Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 7th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Blake on a brilliant opening speech and on her long-lost work in Leeds and elsewhere to get better transport services there, and I hope she will be able to continue to do that. It is also a pleasure to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, and my noble friend Lord Cryer to your Lordships’ House, and to speak among so many experts in transport. It just shows how much parliamentarians love their railways. They want to contribute the best to them and have a variety of different solutions to the present problems.

So I think it is worth starting and carrying on our discussion by reminding ourselves what the railways are there for: reliability, low fares, if possible, capacity, a reduction in delays, and of course investment. I was amused by the reference of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, to some of the “gnarled old people” in your Lordships’ House. I am one of them: I was here before her and I recall, as she will, the creation of the Strategic Rail Authority, which lasted for two or three years. Then it was abolished, because Ministers asked the SRA to do things that it did not want to do, and there was an argument. That was 25 or so years ago and we have got to reflect on the relationship between ministerial interference and how the structure of the railway keeps having to be changed to make better use of ministerial interference—or not.

How much ministerial interference should there be? Until recently, how many Questions have we had about ministerial involvement in buses or coaches? There have been very few, but we have railway questions very frequently, and in the other place it is the same. There is a serious problem with long-distance coaches in Cornwall, where I live. One of the providers, National Express, has withdrawn a London airport service to Cornwall, which stops people going to Heathrow to catch a plane without having to take a taxi into Exeter or something. But nobody is saying “National Express should keep doing this and do they need a subsidy?” So I think we have to keep it balanced and I hope that the new structure, when we see it properly, will actually do that without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

One of the things that has come up again and again in this debate has been what the priorities should be if there is a shortage of investment, which clearly there is. Is it local services or long-distance services? I will not mention HS2—we all know what has happened there—but there is a need for investment in many smaller railways. My noble friend Lord Faulkner mentioned one in Devon, but there are many others around the corner. It is also a question of how you judge the cost-benefit analysis of these things. As other noble Lords have said, it is extraordinary when the Department for Transport has to fund all the railway-related expenditure and the capital costs, and the Treasury gets the revenue. That needs to change very quickly and I hope my noble friend will say something about that. I doubt that needs legislation but, if it does, it needs to come quickly.

The other interesting and very important issue that we need to discuss is the role of the private sector. I hope it is not dogma that is driving the present Bill —I do not think it is. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, said earlier, the private sector actually sometimes brings good value for money. In yesterday’s Sunday Times, it was interesting to note that, before Covid, the Southeastern franchise got a £231 million subsidy in 2021, up from £132 million while it was still privatised.

You can have different examples everywhere, but I hope that we can look at these things and at the benefit of investment not only in the franchises and open access but in getting some competition. I was in Germany a couple of weeks ago looking at some railway issues, and I observed the German railway company Deutsche Bahn, which is often held up as a role model of a vertically integrated rail body. Maybe the Government here think that we should follow the Germans’ role on this. But according to the press report a couple of days ago, two-thirds of the long-distance trains reached their destination on time, which was a new record low, and the company reported a loss of over €1.2 billion—I do not think that my noble friend will want to have a loss like that—coupled with a debt of €34 billion. What is interesting is that they are mainly the intercity services, whereas many of the local services in Germany are franchised out, some to UK operators. The general feeling is that they get much better services from them than we might expect.

Other issues need to be addressed sometime in the next six months, either before the new Bill or in this Bill. Ticketing is a disaster at the moment. There are various different ways round it that people have suggested, but there is a general feeling that it is too complicated and expensive and that it needs simplification. Maybe my noble friend will be able to tell us how much money will be saved when all the franchise operators become state-owned.

The other thing that the railways have suffered from dramatically in the last few years is strikes. People do not want to mention it, but it is interesting that the state-owned, or state-controlled, passenger franchises were unable—or not allowed, depending on what you think—to negotiate with the trade unions, whereas the open-access operators and the freight operators were able to do so, and I believe that there were no strikes there. Does that mean that the new government-controlled operator will do it better? I do not know, but it needs looking at. As a noble Lord said earlier, we need to, I hope, have some devolution of the passenger operators to give control over things such as remuneration, services and rest-day working, so they can negotiate without it all going back to Whitehall.

The last thing I will cover a little is freight. Other noble Lords have spoken about freight but, as they may know, I used to be chairman of the Rail Freight Group. First, investment is needed to get freight going. If you have Great British Railways deciding which trains go where—and if it is also in charge of capacity, which may be on the cards—where does freight come in? The answer is: it will come bottom of the pile.

Secondly, on some of the connecting lines that freight uses are not used by passenger trains, a very small amount of electrification would enable the freight trains to be electric hauled all the way. Apart from saving on greenhouse gases and everything else, that would make it much more efficient. I hope that the Government will look at that in the next few months and see how it can be done. The one that is spoken about all the time is Felixstowe to Nuneaton, but there are many others. A small amount of electrification is needed, and I hope that it could be done much more cheaply by a Network Rail that is maybe under different management and more efficient—we have heard nothing about Network Rail so far today, but we will see.

Finally, what really made me very happy, when I was in Berlin at that railway conference exhibition, was that there was a new freight locomotive owned and developed by GB Railfreight, one of our rail freight companies. It is a brand-new development, because it is tri-mode—electric, diesel and battery—which is exactly what everybody wants. Along with Beacon Rail, GB Railfreight has invested in this, took it to Berlin and showed it off to the world. That is good, but its needs a bit of support in the home territory, so that it can actually grow its business alongside the passenger trains.

In conclusion, I congratulate my noble friend on her opening remarks. I look forward to what she will say in response to the very many speeches she has heard. I look forward to the next stage of the Bill.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I am in the slightly unusual position of speaking to Conservative amendments that have not been spoken to already. However, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, will correct me if I interpret them wrongly.

The noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, set out the failures of the current system. Prior to the laying of the noble Lord’s amendment, I had taken the theme of this group of Conservative amendments as displaying a welcome, if overdue, conversion on the road to Damascus. After more than a decade of increasing confusion on railway services, declining levels of passenger satisfaction and rocketing fare prices, the Conservatives are actually looking at improving public train services.

Amendment 2 touches upon something with which I definitely agree: the inevitable winding-down effect of a four to five-year transition period. As I said at Second Reading, there is bound to be an impact on staff morale and the inevitable likelihood is that the best staff will move to other industries when faced with an uncertain future. There will also, of course, be cost pressures. For example, there is bound to be a tendency to level up across very different terms and conditions from one employer to another within the train operating companies. Last week, I was speaking to some train operating companies, all of which recognised the problems that will be faced as the Government try to bring together and harmonise terms and conditions without exposing the taxpayer and the passenger to higher costs. Of course, the most obvious problem is how to deal with rest day working. I know the Minister is fully aware of the problems to which I am referring, so I will be interested in his response.

