Railways Bill (Sixth sitting)

Olly Glover Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

I want to make a few remarks about the Conservative new clauses, on which we have mixed opinions. New clause 34 perhaps has some merit in terms of its intention to strengthen protections for the five-year funding review period process. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset will speak to our new clause 26 shortly.

We feel that some of the other Conservative new clauses have not necessarily been fully thought through or recognise the reality of how railways work. For example, new clause 40 seeks to end GBR’s reliance on taxpayer funding. Of course, in an ideal world we would love all public services to end their reliance on taxpayer funding—that would be paradise because we would not need taxation—but the reality is that extremely few railways in the world are entirely independent of taxpayer funding. We invest public money in railways because they are significant enablers of all sorts of economic and social benefit, so we have some concerns about new clause 40.

Some of the other Conservative new clauses have good intentions. For example, new clause 41 seeks to require the publication of data on financial performance. But it also seems to be over-fixated on GBR needing to reach a self-financing state, which seems somewhat unlikely.

I have said enough. I look forward to hearing the comments of the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham on his new clauses and of my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset comment on ours.

[Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)]

I wish to speak briefly to new clause 26, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage. In simple terms, the new clause would ensure that Great British Railways’ funding is reviewed, published and scrutinised by Parliament halfway through each funding cycle, so that there is transparency and accountability on public money and it is spent effectively.

Any long-term rail strategy, particularly one that involves large sums of public money, must be open to proper scrutiny, regularly reviewed and accountable to Parliament. This is especially important as the Bill in its current form gives the Secretary of State a significant concentration of power over the future, shape, funding and direction of the railways. If Parliament is to be asked to confer that level of authority, accountability should increase alongside it. New clause 26 provides a sensible and proportionate mechanism to do exactly that without dragging Ministers or officials into day-to-day micromanagement.

As currently proposed, Great British Railways risks becoming the rail equivalent of NHS England—a fear raised previously in Committee—a large, centralised body distant from accountability and with blurred lines between ministerial direction and operational responsibility. Transparency is the safeguard to protect against ending up with another unaccountable arm’s length body.

The new clause would require a statutory funding review halfway through each five-year settlement. That review would set out, in clear figures, exactly how much funding GBR had been allocated, how much revenue had been raised from fares, and how much Government subsidy had been received. Crucially, it would also be sent directly to the Transport Committee, thereby ensuring proper parliamentary scrutiny. That matters because taxpayers are funding the railway twice: once through general taxation and again through ticket prices. Passengers and taxpayers alike deserve to know where their money is going, how it is balanced between subsidies and fares, and whether it is being spent evenly and effectively across the funding cycle, not just all at the start or at the end.

A mid-point review would also allow us to see what is working and what is not, particularly given that GBR will be a new organisation. It would give time to correct course when things are failing, and to continue or scale up when results are delivered. Above all, it is about hardwiring trust into the railway system, with clear information, published transparently and scrutinised by Parliament, with a focus on passengers. We believe new clause 26 would strengthen the Bill and hope the Government will give it due consideration.

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The Liberal Democrats’ amendment 216, which would align the five-year funding cycles for services and for infrastructure, makes sense, and I am inclined to support it unless the Minister can explain why it is a bad suggestion. The Liberal Democrats’ amendment 147 is an additional attempt to maintain funding certainty for the sector, and it is pushing in the right direction. Finally, their amendment 215 focuses on passenger services. I am not sure it is necessary, so I am not minded to support it, but I recognise the intent behind it.

[Olly Glover]

May I correct an earlier omission, Mr Western, by stating that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship?

First, I want to make some general comments about this part of the Bill, which appears to be based largely on the existing five-year control period framework for rail industry planning and funding. Overall, that is a system that has been felt by the sector to work reasonably well. I had intended not to bore the Committee too much with war stories from my own time on the railway, but perhaps the only drawback of the system is that there tends to be an enormous consultant bonanza halfway through each control period, when the planning starts for the next one even while some of the plans and good intentions of the current control period gather dust on a shelf without necessarily being reviewed. That applies not so much to infrastructure enhancement, but more to process improvements for making the railway better.

