Railways Bill (Second sitting)

Keir Mather Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q Mr Montgomery, will you say whether you agree with that position, as well as answering this final question? In areas of capacity and access, the Bill anticipates the Secretary of State being granted power to change capacity decisions and access agreements without notice. If that is the case, what impact will that have on the ability of open access operators to build a business case for investment in the future? What impact will it have on future investment?

Steve Montgomery: I agree with everything John and Maggie said. The challenge we see as a private sector operator is how you get anybody to invest in the industry with the lack of clarity in the Bill. As John alluded to, there is reference by the DFT in the memorandum of understanding on the Bill, but nothing in the Bill itself. That makes it very difficult to go to a board and say, “Look, we want to invest in these things.” What certainty do you have for the future?

An awful lot has been made of open access as we have gone through this process. It would take up 1% of overall capacity, but it is held out there, in the commentary, as one of the major plays in the Bill. We think that open access brings the opportunity for competition, which we seem to have lost with some of the wording in the Bill. How do we make sure that there are better services for customers? That is what we all want and what GBR is setting out to do, but how do we make sure that we all have a fair chance when bidding? We have talked about the access situation. GBR can decide not to give access, and the ORR has very limited powers to hear an appeal, so where is the confidence for the private sector investment that the industry continues to cry out for?

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

Q Thank you all for appearing before the Committee. I will start by asking you a macro question about the provisions in the Bill. There are two fundamental protections for freight within the Bill: the freight target and the freight duty, and not just GBR but the Secretary of State and the ORR will be accountable for them. The consultation response published alongside the Bill mentions freight 100 times. There will be a freight rep on GBR’s board and a specific freight team within the organisation. I understand that you met the Rail Minister and had the opportunity to discuss some of the concerns. In the overall context of the provisions in the Bill, do you think that GBR, as it will be set up through the Bill, will have due consideration of the needs of freight and an interest in promoting it?

Maggie Simpson: We have been very clear that we welcome those provisions. We are grateful to the Rail Minister and his team at the DFT, and to your own team, for their commitment to freight. That is really good but, with respect, I have been around a long time and I have seen circumstances in which Secretaries of State and Rail Ministers have not been as keen on freight, or perhaps have been more keen on road freight and less keen on rail freight. We have seen situations arise through different political times and economic circumstances.

When I am looking at the Bill, I am looking at whether it works today, with a Government who are supportive of and promoting freight, and at whether it would it work in the future, with a Government, of whatever colour, who have a different view. We have to look at it through that lens because we legislate for the long term. It is really difficult, because you are saying to people who are trying to help you, “Actually, I don’t like this.” That is an emotional tension—of course it is.

The duties and provisions in the Bill are great— I would not want to be going into GBR without them, and I think they will be powerful—but they are doing a lot of heavy lifting. We are going into a very different cultural environment. GBR will think about its own trains first; it has to for it to succeed—that is kind of the core. We are going into a very different access arrangement and a very different set of parameters, and it is entirely possible that they could go wrong and that we would need the recourse of the appeal function. They might not, but we need to know that it will work if they do. Having a strong appeal function will help it to work, because GBR will know that if things do go wrong we have that recourse in law.

[Keir Mather]

Q Absolutely. It is a really fair point that, in the context of rail policy over the last two decades, it is right to have a healthy degree of scepticism about the willingness of sequential Governments to commit to this target. That is why I think that the legally binding duty regarding freight is so important. I also take the point that you have raised about the appeals process, as well as the point about clauses 60 and 63, on the capacity duty and best use of the railway.

It is important that we clarify that GBR has to set out what it means by “best use” before we get into questions of the capacity duty. It has to have due regard for freight in the network, open access in the network and the provision of passenger services before the capacity duty is triggered. That means that GBR has to deliver the services it has identified as being necessary to run the railway effectively, but the appeals process is enormously important. Do you think the fact that freight operators would be able to appeal GBR’s interpretation of “best use” in relation to its duties, one of which is to promote the interests of freight, provides a safeguard to ensure that freight is considered when GBR is deciding what constitutes best use of the railway overall?

Maggie Simpson: I think my children would use the phrase “gaslighting”. I have read the Bill many times, and I cannot see in law that the capacity duty is subservient to clause 60 on the infrastructure capacity plan. I understand that that is the intention—I have heard it from the Rail Minister, yourselves and Network Rail, and I get that; there is a lot of work to do on the access and use policy, and we are engaged on that and want it to work—but it is not what the Bill says, and therefore a future Minister or Secretary of State could interpret it very differently and say, “Look, GBR, we don’t like your infrastructure capacity plan, so we’re triggering clause 63—get those freight trains out my way.” I do not expect that from the current Administration, but we need to square off that hole in law, in my opinion. If that is the intention, let us say so.

On how that infrastructure evaluation—that capacity analysis—is taken forward, it is incredibly complex, and I appreciate that most of the detail will be in the access and use policy and not in the Bill. We do not have a problem with the way that clause 60 is worded. We will work with colleagues to try to make sure that that process is effective and those duties matter. Of course, those duties are not relevant in clause 63, because clause 18(4) turns them off. When looking at that capacity duty, a future Secretary of State would not have to have regard to freight, because the Bill explicitly turns it off. That would mean that if we went to an appeal, GBR would be in line with the law in not having thought about freight in using clause 63, because the law would not require it to. We would not be able to prove a judicial review threshold appeal, because the law would say that GBR was okay not to have thought about freight.

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you; that is really useful insight, and I think it is incumbent upon the Government to make clear the sequential nature of the clauses, with best use coming first in deciding overall provision within the railway, and then the capacity duty locking in GBR’s responsibility, essentially, to the Secretary of State and taxpayers to deliver the services that it says it requires to run the railway properly. It is really important that we make that clear to stakeholders, so thank you for bringing that to light.

May I ask one final question to Mr Montgomery, as it relates to open access? We have an overall issue with capacity in this country. The Government’s view is that, by running a single, unified approach to the railways, GBR will be able to allocate capacity in a way that is more reasonable, makes more sense and balances those interests around best use. Can you set out briefly how that contrasts with the open access regime as we currently find it? How is capacity on the railways perhaps holding back competitive movements in the open access market as it stands?