Amendment 26 refers to costs. At Second Reading, I asked questions about several issues, such as station ownership and operation, which were not really answered. I also asked about British Transport Police, which is encompassed in Amendment 40, put down by the Liberal Democrats. The Labour manifesto contained a supposedly cunning plan for low-cost nationalisation, but there are still bound to be significant costs for such obvious things as new livery and uniforms. We all look forward to an integrated fare structure; that, of course, will come with upfront costs.

Amendment 22 refers to the establishment of an independent public body to assess performance, while Amendment 21 refers to an annual report from the Secretary of State. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, will explain exactly what he is aiming at in these amendments. One of them asks for the sort of close supervision by the Department for Transport that we have had since Covid, which clearly has not worked terribly well; the other refers to a more arms-length approach. Which of those approaches does the Conservative Party in this House believe will be better?

Liberal Democrats would establish a railway agency —a nationwide public body to act as a guiding mind for the railways, putting commuters first, implementing wholesale reform of the fares system and holding train companies to account. We do not believe that the renationalisation of passenger rail will automatically deliver cheaper fares or better services. From speaking to members of the public, we have concluded that they really do not care who runs the railways; they just want cheap, efficient and reliable services.

I do not doubt the Government’s good will or their wish to make this huge change, which we all want to happen. However, as a signal of their intent and an upfront signal to the public, I hope the Minister will speak with the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ensure that in next week’s Budget, we have a fare freeze and the public see from the start that there will be a difference under this Government.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group are all designed to try to get some information from the Government about the effect of the changes in this Bill. Will it help the passenger—as well as, I hope, the rail freight customer—and will it help with the costs? Several noble Lords have referred to the issue of costs on the railway, which is very serious; I shall probably come back to that later.

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[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I honestly believe that the amendment so ably moved by the noble Baroness opposite is extremely sensible. Like her, I can see no reason why we have a chronological system for dispatching the current franchisees based on the run-out date of their particular franchise.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, I am in favour of a mixed economy. There are certain aspects of privatisation, heresy though it might sound to some of my colleagues, that were successful. The fact that some of the railway system—rail freight, for example, which rarely gets a mention in these debates—remains in the private sector is indicative of the success of those who took what was, under British Rail, a very much declining sector of the railway industry. I do not wish to do an “all our yesterdays” speech, but my recollection of the freight sector in those days is ancient wagons clanking around the system, being shunted from one marshalling yard to the next, and with an average journey speed between loading and destination of around 12 miles an hour. Since privatisation, the rail freight side has improved greatly.

To return to the very valid point made by the noble Baroness, Greater Anglia is not just a success so far as its operations are concerned; it is a financial success as well. Because of this unfortunate coincidence of the run-out date of franchises, Greater Anglia is forecast to repay to His Majesty’s Treasury around £100 million in the current financial year. As my noble friend Lord Liddle said, presumably—unless my noble friend the Minister can reassure us otherwise— we are going to dispatch Greater Anglia to the railway knacker’s yard while pursuing with Avanti Trains, as he and the noble Baroness said, a franchise operator that, quite frankly, should not be there.

The previous Government, in the run-up to the election, were stupid enough—or ideological enough, perhaps—to give Avanti an extra nine-year franchise, on the grounds that it was showing some improvement. Those of us who travelled on Avanti regularly—thankfully, it is an experience that is now behind me since I moved home—could not find any improvement whatever. Indeed, it seemed to me that the service was deteriorating on an annual basis.

Again, it might be heretical for some of my colleagues to hear this, but aspects of the passenger railway that were privatised were successful. At Second Reading, I mentioned Chiltern Railways. Thanks to the financial constraints that British Rail had to operate under as a nationalised industry, Marylebone station was proposed to be a coach station by Sir Alfred Sherman, if I remember rightly, Mrs Thatcher’s transport guru at the time. The existing railway management, again through no fault of their own but because of financial constraints, had to run the service from Marylebone down, single much of the line and reduce the overall train service. Under the able leadership of the late Adrian Shooter, and with a long-term franchise of 20 years, with various break-off points, my noble friend Lord Prescott and the then chief executive of the Strategic Rail Authority came up with this 20-year franchise, but insisted that not only had the service to be improved but some of the infrastructure had to be restored. Under Chiltern Railways, lines that had become single were redoubled, and a pretty poor commuter rail service now has two trains an hour as far as Birmingham—with a price, incidentally, as my noble friend Lord Liddle might be interested to know, which considerably undercuts the fare of Avanti trains.

There are aspects of the future of the railway industry where a mixed economy would make some sense. I hope that, in those circumstances, my noble friend the Minister will look with some degree of favour on the noble Baroness’s amendment.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes some very good points. The Greater Anglia service is awfully good: my two noble friends who have spoken about it have confirmed that, and I have been on it recently myself. However, following the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, could somebody from the Conservative Party—maybe the noble Lord, or one of his predecessors or successors—explain the basis on which it chose Avanti and CrossCountry, which are two of the worst performing operators, to be given such very long contracts? I remember at the time there was a big debate between Virgin and Avanti as to which should get the contract. Whatever one thinks about Virgin, it has had some good services in the past, but Avanti is absolutely awful—as is CrossCountry, though for different reasons. Why did the then Government do it?

It is fine to say that we have given it to a private sector operator, but if we end up in a situation where the Government are effectively going to make similar awards to people—not companies, but people—we should know on what basis it is done. I hope my noble friend the Minister can explain what the criteria will be to make sure that we get some decent new franchises and how he is going to get rid of the two existing pretty bad ones as soon as possible.

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[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Before the Minister responds, perhaps I could add something to my noble friend’s comments on Avanti and performance. My noble friend Lord Snape mentioned, I think, a 60-something per cent public performance measure. What we do not know is the difference between delays caused by Avanti itself and Network Rail, the infrastructure manager. GBR will be in charge of the infrastructure as well as the trains, and it is pretty important that we know the balance between the causes of the delay, and how this will improve. Maybe my noble friend the Minister could write to us and give us a breakdown of the performances of the existing services and Network Rail. I believe, at the moment, that Network Rail is responsible for something like 70% of the delays, but maybe I am wrong. I look forward to his comments.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

On my noble friend Lord Liddle’s comment, I am sure the Secretary of State would like to make her own decision, but I am pretty confident that the work done in the department to assess whether Avanti is meeting its performance standards has taken into account what latitude there is. I suspect there is very little because of the contract terms.

