Railways Bill (First sitting)

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Q We will now hear oral evidence from Network Rail, the Office of Rail and Road, and DfT Operator. We must stick to the timings in the programme order that the Committee has agreed. For this session, we have until 10.10 am. Will the witnesses please briefly introduce themselves for the record?

Jeremy Westlake: I am Jeremy Westlake, chief executive of Network Rail.

Alex Hynes: Good morning. I am Alex Hynes, chief executive of DfT Operator Ltd.

John Larkinson: I am John Larkinson, chief executive of the Office of Rail and Road.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

Q Thank you for coming. Broadly speaking, we are talking about governance and accountability in this session. I am going to dive straight in, Mr Larkinson. On the appeals process as envisaged by the new ORR, we can see from clause 68 that there is to be no appeal on the merits of economic considerations; it is only to be approached on the basis of judicial review in the High Court, which means only an appeal on a matter of law and procedural issues, and a time limit for applications of just three months. First, will you confirm that that is your understanding of the constraints of this particular appeal process?

John Larkinson: May I add one thing to that? When an appeal comes to us, there are various things that we can do. For any appeal, we can in effect send the decision back to Great British Railways and ask it to reconsider. In doing that, we could also in effect direct it to look at particular issues. That is the first thing that we could do. On our ability—I think this is probably what you are coming to—to substitute a decision, or in effect to require a different decision, that is extremely narrow indeed. That comes back to the judicial review principles.

In my mind, that is because the bar is set very high. It comes back to the broad intent of the Bill, which is to make GBR a directing mind and to give considerable power to GBR. Alongside that, the intent of the Bill is in effect to empower GBR to learn from its mistakes: things are put back to it and it gets a chance to reconsider. What the Bill does not want, however, is for someone else like us to say, “No, the decision should have been this.” It comes from the intent of the Bill, I think.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q That answer was about the powers you have once an appeal comes to you, but my question was on what kinds of appeal can get in front of you in the first place. Going back to the original question, am I right in saying that, under the Bill, there is no right for an appeal on the merits, and that you cannot have a second look at the decision-making process?

John Larkinson: A second look? We can look at whether GBR has followed its processes.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q I do not mean to confuse you; I seek to clarify whether an appeal on judicial review principles means that someone who is unhappy with a decision cannot have that decision reconsidered—so there is no appeal on the merits.

John Larkinson: Judicial review principles are things like irrationality and illegality—it is very, very narrow.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q You agree that it is very, very narrow.

John Larkinson: Absolutely, yes.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q If someone goes through the appeals process on that very, very narrow front and is successful in their appeal, the ORR can order only two things to happen. The first is that the decision is sent back to GBR to have a think again, and the second is to substitute a decision, where the failure has been an error of law and there is only one possible alternative in the circumstances. It is in those very, very narrow circumstances that you can substitute your answer, because there is no other answer.

John Larkinson: They are very narrow, yes.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q Given those enormous constraints, can you sit before the Committee and say that this is a strong appeals process?

John Larkinson: Using words like “strong” is quite difficult in the context of it being an appeals process that is designed to fit with the underlying model, which is a directing mind for GBR. Therefore, as you correctly say, our ability to override a GBR decision is very narrow indeed. I agree with your description—it is a very narrow role.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q You say that it fits with the description of what the Government want GBR to do, but from the drafting of the Bill we can conclude that the Government want GBR to be the final arbiter. There is no appellate course from a decision by GBR, except in an area of law. It is the judge and jury in this.

John Larkinson: That fits again with the idea that things go back to GBR to reconsider; it is all put back in GBR’s court. That is the fundamental design, as I understand it.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)]

Q Thank you very much for being here this morning. Building on the topic of access and charging, which the Opposition spokesperson raised, can you go into a bit more detail on clauses 60 and 63, particularly on best use of the railway and GBR having to have regard for a range of services in deciding best use? Only after that point does the capacity duty in clause 63 come into effect, to make sure that GBR delivers the services needed to run the railway effectively. Alex or Jeremy, perhaps, can you dig into the concerns that have been outlined that this could result in GBR taking more than what it is entitled to within the railway, and the reality of how the clauses ensure that that does not take place?

