Railways Bill

Lloyd Hatton Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I do think we need to move some of the freight that we currently move by road to the railways. The Bill will require the Secretary of State to set a freight growth target, and Great British Railways will have a duty to have regard to that target when it exercises its statutory functions, so that is at the heart of this Bill.

Finally, I will talk about access to the rail network. Great British Railways will be responsible for getting the best use out of the finite network capacity that we have, which is essential if we are going to improve performance, reduce disruption and allow more communities to be served by the railway. We want customers to be given the best choice of services and routes; this will be a core principle of Great British Railways, so it will work with open access and freight operators to harness the best of the private sector, taking access decisions across the whole network in a way the current regulator never could. We saw the urgent need for change only last week, with the ridiculous prospect of an empty 7 am train running from Manchester to London—a decision by the regulator that has now thankfully been reversed. However, let me be clear: GBR will not be allowed to act unchecked. The Office of Rail and Road will have robust powers to hold GBR to account, and all decisions GBR makes regarding access and charging will be appealable to the ORR. This will ensure that GBR’s decision making is fair, considered and transparent across the board.

Before I finish, I draw the attention of the House to our accessibility road map, which was published alongside the Bill. My colleague Lord Hendy, the rail Minister, wrote in that publication that

“for too many people…the railway remains a system of barriers. That must change.”

I could not agree more.  As far as I am concerned, a railway that fails to serve everyone is not fit for purpose—which is why the Bill also gives GBR and the passenger watchdog clear duties, ensuring that the needs of disabled people are at the heart of decision making.

[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

Despite serving a town of nearly 50,000 people, Weymouth station, in my constituency, does not have a working toilet, which presents disabled passengers with a huge barrier to travel. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this legislation, and action from the Government to bring our railways back into public hands, will help to make our railways and our stations far more accessible to those disabled passengers?

[Heidi Alexander]

I do agree. That needs to be a priority, and it will be at the heart of what GBR does.

For too long, the railways have been a source of national parody rather than national pride—a symbol of public services not working as they should, and of life unnecessarily made harder—but 200 years after the first railways transformed the country, we have a once-in-a-generation chance to restore, renew and reimagine the potential of the industry, and to place it at the centre of the Government’s plans for national renewal.  The rising living standards, greater opportunity and greener economy that we promised at the last election all rely on a growing, high-performing railway, a railway that connects us to the things that matter most, connecting people to jobs, businesses to growth, families to days out, and all of us to our loved ones; a railway with public service at its core and that is frankly obsessed with the needs and wishes of passengers, and one that we can finally be proud of again.  That is the railway that Britain deserves, and the one that we will deliver.   I commend the Bill to the House.

Railways Bill (Second sitting)

Lloyd Hatton Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I have a lot of colleagues indicating that they want to speak and I do not believe we will get everyone in. If we could have shorter questions, and perhaps shorter answers, to try and get as many people as possible in, that would be really helpful.

[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

Q Both mayors have touched on this point in some detail already. I just wondered what your view was on whether the Bill contains the right elements to ensure that we can get the simplest and most local improvements made. A frustration that so many of us in this place have is that the current rail network is deeply fragmented, so completing even the most minor changes, such as repairing a door or reopening a disabled toilet, takes months if not years. I certainly have that at my local train station in Weymouth.

How do we make sure that GBR is able to be as responsive as possible to those very local, very small-scale but otherwise very important improvements to stations and the wider rail infrastructure?

Andy Burnham: If we think about it this way, mayoral combined authorities and the transport authorities that Tracy and I lead will be able to add value to the railway by bringing resource to invest in our stations and adding more passengers to the railway, because the Bee Network cap covering all modes will encourage more people to travel by train. We have something to add to the railway to make it serve people and places better, and to make access improvements more quickly, so that passengers do not walk away from the railways because they see a problem that never gets fixed. That is the way to look at it.

However, if we are going to put our own resources and effort into improving the railway, we have to be a meaningful partner. We cannot have rail as a silo that may or may not listen to us—that would not be the right arrangement. We should have a Bill that really cements the partnership and requires joint decision making, as opposed to us being consulted but maybe not listened to. It is possible to do that.

We like everything that is here, the direction of travel is right and we support what the Government are trying to achieve, but if we always have in our heads that railways serve places rather than themselves, it follows that a properly balanced partnership between the two is needed. Sometimes it feels like the railway just serves its own purposes, and does not have enough regard for places. The Bill should leave no doubt that railways are there to serve places and the people who live in them.

Tracy Brabin: I concur with Andy. It is about accountability, and it is also about revenue, so that if you have built this great station and the toilets are not working, you have skin in the game, because you want it to work. Who actually owns that responsibility: Network Rail, GBR, or the mayor who knows the need and can get on and deliver?

[Joe Robertson]

Q In previous questions today, I have asked about the integration of railways and other public transport, which the Government say they want to improve. When I have talked about my constituency and the example of connecting rail and ferries, given that our ferry companies are unregulated, privatised and controlled by private equity, the answer has come back that mayoral combined authorities will have powers to improve connectivity and timetabling issues. Notwithstanding the fact that the Isle of Wight does not have a mayoral combined authority yet, I want to ask you as mayors how that can work in practice. Does the Bill give you any extra powers, particularly on integrating modes of transport, where you have little or no regulatory powers at the moment?

Andy Burnham: It is important to say that we are doing that without the Bill at the moment. Again, we thank the Department for coming with us on the Bee Network journey. We will bring the first two rail lines into that this year; and over the next three years, eight rail lines will come into the Bee Network system. It is complex, because some of the lines begin outside of our borders, such as in Glossop and Buxton in Derbyshire, or in Southport in the Liverpool city region, but because those lines are GM commuter lines, so are not going to Liverpool, it is right for them to be in the Bee Network. We have made that argument and the Government have supported us.

We have already created an integrated ticketing system for tram and bus travel in Greater Manchester: you can tap in on both now, and there is a London-style cap. We want to add rail to that as soon as possible. When the first lines come into the Bee Network in December, people will be able to buy a paper ticket that covers tram, train and bus, but in time we want that to be integrated.

There is absolutely no reason at all why you could not have that over train and ferry travel—I know that the Mayor of Liverpool wants Mersey Ferries to be a part of his integrated system. It is complicated, but it is absolutely possible. The Department has already shown a willingness to do it, and is putting the technology into the rail industry to support that.