First, I will say a little about our amendment 147, and then I want to speak, at perhaps rather more length than usual, about amendments 216 and 215. If there is one hill that I would be willing to perish on when it comes to this Bill and its design, it is probably the decision to not include funding for passenger services as part of the five-year funding settlement.

Our amendment 147 is basically intended to support what the Government are planning to do on five-year funding settlements, but to strengthen and protect them by simply creating a mechanism for the Secretary of State to reopen their funding should a major eventuality arise. The examples that the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham gave are pertinent; it is a bit of an extreme example, and hopefully we will not be there, but I think it would be reasonable to review the five-year funding of the railway in case of the outbreak of war. Our amendment would not stop the Secretary of State doing that; all it would do is require them to consult the ORR and make sure that the ORR gives written consent. It is a simple step to provide that little bit of extra governance and peer review.

I agree with the hon. Member’s comments on the shortcomings of his own amendment 129 in this area. I admire his honesty and the reflective nature of those comments—that is commendable, and something to which we can all aspire. Compared with his amendment, which would prevent variations entirely, perhaps ours is a compromise. I agree with his amendment 119, which shows good intention to make sure that the planning and funding happens in advance of the next five-year period.

Before I talk about our amendments 216 and 215, which I really do feel are critical, I want to read a couple of extracts from the policy paper on how the Government plan to fund GBR, which was published on 5 November 2025 as part of the series of factsheets on the Bill, because it will set the context for what I am about to say. The first thing that the factsheet explains is how passenger services—now known as train services—are currently funded. It states that passenger services

“run by government contracted train operating companies, such as Thameslink, are funded differently to”

Network Rail. It continues:

“The overall money available for passenger services is set at the Spending Review and then allocated via an annual business planning and funding process. Train operating companies also receive money from other sources, such as ticket fares. The train operating companies set out what they intend to deliver in annual business plans, then they seek approval from government. When approved, the contents of these plans are reflected in service agreements with the government.”

That is what the factsheet says about how things work today. It goes on to explain how things will work in future and in relation to the five-year funding review periods for other things. It states:

“Given the greater uncertainty of passenger services spend and income, due to changes in passenger demand which are difficult to predict, Passenger services will not be included within this commitment at this point. Passenger services and other activities outside of infrastructure operations, maintenance and renewal will be funded using existing powers, which will be updated to account for GBR. As these powers already work well in allowing the government to provide transparent and flexible funding to the railway industry, we have decided to keep them and continue to use the Spending Review for these aspects of GBR funding.”

Why does this matter? My real issue with the exclusion of funding for passenger services from the five-year funding review periods, and the failure to align it with infrastructure funding, is what the Rail Minister in the other place, the noble Lord Hendy, says about the objectives of the Bill. He has said it on the record on many occasions, including in front of the Transport Committee and when speaking at the Rail Industry Association reception a couple of weeks ago. He says that one of the key aims of the Bill is to properly enable the alignment of track and train—of infrastructure and train operations. He is absolutely right about that; I agree with him very much. Having worked on both sides of the fence, for Network Rail and for train operating companies, I have seen the endless misaligned objectives, budgets and ways of working and can say that he is absolutely right in his diagnosis and his prescription. However, the omission of passenger services from the five-year funding period runs the risk of undermining that. Let me explain why.

The key issue is that critical elements of the running of the railway are included in passenger services funding. Those include staffing on stations, in rolling stock maintenance depots and, critically, of train crew—drivers, guards, conductors and so on—as well as train crew training, which for many train operators has been a complete mess since the pandemic. Often, the temptation is to paint those train operators as evil private sector ogres and figures of terror from whatever fantasy franchise one wishes to quote, but in reality, since the pandemic, they have been subject to very tightly prescribed contracts by the Department for Transport, and that has led to some very poor short-term decisions about train crew training that have, at times, led to serious service cuts. We are thankfully recovering from some of that, but not wholly: for example, CrossCountry is still running at a significantly lower level than before the pandemic.

There is also the key question of the impact on Network Rail delays. A figure is often cited by those who like to bash Network Rail—having worked there, I know that there are plenty of reasons for doing so, but this one is a bit spurious—that 60% of delays are caused by Network Rail and only 40% by the train operators. Therefore, they say, aren’t the train operators wonderful and isn’t Network Rail terrible? The problem is that, partly because of the way that train crew operations and train operators are funded, a lot of the delays counted in that 60% are fundamentally train operator delays—delays that they have the most ability to influence.

