Railways Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 16th September 2026 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Moylan]

63A: Schedule 2, page 70, line 30, at end insert—
“(f) innovation and the adoption of new and improved technology in relation to railways and railway services.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would allow the Secretary of State’s funding objectives for Great British Railways to include objectives relating to innovation and the adoption of new technology.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 63A I will speak to other amendments in my name in this group.

Before I start, I express my gratitude to the Minister, not only for the very fine cushion he has provided me with for the course of Committee today, to match his own, but for the meeting he gave me yesterday, in which we discussed the general functions of Great British Railways, a subject that came up on the first day in Committee, when the noble Lord offered that meeting. I discovered in that meeting that the question of GBR’s functions is a great deal more complicated in the noble Lord’s mind even than we discovered when we debated it here. I discovered that there are functions of GBR that are not functions, and that some activities of GBR are subject to the Secretary of State’s direction while others are not. I cannot force the noble Lord, and I would not want to, but I wondered whether he wishes to take, at some point—not necessarily today—an opportunity to introduce into our debates in Committee a reprise to some extent of what was debated rather messily on the first day. We would then have his whole view of the question set to music, so that we can all understand it. I leave that thought for the noble Lord to take up if he wishes.

In this group, I will start with Amendments 63A, 91A and 116A, all of which are related to innovation. It is only a few years ago that people in the industry were debating what a digital railway would look like—what would that expression mean? Everything was very forward looking. But I look in this Bill, which is about the future of the railways, and I find nothing at all about innovation. I find no obligations on the part of Great British Railways to innovate, no policies directed towards innovation, no mandate on the Secretary of State to include innovation in the long-term rail strategy, and so forth. That is missing.

I do not want to be too difficult about this, but it is part of the general pattern of this Bill, which is very “back to the 1970s”—a theme of this Government under Mr Burnham. He has made that very clear. We could go back to the 1970s technologically as well, but I do not think that is the Government’s intention, although there is no intention here to make any progress. So these amendments, which I will not go into in detail, are tabled with a view to encouraging the noble Lord to make a statement about the Government’s intentions and how they might be reflected in the Bill in any changes he might bring forward later in Committee or on Report.

Amendments 330D and 330E have been put forward by techUK. It is anxious about the information and data gathered and generated by Great British Railways, and it wants to ensure that that data is in the public domain and is transparent. I hope the noble Lord will have no difficulty in accepting that principle—completely free and open access—because that, after all, is the policy he introduced for TfL data when he was commissioner. It led to an explosion in apps in the private sector, some of which turned out to be very useful to members of the public—some fell by the wayside, but that is the way of technological development—helping them find their buses, connect their trains to the buses, make the most intelligent choice of door to get on the Tube in order to make a quick exit, and so forth. All these things are done in the private sector, and they are possible only if the data is provided. So that commitment to completely open data, and its inclusion in the Bill, would be extremely helpful.

Amendment 330E, also suggested by techUK, is about smart data schemes in which rail planning and integrated ticketing are identified as candidate use cases. The rail data marketplace itself falls within scope of the work. This amendment is intended to ensure that the relationship between the two is resolved and reported and would commit the Government only to considering their own policies. Again, I hope that it would be easy for the Government to accept this amendment.

Finally, Amendment 89A is on a slightly distant subject—but that is the way our groupings often work—and is to do with steel. The Government have shot British industry in the foot by imposing tariffs on imported steel. That is the policy they have gone for. It is reminiscent of the 1970s, I might say, and would not have been possible, naturally, had we stayed in the European Union. It is a Brexit bonus, as far as the Government are concerned.

This amendment responds to the Government’s new steel trade measures, which came into force on 1 July this year. Those measures reduce the overall tariff-free steel import quota by 51% compared with the previous safeguard regime and impose a 50% tariff by value once the relevant quota is exhausted. In other words, there is much less tariff-free steel available to British industry, and the tariff on that which comes in is higher than it was before. All very bad news.

One of the Government’s central arguments for the creation of Great British Railways has always been that bringing the railway together would reduce costs. The Government say that their reforms on the railway will secure more than £1 billion in savings and efficiencies by the end of the decade. For the railway, the Government’s own document on the UK’s steel trade measure, from 1 July 2026, specifically identifies product category 19 as “railway material”. That is significant, because Network Rail has already contracted almost 450,000 tonnes—that is, European tonnes—of rail over the five years to 2000, including at least 78,000 tonnes from Germany and 8,500 tonnes from Austria. Network Rail has said that these European suppliers are important for specialist products and security of supply—of course they are. The issue here is where GBR needs imported railway steel to maintain, renew and improve the network. Should the taxpayer bear an additional 50% cost simply because the relevant quota has been exhausted?

