Railways Bill (Seventh sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

The Minister has heard me make this plea before, but what plans does he have for the GBR’s structure to ensure that seven-day-a-week services are the norm, rather than something that we almost have to be grateful for to be able to work? At the moment it is entirely down to the good will of train drivers, for which I am incredibly grateful, but without them we would be in a bit of a pickle. I thank those who tabled the amendments; they have given us a perfect opportunity to get those issues on the record. I look forward to the rest of the debate.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I want to speak in support of amendment 137, in the name of the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage, and amendment 261, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer). The two amendments attempt to deliver the same thing: better integration between rail and other modes of transport. The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage is a man of great attention to detail, but it was perhaps a little sloppy of him on this occasion not to include in his list of trains, buses, trams and cycling the word “ferries”. Of course, ferries are fundamental in my constituency; we cannot get off the Isle of Wight without using them.

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right to rebuke me, albeit very politely and gently. I should have worded the amendment in a non-exclusive manner, to make sure that I did not forget any other form of transport. He is right to highlight, as I know he is about to, the critical importance of the integrated transport terminal in Portsmouth harbour for access to and from his wonderful island. There are many other examples of such terminals, including the one in Ardrossan harbour for getting to and from the Isle of Arran in Scotland. I am sure that, if I had had the Government’s resources at my fingertips rather than having bashed away at this over Christmas, I would not have made that error.

[Joe Robertson]

I thank the hon. Member for his apology, if that is what that was; it is accepted. My argument for integration between rail and all modes of transport, although I will use ferries as a particular example, is important. The Minister is also the Maritime Minister, and is well aware of the specific issues that my constituency faces.

The two amendments seek to deliver integration through strategy. If we think back to the evidence given to this Committee last week by the future Prime Minister who is currently apprenticing as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, he said that integration is essential—and he would know, being in charge of a combined mayoral authority. We are due to get a combined authority for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and the amendments can be viewed as mirroring the strategic responsibilities put on combined mayors, who have responsibility for travel and the interoperability of transport connections in their areas.

What the amendments—and particularly amendment 137 —seek to do is ensure that the Minister and the Government also have the responsibility to ensure co-operation. That is explicit in amendment 137, which calls for

“co-operation with relevant local and regional transport authorities”.

The amendments would end situations such as, for example, the one where, if I was to travel home on the 3.30 train from Waterloo down to Portsmouth Harbour station, the train would arrive five minutes after the ferry had departed. I imagine those are frustrations across pretty much every constituency in the land between trains and other forms of transport. If that situation is not addressed in the explicit way set out by the two amendments, it will continue to be a significant problem that will never get dealt with. Giving more attention and powers through the Bill will help to deliver improvements even for modes of transport, such as Isle of Wight ferries, that are not regulated by the Government and where they do not have explicit and express powers.

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

The Transport Act 1981, which privatised British Rail’s ferry operations, including the Sea Link service to the Isle of Wight, contained no passenger interest provisions of the type contained in this Bill. Does the hon. Member agree that such an omission was an oversight and an historical missed opportunity?

[Joe Robertson]

I do. It is not difficult for me to agree and accept that the way Wightlink, which was part of British Rail, was dealt with was more than a missed opportunity; it was a bad decision. Locally, I work cross-party with the hon. Gentleman’s colleague, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) on that.

This Government have an opportunity. I thank the Minister for the work he is doing and I hope he will be prepared to intervene in a way no Government have done. There are clearly opportunities to make small improvements to the Bill, and accepting the amendments would do that not just in my constituency, but in others. I will leave the Minister with a question: if he does not support the amendments, how else might he use powers in the Bill, or would he be prepared to introduce amendments of his own, to improve connectivity for other modes of transport that do not have any formal regulation?

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

Good morning, Mr Western. It continues to be a pleasure to serve under your chairship.

I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions and for the clarity and succinctness with which they delivered them. I am afraid I will not be able to follow in their footsteps when responding to what is a chunky group of amendments and new clauses, so they will have to bear with me for this section of our deliberations. Clause 15 has been of considerable interest to members of the Committee and to the rail industry more generally, as we heard during oral evidence. I am thrilled that so much enthusiasm is being expressed for the strategy both verbally and in amendments, each of which I will now address.

Amendments 134 and 25 relate to the timing of the strategy. Amendment 134 would require the strategy to be set for 30 years. The Government have already confirmed that the strategy will cover a 30-year period. Setting that in legislation, however, is inflexible and unnecessary. Although the Government’s ambition is for a 30-year-long strategy, we need to provide for the ability to make reasonable changes to that term when needed.

Amendment 25 would remove the ability for the strategy to be amended within a 15-year period. That would fundamentally limit the railway’s ability to respond to unforeseen circumstances such as the covid-19 global pandemic. I hope the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham agrees that such a circumstance, or any number of other possible events, would clearly require the strategy to be revisited within a timeframe of less than 15 years.