Railways: Newcastle and Edinburgh

Lord Rosser Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

It is the Government’s policy that trains should operate as safely as possible, and certainly it will be necessary to have a guard on board some services. However, on shorter routes it is not necessary to have a guard. Having a train driver who is also responsible for opening and closing the doors is perfectly acceptable.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness referred to more open access services coming up. I think she said that they would be operated by FirstGroup, but if I misheard her, I am sure that she will correct me. Does that mean that the Government already know that the Williams review, which is currently looking at the structure of the industry, will advocate the increased or continuing use of open access, which suggests that the noble Baroness already knows what the response of the Williams review on that point is going to be?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

We do not know what the Williams review is going to say on that or indeed any other point, but it will be a root-and-branch review of the entire system so that we can create a railway system fit for the 21st century and build up a blueprint of how our future on the railway will look. The review will look at reforms to the structure of the industry as well as to the commercial model within which it operates. Some 600 responses have been made to the call for evidence, so noble Lords will understand that it will take quite a while to go through them all. As regards the new services on the east coast main line, that was an open process conducted between 2014 and 2015. The operator has been granted track access rights from 2021 to operate those services.