I will write to my noble friend Lord Berkeley, and make the letter available, about the causes of delay on the west coast main line and to Avanti’s services. It is, of course, as he knows, undoubtedly true that every set of delays on the railway is due to a combination of the train operator and the infrastructure, and the way in which those parties manage their interaction with each other. When the Secretary of State and I have seen train companies about their performance, we have insisted that they are always accompanied by the relevant route directors of Network Rail. One of the issues is the root cause of the delays; another is how well those parties interact to resolve them. One of the issues on the west coast main line is that Network Rail’s control point, not unreasonably, is at Rugby where the signalling system is, Avanti’s control is in Birmingham and its train crews are managed from Preston. I would not run a railway like that myself.

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[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will follow on from the interesting contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Young. I understood that Ministers had accepted that open access operators will be able to continue, or new ones may be able to come. So I have two questions. As the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said in her introduction to her amendment, Greater Anglia is contributing quite a lot of money each year to the Treasury. Presumably it could ask to convert that service into an open access service and keep the money, and that would presumably be all right and the Treasury would lose out. I would be interested to hear my noble friend’s view on that.

If there is a new service, as one of the noble Lords said, that an operator of some description thought would be a useful one to introduce but which the new GBR thought was not appropriate, presumably there would be no reason why the new operator could not submit an application for open access, as happens at the moment. It does not have to be a long distance one from London to Blackpool; it could be a short distance one. How would that be seen by the Government. Would they welcome it?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting group of amendments to debate so far, and I am very taken by the latest thoughts from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on playing around with the definition of open access operators and what will be accepted. I was interested, too, in Amendments 28 and 29 and the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Young, who is always very thought-provoking. His amendment, as he said, is very much the obverse of the ones put down from these Benches. I urge the Government to look at this and allow themselves the flexibility to change the order of nationalisation in order to allow good franchises to flourish and to give themselves time to unravel privatisation more slowly and more logically. It has to be more than just, “This was in the manifesto and therefore it will happen whether or not it is logical”.

I am really sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is not in his place, because Amendment 35 is fascinating. It refers to a broader definition of what a public sector company should be, so that it includes public/private partnerships and co-operative ventures. I do not need to remind noble Lords opposite that some of them have been, or may still be, members of the Co-operative Party. As Liberal Democrats, we share an enthusiasm for co-operatives as a form of company and operation. I can envisage that a smaller rail line, perhaps in a rural area, would work very well on a co-operative or a public/private partnership basis. After all, it would bring in fresh investment without, in any way, undermining the Government’s commitment to a nationalised structure overall for the railways.

Finally, I urge the Government to look again at their plans and the precise terms of the Bill through a post-Covid lens. Covid caused the collapse of the railway system, necessitating a whole new approach to franchising for the train operators. It could happen again, either for similar reasons or as a result of a financial crisis, and I urge the Government to look again at the terms of the Bill. Have they allowed themselves sufficient flexibility to cope with the unexpected, to allow rail services to continue to operate even if there is a series of unlikely events that have upset the market for those services?

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Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

6: Clause 2, page 2, line 15, at end insert—
“(1AA) Before making a direct award of a public service contract to a public sector company under subsection (1A), the relevant franchising authority must publish a report on—(a) the possible impact on rail network capacity used by rail freight services,(b) the possible impact on the meeting of the rail freight growth target for at least 75% growth in freight carried by rail by 2050 on 2019 levels.”

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 6 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, I will speak to two other amendments in this group, including Amendment 41, to which the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has added his name. It is so good to see him in his place again as one of our real rail experts in this House, and I look forward to his remarks.

This amendment is about rail freight, largely. As noble Lords may know, I was chairman of the Rail Freight Group for some years. It is designed to put a requirement on the Government to report on the rail network capacity used by rail freight and to confirm a target of at least 75% growth in freight carried by rail by 2050 compared with 2019.

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his quite long letter, which we received over the weekend, explaining different parts of this Bill. I welcome the letter; there are some good points in it and he answered my question, as he has not done so far today, about open access passenger services. The letter is there, so I do not need his answer again, and I am grateful to him.

However, what we have here is a Government who, as the Minister states in his letter, are clear on open access passenger services and want to encourage rail freight. The letter says that

“to enable the growth of rail freight … the Secretary of State will set an overall freight growth target to ensure that it remains a key priority”.

That is good. My question is how this will be achieved. Within the Great British Railways envelope, we have GBR itself, freight operators and the freight sectors. We also have the Office of Rail and Road, with “rail” apparently to be defined in the next Bill, and we have open access operators. All these groups will be vying to get capacity on lines or tracks that, as many noble Lords have said, are congested at the moment.

It is not just a question of how we get capacity on the track. I am told that, on the east coast main line, the current LNER service apparently wants to have five trains an hour running more-or-less non-stop from Edinburgh to London—I hope they find the passengers from somewhere. That is going to cause serious problems to the regional services which might want to cross that line at York or Doncaster or somewhere else. It puts into question the Government’s priorities: getting to Edinburgh every 10 minutes, or so, or getting across the main line from the Humber to Leeds, or similar places, on a service which may only run once an hour because there is no capacity.

The capacity divide between the long-distance passenger services and local services is something that we will need to explore in the future, but capacity also affects freight. One of the issues with freight which we have heard for many months, if not years, is that it needs a different speed of train because it cannot accelerate that quickly, and therefore needs electrification—which I am not going to go into. Something that has come up in your Lordships’ House so often is the improvement of the railway at Ely on the route between Felixstowe and Nuneaton or the north. Improvements there would enable many more freight trains to use that route, saving them from trundling along the North London line and places like that. Such improvements would also enable the capacity for freight; it just needs electrification.

Great British Railways will be in charge of the budget for railway investment and infrastructure, as well as the budget for keeping the passenger trains going. It will therefore effectively be in competition with the private sector operators and freight companies, and very careful work will be needed to ensure the allocation of capacity is fair and transparent. In my book, it is pretty unfair if one of the major operators, which will be GBR, in line with the infrastructure manager, which it will also own, will have control over how much capacity is available for freight—which is in the private sector—or open-access operators.

I am making this point because, while I think that producing a report after the first year—which my amendment would mandate—and looking for targets is a good start, we will need from the Minister, now or in the future, much firmer commitments on how much capacity will be needed on the main intercity or congested routes, and how the Government will allocate it. I look forward to further discussions with the Minister on this at some stage, but for the moment I beg to move.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 40, which is focused on the issue of policing and safety on the railways. I welcome the Minister to his new role; I look forward to working with him, asking him many questions and debating the issues, as we have done elsewhere over the last 16 years.