Steve Montgomery: The situation with open access and capacity, under the Bill as it is written, is that GBR decides what capacity is available and what capacity it might hold back for future use or performance. As it stands, the railway is not funded in that way, so the opportunity for private sector investment gets lost because, given the way that the Bill is written, people can almost sit on their hands and say, “Well, we’re not going to do anything because we might do something in the future.”

It is for us, in making open access applications, to go and look at where we believe capacity is and then submit an application, as things stand via the regulator—hence our concerns for the future under GBR. If it can turn around and decide, “No, there’s no access” or “We may use that in the future,” why would any future open access application ever get through?

[Keir Mather]

We can set that out a little later, probably in the evidence that I give, but thank you all very much. I will let other Members ask questions.

[Baggy Shanker (Derby South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q In the existing framework, open access applications are routinely refused due to lack of capacity, or perceived lack of capacity. That pitches passengers against freight all the time. What is good about that system that you would want to keep? What would you like to see change?

Steve Montgomery: The system at the moment is independent. The regulator evaluates, takes all the different evidence from the applicant and from Network Rail on how much capacity is there. It takes all that evidence and does an abstraction test to make sure that an open access application is not abstracting revenue from the existing operators. That independence is there, and it allows the regulator to evaluate that and make its decision. In the last year, it has granted some applications and refused others.

The system works—maybe not to everyone’s satisfaction, but it does work and it is independent. Under GBR, it will be a huge public sector body with no real regulation. Looking at it at the moment, it is difficult to see where that independent regulation is, looking at the industry and holding GBR to account. Capacity is one of the areas we need to look at, and likewise access charges, where that comes into play.

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[Jerome Mayhew]

Q In other similar organisations, such as SNCF in France, the decision was taken to recognise the structural conflict of interest, and set up the retail arm of SNCF as a standalone organisation, presumably to prevent or reassure investors that there would be no cross-subsidising. First, do you think that would be a better solution in the United Kingdom? Secondly, if we got that through, could you explain or provide more details to the Committee on what impact it would have in real life?

I have in mind, for example, LNER currently being able to offer a full refund with one click on its website, and that service and facility not being made available to independent retailers even under the current system. Can you elaborate on quite how important that is for the independent sector? I would then like Catriona Meehan to come in with her views, too.

John Davies: When we talk about the need for the right kinds of protections for retailers, we are pointing at something that is not theoretical—these are risks that are with us today. You point at the example of delay repay, where independent retailers are prevented from supporting customers who have purchased their tickets through them by submitting their claims directly. It also occurs with things such as loyalty schemes, retailer inability to offer customers pay-as-you-go fares, and our ability to offer assisted travel. Independent retailers are not permitted to have access to a very significant amount of propositions around rail travel that are a very meaningful part of the market.

Catriona Meehan: I completely echo all of John’s points. For us, it is a concern that there would not be proper separation, which could lead to a degree of self-preferencing. You mentioned SNCF and the separation there, which is an example that we think works well. It is not perfect, of course; there are things that could be improved, but a colleague on the previous panel from ALLRAIL mentioned that EU markets are moving the other way: they are liberalising rather than nationalising.

It is interesting to look at why it has happened and why there is a need for it. FRAND principles were mentioned. We are also seeing that in other markets. Omio operates across 46 markets globally, so we have a lot of experience in other markets. Obviously, the UK is very important through our partnership with Uber trains, but we should also talk about the wider sector of independent rail retailers. Unless we have proper safeguards and assurances in place, we are not sure exactly how GBR will not self-preference. That is not exactly clear to us right now.

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you both very much for taking the time to come and speak to us today. I suppose the existing system is that retailers rely on what is often quite a complicated web of contracts with the Rail Delivery Group operators and Network Rail to get access to the data and the systems that they need to operate. When things go wrong at the moment, your backstop is litigation, which can be incredibly costly and time-intensive for your organisations. In that context, would having a straightforward code of practice backed up by the ORR with an enforcement power be a simpler, more streamlined and predictable and less costly way to do business than the existing system?

John Davies: Yes, it would represent a streamlining of the system, but that is only true in so far as the GBR online retail function itself is subject to that code of practice equally. It is not clear to us that that is what is intended yet. That is something that we are working through with the Department and the ORR to set out exactly what that means. To the point that was made earlier about the parts of the customer proposition in the rail market that are not available to independent retailers currently, the surety of a code of practice would provide for what we characterise as parity of market access, which is not just fares— “Can we all sell the same fares?”—but features such as delay repay, services such as passenger assistance, and products such as loyalty. We should be able to have all those things on an equal basis across the industry: if they are good for one retailer to offer in support of rail travel, they should be good for everybody. In the work that we are contemplating on the code of practice, we aim to get to a place where no independent retailer or customer of an independent retailer is ever at a disadvantage in comparison with buying a ticket through what will be the future GBR online retail function.

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you; that is really important. You raised another important point about transparency. That is an aspiration in creating the code of practice in the first place. To turn to the point about being fair and non-discriminatory, GBR, as a body set up under this law, will be bound by public law principles to be fair and non-discriminatory. In that regard, do you think that it is necessary to restate a legal reality within this Bill to provide surety that GBR is going to follow the law? I feel that in a lot of these conversations we expect GBR to be fully compliant with the law and to have robust mechanisms to ensure that it is. Do you think that it is necessary to replicate that legal reality within this legislation?

John Davies: If we are dealing with the legal reality as the backstop to all this, there is a risk that somehow the reform process fails because if all that you are left with, in the way that a market is set up, structured and operates, is that the only protections that independent participants have—whether they are retailers, open access operators or freight operators—are legal ones, then that is ultimately unsatisfactory from a variety of perspectives, because the harm is done by the time you know that you have a potential claim against somebody.

An earlier question mentioned the European model. The German competition authorities found against Deutsche Bahn in 2022 about its conduct in relation to certain discriminatory practices. Tomorrow, there is a third appeal by the German railways against that finding, which was made four years ago. That end-to-end process of using legal tools to provide remedy against the impacts of a vertically integrated state monopolist is now the thick end of 10 years old. Would I say that there needs to be more in the reform process than merely restating legal assurances? Yes, I absolutely would.

