that expanding the capacity of the network, reopening disused routes and so on should be the priorities. As my noble friend Lord Harper rightly said, sometimes there are trade-offs around the cost of electrification. Battery trains and hydrogen trains provide a much better route for parts of our network for the future.

I hope the Minister will take on board much of what has been said. I hope the guidance he gives to the future organisation will be clear on this issue. Sometimes there have to be compromises on what is perfect for the railways. I profoundly disagreed with the engineering standards of Network Rail, which scalped huge amounts of earth out of the route along East West Rail. It used a railway track bed that had been in existence for a century and needed restoration. It clearly needed better drainage, but was it really necessary to scalp all the biodiversity from a largely redundant corridor and leave it as brand-new open grassland?

There are compromises to be made when that capacity is put in place, but that what the two noble Baronesses have said, supported by others, about the need for biodiversity to be protected by Great British Railways is extremely important. I hope the Minister will make sure that, in whatever way it is best achieved, that happens.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments looks to consider the environmental impact of the railway and to ensure that Great British Railways take steps to meet climate change legislation, reducing the carbon footprint of the railway and using every opportunity to support the environment and indeed electrify the railway, whether that is through rail, battery or other means. There are amendments are in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and my noble friend Lord Russell also has several in this group and has spoken clearly about the importance of these matters and the increasingly extreme weather we are all experiencing. This brings home how important this topic is to us all; we are seeing this increasingly every year.

The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, also has her really good Amendment 129, in which she talks about the deployment of solar panels and transport infrastructure —as did the noble Baroness, Lady Jones—and the solar reporting duty. We can go much further in this space. In the planning legislation last year, I spoke to some amendments I tabled on using our transport infrastructure for solar panels. In places such as Switzerland, they have installed solar panels between the tracks, while France, as is well known, is using coverings in car parks. There is so much innovation that we can learn from globally, and we must do better to capture solar panel on our transport infrastructure. I really welcome these amendments.

The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is really valid, but these are probing amendments, trying to make sure that this is absolutely on the Government’s agenda. The long-term rail strategy, which was mentioned earlier, may well cover some of this, but I look forward to the Minister’s response on this really important area.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I disagree very strongly with the noble Lord. If he had been listening to me back then, he would have heard me, and I did not talk about an incipient ice age.

Let me get back to my comments. To the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, of course the welded rails are part of the problem and I am absolutely delighted that she does not have a lot of noise from the railway going past her house. The fact is that we need to reduce diesel. I was disappointed that she could not fully support what I was saying, but I thank her anyway.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, this is not about putting everything in the Bill; this is about thinking about a future for humankind. This is directed to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, as well, with whom I will have a word later. I am not trying to save nature for nature’s sake; it is because we rely on nature for our human existence. I do not understand why people just do not get that connection: no bees, no food, no humans. I am not saying that nature is more important than humans; I am saying that it is important for humans. I was surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, supported anything I said. That is rather nice.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

Why?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I do not know. Perhaps I have not listened hard enough to what he is saying generally, but I thank him anyway. I assumed that the noble Lord, Lord Reay, was going to completely rubbish everything that I said, so I did not start to take notes. I look forward to all the other groups and beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for explaining that to me. I would like to hear that corroborated by the Minister, if he would. This one obviously needs safeguards and so on.

My Amendment 331 is quite specific, but it raises two important questions about what we consider to be competitive parts of the railway. The first is rolling stock. We discussed on the first day the question of bringing rolling stock into public ownership. The Office for National Statistics is also considering the accounting treatment of rolling stock companies, including whether their leases should ultimately appear on the public sector balance sheet. I do not want to rehearse that whole debate here, but it is worth asking whether treating rolling stock as a competitive market should simply be taken for granted.

If the Government’s ambition is to create a genuinely integrated railway, which I hope it is, there may be circumstances where intervention in the rolling stock market is necessary. Removing rolling stock from this particular competition provision would at least allow that policy question to be considered without assuming that competition must always be the organising principle.