Very sadly, from time to time, people commit suicide on our rail network. That is of course terrible. It initially causes very significant delay and passengers are generally sympathetic to that. Generally speaking, the benchmark for clearing and reopening the line in a way that is safe for everyone, having done the scene of crime investigation and so on, is 60 to 90 minutes. Passengers are understanding of that. They are not understanding when 12 hours later the service is still in complete meltdown because the trains are in one place, the drivers are in another and the guards are in yet another.

A few months ago I was travelling from Didcot to Cambridge via London, because we still do not have East West Rail—maybe one day we will, but that is one for another time—and many hours after a fatality between Reading and London, Reading was a trainpark. Every platform was strewn with Great Western inter-city trains or commuter trains, because its train crew and rolling stock diagrams are so complicated that it is not able to recover during disruption. That has happened partly because there is not a whole-system focus on the alignment between infrastructure funding and train crew and train operations funding.

There has been a lot of pressure, through the franchising process, to cut back on train crew costs, and therefore to diagram—forgive the jargon; I am trying to avoid using it. Diagrams are the daily allocations of instructions as to which trains drivers, guards and others work on. The way to reduce train crew costs, particularly given that there have been above-inflation pay increases, is to tighten those diagrams and squeeze every bit of productivity out of them. When the train service is working normally, it is fine if the train does one thing, the guard does another and the driver yet another.

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very good point, in the context of infrastructure and operating companies coming together—although it also applies more broadly—about the tightness of those diagrams and that scheduling. On East Midlands Railway, although normally the trains are short-formed, we regularly see a 10-car train that is packed in the front five carriages because the back five have to be locked, completely empty, and travel to London with no one sitting in them because there is not a member of staff to staff them. That is because the diagrams are so tight that there is no contingency to put extra staffing in place at short notice when someone does not turn up.

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[Olly Glover]

The right hon. Gentleman gives another good illustration of the problem, and of the foolishness of our current obsession with ordering five-coach inter-city trains, which no other serious western European country does. So often, they are either short-formed as five coaches or the other half is unavailable—or even, when it is available, no one knows, because they cannot walk all the way through and access the other half of the train. We should not be doing that anyway, but he makes a very good point.

There are many other examples of what I am talking about, but I hope that underlines why I really do think that amendments 216 and 215 are critical, and why the objectives in schedule 2 should include passenger rail services, which should be subject to the five-year funding period so that they are not subject to the short-term whims of the Treasury—dare I say that it has any influence on this—and so that the fulfilment of the Bill’s key objective of properly integrating track and train is fully enabled. We will press amendments 215, 216 and 147 to Divisions. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

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[Keir Mather]

The shadow Minister is right to point out that allocation of funding for passenger services, as opposed to other GBR activities, initially takes place through the spending review funding process. I am about to address his point, but I should say that the Bill contains the ability for Ministers to extend the five-year funding process to passenger services once GBR is set up and prepared to manage that. It would not be responsible to do that from the outset when GBR is still in the transition and set-up phase. Ministers need to feel confident that GBR is financially mature enough before they can consider integrating funding further. I hope that addresses both the shadow Minister’s point and the contribution from the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage.

[Olly Glover]

I understand what the Minister is saying, but I am sure that in his line of work he has already encountered many instances where, despite noble intentions for something to perhaps happen at some point in the future, it ends up being years, if not decades, before it does. That is why it would be rather more sensible to enshrine the requirement in legislation.

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[Keir Mather]

I thank the shadow Minister for his support—slightly barbed support, but support nevertheless. I have nothing further to add. I commend the clause to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 14 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15

Rail strategy

[Olly Glover]

I beg to move amendment 134, in clause 15, page 8, line 18, at end insert

“for the next 30 years for”.

This amendment would ensure that the rail strategy set out in Clause 15 must cover a 30-year period.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 137, in clause 15, page 8, line 21, at end insert—

“(c) the support given to rural communities in accessing rail travel, and

(d) the co-operation with relevant local and regional transport authorities for greater integration between trains, buses, trams, cycling, walking and other active travel options.”