The amendment would exempt steel imported specifically for GBR railway infrastructure from that additional tariff. It should therefore, and I imagine will, be welcome to the Minister and to everyone in the railways. I hope the Minister will explain why the taxpayer, who will be paying for GBR, will also have to pay higher costs due to a separate and distinct government policy. I hope he will explain that he is willing to take this opportunity to remove that difficulty. With that, I beg to move.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to make the first contribution from the cushion-less seats—perhaps that will change for me when we get to day 4 of Committee.

I congratulate the Minister on everything he did when he was in charge of TfL on innovation and the smart use of data. There is nothing smart about data in itself; it is the uses we put data to that make it smart. That is what is behind my two amendments and those to which my noble friend has eloquently spoken in this group. When the Minister was in charge of TfL, he transformed how the network ran and, critically, the passenger and user experience. His legacy lives large today on that network.

But when we come to this Bill, we do not see very much of that at all—there is nothing that is even a distant echo of what was achieved at TfL—so my amendments are somewhat probing but also offer some solutions. Amendment 130 seeks to put a technology and innovation imperative on GBR. I have set up some technologies but the key when drafting amendments and indeed legislation is to be tech-neutral, because by being tech-neutral we have a good chance of being tech future-proofed.

Whether it concerns passenger safety, passenger experience or the efficient running of the rail network itself, you would imagine that all forms of AI would have a role to play. My second amendment, Amendment 329, goes to the heart of the issue of cyber. We currently have a cyber Bill in your Lordships’ House, but I would really like to see specific cyber requirements across the slate of legislation coming through. Otherwise, how will we have a sense that something as critical as the rail network has the protection and the posture it requires in the face of the key cyber risks? Those risks are here today; this is not something for tomorrow. Surely that must be a key consideration and function, or perhaps direction, for GBR, because without it, we will leave the railways open or with optionality to take a view on this. Cyber is critical, so there should be something in the Bill to this effect.

This is perhaps even more significant than the other technology and innovation amendments in this group. I look forward to the Minister’s response to them all.

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

My Lords, I should first say that I am not buying any more cushions—I have bought enough cushions. Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to a discussion yesterday about the functions of Great British Railways. I will write to him with the views that I conveyed in a speech yesterday and to other Members, and place a copy in the Library, so that we are all clear about what the Government believe to be the case. Thirdly, today the Government published a paper on the long-term rail strategy, which will be particularly beneficial for this Committee. It was published this morning.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will interrupt the Minister, if I may. Of course, it is welcome that a paper has been published today, but I had no idea about this. In an hour or so, this Committee will be debating the long-term rail strategy, completely blind to this new paper. The Government’s timetable for approaching this, which I complained about strongly at Second Reading, is of trying to push through the legislation when Parliament is blind to so many of the policy documents. Many are due in the spring of next year, even after we have enacted the legislation. The Government should think about the extent to which they are abusing parliamentary process and Members of this House.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The publication today is designed to be helpful and I will refer to it in today’s discussion. Since it was only published today, my remarks will include those elements of it that otherwise might not have been available, had it not been published today.

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I hope I have answered noble Lords’ points. I encourage them not to press their amendments.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, on the question of steel, the Minister said that the amount of steel that is going to be subject to tariffs is relatively small—I think that was the expression he used. Is he willing, after this meeting of the Committee, to put in writing to members of the Committee some assessment of the cost to Great Britain over the next, say, four or five years of the tariffs on steel? In other words, how much of the steel expected to be imported from abroad falls under the tariff-free quota and what value does not and therefore attracts a tariff of 50%? If the Minister is willing to put that in writing, it would be extremely helpful to Members of the Committee.

