Great British Railways: Headquarters

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford, especially in a debate on a subject that I know you will follow with great interest in the future.

I have learned a great deal today. Before I respond to the various points that my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) made, I thought that I should respond to a couple of other points. I have had a history lesson. I did not know that the Treasury was moved to York by Edward I. Obviously, this Government have moved part of the Treasury to Darlington, so it must have been a good idea then that we are repeating now.

I have also heard a great deal about the merits of Derby from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham). She says that it is in the centre of the country, but if you were to take England and put a pin in the middle, you would find that the best place to put Great British Railways would be the village of Hellidon in my constituency. I am not convinced that there will be a great campaign for such a development, but I thank my hon. Friends for their contributions so far. I know my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer is a tireless advocate for his city. He is to be commended for promoting an understanding of what a wonderful place it is.

I completely understand that York is a city famed for its rich railway heritage. The first direct train ran between York and London in 1840. By the 1850s, there were 13 trains a day between the two cities, carrying 341,000 passengers a year. As the centre of the railway network along the east coast, York played a major role in the management and development of Britain’s railway network. For more than 120 years, York was the base for the construction and servicing of steam locomotives and rolling stock.

Fast forward to today and some of the remaining buildings used during the construction and servicing of the locomotives and rolling stock have become part of the wonderful National Railway Museum, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Sir Greg Knight).

Today, York is home to Network Rail, LNER, Northern, Grand Central, the Siemens train servicing and cleaning depot, and many varied rail consultancy businesses, contractors and specialists, from signalling and electrification experts, to civil engineers and railway operatives, as the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) has told me a number of times and I am sure, based on this debate, will continue to do so for quite some time to come.

Since 1877, York railway station has helped to transform the city, connecting York to the rest of the United Kingdom and the wider world. At one time, the biggest railway station in the world, it remains today an important transport hub for the north and the United Kingdom as a whole. During the autumn of 2019, there were approximately 20,000 daily passengers on London to York services, and there were more than 10 million passenger journeys from York station over the course of that year. From the very earliest days of the railways, through to the modern day, York has played an important part in the history and future of the railway in this country, and it will continue to do so. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) and for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) for their contributions today to emphasise the importance of this great city.

Of course, there are other towns and cities across the country that have played an important part in our proud railway heritage and that right hon. and hon. Members are proud to represent. It is good to see one of them, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire, here today.

The Government’s aim is to have a world-class railway, working seamlessly as part of the wider transport network and delivering opportunities across the nations and regions of Great Britain. The Williams-Shapps plan for rail, published in May this year, sets out the path to a truly passenger focused railway, underpinned by new contracts that prioritise punctual and reliable services; the rapid delivery of a ticketing revolution, with new flexible and convenient tickets; and long-term proposals to build a modern, greener, more accessible network that delivers the Government’s priorities to level up and decarbonise our transport system.

Central to the Williams-Shapps plan for rail is the establishment of a new rail body, Great British Railways, which will provide a single familiar brand and strong unified leadership across the rail network, as was described by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer. It will be responsible for delivering better value and flexible fares and the punctual and reliable services that passengers deserve, and it will bring the ownership of the infrastructure, fares, timetables and the planning of the network under one roof. It will bring today’s fragmented railways under a single point of operational accountability and ensure that its focus is to deliver for passengers and freight customers.

Great British Railways will be a new organisation with a commercial mindset and a strong customer focus, and it will have to have a different culture from the current infrastructure owner Network Rail and use very different incentives from the beginning. As we have heard, it will also have to have a new headquarters. Indeed, Great British Railways will have responsibility for the whole railway system, with a national headquarters as well as regional divisions. I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer that the national headquarters will be based outside London, bringing the railway closer to the people and places it serves, and ensuring that the skilled jobs and economic benefits are focused way beyond this great capital city, in line with the Government’s commitment to levelling up.

The competition to find the national headquarters will recognise towns and cities with a rich railway history and that are strongly linked to the network, ensuring that the headquarters will take pride of place at the heart of a new era for British railways. The Great British Railways transition team is in the process of designing the selection process for the national headquarters, and the Secretary of State is setting up a panel of experts to assess the various locations. We are, therefore, right at the beginning of the process and I hope that Westminster Hall will continue to see celebrations of great cities and towns and their railway heritage as the bids develop.

[Rachael Maskell]

The Minister clearly understands and appreciates the value of York and all that it will bring. Does he agree that the partners, including the business community, City of York Council and North Yorkshire County Council, will have an important role to play in signing off the bid?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

It is vital that there is buy-in from all local stakeholders for such a big new headquarters. When I met the hon. Lady and City of York Council, railway skills were mentioned in passing. I completely understand and agree with her point.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I very much appreciate the Minister’s comments. Does he know how many people will be located at the Great British Railways headquarters?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I am afraid that I do not because it is an organisation that is yet to be set up. The legislation has not even gone through the House yet, so I am afraid that I cannot answer that question at this time. However, given that it will be a coming together of so many different parts of the railway, I would expect it to be a large number of people and for it to involve new jobs as well as existing ones being relocated. It will be a very important heart of our railways for the future.

[Andrew Jones]

The Minister has talked about the decision-making process, which is helpful. Could he talk a little more about the criteria for the location decision at this stage?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

As I have said, we are at the very early stages. I can probably say that it will be outside London, but that is about as good as it gets at this point in time, I am afraid. However, the Secretary of State will detail the criteria in the not too distant future. We hope to set that out before the new year, if not first thing in the new year. Clearly, a number of strong candidates will come forward once the competition is launched, and I truly hope that this will be a moment when, through these bids, we can celebrate the rich railway heritage of our country, its towns and cities, and its rich railway future.

I feel that I should come to an end at some point quite soon—at least in the next 90 seconds—so I will finish by saying that I look forward to building this new vision for British railways and to collaborating with the sector and communities at the launch of the Great British Railways headquarters. That launch will be one of the many steps we are taking to achieve the transition from the existing mindset of the railways, which perhaps does not put passengers and freight customers first, to the new mindset that we want to instil. I know from my mailbox and from conversations in the House that a large number of towns and cities are eyeing up a bid to have the Great British Railways HQ in their area.

I very much welcome the interest expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer and his advocacy on behalf of his city. I thank him for his speech and his pitch, as it were. It is the first formal one I have received, and I know that it will have been listened to by all the partners involved. I will certainly make sure that it is made available to the panel when it is set up to assess the criteria.

Question put and agreed to.