This amendment would require the rail strategy to set out the long-term strategy for supporting rural communities in accessing rail travel and co-operating with transport authorities to integrate travel options.

Amendment 207, in clause 15, page 8, line 21, at end insert—

“(c) the consideration of the national rail network as a whole, and

(d) the development of national and regional integrated timetables including—

(i) any infrastructure enhancements necessary to facilitate such development,

(ii) strategies at a local or regional level to deliver these enhancements in line with the 5-year funding periods; and

(iii) a system of prioritisation of connections between services, taking into account interchange times and overall end-to-end journey times resulting from those connections.”

This amendment introduces a requirement for the rail strategy to consider the rail network as a whole, and the relationship between integrated timetables and infrastructure enhancement to enable such integration.

Amendment 224, in clause 15, page 8, line 21, at end insert—

“(c) the development of rail freight network usage.”

This amendment would require the rail strategy to include developing rail freight.

Amendment 25, in clause 15, page 8, line 21, at end insert—

“(1A) The document issued under subsection (1) must be in force for a minimum of three control periods.

(1B) A control period as set out in subsection (1A) must be no shorter than five years.”

This amendment would require the rail strategy to remain in place for three control periods at a minimum.

Amendment 260, in clause 15, page 8, line 23, at end insert—

“(2A) The rail strategy must include a strategy for level crossings (‘the level crossings strategy’).

(2B) The level crossing strategy must set out an assessment of the impact of level crossings on the economy and community of the area in which the level crossing is situated, for the purpose of reducing disruption caused by level crossings.”

Amendment 261, in clause 15, page 8, line 23, at end insert—

“(2A) The rail strategy must include an assessment the ability of passengers to change between—

(a) main line rail services and branch line rail services, and

(b) rail services and other modes of public transport.

(2B) An assessment under subsection (2A) must consider how to reduce delays and disruption to end-to-end journeys involving a change between rail services, or between rail services and other modes of public transport.”

Amendment 135, in clause 15, page 8, line 25, at end insert—

“(3A) The rail strategy must include an international rail strategy to—

(a) support the development of new international routes,

(b) support operators in introducing and operating any such new routes, and

(c) support new and existing operators in using the Channel Tunnel and London St Pancras High Speed.

(3B) In meeting the objectives under subsection (3A), the international rail strategy must—

(a) consider options to increase rail depot capacity at, and to supplement, Stratford Temple Mills;

(b) consider any enhancements that may be required to conventional rail network in the Southeast of England for the purpose of enabling international rail travel;

(c) consider options for electrification, changes to gauge clearance, and any other alterations to rail infrastructure as may be necessary to increase the potential for increased rail freight to travel via the Channel Tunnel.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to include an international rail strategy as part of the Government’s long-term rail strategy. The international rail strategy would specifically look to support new routes and operators, and increase Channel Tunnel and London St Pancras High Speed rail capacity.

Amendment 136, in clause 15, page 8, line 25, at end insert—

“(3A) The rail strategy must include a network electrification strategy to—

(a) require that any new rail lines are electrified, and

(b) set criteria for determining which existing rail lines should be fully electrified, based on current and potential operation of those lines, and set a timetable by which electrification should be completed.

(3B) In preparing the network electrification strategy under subsection (3A), the Secretary of State must take into account the current and potential future—

(a) maximum operating speed of,

(b) average number of trains in an hour using,

(c) average volume of freight transported on,

(d) maximum potential reliability of rolling stock using, and

(e) acceleration requirements of

trains using the relevant lines.”

Amendment 225, in clause 15, page 8, line 32, at end insert

“, and persons wishing to operate services for the carriage of passengers or goods on Great British Railways’ infrastructure.”

This amendment requires consultation with freight operators during the preparation of the rail strategy.

Amendment 213, in clause 15, page 8, line 35, at end insert—

“(8) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament an annual report setting out any progress on the rail strategy.

(9) The report under subsection (8) must be sent to the Transport Committee of the House of Commons.

(10) References in this section to the Transport Committee of the House of Commons—

(a) if the name of that Committee changes, are references to that Committee by its new name, and

(b) if the functions of that Committee (or substantially corresponding functions) become functions of a different Committee of the House of Commons, are to be treated as references to the Committee by which the functions are exercisable.”