[Keir Mather]

Q I agree with you in principle that you cannot have just retrospective protections. Having a firm legal bedrock upon which GBR behaves in a way that is fair and non-discriminatory gives long-term certainty that that compliance factor has to be there in its decision making. But you are right to point out that, ultimately, a robust code of practice will assure day-to-day co-existence in a competitive environment for third-party retailing. I do not have any further questions at this time.

John Davies: Can I add that we would welcome the reassurance? I think that, in different forums at different times, Lord Peter Hendy talked about the assurance that has been provided to the freight sector. I can see, in some of the answers given today, that they do not always feel that assurance, but we would welcome the development of the code of practice as an opportunity to set out how the Government intend those kinds of protections to be provided for. That would be a useful and welcome step to give the kind of signals that the CMA has referred to.

[Keir Mather]

I will certainly take that away.

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

Q I should declare that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for wheelchair users—one of my children is a wheelchair user. Having used SNCF’s retailer to book assistance, I will say it is not the best game in town. Under the new arrangements, do you see that there could be advantages for bringing accessibility information together, particularly given the way it currently works across train operating companies? How would that be sold to disabled passengers?

Catriona Meehan: You raise a really good point: having only one retailer offering certain things, such as accessibility information, is a problem. That is why we need several retailers, to have that competition and to work on those products and make better offerings. That is something we do in the third-party retail market.

John Davies: There is always more that can be done in this space, of course. Trainline has been in discussion with the Rail Delivery Group regarding access to its central system, which would enable us to offer passenger assistance to customers and to book the kind of assistance they need at stations or on board trains. That was what I was referring to earlier as one of the features that we have been unable to secure access to. Of course, giving the broadest possible access, in the right way, to customers with additional needs is an extremely important part of what we all do.

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[Jerome Mayhew]

That is quite a significant risk, isn’t it?

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you both so much for coming to give evidence. Mr Reeve, would you be able to speak to the overall level of working that has taken place between DFT, yourself and the Scottish Government? The most unlikely of advocates for the way in which this process has been developed is the SNP Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan), who said that

“the way that the Bill has been discussed with Scottish Government partners is the exemplar that other Government Departments in Whitehall may wish to follow”.—[Official Report, 9 December 2025; Vol. 777, c. 210.]

That is impressive, isn’t it? Do you have any reflections on how this process has been worked out in consultation with yourself and the Scottish Government and whether it might provide instructive lessons for how GBR might seek to engage on a four-nations basis once it is established?

Bill Reeve: It would be churlish of me to disagree with that quote, frankly. In all seriousness, the level of engagement both between officials, and between our Cabinet Secretary, the Secretary of State and the Rail Minister, has been, in my experience, the best I have ever known when it comes to inter-Government exchange. It has been a constructive discussion and a sometimes forthright debate, which is reflected in where we have come to agreement now.

You will be aware that it is the Scottish Government’s position to support the Bill as it goes through the legislative consent motion process in the Scottish Parliament—pending any amendments that might change that; I do not want to fetter the will of our parliamentarians. We have been encouraged by the level of constructive engagement.

[Keir Mather]

Q I am glad to hear that. For the sake of the record, I should say that the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens was actually quoting the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter)—so that is two SNP MPs for the price of one.

My second question relates to the issue raised by the Opposition spokesperson about the publishing of documents, consultations and memorandums of understanding relating to this Bill. Mr Reeve and Mr McDonald, you are storeyed in your working on the railway and deal with these issues on a daily basis. What do you think the requisite trade-offs are when designing a railway fit to serve four nations and 67 million people through legislation that is hermetically sealed, as opposed to working in consultation to develop the documents over time, in an iterative process throughout the Bill's passage?

The Government have been in power for about 18 months now and are seeking to progress this work at pace. Is this usually how the process of engagement happens with railway stakeholders when you are trying to achieve macro change in a short amount of time?

Bill Reeve: If you will permit me to say this, without wanting to undermine any positivity it, of course, remains our preference that the railways in Scotland should be fully devolved. However, we understand and accept that that is not on the table at the minute. So we get to the complicated challenge of devising something that reflects the fact that in Scotland about 95% of all trains are run by Scottish Ministers—the services and passenger trains. We fund more than 90% of the costs of the infrastructure, but to date we have not had the level of accountability around that substantial expenditure in Scotland.

That takes us to the need to work out how to strike the right balance, in the absence of full devolution, that will allow us to run the railways in Scotland in accordance with our published strategies and with due accountability for the substantial funding we provide— while facilitating cross-border traffic, which is in the interests, of course, of all the nations.

Peter McDonald: I have been part of a large number of intergovernmental processes. The work that is happening, which could only really have begun once the Bill was published, is at the more intensive end of the intergovernmental spectrum, as opposed to the slower end. You want to get this right, but I think the early March deadline is important for the Welsh Government to maintain momentum.

[Keir Mather]

Absolutely. Lord Hendy mentioned in his testimony to the Transport Committee that upcoming elections in Scotland and at the Senedd in May will focus minds as those discussions progress. I also think that is a very healthy basis on which to drive the conversation forward on these really important matters of detail. For the moment, I have no further questions.

[The Chair]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Olly Glover.

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[Jerome Mayhew]

Thank you. I rest my case.

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you all very much for giving evidence today. Mr Morris, I will begin with you for the Siemens perspective. I have had the opportunity to visit your fantastic production plant in Goole, and your local skills work is also commendable. I take the point about the need for long-term certainty in the rail industry, not only on rolling stock, but on those infrastructure improvements. On what Mr Brown referred to as the “building blocks” that sit throughout the legislation, the long-term rail strategy will provide a vision over 30 years—longer than 10 or 15 years—about the direction of the railways, and the rolling stock strategy is being developed in tandem with the Bill’s progress through Parliament, on which I believe stakeholders will be thoroughly consulted.

Duties for GBR also exist in the Bill. One of those duties is

“to enable persons providing railway services to plan the future of their business with a reasonable degree of assurance”.

In a five-year business plan you may have fluctuations in spending to reflect fiscal reality, but would you say that through those building blocks, long-term certainty is offered to the industry, and GBR has to reflect industry needs and build a railway that is coherent in serving their interests over the long term?

Rob Morris: The short answer to that is yes, absolutely. The other elements that we have just discussed—on enhancements, and on rolling stock and the maintenance and funding thereof—are absolutely fundamental to that. I also think that the ambitions for the railway need to be included in that. Witnesses on previous panels have talked about freight and the target there. What we seem to be missing in the Bill at the moment is the ambition for passenger growth, how that will improve the railway and the levels of investment that need to go with it.

