Railways Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton. He was the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office when I was the Minister of State there for four years. He was an excellent civil servant, diligently and neutrally delivering our policies. He was also kind and helpful to me personally. I have always remembered that and will not forget it. I can tell the House that, under his leadership, and under my noble friend Lord Howard and I, the Home Office was fit for purpose then. I wish him well in the future.

Before younger Members of your Lordships’ House wax lyrical about the brilliant opportunities of a new British Rail, or older Members look at the past through rose-tinted spectacles, let me tell the House what the Government-owned British Rail was really like. I travelled on British Rail trains 60 to 70 times a year, from Penrith to Euston, from 1983 when I was elected, and they were the absolute pits. Never mind the jokes about British Rail sandwiches—which were true—they were symptomatic of a nationalised state-run monopoly: “This is the food. It may be rubbish, but so what? You’ve not got any choice”. The trains were clapped out and the organisation was corrupt—not financially corrupt, except that the communist train drivers’ unions got whatever they wanted, but politically corrupt. I recall many occasions when the train made additional stops because the Minister’s office phoned the department and the train made an unscheduled stop to pick up or drop off a Minister on the west coast main line. That was merely doing what they did in the Soviet Union, and it was done in this country until privatisation.

Privatisation was absolutely brilliant. We got Virgin on the west coast and GNER on the east. GNER revolutionised east coast main line services by elevating customer services, introducing premium on-board catering, refurbishing carriages, rolling out wifi and operating some of the fastest scheduled passenger trains in Britain. Virgin was an absolute godsend on the west coast main line. It got rid of the Government’s slum trains. Virgin completely transformed the line by introducing the Pendolinos and the Super Voyager trains. It expanded train lengths, improved stations and provided a wide range of quality food, and it grew passenger numbers from 8 million to over 42 million annually.

They were brilliant operators, but Virgin lost its franchise and GNER gave its up. Why? Basically, the Government got too greedy and demanded too much money from the companies. The common myth is that the shareholders of privatised train companies were making too much money, but it was the Government’s greed that brought them down. They demanded that GNER pay £1.3 billion for its franchise and achieve 10% growth—ludicrous demands from civil servants who had never run anything. They sacked Virgin because Virgin refused to accept long-term pension liabilities for railway workers. There are 350,000 retired railway workers on index-linked defined pension benefits. Who in their right mind would want to accept that liability? Avanti did, and provides a cheapskate service to cover the cost.

There was one big mistake made with privatisation and that was making the maintenance of the railway lines into a different company, rather than tying it to the train operators. Of course, the last Labour Government wound up Railtrack for bad financial management and said that the costs were out of control, with a massive £3.5 billion debt. Now that the costs for the rather slow-running HS2 are £30 billion, £40 billion, £50 billion or £60 billion—out of control—can we look forward to that company being put into administration also?

I have some questions for the Minister. Rather than throw more money at the rail unions, who have now got the Government over a barrel, will he actually invest in schemes to get level access on to our trains? I get it all the time in France, Germany and Switzerland, on many trains. In this country, the step up from the platform to the train is only about 12 inches—apart from Eurostar, where it is about three feet high, for some unknown reason. Will he look at three options? One is lowering the track bed, where it is possible to do so; the second, where the track bed cannot be lowered, as in Euston or St Pancras, is to look at raising platform heights; and the third is to do the research and buy two-tier trains, which they have on the continent. These trains are not any higher than ours overall but they have low-level access between the bogies. I am not demanding that at every station, but there are hundreds where lowering the track bed is possible at little cost.

I have used cripple assistance for about 15 years now. I pay tribute to the fantastic team at Penrith, who have never failed to get me on and off the trains, and the buggy drivers at Euston. Before anyone seeks a safe space from the use of my terminology, let me make it clear that I do not consider myself disabled, just a wee bit crippled. I hope that clarifies matters for everyone.

However, I ask the Minister to please make it simple if we phone in to get cripple assistance. Virgin had a dedicated number, but Avanti has one number for everything. After two and a half minutes of messages about the rail ombudsman, about strikes, about not travelling in hot weather or cold weather and why we should not be phoning in the first place, you have to press button 1, then button 3 and then button 1 again until you get through. Can the new British Rail have a simple online form and a direct phone line to book for assistance? I pick up my noble friend Lady May’s point. How much has it cost so far to repaint or redecorate the nationalised trains with the new British Rail logo? Why is it necessary to do it before the existing paintwork or decals are worn out or past it?

Let us look at other money that may be wasted. We have a demand from the London Underground tube drivers, surely the most overpaid and underworked people in London, that they and their partners get a 75% discount on all the new British Rail trains. That is another 8,000 people to add to the 350,000 railway pensioners and their partners, who also get the 75% discount. The 66,000 staff and partners working for the current train operating companies get free travel on their own lines and 75% discount on other lines. Not to be outdone, Network Rail has given all its 40,000 staff and partners the 75% discount also.

Of course, when all the train operating companies are nationalised, all 120,000 train staff and their partners will get either the 75% discount or, more likely, free travel anywhere in the UK at any time. We are heading to a situation where well over 1 million people connected to the railways will be getting free or 75% discounted travel to anywhere in the UK for the rest of their lives. Will the Minister confirm whether this perk will be extended to HQ staff for the new British Rail or to any DfT civil servants?

The current train operating companies supply food from businesses along the line, some better than others. I suspect we are heading to a government-approved, homogenised, healthy menu for all—no salt, no sugar, no calories, no flavour and no taste. That is a small point.

I conclude with my greatest concern of all: that there will be a drive to cut train running times. Well, I can save 30 minutes on the London to Glasgow run, if we do not stop at the smaller stations along the route, such as Wigan, Warrington, Lancaster, Oxenholme or Penrith, but just at Euston, Preston, Carlisle and Glasgow. That is not fanciful. We have already had some trains not stopping there in the last few years, and civil servants will force the new British Rail to extend it to more trains. They have done it with the privatised companies, and they will have a free hand with the nationalised ones to do even more of it.

I conclude that I have no great optimism that we will enter a brave new world of better rail travel in the UK once we have the dead and incompetent hand of the Government running it.