Nationalised Passenger Rail Services

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Moylan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what performance improvements have been delivered by nationalised passenger rail services since 28 November 2024.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, public ownership is a vital step towards reforming our railways and rebuilding trust and pride. On average, publicly owned train operators perform better on punctuality and cancellations than those yet to come under public ownership. They are already delivering improvements, with lower cancellations on the TransPennine Express and Northern, and South Western quadrupling the number of new trains entering service. I expect all operators, both public and private, to deliver good performance for passengers.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, when the figures were published a month ago, cancellations were reported to have risen by around 50% on South Western services in the months following nationalisation in May last year, alongside a marked increase in delay minutes and late arrivals. Clause 18 of the Railways Bill places a duty on the Secretary of State to promote high standards of railway service performance. Can the Minister explain how the Government intend to incentivise and enforce those standards in practice, given that the proposed passenger standards authority appears to have no direct enforcement powers and the Office of Rail and Road’s remit in this area is being restricted?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The discussion on the forthcoming Railways Bill will happen in this House in due course. Meanwhile, the Government are pursuing reliability very strongly. If a train company is left, by a combination of the previous Government and the previous operator, desperately short of drivers, with 83 of 90 new trains parked in sidings for nearly five years, it takes a bit of time to recover from that position. That position is being recovered from, in respect of South Western. More than 30 of the new trains are now in service, and two-thirds of the drivers have now been trained to drive them. That takes time. It should have been done before, but it is now being done by this Government.