A good example of that is last week’s announcement on Northern Powerhouse Rail, where rail and investment in it will create opportunity for increased productivity— I think £40 billion per annum was mentioned. It seems to me that there needs to be a connection in the Bill between what the Bill seeks to achieve, and generating that ambition, not just for freight growth, but for passenger growth.

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you. That is a really important piece of the puzzle. I suppose we have argued today that passenger growth is inherent to the functioning of GBR. If, through its duties, GBR is required to promote the interests of users and potential users of the railway, alongside a system where open access can play its role through considering best use, that creates a wide basis on which incentivising passenger growth can take place, but that does not contradict your point about long-term certainty.

Mr Brown, you point to those building blocks, which are really important. On the one hand, you have the obligation for the Government to provide industry with certainty, but on the other, there is the point about not being overly prescriptive or deterministic in driving the outcomes of the private competitive basis on which a lot of these services are procured. Do you think the Bill strikes the right balance between offering that certainty through the building blocks and not freezing in aspic any perceptions of the railway today that might be outdated in, say, 30 years’ time?

Malcolm Brown: It is very hard to comment on a building block that I have not seen, so forgive me for that. I can understand the concept of using these building blocks and I can see how it fits together. We keep referring to certainty in 30 years. If members of the panel can give me certainty in 30 years, I will take that bet. I do not think any of us can—that is a heck of an ask. What we are asking for is a vision or direction of travel—whichever buzzword you want to use—that says, to use Rob’s term, “This is our ambition for rail in 30 years, and setting out these stepping stones will get us to it.” That would give us the flex to deal with something like a pandemic, where we had to move and change.

There are new technologies and we are innovating all the time. As the private sector, we are always looking for what we can come up with that will actually improve things not just for the passengers but for the operation of the railway. I hate using the word “framework”, but if we have that framework, we can work within it as the private sector and develop ideas to bring to market. Some will work and some will not, but that is what we take on our shoulders. We can implement those for the greater good of the railway and the passengers.

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you. I take your point about the long-term rail strategy having to offer that certainty, but the LTRS also has to be compatible with a set of duties that GBR is bound to through this legislation, including to ensure the rights of passengers with disabilities, freight performance with a freight target, and long-term certainty within the system for providers such as yourselves. If that set of duties aligns with a long-term rail strategy that you feel is sufficiently ambitious for the future of the railway, do you think that there is enough harmony between the duties and the LTRS for you to be able to plan for the long term?

Malcolm Brown: You had a lot of ifs in there, if you do not mind me saying—“if it aligns” or “if it does that.” Yes, if that were all to happen, I could understand that there is harmony there.

[Keir Mather]

Q Forgive me. I suppose the point I am driving is that these are legal duties, and therefore the long-term rail strategy cannot be incompatible with them.

Malcolm Brown: My understanding is that the legal duty is to produce it, but not what is in it. I could have a legal duty to produce a strategy. I do not have a legal duty to say specifically what is in it. Forgive me for pointing that out. I understand your point that there are legal duties, which is good, but as yet, I do not know what is in that strategy.

[Keir Mather]

Okay. Thank you very much.

[Olly Glover]

Q You have made some really good points about the complexity of rail and the criticality of the relationship between renewals, electrification, signalling and rolling stock, and all the interfaces and dependencies between them. At risk of putting words in your mouth—hopefully I am reflecting back what you said—would you agree that some of those interfaces and the decisions around them have been, historically, a bit suboptimal? In that context, do you think there is enough in the Bill that recognises that and gets us to a better future? In particular, should the Bill explicitly state that there is a need for a rolling stock strategy? I know the Department for Transport says that it is making one, but it is not specifically in there. Do you have any thoughts about how the Bill deals with all those issues?

Darren Caplan: I think the question was about whether it is suboptimal at the moment. Yes, it is. We have a control period that lasts for five years and looks at operations, maintenance and renewal. That does not include enhancements. That was taken out in 2018, 2019, so enhancements have been reduced. It did not include major projects; we are very supportive of the announcements on East West Rail and Northern Powerhouse Rail, but that is not part of the overall plan. There is no rolling stock pipeline or strategy—we have called for that, but we are still waiting to hear back. There is nothing about decarbonising the network, or having an electrified network—when you have that, it is stop-start and boom-or-bust.

This is an opportunity to get it together. Back in 2024, we called for a long-term strategy for rail, and we are positive that it is in the GBR plans, so we support the long-term strategy and reviews. I totally agree with these guys that we need to bring more than just ORR work into that pipeline and have a 30-year purview. However, there is quite a lot of work to do on it, and the Bill does not quite capture that yet, but it is a start.

Rob Morris: From my perspective, I totally agree that it is currently sub-optimal. Decisions have been made in the past where things have been switched on and then switched off—electrification is a good example. With GBR, we now have a great opportunity to look at the whole system as a fully integrated system, so that we can manage the risks and the performance all together. That suggests that there will now be an opportunity for greater clarity of thinking, reduction in costs and much more efficient execution of the whole system.

The important thing is that we have a review of the long-term strategy in regular periods to make it transparent—perhaps every five years, so that the supply chain can set itself up for the next five years. What has happened in the past is that, when there has been a change of approach, it has not been communicated and it has created a vacuum. When there is a vacuum, there is uncertainty and we will not invest in those sorts of things. Then, when we restart things such as an electrification programme, it costs significantly more than if you had a steady-state approach to it.

Malcolm Brown: I agree that it has been sub-optimal. I think the clue is in the title; it is a rail system, and therefore a system has a number of components that we require to work as one. For example, I will invest £1 billion in new trains that we have made in Derby, and then those trains are getting maintained. These are state-of-the-art trains—they are absolutely brand new—but they are being maintained in sheds that were built in the Victorian era. That is not how I would like to look after my assets. I would like a holistic, full-system approach that takes these things into account. It cannot be perfect, but there is a lot more that we can do. The one word of caution I would give is this: be careful we don’t try to boil the ocean. We cannot have answers to everything, and nor should we expect the long-term rail strategy to have them.