As noble Lords have interrogated this legislation, safety has been a feature of our deliberations. However, safety is not just about the infrastructure and rolling stock; it is about the safety of passengers and staff on our railways. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the impact of this Act on the British Transport Police. The British Transport Police provides a policing service to Network Rail, rail and freight operators and their passengers and staff throughout England, Wales and Scotland. It is also responsible for policing other parts of our transport network including the London Underground, the Glasgow Subway, the Tyne and Wear Metro, the West Midlands Metro, the Docklands Light Railway, London trams and even the cable car in London.

What is different about the British Transport Police is that it is primarily funded by the railway industry, not the public purse, and it sits within the Department for Transport, not the Home Office. The train operating companies, Network Rail, other operators and Transport for London, through either police service agreements or different funding agreements, pay for the British Transport Police—its latest budget shows annual funding of around £416 million.

On these Benches, we are concerned about two specific areas. First, we are worried about the impact on policing the network, and the safety of staff and passengers as they use and work on our railways, as these changes to franchising take place. Secondly, we are deeply concerned about the potential significant funding gap, which had not previously been identified, as a result of taking public ownership of the railways. I hope the Minister will be able to provide assurance in this area and explain the Government’s thinking about the future funding of the British Transport Police.

Furthermore, there is the issue of the British Transport Police Authority itself and how it is structured. It consists of 15 members, often with railway expertise from the train operating companies, who ensure value for money for the policing service they provide across the network. It is not clear how this will be structured going forward to ensure the right level of challenge and independence from the Department for Transport, given the department will now be effectively running the railway in public ownership. I hope the Minister can reassure noble Lords that the funding and oversight of the British Transport Police has been considered as part of this legislation, and that he will respond to our specific points.

My noble friends will speak to our Amendments 41 and 6 regarding freight operators and the impact of this legislation on their operation.

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I think in due course we will have to come back in the substantive Bill with a proposition on how those decisions are made, who makes them, and for what period of time the plan is valid.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his response to my amendment and other people’s. I have one or two questions that I hope will help the extended debate, because I do not believe we can leave the most important question of competition, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

Before the noble Lord sums up on his amendment, I think the Minister has yet to reply on the issue of the police.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I apologise to the Committee; it is my novice inexperience. I thank the noble Lord for that intervention.

I turn to Amendment 40 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pidgeon and Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. Amendment 40 would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the impact of the Bill on the British Transport Police 12 months after its enactment. The BTP is governed by the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003, which is not affected by this Bill. Under the 2003 Act, the British Transport Police Authority is responsible for the efficient and effective policing of the railways and for maintaining the British Transport Police force. The authority sets annual budgets for the BTP and recovers the costs of the BTP from the rail industry—of course, now, notably, this is all paid for by government—by entering into police service agreements. The authority sets the funding contributions for each railway service provider via a cost allocation model to ensure that contributions reflect the services provided by BTP and cover its costs.

Under the 2003 Act, the Secretary of State has made an order which requires railway service operators, as well as Network Rail, to enter into police services agreements. This obligation applies equally to public sector operators and private sector franchisees, and I can confirm that all four existing operators under DOHL have a police services agreement in place.

In conclusion, there is no reason to believe that public ownership under this Bill would have any adverse impacts on the freight industry or the BTP, so I hope my noble friend will be persuaded to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for intervening earlier and preventing my noble friend responding on the British Transport Police issue, which is most important. I would like to ask him whether it applies to Scotland.

About 10 years ago we had a debate here when the Scottish Government wished the Scottish police to take over British Transport Police activities in Scotland. My noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester and I tried to argue—I think the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, was there too—that this was a bad idea because policing the railways is fairly specialist work, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, has told us. We ended up trying to divide the House at about midnight, which my Chief Whip at that time did not think was a particularly good idea because I had not told him about it. I pointed out that he was probably in bed asleep by then. Anyway, we did not win that time, but we did manage to achieve BTP having responsibility for railways in Scotland. It would be nice if my noble friend the Minister could explain how that will work under the new GBR system.

I will respond to my noble friend’s comments on the other issue, which is mainly about capacity and competition—whether it is freight, open-access operators or whatever. It was interesting that he said that the Government invested £4 billion in the east coast main line. That must have been in order to get an extra train per hour and a few other trains between Edinburgh and London. I am wondering who decided that it was a good thing to invest in the east coast main line to get more intercity services, rather than more freight or cross-country services. That it has not been delivered yet indicates that something else needs resolving, and we will have to see what that is.

The other issue is straight competition. I was not working on the railways before privatisation. I am assuming that Great British Railways in its 1990s shape had a number of divisions, as a noble Lord told us, including a freight division. That obviously worked very well at that stage, but when those in the freight division wanted another pass or two on a main line, I would hazard a guess that they had quite a job persuading the passenger people to move over a bit and give them space.

Great British Railways will be a monolith organisation. I am sure that underneath, it will have lots of subdivisions, which we will debate at some point. This will probably include the intercity services and regional services, and it will have to take into account open-access passenger and freight services. I cannot see how it will be able to demonstrate a fair allocation of paths when, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, mentioned, it will get all the extra revenue from an extra train if it is a GBR train, but no revenue apart from track access charges if it is an open-access train or a freight train.

This is a really serious and financially challenging discussion that we will need to have. I hope my noble friend will be able to respond in part to what I have said. I hope he will be prepared to meet me and anybody else who is interested in this competition issue before Report. I would like to see some wording in the Bill that would give open access passenger and freight some comfort that what goes in the next Bill will not send them over the edge. Could my noble friend respond to those points? I do not know whether he is prepared to.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will respond to my noble friend by either talking to him outside or writing to him.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 6 withdrawn.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

11: Clause 2, page 2, line 21, at end insert—
“(1D) The relevant franchising authority must ensure that any public service contract awarded under subsection (1A) includes provisions to mandate rest day working.”

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I rise to move Amendment 11 and to speak to the other two amendments in this group. This is very much a probing amendment to explore where the new railway structure is going to improve waste, delays and costs, which many people have attributed to strikes, go-slows and all the other things that they blame the trade unions for.

I have three examples. The first is to do with rest-day working, which I suffered the other weekend—three trains from Cornwall cancelled in a row. Other noble Lords present tonight have mentioned the cancellations due to rest-day working failures. I will quote from an email from First Great Western in reply to my complaint about sitting around for hours. It says:

“As you will be aware, while all new drivers who have joined the business in recent years have a Sunday commitment, the majority of high-speed drivers still do not. Without a change in terms and conditions we will remain reliant on volunteer overtime to cover Sundays”.


