Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Transport (Louise Haigh)]

I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss:

Lords amendment 2, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 3.

[Louise Haigh]

I am delighted that the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill has returned to this House. I thank Members of both Houses for their careful scrutiny, and I commend the collaborative, cross-party approach taken during the passage of the Bill to date. I place on record especially my thanks to the Rail Minister, Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill, and to Baroness Blake of Leeds for their valuable support and for leading the Bill so expertly through the other place. Three amendments were made there that we will seek to address today in this House.

Before I speak on the amendments, I remind both Houses that the Government were elected on a manifesto commitment to bring franchises for train services back into public ownership where they belong, in line with the wishes of a clear majority of the British public and in direct response to the failure of the previous Government.

Public ownership will end the gravy train that sees the taxpayer footing the bill for more than £100 million each year in fees to private operators, which ultimately benefits their shareholders, not passengers and not the taxpayer. It will allow us to strip out inefficiency and waste and will pave the way for the creation of Great British Railways, ending the fragmentation of the failed franchising system and bringing together responsibility for track and train under single, unified leadership with a relentless focus on those who use the railway. I made a statement to the House only last week setting out the early progress that we have made in fixing our railways. There is a long way to go in restoring public confidence and pride in our railways after years of failure, but the journey has begun.

I will briefly set out the Government’s position on the two non-Government amendments that were made to the Bill in the other place. Lords amendment 1 seeks to insert a purpose clause in the Bill and to require me to have regard to it. I am sure that the amendment is well intentioned, and I am delighted that after years of declining performance the Conservative party now recognises that reliability and punctuality actually matter to passengers. I am more than happy to reassure the House that improving the performance of the railways is at the top of my priority list, especially in view of the mess inherited by this Government. I really do not need a purpose clause to remind me of that. In my first few months in office, I have spent my time making sure that railway leaders pay much more attention to punctuality and reliability than they have in recent years.

As well as being unnecessary, Lords amendment 1 is misleading and potentially harmful, because it picks out improving the performance of passenger rail services as the sole purpose of the Bill. If that was really its sole purpose, the best thing we could do would be to cut train services from the timetable; the easiest way to make trains run on time is to run fewer of them. I hope that hon. Members on all sides of the House can agree that that would be absurd. Improving performance is of course a vital objective, but it is certainly not the only one. From saving millions of pounds each year in fees to private operators and stripping out inefficiency and waste to simplifying the arcane fares and ticketing system and making rail services more accessible, all those things and many more are priorities that we will address through public ownership and our wider plans for rail reform. The Government therefore cannot support Lords amendment 1, and I urge the House to oppose it.

In my opening remarks, I set out for the House the urgent need to deliver meaningful change. In view of that, the Government cannot accept amendment 2. The practical effect of the amendment would be to delay the programme of transfers into public ownership and prolong the failed franchising system that has inflicted so much misery on passengers. Delaying the transfers would mean deferring the benefits of public ownership, as well as the taxpayer having to pay millions of pounds more in fees to private operators. Clearly, the Government cannot accept that, especially given that we promised the electorate we would manage the transfer without unnecessary cost. The additional cost to the taxpayer is why the amendment triggers financial privilege, as the House will see on the Order Paper and as you have laid out, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I have also made it clear numerous times that this Government will not put up with the appalling standards of service previously tolerated for far too long. Passengers and our constituents deserve much better. I have heard loud and clear the calls for the poorest-performing services to be brought into public ownership first. I understand those calls and deeply regret that the contracts we inherited from the previous Government make it very difficult to do that, but sadly that is the position we must start from.