The second issue is passenger information systems. I would like the Minister to explain exactly what is meant by these systems in this legislation—if not, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, could help me out. This provision dates back to the Railways Act 1993, when the technology and structure of the railway were very different. If we are talking about the digital systems that allow information to be shared across the rail network, there is a strong argument for treating them as essential railway infrastructure. That would not necessarily prevent competition in ticket retailing or other services, but the underlying information infrastructure needs to work across the network. Can the Minister therefore clarify what systems are covered by this provision and why they need to be treated as a competitive market?

My Amendment 332 raises a broader question about the position of competition regulation within the new railway. As I understand it, the effect of this provision is that the ORR’s competition functions under Section 67 of the Railways Act 1993 will continue to apply to Chapter 2 of Part 1 of this Bill. However, the Bill also establishes a rail strategy and a set of general duties for Great British Railways, so I want to understand how these things fit together. If the ORR is applying competition regulation to the new strategy framework, could that regulation prevent GBR implementing something that is otherwise consistent with the rail strategy and its general duties, and, if so, which takes priority?

We have heard arguments that the ORR’s role is being reduced under this Bill, but this provision seems to leave it with significant powers in relation to competition. I would like us to be clear about where the balance lies. Are we creating a new railway strategy, which GBR is expected to deliver, while simultaneously giving the regulator the ability to intervene where it considers competition requirements have not been met? If that is the intention, the Government should explain how conflicts between those objectives will be resolved. I am not arguing against regulation where it is needed, but I question the idea that competition should be an end in itself. The purpose of the railway should be to serve the public, and competition should support that purpose rather than take priority over it.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I will address the government amendment that leads this group, which takes us back somewhat to the debates we had previously about the Civil Aviation Authority and the additional responsibilities that it was given.

I have significant misgivings about exactly where the Government are placing the ORR in this legislation and in the structure for the future. It has always seemed to me there are two prime functions, if there is to be a regulator at all. In a state-run railway, where the Government are, in effect, recreating British Rail—of course, in the past, there would not have been such a thing—the Government are creating multiple bodies around what was once a single national railway. The key issue is that the ORR’s job should be about ensuring that, where there is external access to the network for freight, for open access and for heritage railways—I see my noble friend over there—that access is provided on a fair basis and charged for on a fair basis.

I am not really sure I understand why this amendment is necessary. It takes the ORR into the field of consumer regulation, into the work of the CMA and into the world of competition legislation. When we debated the similar measure on civil aviation and the Civil Aviation Authority, we were dealing with a range of powers that the Government were seeking to give the Civil Aviation Authority, some of which the Minister himself rightly recognised—I am grateful to him—were too draconian. He stepped back from some of the original pieces in that legislation. Before we give him carte blanche to do this, in a Grand Committee where there is not the opportunity to divide as there is on the Floor of the House, he needs to explain in a bit more detail precisely what this entails. What is the ORR trying to sort out? What are the justice implications of this? What are the kinds of areas of criminal civil activity that this is designed to tackle?

Unless the Minister can set that out in a lot more detail, I will object to this going through this Committee today and say that he needs to come back on Report with much more information. He will recall our debate on civil aviation. I asked him a number of questions on which, through no fault of his own, because it was not his specialist area, he did not have the full information to hand. This, of course, is his specialist area, and I am sure that he has the information to hand. If he does not, this is not a matter that should be dealt with today.

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I first turn to government Amendments 79 and 293, in response to the noble Lords, Lord Grayling and Lord Moylan, who have just spoken about them. These amendments are just giving the ORR the same powers as the CMA now has in consumer law to enforce directly—for example, on drip-pricing and other issues which negatively affect consumers. It does not change the law. It just enables the ORR to directly enforce the law, as the CMA can.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

The Minister will remember the debates we had on civil aviation legislation and the powers provided to enter homes and office buildings and to read documents, and so forth. I do not understand why in the rail industry—which will be dominated by a single national body, answerable to the Secretary of State—we need exactly the same powers. I do not feel that this can be pushed through in Committee. I suggest that the Minister might keep this in abeyance until Report and provide a much more detailed letter to us all to explain this.