This amendment requires regular reporting to Parliament and the House of Commons Transport Committee on delivery of the rail strategy.

New clause 27—Great British Railways: national rolling stock strategy—

“(1) Within 12 months of the passing of this Act and every subsequent 12 months, Great British Railways must publish a national rolling stock strategy.

(2) Each strategy under subsection (1) must set out rolling stock requirements by operating region and route.

(3) Great British Railways must align each strategy to the infrastructure capacity plan in section 60, the rail strategy in section 15, and each funding period as set out in Schedule 2.

(4) Great British Railways must set out how the strategy is used to inform procurement, leasing and allocation decisions.”

This new clause would require GBR to publish a national rolling stock strategy each year, setting out the expected rolling stock requirements per operating region and route, aligned to current and future planned infrastructure, and aligned to the long-term rail strategy and 5-year funding periods.

New clause 28—Great British Railways: cyber security and technology strategy—

“(1) Great British Railways must publish a cyber security and technology strategy (‘the strategy’).

(2) The strategy must set out how Great British Railways will—

(a) use emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, to innovate in respect of its operations and services,

(b) develop resilience for rolling stock and critical systems in line with industry and international standards, and

(c) increase the use of technology to improve passenger experience and services including—

(i) WiFi access,

(ii) digital ticketing,

(iii) real time information systems, and

(iv) accessibility for passengers with sight or hearing loss.

(3) Great British Railways must publish an annual report describing progress that has been made against the strategy and any challenges that have arisen in delivering the strategy.”

This new clause would require GBR to publish a cyber security and technology strategy, as well as an annual report on progress.

New clause 29—Railway services: Sunday working arrangements—

“(1) Within one year of the passing of this Act, Great British Railways must publish a report on demand for railway services on Sundays.

(2) The report must set out—

(a) current figures for use of railway services on Sundays, and

(b) projected figures if services on Sundays were increased.

(3) The report must identify and set out actions that can be taken to increase demand for railway services on Sundays.

(4) When setting out actions under subsection (3), the report must have due regard to five-year funding periods for Great British Railways.”

This new clause would require GBR to publish a report on current Sunday demand, suppressed Sunday demand, and identify actions to be taken to increase demand for railways services on Sundays in line with the 5 year funding periods.

New clause 54—National signalling strategy—

“(1) Within 12 months of the passing of this Act and every subsequent 12 months, Great British Railways must publish a national signalling strategy.

(2) Each strategy under subsection (1) must set out expected signalling renewal requirements by operating region and route.

(3) Signalling requirements as set out in subsection (2) must be informed by the principle that new or renewed signalling will be digital and based on standards set by the European Train Control System.

(4) Great British Railways must align each strategy to—

(a) the infrastructure capacity plan in section 60,

(b) the rail strategy in section 15,

(c) each funding period as set out in schedule 2, and

(d) current and future planned infrastructure including electrification and rolling stock changes.

(5) Great British Railways must set out how each strategy is used to inform procurement, leasing and allocation decisions.”

This new clause introduces a national strategy for digital signalling rollout to create an approach to signalling renewals, enhancements, and interfaces with rolling stock, and to realise signalling safety, capacity, and performance benefits of digital signalling.

Clause stand part.

[Olly Glover]

We have reached a rather long group of amendments at this point in the afternoon. I would generally have liked to have used that as an opportunity to be concise. However—[Laughter.] No, no, the substance is too severe for that to be the case.

Let me start off on a positive note: this rail strategy is perhaps the strongest element of the Bill. It is absolutely what our railways need to hopefully get us out of the endless cycle of decision, indecision, dither and delay: “Yes, we’re doing it,” then, “No, we’re not,” or committing to things that are undeliverable before they have been properly planned, thought through, funded and so on.

In this part of the Bill, we even have the potential to put ourselves on as glorious a footing as Switzerland and its approach to its rail network. Somehow, I have managed to avoid talking about Switzerland so far in this Bill Committee—

[Rebecca Smith]

No you haven’t!

[Olly Glover]

Oh right—okay. I seemingly stand corrected. Well, there we go; this probably will not be the last mention either.