On the other amendments, it is marvellous that there is such unanimity across the Committee about the importance of all these issues: technological innovation, cyber security and the sharing of data and the advantages that flow from that. The pity is only that the Government believe that we can rely on their assurances in this regard rather than having matters specified in the Bill. It is not that I do not believe the Minister and the assurances he gives, and indeed the assurances he gives at the Dispatch Box have a certain value. However, in the case of creating a hugely powerful monopoly with interests of its own and the most exiguous accountability to the Secretary of State and Parliament, the bar is higher for accepting assurances that everything is going to be fine when it is implemented and for the years that follow. Therefore, I think it may well be the case that noble Lords, when we return to this question on Report, will wish to retable some, at least, of these amendments, if the Government have not found it possible in the interim to give way on some of them and offer written assurances in the Bill, such as we are looking for. However, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 63A withdrawn.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank all noble Lords who have spoken and the Minister and his team for their response. I will just make a comment or two. I am in such awe of the Minister’s extensive knowledge of railways that I always find his replies in these meetings very comforting. It is only when I walk away and start rereading them that I think, “Hold on”. I will be coming back to these issues on Report. That is a warning, not a threat.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, used a word that I had not used but will incorporate into my thinking: “vulnerability”. I think that that is what we are talking about with all these things. He is so environmentally aware that it is fantastic. It was good to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, said about corridors in other countries. It comes back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, said, that none of this is new. We can do this. We have examples that we can take from other countries and even other railways.

Prince Philip once said to me—quite unkindly, I thought—that the problem with us Greens was that we never gave anyone else any credit for what they did. I took that to heart, because we do not. We think that other people never go far enough. It is never enough. We always want more. The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, was absolutely right to say that Network Rail has been doing stuff—I really should accept that. The fire risks and the flooding are things that we really need to keep down.

To the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, of course this all should have started 10 years ago—or 20, or 30, or 40. We have known about the climate crisis and its approach for well over 50 years. We should have been thinking ahead then, but we were not. This goes back to what the noble Lord, Lord Harper, was saying. Yes, the Tories were better in some ways, but they are regressing now. Had they listened to the Green Party, HS2 would not have started where it started and we would not have had the bat tunnel fiasco. Please remember that the Greens were right back then and we are right now.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

Briefly, although I was not here for most of—

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

No, you did not hear—oh, you did.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I did hear the noble Baroness’s opening speech, actually, and I just heard her remarks. Briefly, one of the reasons why we were not concerned about the climate crisis 50 years ago was that we were being told by scientists then—and it was on the front page of the Economist, which I used to read assiduously every week—that we were about to enter a new ice age. That was the consensus then and that was the Green Party’s view of what we should be worrying about. The noble Baroness should not rewrite history to claim omniscience and always being right. What happened to the ice age, by the way?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I disagree very strongly with the noble Lord. If he had been listening to me back then, he would have heard me, and I did not talk about an incipient ice age.

Let me get back to my comments. To the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, of course the welded rails are part of the problem and I am absolutely delighted that she does not have a lot of noise from the railway going past her house. The fact is that we need to reduce diesel. I was disappointed that she could not fully support what I was saying, but I thank her anyway.

In response to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, this is not about putting everything in the Bill; this is about thinking about a future for humankind. This is directed to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, as well, with whom I will have a word later. I am not trying to save nature for nature’s sake; it is because we rely on nature for our human existence. I do not understand why people just do not get that connection: no bees, no food, no humans. I am not saying that nature is more important than humans; I am saying that it is important for humans. I was surprised that the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, supported anything I said. That is rather nice.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to my stand part notice opposing Clause 20. A duty is being placed on the Office of Rail and Road that I do not understand, which is about promoting competition. I am trying to probe exactly what the Government mean by the ORR’s duty to “promote competition”. I am concerned that there is a lack of clarity here between promoting competition and regulating competition. The ORR already has a role in regulating competition under the Railways Act 1993, but Clause 20 appears to give it a separate duty to promote competition. I would like to understand what exactly that means in practice and why it is necessary.

This is not an issue that I will bring back on Report, because I cannot quite put enough passion into it, but we see that there is potential tension here because the ORR has a number of other responsibilities, including safety, access and economic regulation. The areas in which it is required to promote competition include important parts of the railway’s network services. I would like the Minister to explain how this new duty will interact with those other responsibilities. In particular, if there is a conflict between promoting competition and another statutory duty or the Government’s rail strategy, which takes precedence? I am not convinced that we need a general duty on the regulator to promote competition in the Bill.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

If I may help the noble Baroness—of course, I might be as lost as she is—the effect of Clause 20 is in fact to remove the competition duty of the ORR from everything in subsection 1, paragraphs (a) to (g), which is basically everything, more or less.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for explaining that to me. I would like to hear that corroborated by the Minister, if he would. This one obviously needs safeguards and so on.