So it looks as though, in 20 years’ time, we will still have the same problem. I ask my noble friend the Minister what the Government intend to do to deal with this and to reach agreement with the trade unions. Of course they need time off—on the other hand, the passengers would like to have a train going at the weekend sometimes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for her intervention. In fact, I did not say that there was no need to sort out the terms and conditions now; I said there was no need to sort out the particular matter of how the overall pay and conditions might be dealt with, including with the pay review body. As a matter of fact, the employees would transfer under the transfer of undertakings regulations. At that stage, no change is possible on the transfer. That will need to be resolved and I am sure that changes are in fact needed, if only because, at least in my view, some of the existing train operating companies have failed to develop the terms and conditions in the way that they should have, both to operate a better service and to reward the staff more effectively.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who took part in this short debate. My amendment was a probing one, as I said, and I have no regrets about tabling it because we have learned a great deal this evening. It has been easier to blame what has gone wrong in the railways and the strikes in the last few years on the trade unions or even the present Government, but most of the passenger franchises that have been operated in the last 10 or 20 years have had Department for Transport puppet-string holders behind them, telling them what they can and cannot do, which is not the way to negotiate. Most successful negotiations take place on the background of a client, customer or owner who knows what they are doing and has done it before, and trade unions that also know what they are doing.

I am pleased that my noble friend has given us a progress report on where this is likely to go and I thank him for the information and for updating me on some things, but I hope that it will not be too long before we see an even better arrangement for the workforce, whether it is a workforce plan or whatever, including Network Rail workers. Then everybody could get their heads down and get on with providing a good service to the customers—which is, of course, what everybody wants. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 11 withdrawn.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I have Amendment 36 in this group, which has exactly the same purpose as the amendments from my noble friend on the Front Bench and my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, who has just spoken. All their points and those made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, demonstrate the potential value and benefit of having the legislative opportunity for publicly owned companies responsible to devolved authorities to be able to run rail services. If we do not have this, it can be only a public sector company owned by the Secretary of State. I was going to instance examples, but I think we have had so many that it is very clear.

The only difference between my amendment and others is the kind of authority appropriate to own a company which runs rail services. I fixed on mayoral combined authorities simply because of the relative capacity and their importance in the Government’s devolution agenda, and because it might commend that thought to the Government.

From my own experience, not least from being a Member of Parliament in a mayoral combined authority, I think it is increasingly important for the Government to recognise—which clearly they have put at the front of their argument—that the co-ordination of the railways is of the first importance, including ticketing, timetabling, provision of services and so on. In many of these places, as was amply demonstrated by earlier speeches, the co-ordination of transport services and of transport with planning and spatial development is equally important. If the Government go down the path of central control by the Secretary of State for every aspect of rail services, I am afraid that they will severely impede, in many significant areas of the country, transport and spatial development being conducted in the way that we would prefer it to be.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Snape’s Amendment 43 and will speak to many of the other amendments in this group. I support most of the statements that have been made from all parts of the Committee in this debate.

We have been talking about devolution for years. It started off as levelling up—and we can debate whether it was levelling up or levelling down—with the last Government. But the Labour Party has been very keen on what I would call devolution for a long time and has supported the mayors of Manchester, Leeds and the West Midlands in trying to get control of their transport services, as the noble Lord just said. It is equally important to be able to decide what services are provided and who pays for them.

One of the key things which we have been debating for some time is these so-called regional authorities being given a lump sum, if one likes, and told that they can spend it on transport and then be allowed to get on with it—let them decide, on the basis of local elections and local politics, what they want to provide. Everybody’s objective would probably be to see in the north and the Midlands a general quality of service compatible with and just as good as that provided in the south-east, around London. It is not all provided by TfL—although much of it is—and I think most noble Lords would say that it is very good. I do not understand why the Government do not go the whole hog and say that they will give these regions a lump sum, to be negotiated, and let them get on with it.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, asked whether Manchester could deliver. The answer is that it cannot deliver if Whitehall is in control. We have quite a serious problem here and I do not know what the answer is, except to say that I am convinced that some of the clauses we are debating tonight are counterproductive to what I thought the Government were trying to achieve.

What is the point of taking certain rail franchises into the public sector and turning them into something else if, next year, a Bill will give them a new franchise or concession? The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has not mentioned the word “concession” yet today, but I expect he will. Concessions are very good in some places, but the key is this: what is the point in making this massive change now and then coming back in a year or two to say that we will let the West Midlands run all local services—it can put them out to tender, and have the money to provide the service with the frequency and fares that it wants—and ditto in the north west and north-east?

We really need to know the final outcome planned by the Government before we can know whether the Bill will be helpful or not. If we make a change now and then another change in two years, the people who will be damaged are the passengers on the railway.

[Lord Gascoigne (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Moylan on Amendments 12 and 13 and I echo some of the great speeches in this group. As my noble friend said, it is right to ensure that, through some mechanism, the nations and regions are consulted, and, crucially, engaged, to ensure that they are brought into the decision-making process so that the service which eventually emerges is as effective as possible.

I am sure some will hark, yet again, that we are calling for more consultation and bureaucracy, but let us be clear: we on this side have always believed in devolution and power to the people. As my noble friend Lord Moylan said, the Government themselves have committed to the concept of devolution when it comes to transport. Therefore, is it not right that we utilise the opportunity to bring the Council of the Nations and Regions into discussions to ensure that we have the best services possible where there is overlap between the nations? Everyone is citing different quotes, but the PM said when the council was created that “we work as one team” and a “partnership”. If it is the view that that is too onerous, as I am sure the Minister will say, then we could at least try to engage the much- trailed but lesser-spotted envoy to the regions.

I support the noble Lord, Lord Snape, as I always do, in his Amendment 43. It calls for the Secretary of State to produce a report on whether a service could be devolved when it awards it to a public operator or renews a private franchise. That is wise and right, and I assume the case for doing so would be to assess the pros and cons for commuters, which we on this side of the Committee believe should be the focus of the reforms.

Supporting this amendment takes me back to what was said on day one of Committee on my amendments, when it was deemed that:

“Amendment A1, to which the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, spoke earlier, would create another bureaucracy”.


Later, this noble Lord hoped that the Minister would

“not get too bogged down in the bureaucratic desires of the party opposite”.—[Official Report, 21/10/24; cols. 433, 435.]