We have made it clear that we will bring services into public ownership as existing contracts expire, which will allow us to end franchising entirely within three years and, crucially, avoid the need to pay compensation for ending those contracts early. I assure the House that the Rail Minister and I are monitoring the compliance of train operators with their contracts like hawks. If an operator’s performance is poor enough to trigger a right to end its contract early, we will not hesitate to exercise that right and bring its services in-house at the earliest possible opportunity. We will continue to hold operators’ feet to the fire to ensure that they deliver better for passengers. Our plan to bring services into public ownership as existing contracts end is the right plan and the only responsible one. Lords amendment 2 would wreck that plan, and I urge the House to reject it.

Finally, the Government were pleased to table Lords amendment 3 in response to powerful contributions by Baroness Brinton, Baroness Grey-Thompson and others who spoke on behalf of the many disabled people who use our railways. I echo the Rail Minister’s comments in response to that debate. The railways have not done enough to meet the needs of disabled people. We simply must do better, and we will. Lords amendment 3 sends a very clear message by making it explicit in the Equality Act 2010 that publicly owned train operators are subject to the public sector equality duty.

Lords amendment 3 was accompanied by two verbal commitments by the Rail Minister, which I am happy to reiterate for the House. First, the Government will work with representatives of disabled passengers to develop

“an accessibility road map that will explain the actions we intend to take to improve things for disabled people or others requiring assistance in advance of GBR being set up.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 November 2024; Vol. 840, c. 1550.]

Secondly, the Government will now fund the next phase of improvements to the passenger assist app, which is to be delivered in close collaboration with disabled passengers.

Lords amendment 3 was universally supported in the other place, and I am grateful for the constructive discussions that have taken place in relation to it. I am confident that we can continue to work across parties to improve accessibility on the railways, and I urge the House to support the Government’s position today.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Secretary of State to wind up.

[Louise Haigh]

I thank all Members for their important contributions. Let me start by echoing my hon. Friends’ frustration with the Opposition’s position. I sat for two and half years in the place of the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), begging his predecessors who sat in my current seat to take action on performance on behalf of passengers, so forgive me, but I will not be lectured by the party that gave Avanti West Coast a nine-year extension. I will certainly not be lectured about putting ideology before the interests of passengers. This Bill is one step towards the biggest reform of our railways in decades. It will put passengers first, and I look forward to debating with all Members of this House as the railways Bill is introduced and passes through the House.

I appreciate the constructive way in which the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) approached the debate. As I set out in my opening remarks, I am concerned about potentially perverse incentives. We have already published our six objectives for the railway in our “Getting Britain Moving” White Paper, which cover reliability, affordability, efficiency, quality, accessibility and safety. I hope that he and other Members will accept that those objectives adequately and comprehensively support the objective of putting passengers first.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East (Andy McDonald) for his passionate defence of the Government’s position and his comments on the ideological position that the Conservatives have pursued. He exposed the huge flaws in their argument as they attempt to frustrate the Government’s progress on this important reform.

My hon. Friend the Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) gave a passionate account of the impact of the poor performance of the railways that we have inherited. It cuts entire communities off, and he outlined the importance of having an accountable railway system, which these reforms will deliver by having a single point of access to Great British Railways, through which Members across this House and, crucially, local people through their local leaders can hold the railways to account.

There were powerful contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead Central and Whickham (Mark Ferguson) and the hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) on Lords amendment 3, which will be transformative in ensuring that the railways are accountable under the public sector equality duty, that we lift our ambition and aspiration for our railways, and that passengers, particularly those with accessibility needs, are at the heart of this reform.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter), who spoke for the Scottish National party. I agree wholeheartedly that we are not going back to the ’80s or to British Rail—I am obviously far too young to remember it anyway. This is not Network Rail 2.0 or British Rail rebooted; this is an enormous once-in-a-generation opportunity for a new organisation with a new culture and a new ethos, bringing a genuinely new era for our railways. Finally, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) for her consistent passion and contribution on behalf of the wider supply chain. I can happily commit that we will work with rolling stock manufacturers as part of our accessibility road map.

On that note, I ask the House to support the Government’s position by rejecting Lords amendments 1 and 2 and accepting Lords amendment 3.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.