Lastly, it is a long-term rolling stock and infrastructure strategy, and if it comes through, that is a major step forward. There is no point in devising electric trains with pantographs and batteries if we do not have the infrastructure to support that, either in maintenance or passenger service. Those two combined are utterly critical, and it is certainly in the title.

Rob Morris: May I add one comment to what Malcolm said? That old-system thinking with GBR opens up opportunities for the supply chain—ROSCOs and OEMs like ourselves. We can provide the optimum infrastructural rolling stock solution that also does the best in net zero outcomes for carbon, such as the battery bi-mode trains and discontinuous electrification of new technology that manufacturers like ourselves provide.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q Where is the incentive to carry on and accelerate that process in this Bill? Where is the incentive for GBR?

Malcolm Brown: I cannot comment. I presume it is going to be in one of the building blocks. My concern is that we have a group of people who are trying to design trains for a hobby, when we have manufacturers such as Siemens in the UK, which have global platforms for trains. Yes, we adapt and customise them for the UK, but we get all the benefits of the manufacturing experience of a global manufacturer with the economies of scale that that provides as well. We do not need bespoke custom-built trains in the UK.

[Keir Mather]

Q To conclude with a broad-brush question, if we set up GBR with the ability to have an integrated view of the entire rail network, especially on a passenger basis, as an organisation that has real buying power and long-term certainty about the requirements it needs, and that sits alongside a rolling stock strategy that has been developed in consultation with industry for the long term, specific duties on GBR to provide certainty to those who provide railway services and a duty to promote the needs of future passengers, which I believe inherently means having a rolling stock pipeline which improves that experience, does that not offer quite a positive departure from a franchising system that, to an extent, was the definition of boom and bust in its short-term thinking and the unforeseen consequences that could often arise in the system?

Malcolm Brown: To my mind, there is the potential there—there is no question of it—but without having visibility, at the risk of repeating my previous answers. You talk about consulting with the industry; there is a vast amount of experience in the UK rail industry. I am totally agnostic about whether that is in the private or public sector. I would compel GBR to use that experience to inform the decisions and the forward planning.

I have an organisation that is not as large as Siemens. It is about 170 people and I think about 60% of them are qualified engineers. We have more than 30 years’ experience of acquiring rolling stock and structuring it. I think we are reasonably good at it. I would say utilise the experience and expertise that is there. I am not saying private or public; I am saying use the experience that is there to, frankly, avoid reinventing the wheel.

[Keir Mather]

Q That is a really important point that I will be certain to take away. Does anyone else have any observations?

Rob Morris: To add to that, there should be a duty on GBR to engage with the supply chain around its decisions and intentions, because essentially we will be more than 50% of the spend for GBR and it would be wholly inappropriate for decisions to be made that are outside the capability or the investment profiles of the supply chain. They need to work in harmony, rather than in silos.

[Keir Mather]

Q That is a really important point. To confirm that point, from your perspective, that specific duty is about essentially enabling you guys to be able to plan with certainty—I would have thought that consultation would be inherent to the fulfilment of that duty. Do you feel that more needs to be done to explain how far we intend to go in making that a reality?

Rob Morris: I think it needs to be explicit. The ultimate aim is to do the right thing by the passenger, the freight user and the taxpayer.

[Keir Mather]

Absolutely. Thank you.

Darren Caplan: My final point, to wrap this up, is that the Competition and Markets Authority civil engineering market study was published just last month. It said:

“Funding settlements and infrastructure pipelines are often short-term and volatile, reducing the opportunities and incentives for public authorities and the supply chain to plan and invest.”

This is not public or private. For both GBR and our members to invest, we will need that longer-term certainty.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions from Members, I thank the witnesses for their evidence this afternoon. Mr Caplan, if you would like to submit your props or diagrams, the Committee would be very grateful to receive them in written form.

Examination of Witnesses

Jason Prince, Andy Burnham and Tracy Brabin gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Thank you. The shadow Minister is whipping at present, so for the time being, until he rejoins us, I will move on to the Minister, Keir Mather.

[Keir Mather]

Q Splendid. Thank you, Chair, and we eagerly await the rest of Jerome’s questions. Welcome to you all and thank you very much for coming in and giving evidence today.

I want to start with a more thematic question about the overall purpose of the Bill, and the DFT’s approach to transport more broadly. We unashamedly stand behind the view that our transport network is not just something to get people from A to B; it is an important catalyst for this Government’s missions, particularly around economic growth and delivering the housing that people need to live in dignity and flourish as individuals.

On that basis, the Railways Bill lets us take on lots of devolved work with mayoral strategic authorities, because we believe that is the right size of unit of devolved power and economic focus to drive those priorities. I know, Mayor Brabin and Mayor Burnham, that those priorities are also crucial to your local plans, so how do you feel they marry up, using this Bill as a catalyst to achieve some of those shared ambitions?

Tracy Brabin: I mentioned our local growth and local transport plans. The Bill is timely because of the changes that we see across the country through devolution. As the Prime Minister says, it is the devolution revolution. The opportunity with the statutory responsibilities for mayors to be at the heart of that decision making is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. I value this chance to feed back, because it is important that GBR is an agile body working closely with mayors who are seen as partners, not just stakeholders to be included when and where. We have skin in this game: I see myself as the passenger-in-chief for the public of West Yorkshire.

Like in Greater Manchester, with the work that has been led brilliantly by Andy on the Bee Network, in West Yorkshire the Weaver network will encompass bus, rail, tram, and electric bikes and active travel. We will not be able to deliver that potential for growth in our communities unless we have a meaningful relationship with GBR. It is not just about West Yorkshire, because we are a region at the heart of the UK. A lot of traffic goes through our region. It is not self-contained; we have opportunities—for example, Ilkley to Leeds or the five towns—would definitively be part of our Weaver network.

While we have ambitions to bring the network into the Weaver umbrella, it is also about integrated ticketing. That is important because while we have the MCard, one of the most sophisticated multimodal ticketing apps outside of London, we want the ability that I heard Mayor Burnham talking about when I arrived, to travel across the whole of Yorkshire—from Leeds to Sheffield and Leeds to York—with that integrated ticketing opportunity. Both mayors, and mayors across the country, share the ambitions of the Mayor of London. Frankly, if it is good for London, it is good for all of us.