Jeremy Westlake: I will kick off by bringing us back to the duty that GBR, along with the Secretary of State and the ORR, will have to make best use of the network. Network capacity is constrained, so we have published an access and use consultation document setting out how this would work in practice. First, capacity allocation must be set out so that the market can see what capacity exists and what it might be used for, and to reserve capacity for those uses. Clause 63 then deals with how GBR will prioritise its services. The first duty is to allocate capacity for best use. Clause 63 kicks in later to define how GBR will actually do that. You define best use first.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Q I remind Members that we must stick to the timings in the programme motion, which the Committee has agreed to. We have until 10.35 am for this session. Please could the witnesses briefly introduce themselves?

Richard Brown: My name is Richard Brown. I have 43 years’ experience in the industry, nearly half of which—19 years—was with British Rail before privatisation. I was a director of the InterCity business unit before privatisation. I set up and ran one of the train companies’ privatisation and National Express’s trains division, which had five franchises. I moved on to Eurostar as chief executive and then chairman. I have also been the Government’s special director on the board of Network Rail, and a member of the board of the Department for Transport itself. In 2012, I carried out a review of franchising for the Department.

Keith Williams: My name is Keith Williams. In September 2018, I was appointed independent chair of the Williams rail review. I was appointed largely because of the failure of the system in May 2018. As independent chair, I led the rail review from 2018 to 2023, effectively. It was then the Williams-Shapps review, which came out in 2023.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q I thank both the witnesses for coming. There is a lot to get through and we are short of time. I will start with Mr Williams. You have written a report on the future of railway. You proposed the creation of GBR, but to operate through private concessions as opposed to nationalisation. The Government have now taken a very different view. Please can you set out briefly the pros and cons of nationalisation over what you proposed.

Keith Williams: When we did the review, the real focus was on passengers, to be honest. I was asked a number of times: “Is it nationalisation or is it privatisation?” I left that to one side because from my perspective, it was the better running of the railway, which is the structure that is now in place. To some degree, during the course of the review, franchising had been seen to be failing, and that was one of the premises of the review at the beginning.

Of course, what happened in the intervening period was that covid came along, and that changed everything, so everything was de facto put back into public ownership. To a large degree, we were agnostic on that. However, if you look at the railway even today, parts of it are run in the private sector and parts of it are run in the public sector. As I see it, public ownership was accelerated through covid and through the end of the franchising, which in my period was due to end in 2029, so it was a long way off. Obviously, that was brought forward because of covid.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q I turn now to the Bill, rather than the broader situation. There are huge powers in the Bill for the Secretary of State or the Department for Transport, in relation to setting out the long-term strategy, intervening in fares and their structure, and giving guidance and direction. Those are the key areas, but there are a number of others. Are you a bit concerned that there is going to be some backseat driving going on?

Keith Williams: From the Government?

[Jerome Mayhew]

Yes, from Government rather than GBR being the director.

Keith Williams: No, the way I see it is that, actually, there is a good segregation of functions within the system now that were not there previously. Again, if you look back to 2018, the failure of the system was in part brought because every decision went back to Government. The Secretary of State finished up having total responsibility for the timetable fiasco that happened in 2018. That is when we came to the review. One of the clear things we wanted to do was to get a segregation of functions, which I think the Bill successfully does. It holds good to the review in that respect.

Government are responsible for strategy—and hopefully longer-term strategy than we have seen in the past—then they hand the operation down to the people who can run it in the interests of passengers and customers, with strong regulation, safety and a public ability to react when things go wrong. I think that system is very good. I come from a business background and in some ways it echoes what I see in business: a board sets the strategy and then passes the management down to the CEO and the people who run the business. I am not concerned about backseat driving to that degree.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q Mr Brown, there are very few references in the Bill to value for money driving competition. In fact, the competition remit of the ORR is specifically excluded for large sections of the operation of GBR, and the Secretary of State has no ability to grant provision of service contracts to private companies—it has to be to a GBR or a subsidiary of GBR. How can operations of GBR be challenged on value for money for taxpayers? Do you think they have the balance right here?

Richard Brown: Do I think what, sorry?

[Jerome Mayhew]

Do you think they have the balance right here? How do we drive value for money for taxpayers given those very significant constraints on competition?

