Railways Bill (First sitting)

Jayne Kirkham Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

This will probably be the final question; this session has to end by 10.10 am.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q Thank you very much, Sir Alec. I have a couple of small questions. Mr Hynes, you talked about mayoral strategic authorities. In the south-west, of course, we do not really have any. In that situation, what is the duty to deal with local authorities in a similar way and take account of their transport plans? Is it the same?

Alex Hynes: GBR must take into account local transport plans.

[Jayne Kirkham]

Regardless of the type of authority?

Alex Hynes: Correct. Essentially, GBR will have a legal duty to take into account certain things, such as the interests of passengers, including disabled passengers, so GBR will be required by law to take into account what is in the best interests of passengers as it is running its business.

Jeremy Westlake: There are other mechanisms that we use to ensure local engagement, such as the local railway initiatives that we have done in Cornwall and Devon. In terms of engagement with local stakeholders, I will be going down to meet Luke Pollard MP in Plymouth next week. We actually have different mechanisms for different types of railway so that we can ensure that we have taken the accounts of users onboard.

[Jayne Kirkham]

Q I am one of the MPs for Cornwall, so that is really good to hear. Mr Larkinson, much of the ORR’s role is monitoring and enforcement after the fact—looking back and looking at appeals. Do you have sufficient powers to look at things before they happen, so at decisions as they are being made, if you can see trouble down the rail—if you see what I mean?

John Larkinson: I would probably go one step further back than that. I see us playing a very crucial role in establishing the plans in the first place. If GBR is setting up its integrated plan, covering track and train, I would expect there to be a process—indeed, we are already designing it—that builds on the processes today, when we focus very much on Network Rail’s business plans. Normally, there is engagement at a very early stage on the scope of the plans and how they fit with the Secretary of State’s objectives. We would expect, and indeed plan, to be involved in the plans at a further stage back than the monitoring of their delivery, on a forward-looking basis—that is, we will ask whether the plans are likely to be delivered, rather than waiting to see whether they have been delivered or not.

[Jayne Kirkham]

Q Do you consider that you will have enough power under the Bill to be able to make your way in at that stage?

John Larkinson: Yes.

[Jayne Kirkham]

Q Mr Westlake, on rail freight, we talked earlier about clause 63. I am the MP for Falmouth, so I want to restore rail freight there; there is a passenger rail line there as well. Obviously, there is the duty to grow rail freight but of course there will be immense pressure on capacity in some of the railways. Do you think that will be a manageable friction, and that GBR will be able to take on that duty and the capacity duty, even considering that the capacity duty in clause 63 prioritises passengers?

Jeremy Westlake: First, I would say that friction is quite useful because it drives you to look at where you might want to invest to resolve some of the issues. The whole question of capacity allocation is actually driven by the fact that it is limited. The friction will lead us to develop better investment cases to satisfy demand. I do not see it as problematic, in fact; that process is supposed to drive us to make proposals to Government for investment.

[The Chair]

We have two minutes and 30 seconds left if anyone wants to creep in and get a response to any further questions.