It is good that an element of the Bill enables us to have some hope of reaching the glory of the marvellous rail network in Switzerland, which genuinely merits admiration. We so often assume, lazily, that railways in Europe are better than those here. Some of them are in some respects; others are not. However, Switzerland’s railway is pretty much better than ours all over.

I turn to our amendments. Generally speaking, the intention behind them is either to strengthen or enhance what is already in clause 15 regarding the rail strategy. New clause 2 proposes to expand the number of factors that should be considered in developing the strategy, to ensure that critical elements that have not necessarily been well-planned or managed on our network hitherto are better stewarded in the future.

I turn first to amendment 134. It would very simply put what is currently in an accompanying piece of commentary on the Bill into the Bill itself, including the clarification that by “long-term” we mean “30 years”. The problem is that at the moment “long-term” can mean many things to many people, depending on their own particular agenda. We could include in clause 15 the words “for the next 30 years”. That would make it very clear what the rail strategy was focused on, but would not preclude its being changed in the future. That is important, because any strategy should be regularly reviewed and refreshed in the light of changing circumstances. However, the amendment would enshrine the idea that the strategy is intended to get GBR to engage in long-term thinking in its future planning of our network.

Amendment 137 would add a couple of elements to clause 15. First, it would ensure that the long-term rail strategy considered the support that rural communities need to access rail travel and the need for

“co-operation with relevant local and regional transport authorities”

and GBR. That is so we can have a real focus on

“greater integration between trains, buses, trams, cycling, walking and other active travel options.”

I hope that is welcomed by the Government, given their own commitment to introduce an integrated transport strategy at some point in the future.

Amendment 207 intends to ensure that the rail strategy considers the rail network as a whole and the relationship between the integrated timetables that we need to move to and the infrastructure enhancements necessary to enable those timetables. Let me explain that a little further. The historic focus of development on our rail network has been, with some exceptions, an obsession with reducing journey times to and from London on major inter-city routes. In and of itself, that is not a flawed goal. However, tens of millions of pounds will often be spent on cutting a couple of minutes from journey times.

A particular example of that was removing an avoiding line at Stoke-on-Trent as part of the modernisation of the west coast route. It was for the 7 am Manchester to London inter-city train, which has been the subject of so much controversy recently in relation to ORR decisions. That passing loop was taken out just to save 30 seconds from the journey time for one train a day, which does not even stop at Stoke-on-Trent. That shows the extent of the obsession with reducing journey times to London, which I have just alluded to.

What there has not been is an accompanying focus on trying to improve connection times between trains at Birmingham New Street, for example, or at Manchester Piccadilly or in Leeds. That is important, because there is very little point in cutting some time off inter-city routes if that time saving is negated by having a longer connection and waiting time at a regional hub. What puts a lot of people off using trains is the lack of decent connections and having to wait for their next train at stations that might not have particularly amenable environments.

By contrast, that is what has been done so well in Switzerland. It began in 1987, when a national referendum approved what was a 20-plus-year plan, to upgrade the country’s rail network around connections. That led to a nationwide investment in infrastructure improvements designed to enable a nationwide inter-city timetable, so that at all the key hubs—such as Zurich, Berne or Basel—trains would arrive within a 10 or 15-minute window and passengers could easily change from inter-city train to inter-city train, or from a local train to an inter-city train. Such integration is not just limited to the rail network; it is applies to other public transport. Anybody who has travelled extensively in Switzerland by public transport knows that the same level of timetable integration exists for buses, cable cars, mountain railways and so on.

Amendment 207 would create the framework for that kind of thinking: we would have to think hard, in the long-term strategy, about what sort of timetabling we want to see on our network in the future and what infrastructure enhancements are needed to get end-to-end journey times down.

Our amendment 135 would ensure that the rail strategy considers international rail. For the purposes of the Bill, that is not the Dublin to Belfast Enterprise service, which is of course the subject of entirely different legislation—a very good train it is, too, and not just because it is named after that series of wonderful flagships from “Star Trek”—but international rail through the channel tunnel. The amendment would simply require that the rail strategy includes an international rail strategy to support the development of international routes and consider some of the key challenges in increasing capacity, particularly rail depot capacity, to the channel tunnel and beyond, as well as options for upgrading the existing rail network so that we can get far more rail freight directly through the channel tunnel, which is currently not possible because of limited gauge clearance on the existing network.