Enabling mayors to have greater powers to support decision making around services is important. This is my final point. Let me bring it alive with an example: we want to build a station for Leeds Bradford airport. We want to invest and we have an appetite for risk, but if we do not get any revenue—or do not have some ability to get revenue as part of that agreement—what is the point? That is also true if we do not have any opportunity to help decide services. We can build a station, but if we have no responsibility or skin in the game for services, how can we make the economic case for jobs, growth and investment in our region?

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you; that is a really important point. It is worth stating for the record that a number of my constituents live in your combined authority—

Tracy Brabin: And what a great choice for them.

[Keir Mather]

Indeed, and many of them have similar aspirations around connectivity and growth. Mayor Burnham, was there anything you wanted to add before I hand back to Jerome?

Andy Burnham: A little, thank you. I echo everything that Tracy said. I strongly welcome this Government’s rail reform journey; it is going in a positive direction. Anything we say today is just making it that little bit better—or perfection. This is really positive from our point of view.

We are beginning to invest in rail from our own resources in Greater Manchester, with £210 million over the next four years. As rail comes into the Bee Network, we are going to be improving stations, working with the rail industry. Under the plans, there is the possibility that we may start putting local revenue into new rail services, with additional services where there is capacity to take them. We would both say that real partnership is what we want. It goes back to the shadow Minister’s point at the start. Making us more than consultees is what we are asking for.

In relation to wider investment, perhaps the Bill could require GBR to align rail investment with local transport plans, and to consider integrated transport all the time. How does somebody get off a train and easily on to a tram? There could be a joined-up approach to thinking about place-making, with wider housing investment. That is why the partnership matters. Railways serve places. With our councils, we are responsible for those places. The more that it is all thought through, the better the future for the railways, because they will be easier and more attractive to use, and housing regeneration will follow because the railway is in the right place, with the right levels of accessibility.

I think that the question of accessibility to the railway for all our residents is one that I ask the Committee to address. Some of the funding, as I have mentioned, is to be spent on making our stations step free in terms of access, and the idea that we are going to carry on with a railway that basically excludes our disabled and older residents is just not tenable. What we can do is accelerate that change, working through closer partnership. As we have been told at the Rail North Committee, which I chair, if things carry on at the same pace, we will have step-free access stations across the north by 2080. That, honestly, is not good enough, so let us get in closer partnership, accelerate those changes, and bring in investment to the railway from wider planning developments. That all points to a closer, deeper and more meaningful partnership between combined authorities and GBR.

Tracy Brabin: To bring Access for All alive, 65% of stations in West Yorkshire are not accessible, and we were allocated not a penny in the last round of Access for All, because there was an assumption that the TransPennine upgrade covered it. It does not. There are MPs across all of West Yorkshire who are desperate for that investment. I want to do it, but Access for All has to help us. If we do not have responsibility for that money, we are back to the begging-bowl culture that I know this Government want to move away from.

[Keir Mather]

Thank you both. I hope you feel that GBR having a legal duty to promote the interests of passengers, especially those with disabilities, is a signal that we want accessibility to be hardwired into the Bill, and not something that comes after the operational decisions about the railway have been taken. I have more questions, but I am conscious that we should hand over to the shadow Minister.

[The Chair]

Before I bring the shadow Minister back in, I make colleagues aware that the session will run until 5.15 pm.

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q It has become very command-and-control, hasn’t it? It is top-down, but you are saying that it should be more bottom-up.

Andy Burnham: Yes, I think if you end up with a very top-down railway, it is a bit like the phrase I used to hear in the Department of Health: “You can hit the target and miss the point.” Is that not that the risk with the railways, if they become too much like monolithic structures? It has to be a bit of both. If you go back to the old British Rail days, I remember a thing called Regional Railways, which was very separate to InterCity, so that split has always been there in the railways.

What we are arguing for in front of the Committee today is to think of the railways in a more place-based context. Railways serve growth in local areas, and there are things that we can bring to the table to support the health and growth of the railways in the future. It points to a different partnership, but it is a partnership. We want the right to specify timetables, as it is legitimate for us to make those requests, and we want a stronger role over station access. Actually, we think there should be a presumption in favour of devolution. Rather than a right to request, the onus should be the other way around; there should be the right to refuse, which presumes that it should be devolved, if that is possible, but there is still a callback if it cannot be devolved.

There is a relevant recent example: the Access for All funding. The Rail North Committee has asked the Department to devolve the Access for All funding, so we do not get the situation that Tracy described a moment ago. Currently, that is not being supported by the Department. We submit lists of stations to the Department as part of our Access for All bid on a regular basis, but we have often had the experience that it comes back with a different prioritisation to the one we sent in. This is really granular, local stuff, and it is mind-boggling to us that you have an infrastructure programme for the railways, and then an Access for All programme at the highest level that is dealing with very local schemes at stations. It is a meaningful partnership, and we are calling for a devolved role, where there can be one.

Tracy Brabin: I totally agree with what Andy has said; it is about accountability. I do not think you could expect the Secretary of State to be accountable for the whole of the network. How on earth would they understand the challenges? At Denby Dale, all they need is a ramp, and those sorts of decisions should be made locally.

We are building three stations in the next year. Why are they so expensive? In Germany, I think it is £5 million a station, but here they are £50 million. In the ’80s, it was £500,000 a station in today’s money. Surely, if we are working together as a collective for the good of the nation, we could find a way that makes it easier—one where we are more agile in building stations, and where we are part of that conversation around services. Also, it is about where we get then get the revenue from, so that we have a circular pound—the one that goes into the washing machine and comes back out again on the other side—and can build more accessibility on more stations.

[Keir Mather]

Q I have a few more questions—and, Jason, these include you as well.

[Jerome Mayhew]

My apologies.

[Keir Mather]

No, mine did not either—it is important that we also get to hear your perspective, Jason. One of the things I want to hit on is accountability. One of the benefits of the Bill that Lord Hendy stressed in his evidence to the Transport Committee is that by having a unified, guiding mind for the railway, you will have hard-working people at GBR who will wake up every day and know that they are responsible for making sure that the railway runs in the interests of the British public, in partnership with people like yourselves. Could you take us through the current challenges in engaging with an array of different private sector operators and DFTO-managed train companies? What does it look like for the people you represent who are trying to navigate this bewildering system, and for you guys who are trying to drive high standards, passenger satisfaction and, ultimately, better economic opportunity for your local areas?