My Amendment 331 is quite specific, but it raises two important questions about what we consider to be competitive parts of the railway. The first is rolling stock. We discussed on the first day the question of bringing rolling stock into public ownership. The Office for National Statistics is also considering the accounting treatment of rolling stock companies, including whether their leases should ultimately appear on the public sector balance sheet. I do not want to rehearse that whole debate here, but it is worth asking whether treating rolling stock as a competitive market should simply be taken for granted.

If the Government’s ambition is to create a genuinely integrated railway, which I hope it is, there may be circumstances where intervention in the rolling stock market is necessary. Removing rolling stock from this particular competition provision would at least allow that policy question to be considered without assuming that competition must always be the organising principle.

The second issue is passenger information systems. I would like the Minister to explain exactly what is meant by these systems in this legislation—if not, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, could help me out. This provision dates back to the Railways Act 1993, when the technology and structure of the railway were very different. If we are talking about the digital systems that allow information to be shared across the rail network, there is a strong argument for treating them as essential railway infrastructure. That would not necessarily prevent competition in ticket retailing or other services, but the underlying information infrastructure needs to work across the network. Can the Minister therefore clarify what systems are covered by this provision and why they need to be treated as a competitive market?

My Amendment 332 raises a broader question about the position of competition regulation within the new railway. As I understand it, the effect of this provision is that the ORR’s competition functions under Section 67 of the Railways Act 1993 will continue to apply to Chapter 2 of Part 1 of this Bill. However, the Bill also establishes a rail strategy and a set of general duties for Great British Railways, so I want to understand how these things fit together. If the ORR is applying competition regulation to the new strategy framework, could that regulation prevent GBR implementing something that is otherwise consistent with the rail strategy and its general duties, and, if so, which takes priority?

We have heard arguments that the ORR’s role is being reduced under this Bill, but this provision seems to leave it with significant powers in relation to competition. I would like us to be clear about where the balance lies. Are we creating a new railway strategy, which GBR is expected to deliver, while simultaneously giving the regulator the ability to intervene where it considers competition requirements have not been met? If that is the intention, the Government should explain how conflicts between those objectives will be resolved. I am not arguing against regulation where it is needed, but I question the idea that competition should be an end in itself. The purpose of the railway should be to serve the public, and competition should support that purpose rather than take priority over it.

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[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

If he can bear it—exactly. It is a joy to have him here, but it really is interesting hearing him describe the Docklands Light Railway and Crossrail, and the economic growth those railways brought to those parts of London and further afield. It is a really interesting point: the Office of Rail and Road should recognise the economic geography of the country, as well as the economics of the railway. His point about the impact of High Speed 1 and the fiasco in parts of Kent explains this issue really well. I hope the Minister might be sympathetic to that point. Although there may be issues in finding a way to develop that, it is a really important area that this whole new Great British Railways should look at as we go forward. I look forward to the Minister’s reflections on these points.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group dealing with different matters. I may take slightly longer than my customary brevity, because I also wish to speak to some amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Lansley, to which I have put my name. They are not those to which my noble friend Lord Harper has spoken, because there is no need for me to repeat what he has said, but there are others that have not been addressed.

Before I come to those, I turn to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng. I understand very much what he is saying. During the 2012 Games, I was chairman of the Olympic park, and it was a great ambition and hope of mine that we could, at some stage, get Eurostar trains to stop at Stratford International station, which is on the line and was available to do that, in the interests of promoting growth and regeneration in Newham and that Olympic park area. It was hopeless: there was never any chance of doing it and no interest whatever on the part of Eurostar, which was a great disappointment and an opportunity missed. To be frank, there is little point in that station if those trains do not stop; I know that the Javelin trains stop, but it is a bit pointless in a way. We need the Eurostar to stop.

Then I moved on and, later, I was a member of the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation for three or four years, and we did have trains that stopped. That was absolutely marvellous. We had not only the Javelins, so that you could get to Ebbsfleet in 19 minutes from St Pancras—as I used to do to go to board meetings—but the Eurostar trains. I think they did not stop at Ashford, which is what the noble Lord mentioned, but they stopped at Ebbsfleet until Covid came along. Without a doubt, Covid was why they stopped stopping at Ebbsfleet, but Eurostar took that opportunity never to resume.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, suggests that this is inevitably all driven by commercial considerations and a railway company’s choice of where to stop its trains to maximise its revenue. The implication is that if the Government want to do something and make use of these stations, to get the sort of advantages that the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, referred to, they need to provide some subsidy or something of that sort.