Our amendment 136 would require the rail strategy to include a network electrification strategy, which another amendment alluded to. Something that has so far been absent from this Government’s thinking, as it was from that of most previous ones, is clear criteria for electrification, of whatever type—including the current fetish for discontinuous electrification with batteries. The amendment would create a framework for us to be very clear about the criteria that will be used for each electrification type, including maximum operating speeds, which lend themselves far more to full electrification than to batteries, the intensity of traffic, whether there is freight, and so on. It is a very strategic amendment that would help to focus the output of the long-term strategy on things that need to be addressed.

I have a bit more to say; I am attempting to be concise, Mr Western, and I thank you for your forbearance, as I thank the rest of the Committee for theirs. Amendment 213 would require the Secretary of State to update Parliament annually on progress on the rail strategy. This is not intended to hamper the strategy or bog it down in bureaucracy; it would merely involve updating Parliament, from time to time, on the development and delivery of the rail strategy. The key purpose is to ensure that the Transport Committee can carry on the great review and scrutiny that it does of so many things—that is not a comment on my contribution, but on that of all Transport Committee members, past and present.

New clause 27 would require the strategy to incorporate a national rolling stock strategy. I understand from remarks made by the Minister and by the noble Lord Hendy in the other place that that is very much the intention anyway. Perhaps we will have another of those debates where they say that that is the intention anyway but for some reason we cannot possibly put it in the Bill. Nevertheless, I will press the new clause, because it is so important.

New clause 28 would require GBR to set out a cyber-security and technology strategy. Technology is changing all the time, and the railway has not always been the fastest at embracing it. There is a particular issue with cyber-security. A couple of months ago, I attended a forum in Parliament, which was well attended by representatives from the rail industry. There are real issues about how software on rolling stock is kept up to date, and the funding for that. The new clause is intended to ensure that proper thought is put into a framework for cyber-security.

New clause 29 would require GBR to publish a report on demand for railway services on Sundays and the current arrangements for staffing of the railway on Sundays, which in my opinion and that of many of my constituents simply does not align with the 21st century nature of the Sunday economy.

Finally, new clause 54 would require GBR, within 12 months of the passing of the Act and every subsequent 12 months, to publish a national signalling strategy. The reason this is so important is that we have been slow to embrace digital signalling and the European train control system in this country. That is starting to improve, with ETCS currently being introduced to the southernmost 100 miles of the east coast main line, but those in the industry are clear that the current fragmented structure makes it hard to introduce ETCS and digital signalling, because open access operators, particularly freight operators, are not necessarily incentivised to align their driver training and locomotive upgrades with the plans to introduce digital signalling.

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[Jerome Mayhew]

Clause 15 requires the Secretary of State to publish a document that sets out the long-term strategy for the railway, which we welcome, after consulting with Welsh Ministers and the passenger watchdog. The Secretary of State must keep the strategy under review and publish any revisions.

The clause does not provide any detail, which is part of the problem. The industry is in the dark now, and it will still be in the dark if the Bill ever becomes law. There is no draft prepared. There is no indication of the direction of travel. There is just subsection (4), which is very limited. All it says is:

“(4) The Secretary of State—

(a) must keep the rail strategy under review, and

(b) may revise or replace it.”

Well, with what and when? We are in trouble here, with no direct reference to even the development of rail freight, which we have seen in other parts of the Bill is apparently in the Government’s mind. Amendment 224 would serve to correct that by making specific reference to rail freight.

More widely, the Government have missed an opportunity to set clear targets for the strategy to achieve. Colleagues will know from the debate on clause 3 that we have already tried to amend the Bill to assist with that. Our purpose clause, new clause 1, would have set a clear direction, and new clause 2 would have set KPIs for what the strategy should achieve. That would have helped to inform our set of amendments to clause 15.

We are told that Great British Railways should be the guiding mind, so our approach is that GBR will implement the long-term strategy for rail, based on the Secretary of State’s long-term priorities for the railways. GBR is intended to be the stand-alone expert implementer of the development of the railway. The priorities are set out by the Secretary of State through the licence in schedule 1, access to funding in schedule 2 and the long-term rail strategy. All recognise that the political cycle and control periods are far too short for rail infrastructure projects. The industry really needs more predictable forward views. There is inevitably an uncomfortable fit between the needs of democracy and the political cycle—political views change with general elections and sometimes even between them—and the long-term investment certainty that large projects need. There is currently no indication of how long term the strategy will be, or even what it will seek to achieve.