Tracy Brabin: It has been very difficult to navigate who is responsible for what. There is a lot of finger pointing with, “It’s them,” or “It’s them,” and trying to get a decision about who actually owns a project has been difficult. That is why I really welcome the leadership that Lord Hendy has shown in bringing together track and train and having that simplicity.

In West Yorkshire, the partnership piece of work was published last week. We have been seen as an exemplar in our strategic place partnership, where we brought together Network Rail, DFT, the TOCs, the shadow GBR, ourselves and all the partners to identify how we can cut through roadblocks. It has been incredibly effective. When the Mayor of South Yorkshire, the Mayor of York and North Yorkshire and I were working with David Blunkett on the White Rose rail plan, it was helpful to look together at how we could phase the delivery of the plan, how we could make it affordable and what was the structure of delivery. You can do that only when you are all in the room and all have skin in the game, and you are not blaming each other. I want to reflect on the relationship held locally by our organisations and myself. I think that is the way forward.

We also need resources, and I speak for other mayoral strategic authorities as well. I am blessed to have some very talented people—some of them are sat behind me—who help me with our rail plan, but not every MSA has that talent. Although people might be waking up to deliver better outcomes, they are not all sat in the regions. Having people with timetabling and infrastructure experience actually in the regions would also be a huge benefit.

Andy Burnham: The job of getting the railway to be more accountable has been the devil’s own job in my time as mayor. I am not talking so much about recent times, but certainly in the early days when we had the 2018 timetable collapse. It was only Transport for the North and the Rail North Committee that got underneath what was going on inside Northern and TransPennine. If we had not been there, I do not think the travelling public would have seen the change.

We were the ones who challenged Northern, when it was run by Arriva, to keep guards on the trains. We were the ones who fought to keep ticket offices open—the railway would have closed them if it had not heard our voice. We had to challenge Avanti West Coast when it was collapsing and cutting the timetable between Manchester and London—two major cities in this country—damaging our growth. It just took that decision without any reference to us. Recently, the Office of Rail and Road has done something relating to a ghost train. We constantly have to challenge these things. Without us, I do not think we would have a railway that has moved towards more public ownership and more accountability.

I think major culture change is needed. I come back to this point. My observation is that it is still not responsive enough to what local areas need. As people may know, I support Everton. I go to Everton’s new ground on a regular basis. So many more people are travelling there by train, but to the railways, it is like it has not happened. It is as though they are oblivious to it. They are not in the place with us, managing it and putting extra people on. The railway seems to be too dislocated from what happens on the ground. For example, Sunday services are not put on during the Manchester Christmas markets. That is the thing: you need a railway that is knitted in to supporting growth.

Finally, look at the evidence where we have more locally accountable railways. Transport for Wales is a strong operator, in my experience—it serves Greater Manchester as well. Merseyrail is accountable to the Mayor of Liverpool. It has higher levels of performance, I believe, although all railways have their issues. That is evidence that if you have more local accountability, you generally have a higher performing railway that is more responsive to what people are saying.

Tracy Brabin: Andy and the Rail North Committee have been holding operators’ feet to the fire not just for northern transport but also for the east coast main line where it goes through other mayoralties. So on accountability, I think coming from a mayoral strategic authority or a mayoral combined authority where all mayors across the country can hold rail to account—you are doing a brilliant job, Andy, but currently where else in the country is there that group that will hold operators to account? At the moment, it is only the Rail North Committee, but surely that has to be across the whole country.

[Keir Mather]

Q Is there anything you want to add, Jason?

Jason Prince: I will probably approach this session from more of a technical point of view than a thematic one. Fundamentally, the Bill is strong as it is written and I think we have to acknowledge that. The journey to GBR started under the last Government and it is good that we have got to a position where we are on the precipice of something where there is a once in a generation change.

On the accountability point, it is great to have the aspiration of accountability, but the only way you will embed it is if you build GBR on the back of strong mayoral partnerships. To do that, the Bill needs strengthening around how you ensure that GBR reflects what is happening at the local level. How do you ensure that rather than having regard to—which pulls on the shadow Minister’s point—you have a stronger recognition of what happens at a local level, which the mayors are responsible for in terms of local transport plans and local growth plans? It is one thing to say, “Accountability—the good people go into GBR every day and that will be their focus,” but for my members, who are transport authorities, thousands of people are going in every day to design transport networks that shine. In this Bill there is a once in a generation opportunity to make rail shine as part of a bigger place-based offer. To do that, the Bill needs strengthening so that accountability is built in through the legislation, rather than just accepting that GBR will act in such a way.

[Keir Mather]

Thank you. That is a really important point, which I am sure we will come back to, but I am conscious that other Members have questions, so I will sneak in at the end if I can.

[Olly Glover]

Q Mayors, you have made some really good points about the need for clearer accountability and for more responsiveness and understanding of what is going on in your areas. Mayor Burnham, I think your point about Everton is important, in that where there are strong mayoral areas quite close to each other, it is also important to have a regional cross-border overview. Does GBR do enough to strike the balance between strategic mayoral authorities’ having control in their areas and making sure that that is regionally joined up, maybe through subnational transport bodies? Do you think it does enough to provide that regional overview?

Jason Prince: I think the Bill needs strengthening in the relationship between MSAs; I will put that on record. We are working very positively with officials to see how we can strengthen the Bill to ensure that it reflects that. We are on a journey of devolution where local government reform is making sure that mayors will be the conduit, broadly, across the UK. The Bill does set a framework for how that engagement will take place.

From a technical point of view, I think what would be beneficial, which is not necessarily something you will cover in line-by-line scrutiny but which needs to be looked at in the guidance issued, is to look at how will this work in practice—your specific question—when you look at how railway under a national structure will work between different areas. When you look at areas like the West Midlands, for example, and the West Midlands Rail Executive, their geography is bigger than an MSA. At the minute the Bill does not acknowledge things like that, so I think there is something that needs to be looked at. Guidance accompanying what is in the legislation would probably give some clarity, and there is an opportunity to bring that through that process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew]

Q It is not really the directing mind I am focusing on; it is having a level playing field where, for the first time, we are going to have GBR being the directing mind but also an operator. There is a direct structural conflict of interest in the design of GBR as set out in the Bill—that has been the evidence of many people to the Committee today—combined with essentially no right of appeal other than on matters of law. First of all, do you recognise that as a proper concern? Secondly, if so, do you think a partial solution would be to have a mechanism for appeal on the merits to an independent regulator—let us call it something like the ORR?