Richard Brown: Yes, I do. I think the balance is right. Putting everything together into GBR makes it the single directing mind. It will be up to GBR and its integrated business leaders to strike the balance and deliver better value for money. There is a lot of duplication and friction in the current system, which I think is one of the things that Keith Williams was highlighting in his review.

The accountabilities are very strong with this Bill. GBR is accountable to the Secretary of State, but is also regulated and overseen by the ORR and the passengers’ council, and has a responsibility to mayoral authorities. First and foremost—I think this featured in the previous discussion—the integrated business units and their CEOs, or whatever they are called, will be accountable to their local towns, communities and passengers. There are strong pressures and forces created with this Bill to actually deliver value for money for taxpayers, as well as for passengers.

Keith Williams: Can I add one thing, there? Even in my time on the review, one of the things that started was bringing track and train together again. That allowed cost simplification, but it also enabled GBR to get a full picture of the revenue and costs of running the railway, which previously did not exist. It was surprising to me, on the review, that getting the costs together was an enormous exercise and a bit of guesswork, because the costs were in so many different areas.

[Keir Mather]

Q  I am conscious of time, so I just have one broader question about the devolution settlement, which is devolving services and how the railway works, which is mentioned in the Williams review, and I also want to go to Mr Brown’s point about integrated business units. Mr Williams, could you expand a little bit on what the operational reality of a more decentralised railway working in closer partnerships could look like under GBR? The Bill specifically focuses on mayoral strategic authorities as an appropriate unit to engage with to act as a catalyst for economic growth, house building and those things which are really conjoined with rail growth. Can you give us a glimpse of how you feel that the system might work in practice under the Bill’s framework?

Keith Williams: It is a great question, because that, to me, was fundamental to the better running of an integrated transport system. I was listening to the earlier questions, and the advantages of bringing in the mayors and local authorities are twofold. First, there is deciding what the appropriate mechanism for running transport is in their area. I visited Manchester, where you have light rail, heavy rail and buses, so you need to make a decision as to which you are going to promote. In my opinion, that was better done at a mayoral level than a central level. That is one aspect.

The second aspect is integration. We looked at systems overseas and—guess what?—you find that the bus comes to the station, the train starts and then stops. That did not exist in the UK, and bringing the mayors and local authorities into that decision making was hugely important for running an integrated system.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. I call the shadow Minister.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q Thank you all for coming in person or, Emma, for joining online. I am going to focus on clause 18 of the Bill, which is on the general duties of Ministers, GBR and the ORR. In particular, I will jump straight to clause 18(2), which sets out the functions and how they should operate those functions. Paragraph (c) states that one such function is

“to promote high standards of railway service performance”,

itself defined in clause 18(3):

“‘railway service performance’ includes, in particular, performance in securing each of the following in relation to railway services—

(a) reliability…and

(b) the avoidance or mitigation of passenger overcrowding.”

My question about that definition of service performance, which is very narrow, is for everyone, but I will start with you, Emma. Are you concerned that the focus is primarily on reliability and overcrowding? What about comfort, heating, wi-fi, food, frequency, cost and all the other good stuff—and disability access?

Emma Vogelmann: I completely agree that accessibility really needs to be explicit in the requirements set out in the Bill. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make sure that we are not making the same mistakes of the past in having accessibility not explicitly enforceable and not having it in the Bill as much as possible. Disabled passengers already experience accessibility being deprioritised in the name of efficiency and other considerations. We absolutely agree that it needs to be considered.

Ben Plowden: I certainly echo that point from Emma about accessibility. The broader point is that in the absence of any duty on GBR to grow passenger demand over time, which we might come back to, one can imagine a scenario in which, in meeting those two specific duties on passenger service standards, GBR might be incentivised to improve reliability on a route by reducing service frequency and then to deal with the crowding duty by pricing people off the network.

[Jerome Mayhew]

That would be rational.

Ben Plowden: It would be perfectly rational, and I understand from media reports that that may indeed be what is happening on the west coast main line. It seems to us that you either need to broaden the number of things that GBR must take into account in terms of passenger service standards and/or introduce a growth duty, which would help deal with some of the other issues.