Who was so opposed to putting in a mere purpose clause, lest it be too bureaucratic? Lo and behold it was the one and only noble Lord, Lord Snape, who is now calling for an amendment to include a report when a rail service is awarded to a new operator. I welcome this Damascene conversion from the Labour Benches; I say yes to the noble Lord’s amendment but yes to Amendments A1 and 48A.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 43, in the name of my noble friends—

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I would be grateful if the Minister answered a couple of questions arising from the statement he has made, for which I am very grateful. He said that passengers do not want to be confused by different types of services and operators, but from talking to people who have been involved in TfL and Merseyrail, I get the impression that they think they are rather good. I am not sure they would agree that they would be better if they were run from London by some centralised organisation telling the people of Liverpool or Manchester how many trains they can run.

It all comes back to who actually gets the revenue from the train fares and who pays for the trains, which will probably affect what the local mayors can ask for. They might want to see more trains, but if they are going to have to ask central government for an extra train, that will get quite difficult. I do not think the Minister has answered the question of the money that will be saved through this amendment and the new structure. We have not seen how much money it is going to save or how much extra revenue it might generate. I look forward to his comments.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention. I do not disagree with him at all: those railway services are rather good. I did say that I was rather proud of the Overground, and from a distance I still am; it is a rather good service. However, there is a difference. Those services operate very largely within the Mayor of London’s geographical area, and the fares at the extremes do not differ. In Liverpool, I believe, they are wholly within the Liverpool City Region, but if not, the same applies. Consideration has to be given to consistency when the services stretch beyond those boundaries. That has been, and is capable of being, managed well.

The points my noble friend makes about who pays for enhancements—both the revenue costs of enhancements, and of extra trains if they are needed—and who gets the revenue from that are all subjects on which we are in harmonious discussion with the Mayor of Greater Manchester and Transport for Greater Manchester. It is possible to enhance railway passenger services in conurbations and elsewhere without having ownership of them, in circumstances where the proliferation of ownership may well create other costs. In the previous debate in Committee, I referred to the number of train crew depots in Newcastle. My recollection is that there are currently four, all of which have managers, supervisors and clerical staff. That is not the sort of proliferation of basic on-costs that we want to see in the rest of the system.

We are having a very practical discussion in Manchester about the eight lines that the mayor wants to specify. I suspect that, at the end of the day, when we reach an agreement, as I believe we will, the services the mayor wants will be presented as part of the Bee Network. I expect them to look consistent across Manchester, in the different modes that Transport for Greater Manchester controls. That is exactly the same effect as we had with London Overground and Merseyrail. We will have to bridge those gaps without creating further cost and confusing passengers.

Amendment 43, in the name of my noble friends Lords Snape, Liddle and Berkeley, requires the Secretary of State to produce an assessment of whether passenger services could be run by devolved authorities before any contract is awarded to a public sector company or any private sector franchise is extended temporarily by the Secretary of State. As I have said already, it is not our intention to devolve the operation of further services to local government as part of this process. Our intention is to end the failing franchise system and move to a public ownership model, which will then allow us more easily to reduce fragmentation and create a culture focused on delivering for passengers and taxpayers, not private shareholders.

It is deeply important that local leaders have greater influence over what services are run in their areas. That is why we are engaging with them to develop a statutory role for mayoral combined authorities in the rail network, which will become part of the wider Bill. As I have said, further devolution of services risks including fragmentation, but as I have also said, it is not ruled out by the Bill.

I turn to Amendments 12 and 13 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, which require the Government to consult with the Council of the Nations and Regions and the Prime Minister’s newly appointed envoy before transferring cross-border services to the public sector. This amendment is not necessary. The Government regularly engage devolved Governments on cross-border services. Both the Scottish and Welsh Governments are in favour of transferring rail services into the public sector, and we have worked collaboratively with Scottish and Welsh Ministers on the proposals in the Bill. Consultation will continue to take place as further services are transferred into public sector operation.

In addition, the Council of the Nations and Regions has been set up by the Prime Minister to foster positive collaboration with the devolved Governments. Clearly, we do not require a legislative amendment to encourage collaboration when the council exists to do just that, and I am sure that the newly appointed envoy will further facilitate that.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, referred to South Western Railway and in particular to the line between Salisbury and Exeter. I am confident that it will get better when South Western Railway comes into public ownership and we can get much closer liaison between infrastructure and operations and their management.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to Welsh ownership of infrastructure. I am not sure that she is right, bearing in mind our experience with the valley lines, in saying that they aspire to own the infra- structure, but the Bill would not prevent that.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, might want to note that Keith Williams, who he mentioned and who I mentioned on Monday, publicly endorsed the rail manifesto published by the Labour Party before the election. I will say no more about that.

With thanks to all noble Lords for this debate, I urge them not to press their amendments to this relatively narrow Bill, but I will reflect further on everything I have heard about devolution today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register.

I support Amendment 17, in the names of four eminent Members of your Lordships’ House. I hope that I will be forgiven if I also say that I declare the interest of having worked with the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, on these issues and duty of care and accessibility for many decades. In fact, we go back to the point when, as Minister for Sport, I approached the International Olympic Committee to ask it to consider ensuring that all the facilities used by a host city for the Olympic Games should immediately be used thereafter for the Paralympians. That was not just so that we could look at athletes and focus on their abilities rather than their disabilities, but to change the mindset of the population. A lot of what we have been talking about this evening is about changing that mindset. It is about changing attitudes: we cannot simply put in a statement of standards and allow it to gather dust; we must make sure that that statement of standards changes attitudes.

The Government have a great opportunity to include a statement of standards in this legislation. No party has a greater interest in accessibility than any other party. We all passionately agree across the Chamber about the importance of responding to the proposers of the amendment we are debating. This Bill is an opportunity to recognise that and move forward to a new level of recognition and understanding about what should be in a statement of standards.

All train operating companies should be committed to providing infrastructure and rail services to the highest standard of accessibility—that is the starting position—and customer service for all customers and stakeholders. There should be accessible travel policies outlining their approach to providing assistance to customers with restricted mobility or who require assistance, including those with visual or auditory impairments, learning disabilities and non-visible disabilities. This policy should be placed in a statement of standards and should be aligned to other legislation, such as the Equality Act and the Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 1998.

Passenger Assist is a national system supported by all train operating companies at the moment. I hope it will be supported in future, because it is vital that we arrange passenger assistance for disabled customers and those with restricted mobility. At present, national technical specifications for interoperability define technical and operational standards to ensure the interoperability of trains, not least into the European railway system, and must include accessibility standards for new stations or major work on existing stations. Let us embed that into a statement of standards. The Public Service Vehicle Accessibility Regulations ensure that vehicles used as rail replacement services are accessible. All involved should implement these standards for all new infrastructure, in addition to adopting innovation and best practice.