Actually, the new competitor, whoever it may be, who wants to provide a service, needs a depot in London. The only person who is working hard—I know this for a number of reasons—to secure that depot in the Walthamstow area is the Minister. I do not think he needs to supply subsidy to achieve his aims; he has leverage, and we should use that leverage to secure the economic and connectivity benefits we have built the stations to secure. So, I have considerable sympathy with the thrust of what the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, said. If the Minister does not accept this precise amendment, I hope he will show some gumption about this and try to get something done.

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[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I am delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, is speaking to her amendment—and committing herself to hearing my speech and that of the Minister.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I will relax and take my time, then.

Passengers’ journeys are very rarely just a train journey—there might be a bus to a station, a train and then another bus, or tram, or whatever—and if those parts of the journey do not connect properly, the whole journey becomes more difficult. I know this from personal experience. A missed connection, a long wait, separate tickets or poor passenger information can all make public transport less attractive. The National Transport Survey found that for England in 2023, 50% of public transport trips were across more than one type of public transport. That is why integration is one of the strongest levers we have for getting more people to choose public transport.

The Railways Act 1993 included a duty on the Secretary of State and the regulator to contribute to the development of an integrated transport system, and that duty has now been dropped. Amendment 128 would put some of that principle back into the Bill, by requiring the Secretary of State and GBR

“to promote the integration of railway passenger services with—(a) bus and coach services, (b) tram and light rail, and (c) micromobility.”

I also support Amendment 105 from the noble Lord, Lord Beith, which approaches the same issue from within the railway strategy. It specifically talks about improving connections and co-ordinating timetables, ticketing and passenger information, and includes ferry services. The two amendments complement each other rather well. One establishes integration as a duty, while the other sets out some of the practical things integration should mean for passengers. This is not just about making journeys more convenient; if we want people to make more journeys by public transport, the whole journey needs to work.

I ask the Minister why this duty to integrate transport has been removed from the Bill, and what will replace it. Will GBR have a clear responsibility to work with local and regional transport authorities to improve connections between different modes? Will the Government consider putting some of the practical elements in Amendment 10 —timetables, ticketing and passenger information—into the statutory framework? We have an opportunity here to create a railway that works as part of a wider public transport network, rather than as a system operating on its own. That should be one of the purposes of GBR from the very start.

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[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 92 would require the rail strategy to cover a 30-year period. At the start of this session, the Minister talked about a paper published today on the strategy. I have not seen it or received any email about it, and I am completely up to date on my inbox. I would have hoped that officials could have sent that to us before we had come in today, so I would be grateful if that could be sent round to noble Lords who are working on this Bill so we can look at that.

So, without having seen what was published today, which may do exactly what I want, I say that this rail strategy should cover a 30-year period. I am sure that noble Lords will be only too aware that an organisation such as Great British Railways, with its vast infrastructure and multiple services to deliver—including the growth in rail freight and, we hope, in passengers—is complex. Different parts of the railway will have different needs for investment and decisions on rolling stock, electrification, station modernisation, workforce planning and passenger experience. They simply cannot be taken on short political cycles.

The rail strategy needs to ensure that it meets the needs of every part of the country. Rural communities are not always well served by the railway, and they need to be considered fully as part of a long-term 30-year strategy that will provide the vision and the clear steps to make that vision a reality. I hope the Minister will consider my amendment and its request carefully.

Other amendments in this group require consultation with lots of organisations as part of the strategy development. Surely, any good organisation will do that, and I would hope that the Minister can assure us of that.

As the discussion has shown, Amendment 105, from my noble friend Lord Beith, is very important. It highlights the importance of integrating the railway with other modes of transport and ensuring timetables align. If you want people to buy tickets, which then can move on to include bus travel and so on, the co-ordination infrastructure needs to make this easy. As we have heard, the bus, the ferry or whatever, should not be leaving three minutes before the train arrives. That, to me, is part of the added value of Great British Railways, whether it is the model I support or not. What difference are you making to people’s onward travel? What difference will this new structure make? That co-ordination is important. The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, makes a similar point and I hope we will hear something positive from the Minister on that.

The noble Lords, Lord Parkinson and Lord Faulkner, who have a special interest in heritage railways, made their points clearly, and I hope we can hear a positive response on that.

The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, supported by my noble friend Lady Brinton, is so important and would be part of this 30-year strategy as I see it. It should not be rocket science to be able to book the tickets and the support you need to use the railway in one simple way. This should be part of a programme and strategy. The debate about mobility aids is really important. E-scooters, as in the two-wheeler devices that many people use, were banned on buses in London. The very next day, I had people with mobility scooters who were unable to get on buses in Kingston because this rule had been interpreted wrongly. That was affecting disabled people’s ability to use public transport to get about their everyday business, so it is really important that this be looked at.

