Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

I thank the other place for providing these amendments. Although the measures in this Bill are not a surprise—and we have stated our opposition to its fundamentals from the outset—we have made the case that, in effectively nationalising the operation of our passenger railways, we risk going backwards. Its core provisions will mean that the progress made on passenger services since privatisation will not be carried on.

That said, we do agree that there is a need for reform, and we support the reform laid out in the Williams-Shapps review. But the reforms proposed by this Government go too far and will undermine any potential progress. That is why the Lords amendments we are discussing are of central importance. Neither of the two amendments passed in the upper House descend from the Government’s intention to bring the franchises into public ownership, and they are clearly reasonable and measured. As the noble Lord Moylan pointed out, a

“glaring omission from the Bill is, of course, the passenger.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 November 2024; Vol. 840, c. 1510.]

This is the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, yet it says nothing about the passenger.

Lords amendment 1 attempts to put that right and put the passenger back at the head of the Bill as the driving force in what the Government are trying to do, and to require Ministers to test their actions under the Bill against the standard of whether it will improve matters for the passenger. It clarifies that the Secretary of State

“must, in taking any actions under the provisions of this Act, have regard to this purpose”,

which is the

“improvement of passenger railway services”.

It is a simple but deeply important amendment that will ensure that the Bill, which is little more than an ideological undertaking if it lacks the proposed amendments, would be required to act unambiguously in the service of passenger railway improvement. How could anyone oppose that? There is little public appetite for ideological measures that are not based on the improvement of the passenger experience, and to reject this amendment would be a tacit admission that the Government are rejecting the principle that legislation directed at the passenger services should be in line with service improvements. In doing so, they would reject the general public consensus. I urge the Government to support the amendment on those grounds. If they choose to reject it, it is incumbent on them to explain why they have decided to make a significant legislative change to our passengers’ railways that could risk worsening services.

Lords amendment 2 contains a simple measure: to ensure that the Government, when terminating existing franchise agreements, consider operational performance and terminate the worst-performing franchises first, enabling franchises that are currently working well to continue. That would clearly be in the best interests of passengers.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Can the shadow Minister tell me how much that proposal would cost taxpayers? Given that he supports the amendment, I presume he has a detailed financial breakdown of exactly how much money he is asking the state to commit.

[Gareth Bacon]

The point of the amendment is to put passengers at the heart of the decision making we are asking for. [Hon. Members: “How much?”] The point of the amendment is to put passengers at the heart of the decision making, and the proposed amendment would ensure that this legislation is in the service of improving passenger experience, not purely in the service of fulfilling an ideological undertaking.

Lords amendment 2 would also ensure that the Government, alongside stakeholders, consider carefully what performance data is most relevant to passenger experience, and would ensure that that data is taken into consideration when undertaking the actions facilitated by the legislation. I fail to understand why the Government would be opposed to such a clearly reasonable protective measure, but I can guess. In justifying this ideological legislation, the Government have made clear their intention to utilise selective performance data. Rather than clarifying the relevant performance information for its own administrative use or for passenger understanding, they are obscuring it, allowing the Government to fulfil an ideological project untethered from the public’s wish to see their experiences on the railways improved.

Of course, the Government could choose to put politics aside and support the amendment, and we call on them to do so. If they did, that would signal that while they are undertaking this ideological rail project, they are also seriously considering the need for the legislation to make an actual improvement to passenger experience. This amendment will help the Government’s actions, and it is not founded on selective principles. A failure to accept the proposed amendments will also fail to ensure that the ideological measures being undertaken by this Government take into account the needs and experiences of passengers.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)]

Will the shadow Minister give way?

[Gareth Bacon]

I am just winding up.

Such a failure will only further the approach—already taken by this Government—of prioritising political convenience over substantive action. We urge the Government to support these amendments and, in doing so, mitigate the negative impacts of their legislation and work to protect and support passengers.

[Andy McDonald]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you will perhaps be relieved to know that I will not detain the House particularly long. I rise to support the Government, but also to say something in favour of the motion in the Secretary of State’s name relating to Lords amendment 2.

I read the Lords debate on their amendments 1 and 2, and I sympathise with the notion that passengers receiving the poorest service from a train operating company may wish its franchise to be terminated early. However, the point of this Bill is not simply to take over the worst franchises, but to recognise that the private operation of the passenger rail service has delivered a poorer service for passengers in general, and that the remedy is to return all passenger franchises to public ownership and closer control.

I say to Conservative Members that the British public spoke on this issue at the last election. If we look at any of the research and analysis on the passenger rail service, it is abundantly clear that not only do the vast majority of the British public want to take our railways back into public ownership and control, but the majority of Conservative supporters want the same thing. Perhaps that tells us a great deal about why the party opposite is the party opposite—why Conservative Members no longer sit on the Government Benches.

The hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) made many references to ideology. I do not know how many times he mentioned the word, but I ask him to cast his mind back to the Railways Act 1993: if ever there was an act of ideology, that was it. John Major took a step that even she whose portrait must be removed was not prepared to take—she recognised that it was a ridiculous step to take. I suspect that the mover of the motion in the other place was seeking a device to disrupt the orderly transfer of passenger rail back into public ownership, which is best achieved with the least cost to the taxpayer by doing so as each franchise contract expires.

I am heartened to hear Conservative Members be so evangelical about the issues of performance and punctuality. Where were they for the past 14 years? Why were they not doing anything about those issues?