Level boarding is an incredibly important issue. All new train fleets being introduced should have a slightly lowered floor height compared with typical trains in the UK and should be provided with a retractable step to close the gap between the train and the platform. This would mean that all passengers should be able to board and alight without assistance, at all platforms, once the long-running transformation in this country is complete and all platforms have been brought into alignment. Let us embed that into a statement of standards.

I shall touch on two other things. The first is persons with reduced mobility national technical specification notices. At present, NTSNs define the regulatory requirements for infrastructure and trains, to ensure accessibility for people with reduced mobility. They include standards for the design, construction and maintenance of railway systems to make them accessible. Braille and prismatic signage at our major stations should be an essential feature and should comply with the PRM NTSNs.

On braille signs, let us take the situation in Wales. Braille signs should be in both languages; they should be in Welsh as well as English, aligning, in that case, with the Welsh Language Act’s commitment to preserving the language. This initiative not only supports the ethos of that Act but enhances accessibility for individuals with impaired vision. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, will agree with that.

Finally, there should be station design toolkits specialising in wayfinding requirements and colour schemes, to ensure consistency and accessibility. That includes principles for signage, fonts and colours, to create a high-quality station wayfinding system.

This Bill provides a unique opportunity to include a comprehensive suite of accessibility reforms and to introduce a standardised and consistent approach to accessibility standards across the railway network. All of us across the Chamber agree on the importance of the subject. Here we have a real opportunity to have a statement of standards of the highest possible quality enshrined in legislation. I look to the Minister and the Government to at least take that away and think about it as an important step forward that would gather support across the Chamber and respond to the worrying concerns that have been expressed by the noble Baronesses in Committee tonight.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very depressing debate—listening to the terrible problems that many noble Lords have had in using the rail network. It is wonderful that they have been able to expose them so widely. We have heard about them before, but it is depressing that we are in 2024 and they have not been solved already. All this could have been done years ago, without legislation and without any change. It just needs somebody to do it and to take responsibility for it. So the list of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is very good—all the lists are good. There are three things that I hope my noble friend will take forward.

There are three different elements to the GBR responsibility. One is the infrastructure—platforms. One is the trains—level boarding. The other is services—what people do or do not get at the stations. Most important is that the passenger standards authority, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, must be not only comprehensive, strong and fast but independent.

We have to think about how you can be independent of the Government and the railways, and still have credibility. I hope everybody can, but the Government will have to accept something that is independent, rather than something which takes backdoor instructions from Ministers who say, “Don’t get too strong on this, because it’s too expensive”.

We will have to watch this for a long time, but I congratulate other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate and exposed this, which should have been exposed a very long time ago.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I believe this is the most important group of amendments today because it has passengers at the core. I have added my name to three amendments because I am so convinced that the comment made earlier about the lack of focus on passengers in the current fragmented rail system has done so much damage to the rail industry.

When things go wrong—and things go wrong all the time—the train operators spend their time deciding whether it is their fault or Network Rail’s fault, instead of concentrating on putting it right for the passengers. To my mind, this is the obvious way ahead. I remind noble Lords that we live in an ageing society and the railway has to operate for all.

Not all disabled people are in wheelchairs. When I get on trains, I watch people who are capable of walking being helped by staff, or by other passengers, to get on the train because it is difficult. It must be made easier. Once it is made easier, you give people confidence; once you give them confidence, they become train passengers much more willingly.

I broaden it even further. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, referred to people who have a visual impairment—quite rightly. I wish to raise the issue of people with hearing impairment. I have 30% hearing. I wear hearing aids, which improve that considerably, but they do not bring me anything like up to normal standard. Unfortunately, one recent Saturday evening I was at Paddington station for over four hours, while no trains ran. Announcements were constantly given only over the loudspeakers. Every time a loudspeaker announcement was made, I had to go up to someone and say, “Can you just tell me what he said?” Of course, people were basically in a panic and they were not doing it clearly. Eventually they gave up and said that no trains would run to Wales at all that evening. But the point I am making is that, over four hours, that situation took no account at all of people who could not hear clearly.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, as I said last week when we debated a group of amendments about devolution of the railway, this is an issue that is dear to the heart of the Liberal Democrat Benches. We like nothing more than debating subsidiarity: what level is the most appropriate for different services and different decisions. I was not sure why it was felt that Amendment 47 was so significant that it needed to be debated separately rather than as part of the wider debate on devolution. I am still not 100% clear following the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.

Understanding how the public ownership of the railway will fit alongside London’s concessions for the overground, the Elizabeth line and Merseyrail, is something that I hope the Government can expand on as they develop their planning around Great British Railways. It is not ideal having this legislation in isolation from the larger Bill which we expect next year. I hope that the Minister can offer some warmer words today about future devolution, not just the limited existing devolved lines. We absolutely believe that our devolved institutions need to be able to run services in a way that serves the needs of local areas and local communities and integrates them with other public transport, rather than Whitehall taking back control. In London, devolution has enabled joined-up thinking on not only wider transport strategies but housing and economic regeneration, alongside an additional level of accountability and increased responsiveness. As we have already heard, Manchester is on the brink of its own equivalent to the overground, expanding its Bee Network to cover rail services.

I hope that the Minister can assure the House that devolution is part of the future of rail in this country and that this legislation will enhance the current situation rather than detract from it.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to add a few words to the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Baroness. I, too, get confused about what the Government’s long-term objective might be for devolution. There was an attempt a few years ago —I cannot remember whether the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, was in charge of the railways then, or London—to extend the network down to the south or south-east somewhere, and the Department for Transport opposed it for very many reasons that were probably quite good. All these issues will need discussing when we start talking about Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham and other big places.

I hope my noble friend can give some idea of who will be in charge of setting the fares; who will be in charge of running the timetable; what the access charges might be for the trains on the track—assuming that GBR will still be running the track; who controls it, and who can get decisions changed if they do not like it. In other words, who is in charge? It is very difficult to have a debate without knowing some of these basic facts. Whether it is a concession, or a franchise, or run by GBR, I hope that my noble friend can give us some further thoughts on where he thinks this is all going. If he cannot do so tonight, when will we hear a bit more so we can have a proper debate about the regional element with, I hope, lots of consultation?

[Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)]

My Lords, I rise in support of the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Moylan, in seeking some clarity and assurances about transport in London, as a result of the Government’s plans to renationalise our railways. Before doing so, I will remind your Lordships’ that I am the Leader of the London Borough of Bexley, which is an outer London borough, so many of my experiences are driven by that.