This has been a really good debate, and I know the Minister has a strong track record in some of this. I look forward to hearing his response and to whether he will support this 30-year strategy.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, has said, but I will go a great deal further. I am genuinely very angry. We are here today to discuss the long-term rail strategy. Looking at the groups coming up, I think I am right in saying that this is our only opportunity directly to discuss the long-term rail strategy, and yet the Minister has announced that a new document has appeared today setting out the parameters, I believe, and the instantiation of the long-term rail strategy. I am a little further advanced than the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, because I now have access to it on my iPhone. It is a lengthy PDF document which I find very difficult to read, with my eyesight, on my iPhone. It is worse than useless; none the less, I at least have a link to it now. We do not know what it says, and the Minister said during an earlier group that he hopes to give us, in the course of debate, an idea of what it contains, but he is speaking last. We will have the debate, and only then will we get the summary of what the document contains; and after that we will, over the next few days, have an opportunity to read it. This is completely contemptuous of the Committee, and I am genuinely very angry about it.

As far as the debate we have had is concerned, one is obviously very sympathetic to the horrendous stories told by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. One is supportive of the heritage rail industry in general, though I note that, unlike the long-term rail strategy, we will return to have another debate on heritage rail later on.

The speech by my noble friend Lord Grayling was also very wise. Are we moving to a monopoly? At the moment, 25% of rail movements will not be GBR. What is the target for that? What is the vision? Some 20 years from now, is GBR going to be doing 80% or 85%? Are the private sectors being squeezed out, as my noble friend said, or is the target for them to be doing less? What is it? We do not know what the future will hold. We are giving all these powers to Great British Railways with very few constraints and checks, and we do not know where they are taking us.

I refer briefly to the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, to which the noble Lord, Lord Harper, spoke. I do not need therefore to say what it contains, but it essentially requires a form of parliamentary scrutiny of the long-term rail strategy before it is adopted. I want to particularly refer to that because my Amendments 96A and 97A have both been drafted in the light of recommendations of the Transport Select Committee in the other place; I have had an opportunity to discuss them with its chairman. The first amendment refers not to the parliamentary scrutiny of the long-term rail strategy, because that has been dealt with by my noble friend Lord Lansley’s amendment, but to what happens when changes are made to that strategy.

The thrust of the amendment, and very much the view of the Transport Select Committee, is that those changes should be subject to a similar form of parliamentary scrutiny as the original document. The fear that the Transport Select Committee has expressed is that the long-term rail strategy, because it can be changed by the Secretary of State, will become what it thinks of as a series of short-term rail strategies, which is of course no strategy at all; it is simply lurching from one plan to another in the light of the money made available by the Treasury. Putting some form of check on the Secretary of State, so that those changes have to be considered equally, is an important consideration in Amendment 96A.

Amendment 97A is again from the Transport Select Committee. The committee specifically recommended that mayoral strategic authorities

“should be statutory consultees on the Long Term Rail Strategy”.

Evidence to that committee described their absence as

“a little bit out of kilter”,

with the Government’s wider ambitions for devolution. Surely Scottish Ministers, the Mayor of London and mayors across England should have a formal opportunity to contribute when it is prepared, revised or replaced. The Government say they want greater devolution and these amendments would give effect to that.

Amendment 100 is similar. The British Transport Police has unique expertise in the safety and policing aspects of running the railway. There should surely be an obligation on the Government to formally consult the British Transport Police—and the chief constable, in fact—about the long-term rail strategy.

Amendment 98, which is not in my name but in that of my noble friend Lord Lansley, has a similar effect in relation to the Office of Rail and Road. Should not the Office of Rail and Road be consulted about the long-term rail strategy before it is prepared and published?

Amendment 102 would strengthen the obligation of GBR in relation to the long-term rail strategy. At the moment, GBR is required to “have regard to” the objectives set out in that strategy. My amendment would improve on that and require it to “seek to achieve” those objectives, so there is a strong sense of direction from the Secretary of State embodied in the long-term rail strategy.

Those are my amendments in relation to the long-term rail strategy. None of them is revolutionary. All of them make it more effective and more relevant and I hope the Government will be able to accept them, but I cannot sit down without repeating that there is something of a farce involved in having this discussion when the Minister is now going to explain what it is we have been discussing.