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I look forward to the Minister’s response. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, unfortunately is unable to be in her place today, but both of us are very happy to continue the conversation to see which areas of this amendment may be more palatable than others.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 99 in my name. The reason for this amendment is that I am genuinely concerned that we are going to end up with a state monopoly which squeezes out the small amounts of competition that remain through open access, that perhaps even becomes more unfriendly in time to freight, and that takes a difficult approach to heritage usage of the network, because it is all a bit of a nuisance.

The Secretary of State needs to be talking to people who are offering alternatives and raising concerns about the way things were in the past and the way things could be in the future. We have to remember that a number of the issues with and constraints on the network today date back to the days of British Rail. Budgets are, I am afraid, going to be tight in the coming years. We know that subsidy levels have rocketed, revenues are falling and the Treasury has no money, so the railways are going to get squeezed in the way they were in the days of British Rail. And what happened then? We all know the British Rail approach was that if the budgets were tight, it cut services, closed routes or took out capacity. The single-track line from Soham to Ely is a case in point, where the implications for today’s railway are significant—but it was a useful closure at the time to save a bit of money.

So, what happens now? If the Bill goes through as it is, then as far as I can see in the legislation, there is no duty for the Secretary of State to consult those who could be doing things differently, like offering alternative services; those who are using the network for open access; those who are using it for heritage railways; and those who may want to, such as those who may be looking for capacity and looking to offer alternative services, as part of the formation of the long-term rail strategy. That feels to me like a major omission.

I will come back later in this Committee to the question of what happens if GBR objects to an open-access application and then does not launches the service itself; or if GBR just wants to stop somebody getting in the way and objects to an open-access operator; or if GBR pulls out of a service and somebody else wants and is willing to run that service; or if somebody comes along and tries to run a service GBR does not want ever to operate, but wants to be difficult. Ultimately, the duty of the Government in the Bill is surely to deliver the best possible, most comprehensive public transport system available. There will be times when the state cannot and will not do that, and there will be times when there is a demand that the state operator will not, cannot and does not want to meet.

Therefore, what is the mechanism, in producing the long-term rail strategy, for the Minister to say that they think they are going to leave that space for open access, that they are going to need that capacity for extra freight, or that they are going to need to make provision for tourism access to the network? If there is no duty to have those conversations—which there does not seem to be in the legislation—where is the requirement for those conversations to take place? How will they take place? Or, in the rush to get a document out, will they actually not take place at all? This is a simple amendment with the effect of ensuring that everybody should, would and does have a say in what the Secretary of State does, on a reasonable basis, within a reasonable scope—but the requirement is there, and that is why this amendment is necessary.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly, first to Amendment 101A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. She is absolutely right about quite a long list of things that need doing. The timescale she sets out in the amendment is probably quite challenging, because trains probably last for 30 or 40 years, and the track for quite a long time as well. The platform heights are of course the biggest problem. There was a very interesting article in the latest Rail magazine about platform heights. I have studied this over the years because of the issue of getting container trains through; it is very difficult, and there is no easy solution. She is absolutely right to table the amendment, and I certainly support it.

The other issue I will briefly speak on is that of heritage, which the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, spoke on initially. I like his amendments; on the other hand, the text of the Bill in Clause 15, line 8, is slightly odd:

“the railway services that the Secretary of State wishes to see provided in Great Britain.”

What happens if the Secretary of State does not wish it? It is a pretty stupid question to ask, but the word “wish” to me seems possibly to be the wrong one. Heritage, I assume, covers any type of non-timetabled service. I do not know if that is true or not—there might be occasional commercial services or local train movements. Does heritage include the smart restaurant cars on the main lines, or the branch lines which occasionally have it?