Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Lord Snape and Lord Ranger of Northwood

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, and I agree with every word she said. I will be very brief.

The dystopian world that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, outlined is not one that I would have thought would appeal to most people. He mentioned driverless motor cars, but so far San Francisco is the only city, I think, where driverless taxis—confined to a fairly small part of the city—actually work. As we all know, San Francisco is the sort of place that experiments with all sorts of things. Those driverless cars have not really appealed to most other countries, and whether they will do in the future remains to be seen.

The noble Lord says that with driverless cars, the road network will be much less congested. If they are going to be the only way to get around, it is hard to imagine that the road network will be less congested. The roads will be even more crowded than they are at the present.

Returning to the railway network, we have about 12,000 miles of railway, much of which was built by the Victorians. Will we tear up all those tracks to install the necessary equipment to enable trains to be driven without a driver? That is undesirable, as the noble Baroness correctly pointed out. Even trains on a modern stretch of railway line—for example, HS1 has a continental signalling system, which has been introduced on the East Coast Main Line—need a driver, for the very reasons outlined by the noble Baroness.

As for aircraft, I am not sure about the thought of taking off and landing in a pilotless aircraft. If it is ever introduced, the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, might find himself sitting in splendid isolation. After all, the crash of two 737 MAX airliners due to computer failure—and one near accident, which was prevented by the pilot in charge—ought to be lessons to us all.

I am afraid of the dystopian world that the noble Lord envisages. A train driver with responsibility for 500 lives behind him—and, in some cases, travelling at over 150 mph, as on HS1—deserves every penny of the £60,000 or thereabouts that the noble Lord and the Daily Mail complain about non-stop.

[Lord Ranger of Northwood (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly offer my support for my noble friend Lord Hamilton of Epsom’s Amendment 14A and echo the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, about what services we are looking to deliver when we talk about driverless vehicles, trains, et cetera.

In referring to my register of interests, I recognise that I have spent my entire career with one foot in technology and the other in transport. The two have overlapped, and we have seen great innovation in technology in transport. This takes me back to what we achieved in London Underground and Transport for London: we looked at how bringing in gate-line technology and new systems such as the Oyster card would enable us to rely less heavily on ticket offices. Eventually we removed a lot of them. That was not just because we wanted to get the people out from behind those ticket office windows; we wanted those people, freed from sitting behind that thick piece of glass, to support passengers on the Underground system by providing assistance, information and other services. This is about innovation evolving the service and removing the need for one sedentary type of activity, enabling something else to happen.

When we think about our trains—again, I note the observations of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, on the kind of support that can be required on a train, especially for long-distance journeys—safety and security are primary. It would also be good if we could have more services, if the food and beverage shop stayed open a bit longer because people are there, and even if somebody is there to help you connect to the wifi, which is always eternally promised but sometimes hard to achieve. Having a greater sense of the passenger experience, focusing on developing the passenger experience by freeing people from the role of sitting in the ticket office and allowing them to do other things, will be of great value.

The main point is that we need to leave space for the design of innovation. It is always hard to tell at the early stages what we will be able to do later with that innovation, but as long as we leave space in the Bill to consider it, we can, I hope, achieve our aim of really improving the passenger experience.