It would be helpful if the Government could set out the intended relationship between them and the Mayor of London and Transport for London, should the renationalisation go ahead. Will the mayor and TfL’s powers be impacted and, if not, who will advocate for those in outer London or, indeed, outside London? The recent introduction of the Superloop showed how the Mayor of London and TfL do not understand the needs of outer London, especially in places like Bexley, Bromley and Sutton where there is no Underground infrastructure. The original TfL proposal was to take the Superloop to Bexleyheath station, where it would have been difficult to turn around, instead of taking it to Abbey Wood, where the recently completed Elizabeth line is now operational.

Your Lordships will know that Sir John Armitt of the National Infrastructure Commission will tell you the value of linking up transport options—that is what we sought to do. Fortunately, TfL did agree to our suggestion, and there is now a cross-borough connection linking the main transport hubs—that is, apart from Bexley Village, where that discussion continues. The lack of any Underground stations—something that the first Mayor of London tried to find in Bexley—also means a dependency on cars, especially with a high percentage of elderly residents. The mayor’s introduction of ULEZ charges, as well as the threat of road user charging, is therefore very unpopular and, again, shows a lack of understanding. This introduction also impacted those who live outside the London borders so, if the mayor and TfL have greater powers over the train infrastructure, who will advocate for those who live outside London but use services in London?

I recall being a commuter in the days of nationalised train services. It was great fun jumping off the trains before they reached the platforms. While you can argue that technology and change would have brought about some of the improvements that we see nowadays, there is no guarantee that Governments of all colours would have invested the money to make those changes.

There is a lot to be said for holding to account through contracts and performance reviews. As we know, investment in transport can bring about housing delivery. That has definitely been the situation in Abbey Wood post the Elizabeth line, which is why we want the original business case to take the Elizabeth line to Ebbsfleet to be completed. We know that it will bring about regeneration in Bexley and elsewhere, and bring about some of that housing delivery that London desperately needs.

Another case of opportunity missed is the Docklands Light Railway. The Mayor of London and TfL are proposing to extend the DLR across the Thames to Thamesmead town, which is a dead end. Our suggestion is that, if it were extended to Belvedere, it would not only link to Southeastern trains but, with a quick change, to both the Elizabeth line and Thameslink services—coming back to Sir John Armitt’s point. We know that the Government will need to invest, but who will determine that priority?

In addition to future planning of services, there is also the question of accessibility. If the proposals go ahead, who will determine when we get step-free access at Erith, Falconwood and Albany Park stations?

I am afraid that I have posed more questions than answers, but they are legitimate questions that need to be answered if the residents are to be protected from the Mayor of London. I support my noble friend Lord Moylan’s amendment.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend on his Amendment 1 and will speak to Amendment 14 in my name. My noble friend very kindly referred to our debate on the same amendment in Committee. I note the reference in the Railways Act 1993 and that I see two merits in my noble friend’s amendment.

First, it is always a good thing for Bills to be clear about their purpose. Unless I am mistaking something, this amendment accurately reflects the Government’s purpose in this legislation. We may debate whether it will be successful or otherwise, but the purpose seems to be straightforward, and to have that in legislation is always helpful.

Secondly, because this Bill is essentially about amending parts of the Railways Act 1993 and nothing else, it is clearly subsidiary to the existing provisions of that Act, as amended. There are 10 general duties in that Act. The first is in Section 4(1)(zb),

“to promote improvements in railway service performance”.

My noble friend has accurately reflected the first of those 10 general duties, one of which we will come to debate in a subsequent group in relation to my amendment.

It seems to me that one of the abiding issues for public agencies, often including government departments, is the multiplicity of duties that are imposed upon them and the risk of conflict between those duties. Here, for these purposes, that would be clarified if it were made very clear that this important change to the way in which the provisions of the Railways Act are structured and to be used is to improve railway service performance. To raise that general duty in importance above the others would be helpful in clarifying the balance which the Government and the other agencies should take. I support Amendment 1 for that reason.

Amendment 14 refers to the new subsection of Section 30 of the Railways Act, inserted by the Bill, which provides that the provision of railway services can be made only via

“a direct award of a public service contract to a public sector company in accordance with regulation 17 … of the 2023 Regulations”.

Noble Lords will be aware of those regulations. Subsequently, the requirement for pre-award publication is disapplied by this legislation. However, paragraph (2) of Regulation 17 states:

“Where a competent authority makes a direct award of a public service contract under this regulation, the competent authority must, within one year of granting the award, and while ensuring the protection of commercially sensitive information and commercial interests, publish a notice on its website”.


The information required about the contract and the contractor is then listed in the regulation. Is one year right? Is it desirable that we should, in any circumstances, wait so long to be given information about the direct award of these contracts, given that they are instrumental to an understanding of whose responsibility it is to provide passenger railway services?

I have discussed my amendments with the Minister, and I am grateful for his time and that of his officials. I hope he has had a chance to think about my amendment and that, if he will not accept it, he will at least be able to tell us that it will be the Government’s intention to make new regulations quite soon, and in those new regulations to reduce to as little as three months after the granting of an award of a contract of this kind the publication of the notice and details. To assist later consideration, I say that it is certainly not my intention to press Amendment 14 when it is reached.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my Amendment 16, which is in this group. I am, as ever, grateful to my noble friend for sparing the time to talk about this. My amendment is designed to be helpful. It is designed from experience of previous railway legislation, in which we got bogged down in massive detail, with hundreds of amendments; we may get somewhere, but it takes longer.

Given the discussion that we had on a large number of subjects in Committee, and will probably have today on Report, I thought it would be useful to probe the Minister’s view of how long it will be before what I call the definitive Bill is published. If that is going to take until spring, as some of us have been told, it might be useful to publish a draft Bill or a draft Command Paper that we could read several months before and have the opportunity to debate. That might help us resolve what the real problems are and how to deal with them, rather than on the Floor of the House for many days in Committee and on Report.

That is the purpose of my amendment, and I look forward to my noble friend’s response. I am not going to press this amendment, but it will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on some of the themes that my noble friend Lord Gascoigne has been pursuing around reporting on performance. The Government seem to be a little reticent about being willing to accept amendments which increase reporting requirements. However, there is an important issue here: will public ownership do what the Government have promised it will and improve performance on the railways? I have my doubts about that. I think the challenges of the railways are much more complex and not about ownership but the complexity of our system.

I have a very simple question for the Minister. When you arrive in this House as a new Member, one thing that is very noticeable is the extraordinary level of expertise that exists on Benches on all sides. He brings a very considerable degree of expertise in this House after a long and distinguished career in the rail and transport sector. Can he set aside for a moment his ministerial hat and give us a professional judgment about the likely performance? To take a comparison, can he reassure us that the London Overground, for example, would perform better if run directly as a public body by Transport for London rather than being contracted out to a private operator as it is at the moment? Can he reassure us on that, for the precedents that will exist elsewhere?