Michael Roberts: I believe that the impulse should be to try to improve the passenger experience in the round, including all the things that you mentioned, such as accessibility, as Emma said. My personal view is that the place for that to be expressed in detail, potentially through targetry, is through a combination of the long-term rail strategy and the business plans over five years.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Neither of which we have seen.

Michael Roberts: Correct, and I think the Committee would want the reassurance of understanding what content covering this aspect will be in those documents, as it considers whether the Bill is appropriately written.

Alex Robertson: I agree with a lot of what has been said, particularly the point that accessibility must be a top priority of the railway in the future. How you achieve that is the question we are looking at now. As Michael said, the business plan, the long-term rail strategy and GBR’s duty to consult us and others on those, and to do so transparently, are where you will make sure that the railway focuses on the things that are most important to passengers.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q The second issue I wish to draw out is the fair treatment of other fare providers. At the moment, a number of independent retailers have very good tech that facilitates passengers using the railway. In the new environment, Great British Railways will be the holder of the data—the holder of the ring—but it is also intending, perfectly reasonably, to be part of the game as well: it will have a retail operation, so it will be directly competing in that retail market. This issue has been considered in other state-owned organisations, such as SNCF, where it was recognised that there was a structural conflict of interest; as a result, the retail side of SNCF is a stand-alone, independent organisation. The Government have chosen not to do that. Do you not think that that is surprising? Would it be beneficial to have GBR retail carved off as a stand-alone?

Ben Plowden: The Government’s own documentation acknowledges the benefit that independent ticket retailers have brought to customers in terms of competition, ease of buying tickets and so on. The Government intend managerially to separate GBR’s ticketing and retail operation from its commercial and operational arm. It seems to us that if the Government are not willing to set up a stand-alone ticketing operation, as SNCF has done, it is important to hold GBR to the same standards as the independent operators in terms of how it does fares and ticketing. It will be required to comply with ORR guidance on ticket retailing, but that is simply about how it engages with the other retailers. Clearly, it should operate on the same terms as the independent retailers, and there should be independent regulatory oversight to make sure that GBR does not use its position as the core ticketing provider essentially to crowd out the other suppliers.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q What if the Government refuse to carve it off, as has been done in other international examples? The Bill does not require a level playing field. Would you support improving the Bill by expressly stating that GBR must provide a level playing field on data and access for all retailers?

Ben Plowden: We would. In particular, it should be subject to the code of practice on retailing that the ORR issues, rather than simply guidance on how it deals with its relationships with the other retailers.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Does anyone else on the panel disagree with that assertion?

Michael Roberts indicated dissent.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Q I am proud of the passengers and accessibility duty and pleased that it was welcomed by accessibility groups. Am I right in saying that there is no comparable statutory duty that applies to Network Rail or the TOCs—in other words, that this would be an entirely new requirement?

Alex Robertson: You are right that we are introducing a new duty and that that is extremely important in terms of accessibility. The general point I would make is that it is important that Parliament and the Government set out their intent in the legislation. How that is enacted and delivered will depend on a lot of things that are not in the legislation, such as the culture of the railway and how disabled passengers are engaged in the co-creation and delivery of it. As the passenger watchdog, we are very conscious that we have a duty to make sure that we do that as well. It is a definite step forward, but whether it delivers on the ground for disabled passengers in the way that is intended depends on a lot of things that are yet to come.

Emma Vogelmann: An important consideration is the Transport Committee’s finding that the reason accessibility standards are failing and disabled people are having really negative transport experiences is that there are no statutory obligations. I completely agree that the Bill is a big step forward, but the duties themselves are very vague and do not necessarily at this point look at enforceable rights and corporate actions.

Ben Plowden: It is welcome that there is a duty to promote the interests of passengers and disabled people in the Bill. We think there is a case for strengthening that duty so that it aligns with the duty in relation to freight, which is to promote the use of the network for passengers and disabled passengers. There should also be an equivalent duty on the Secretary of State to set a passenger growth target, as she is required to do in relation to freight, so that, as we picked up on a minute ago, GBR does not end up being incentivised not to grow the network in order to meet its crowding and reliability duties, for example. It seems to us that giving it a statutory incentive to increase passenger use over time would be very helpful to build on the existing duty in the Bill.