Richard Bowker: On the first point, yes, I recognise the concern. Secondly, personally I would look at clause 18(4) and ask whether we really need to have the capacity duty able to override other duties. As far as the appeals process is concerned, I can see why being able to look at a case on the merits rather than on a strictly legal basis would help enormously. If GBR believes that its access and use policy, its capacity planning and its final decisions constitute a good process, it should not fear that.

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you, Mr Bowker, for coming to give evidence. Just the other day, a group of DFT civil servants were recommending your podcast to me, so you will be pleased to know that you have friends on the inside, at the heart of Government.

I was pleased to hear that you agree with the concept of a guiding mind for the railway—a unified body able to direct services in the interests of passengers. I want to point to the specific provisions in the Bill that relate specifically to passenger experience. One of GBR’s duties is to promote the interests of users and potential users of the railway, including those with disabilities, and clause 18(3) talks about having reliable services, and the avoidance and mitigation of passenger overcrowding. Does what is contained within the legally binding duties on GBR reflect the overall aspiration to have a unified railway with the passenger at its heart?

Richard Bowker: Yes, I think it does. There is a danger in being overly prescriptive about how you do those things, but the duties are fairly widely drafted, and they probably do do that. Much of this will depend not so much on what the Bill says GBR’s duties are; they are pretty clear and comprehensive. It is about how it is then structured to go on and do these things. Previous panel members talked about culture and behaviour, and those are really important. So, yes, I think the duties are broadly fine.

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you. You raise the really important point that the operational reality of how GBR works as an organisation matters as much as the accountability targets and metrics laid out in the legislation. Could you talk a little more about that? An overall theme across the sessions today has been the balance in terms of the legislation not binding the hands of future Secretaries of State and not being overly prescriptive about how we deal with the railway now, in a way that might not suit how the railway modernises in the future. In terms of setting a freight target, a duty to promote passenger interests and a duty to have regard to freight, do you feel the Bill as it stands gives enough of a long-term indication as to the direction of travel we want for the railway, without being overly prescriptive, or do you think we have a little more work to do around the edges?

Richard Bowker: No, I think there is a danger of being too prescriptive. Having a long-term rail strategy is an extremely good thing, but there is a danger, to take that as an example, of being too prescriptive. In terms of it being 10, 15 or 20 years, I was running the Strategic Rail Authority 20 years ago. We had no social media; it did not exist—I am jolly glad it did not, in terms of decision making—and AI was also not a concept. So there is a serious danger of being overly prescriptive in these things.

Setting out a clear strategy, and having clear policy and direction, is exactly what the railway needs more than anything else. It does not need to be tied down in too much of a straitjacket. What is absolutely crucial in all this is the relationship between the Department for Transport and GBR, and with mayoral combined authorities and local authorities as well, as we heard from previous panel members. That relationship between the DFT—between how Government sets their policy—and how GBR then delivers will be one of the most defining things in terms of whether these proposals will be a success. If we get it right, this could be transformational; if we get it wrong, it could be yet more micromanaging and meddling, which would be a disaster.

[Keir Mather]

Q Thank you. I think that is really important. I have one final question, which builds on the point you made about mayoral combined authorities, devolution and the overall issue that goes to the heart of the passenger experience, which is accountability. We argue that by folding myriad private operators—franchised operators—into one unified railway, you provide a clear point of accountability for the passenger, the Secretary of State and the regulator. But in terms of the structure of GBR and its closeness to passengers’ lives, how would you envisage GBR working in terms of being present in local areas and working closely with mayoral strategic authorities and authorities without mayors as well? How flat of a structure would you recommend that GBR has in order to provide that agility in meeting local needs and concerns?

Richard Bowker: I have two answers to that. First, I do not think we should judge what has happened in the last few years too harshly. So much of the way train companies have been able to behave has been highly prescribed by the national rail contracts they have with the DFT. Many, many rail leaders are looking forward to being liberated and empowered to serve customers better as a result of the end of that process. That is the first thing.

The second thing is that there has to be a balance, and I genuinely think the Bill has got it broadly right. If I were the chair of GBR, I would take very seriously a duty to have regard to a mayor’s transport plan. That is not a thing to be trifled with. You do not go, “I am just going to ignore that”—you do not. The problem we have, if you take the west coast main line in Manchester, is that the corridor between Manchester Piccadilly and Stockport and then further south is used by an awful lot of freight operators, intercity services and west coast—all the services Mayor Burnham is keen to see grow. Capacity is constrained and limited, so in the end somebody has to be able to say, “I’ve listened to everybody. My duties are to take account of everything, weigh it all up and work in partnership,” which is crucial. It is important that somebody has to be able to make a decision.

[Keir Mather]

Thank you so much. I have no further questions.

[Olly Glover]

Q Mr Bowker, you lived through an interesting time—I hope you do not mind me describing it like that—when you ran the Strategic Rail Authority. The industry was recovering from the chaos and meltdown of the Hatfield disaster and everything that followed. According to some, there were tensions at the time between the SRA and the ORR and other bodies. Given that there appear to be superficial similarities, to some extent at least, between the structure proposed by the Bill and what existed then, what lessons and insights from that time will help us to get this right?

Richard Bowker: There were tensions, some of which were actually quite healthy in a way, because if somebody is basically in charge of everything and has no checks and balances, I am not sure that is a good thing. What is described here, and the way the Bill works, is a far better set of circumstances than I had to deal with 20 years ago. Why? Because, as I said in answer to another question, the SRA was responsible for strategy and for franchising, while the rail regulator was responsible for the network, regulating Network Rail and who could go on the network, ultimately. Those two things did not interface well at times. They did in many ways, and we got a lot done, but it was not perfect.

I think the Bill helps significantly in terms of providing clarity and a directing mind. What is key to all this, though, is not necessarily what is written here; it is about how it is then implemented in practice. You have some good building blocks, but the real test will be when real people try to make this work.