Railways Bill (First sitting)

Keir Mather Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[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.

[Keir Mather]

Q When we are considering best use, which is integral to the smooth functioning of the railway and the benefits that it can realise for the UK economy more broadly, we should consider the importance of rail freight. Can you speak a little more on what provisions in the Bill promote the interests of rail freight? Could you also touch on the important issue of rolling stock, and how the rolling stock strategy, although separate to the provisions of the Bill, helps with a joined-up approach to the long-term future of the railway?

Jeremy Westlake: First of all, the Bill contains a provision for rail freight growth. That is set out already by Government, and I think the Transport Committee and the rail Minister have set out how that will still be a target. We will therefore have a duty to grow rail freight, and rail freight will then fit within the capacity allocation processes. We are actually doing a lot of work, as it stands today, to make sure that we are promoting rail freight growth, including how you might discount the charges for access to the network to encourage new freight flows, or invest in freight infrastructure and the like.

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you. My final question relates to accountability. There is a suite of measures within the Bill to ensure that GBR is compliant with its duties and the provisions of its licence as enforced by the ORR, but I understand that some people have concerns about the balance of accountability powers sitting between the passenger watchdog, the ORR and the Secretary of State—that they are either too diffuse or too concentrated in certain places—and that we could end up in a situation where the Secretary of State might want to take more control over management of the railway within the Department. From my perspective, this Bill offers safeguards against doing that, and its overriding intent is to ensure that the railway is, in a sense, run by GBR, in a way that is decentralised and taken away from Whitehall, in a system that is very different from what we have today. Do you agree with the assessment that the accountability powers within the legislation are sufficiently broad to allow GBR to be held to account, and for no one stakeholder within that mix of accountability to be able to claw back too much control for themselves?

Jeremy Westlake: First of all, I think it is well set out. When you look at how GBR will fulfil its functions, it will do that with regard to long-term strategies for rail, and I think those will set out various roles as well. Personally, I think the balance is about right; you actually want to have multiple consultations and checks and balances in the system, so I think it works.

[Baggy Shanker]

Q My first question is, do you think that the functions and duties of Great British Railways, as set out in the Bill, enable it to be an effective system operator? Also, do you think that this will result in rail travel being more affordable for passengers?

Jeremy Westlake: On the first one, about being an effective system operator, in principle, yes. What the Bill intends GBR to have to do will also require it to grow its capabilities in these areas, particularly in how it does capacity allocation. So the Bill has the intent, but GBR will need to develop key capabilities to fulfil it.

Alex Hynes: It is probably worth saying that one of the benefits of the system envisaged by the Bill is that Great British Railways, the ORR and Ministers will work to a set of aligned duties. The creation of alignment across all industry parties is an important part of the Bill, and those duties are essentially the criteria that we will use to make decisions in the future. One of those key duties is to promote the interests of passengers, including disabled passengers, and of course the interests of passengers include affordability—the price paid by passengers. I therefore think that we will see a more coherent decision-making process for the railway. The key policy intent here is the creation of a directing mind—under public ownership—for the railway, and the Bill sets out how we will do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

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

Q Both of your reviews highlighted an issue of short-term thinking, or a lack of longer-term vision, on the railway. Are you satisfied with the way that the long-term rail strategy is set out in the Bill, and that it will restore a bit more long-term thinking and vision? Do you think it is a problem that “long term” is not defined in the Bill—are we talking about five, 10, 20 or 30 years?

Richard Brown: I think the Bill talks about a 30-year strategy and the Secretary of State having responsibility for producing that. There will be a degree of evolution, because when you are running an organisation, you need to be the person who is, if you like, giving birth to the strategy, in very close collaboration with your shareholder—if this was a business. The Secretary of State’s strategy will set the long-term objectives about what the Government wish to see the industry do, and then it will be up to GBR to produce the business plans, whether you call them business plans or more detailed strategies, about how it is going to deliver that. I am quite sure that, putting everything together, there are plenty of people in the industry who desperately want to produce a longer-term strategy for rolling stock procurement, electrification and reducing carbon impact, and they are frustrated that it is very difficult to do it now because of the range of parties involved.

Keith Williams: I come from the airline world, and the problem there is that you buy an aeroplane and it lasts for the next 30 years. Rail is very similar: you operate the rolling stock, and that is a long-term decision. I was surprised that decisions were set over five-year periods, because the decisions that you make today partially define the future for a much longer period than five years. Again, a problem of running an airline is that you order the aeroplanes and unfortunately the market declines because of economic factors, commercial factors or whatever. You are therefore taking long-term decisions—that is not wrong—but within those you sometimes have to change direction because of the situation that exists at the time. The classic example of that in rail is franchising: franchising worked while the railway was growing, but once it went ex-growth, franchising came under pressure, and then obviously more pressure when covid arrived.