Railways Bill

Helena Dollimore Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 10th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

People obviously need to be able to get to the railway station. This Bill gives me the power to establish Great British Railways. I will talk to Great Western Railway about the issue the hon. Member raises—the company is still in private ownership—and I will write back to her with further detail.

I would like to summarise the main features of the Bill and remind Members what we have already achieved. Over half of operators are already under public control, thanks to legislation we introduced weeks after entering office. The benefits are starting to be felt: around 40 new Arterio trains on South Western, rolling stock that was sat for years in the sidings under privatisation, now released into service; performance among operators under public control now outstripping those still in private hands; pay-as-you-go ticketing being rolled out to more stations across the south-east; easier to understand fares in Greater Manchester; and passengers keeping more of their hard-earned cash thanks to the first rail fares freeze in 30 years.

This Bill will be the most significant step yet. For decades, the industry has been crying out for coherent direction and leadership. With Great British Railways that is what it will get: a single national leader co-ordinating track and train, setting timetables and fares.

[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the new powers in the Bill, particularly on timetabling. To give an example from my patch of how the new powers could be used to improve passengers’ experience without having to build any new railway infrastructure, hundreds of people have told me that they want a faster service from Hastings to London that does not stop at every single station along the way. That could shave a long time off people’s morning commute. On the other line I represent, passengers in Rye constantly miss their connection at Ashford because of the late-arriving Marshlink service, and face either missing their train or an extremely dangerous dash through Ashford station, where people fall over. If we could better co-ordinate between Southeastern and Southern Railway, that could be alleviated.

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend has been a dogged campaigner on the railways for her constituents in Hastings and Rye. I believe her proposals are worthy of consideration by Southeastern, a company in public ownership. I would be happy to pursue that further on her behalf.

GBR will sweep away decades of inefficiency and waste. We will finally bear down on spiralling costs. We will wave goodbye to a system riddled with perverse incentives, in which armies of lawyers argue over whose fault a delay is. Instead, GBR will be a publicly owned and commercially agile company run by industry experts, not politicians. We will turn a web of competing interests into one railway that makes decisions in customers’ interest and their interest alone.