Passenger Standards Authority

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

We will see when the time comes whether the new passenger standards authority is set up in time to deal with that question, but I am glad the noble Lord raised the east coast main line timetable, because it is one of the justifications for having a guiding mind for the railway. Our nation invested over £4 billion in upgrading the east coast main line, and it has taken several years to achieve a situation where a timetable which is remotely acceptable to all the operators and passengers, even though it has detractions in some places, was capable of being put into effect. It is a startling exposition of the fact that there is no controlling mind that the person who in the end took the decision to put that timetable in was me.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister persuaded that when the consultation document on the future of the railways is published, which I hear might even be this week, it will have a convincing explanation of how Great British Railways is going to reconcile the inherent conflict of interest that exists between its role as a passenger service operator on the one hand and its position as a strategic authority, allocating paths and resources to freight, open access operators and others, some of them in direct competition with it, on the other—or is that the issue that has been holding up its publication for so long?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right: I promised him it would be ready in December. I was advised by a colleague here that I did not say which December, of course, but, as I said, it is imminent. The question that he asks is germane in a mixed-use railway, and not a question unique to this network at all. It is a question which in various forms has been a question for all railway operators for as long as there has been freight, express passengers and so on. It is clear that a controlling mind will have to have some criteria to allocate access, and those criteria will have to form the basis of decision-making. It is also clear that because there are third parties on the railway, they should have a right of appeal. The document that I am referring to, which will be published imminently, will deliver a proposed solution to those issues.