Amendments 24 and 25, which we debated with clause 13 but would also affect clause 15—I do not seek to repeat the debate, but I wish to mention the impact that they would have—seek to address those failings by requiring the rail strategy to be geared towards enabling GBR to meet its key performance indicators. Without the amendments, the clause will set out a long-term strategy that includes no requirement to set clear growth targets for passenger numbers or freight use, meaning that there will be no measurable outcomes or performance metrics. I intend to seek to divide the Committee on those amendments when the time comes.

The Liberal Democrats’ amendment 134 would ensure that the rail strategy covers a 30-year period. That is logical given the infrastructure life cycle, and any timeframe is, by its nature, arbitrary, but I have to say that 30 years feels on the long side, given the political cycle of four or five years. I wish the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage well and we should be having a stab at setting out what long term actually means, but that is why we have tabled an amendment that would set the period at 15 years. That would be long enough to show the direction of travel, as he has in mind, but short enough to have some sense of connection between the political cycle and the objectives of the strategy. We may have a difference of opinion, but we are pointing in the same direction.

[Olly Glover]

I understand the shadow Minister’s point, but I put it to him that the fact that our Parliaments tend to be four or five years long is precisely why the strategy needs to be very long term, so that we avoid subjecting our railway to the political cycle and the whims and whimsies of the Government of the day. But perhaps the key point is that the Government’s own guidance on the Bill, in the section entitled, “What is the Long-Term Rail Strategy?”, states:

“It will set out strategic objectives for the railway over a 30-year period.”

Would it not be coherent to put that on the face of the Bill?

[Jerome Mayhew]

From the Government’s perspective, yes, it would be, but we have recent experience—this is a slight tangent, but I hope the Committee will bear with me—of Governments passing key objectives to achieve long out in the distance. I am thinking of the Climate Change Act 2008 and its objective of achieving net zero by 2050. That all sounds good in 2008, but in my view it does not achieve the objective of balancing democratic accountability with a long-term direction. Look, we are slightly arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Both parties agree that we want a long-term strategy, but should it be 15 years or 30 years? In a sense it does not really matter, but it needs to be significantly beyond the current five-year control period.

Amendment 137, also in the name of the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage, would require the strategy to set out a long-term strategy for supporting rural communities in accessing rail travel and co-operating with transport authorities to integrate travel options. It is a worthy objective, although we would want to go further if extending clause 15(1) beyond the railway network and railway services—the catch-all descriptors. The amendment is slightly a halfway house, but it nevertheless points in the right direction, and in so far as it makes progress, we are happy to support it.

Amendment 207, again in the name of the Liberal Democrat spokesman, would introduce a requirement for the rail strategy to consider the rail network as a whole, and the relationship between integrated timetables and infrastructure enhancement to enable such integration. There is perhaps a better solution tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), who is engaged somewhere else as we speak—there may be a better way to achieve that outcome.

Amendment 224, which I tabled, would add paragraph (c) to clause 15(1). As drafted, the provision requires the Secretary of State to

“prepare and publish a document that sets out”

her

“long term strategy for…(a) the development and use of the railway network in Great Britain, and…(b) the railway services that the Secretary of State wishes to see provided in Great Britain.”

This important amendment would add a focus on “rail freight network usage”. Rail freight does, in a sense, come under “railway services”, but we need to give it particular focus, and the amendment offers a good opportunity to do so.

Amendment 25, which is also in my name, would require the rail strategy to remain in place

“for a minimum of three control periods”,

which would be 15 years. We have already debated whether it should be 15 or 30 years, but the provision would provide the industry with a genuine long-term strategy and mean that that strategy is less likely to be used as a political football when Governments come and go. The period of 15 years is short enough to have political weight, but long enough to give the certainty that the industry also seeks.

I will briefly mention amendment 260, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. I know that the subject is close to my hon. Friend’s heart because he has told me so, multiple times.