Railways Bill (Seventh sitting)

Olly Glover Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I want to speak in support of amendment 137, in the name of the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage, and amendment 261, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer). The two amendments attempt to deliver the same thing: better integration between rail and other modes of transport. The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage is a man of great attention to detail, but it was perhaps a little sloppy of him on this occasion not to include in his list of trains, buses, trams and cycling the word “ferries”. Of course, ferries are fundamental in my constituency; we cannot get off the Isle of Wight without using them.

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

The hon. Gentleman is quite right to rebuke me, albeit very politely and gently. I should have worded the amendment in a non-exclusive manner, to make sure that I did not forget any other form of transport. He is right to highlight, as I know he is about to, the critical importance of the integrated transport terminal in Portsmouth harbour for access to and from his wonderful island. There are many other examples of such terminals, including the one in Ardrossan harbour for getting to and from the Isle of Arran in Scotland. I am sure that, if I had had the Government’s resources at my fingertips rather than having bashed away at this over Christmas, I would not have made that error.

[Joe Robertson]

I thank the hon. Member for his apology, if that is what that was; it is accepted. My argument for integration between rail and all modes of transport, although I will use ferries as a particular example, is important. The Minister is also the Maritime Minister, and is well aware of the specific issues that my constituency faces.

The two amendments seek to deliver integration through strategy. If we think back to the evidence given to this Committee last week by the future Prime Minister who is currently apprenticing as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, he said that integration is essential—and he would know, being in charge of a combined mayoral authority. We are due to get a combined authority for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and the amendments can be viewed as mirroring the strategic responsibilities put on combined mayors, who have responsibility for travel and the interoperability of transport connections in their areas.

What the amendments—and particularly amendment 137 —seek to do is ensure that the Minister and the Government also have the responsibility to ensure co-operation. That is explicit in amendment 137, which calls for

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

The amendments would end situations such as, for example, the one where, if I was to travel home on the 3.30 train from Waterloo down to Portsmouth Harbour station, the train would arrive five minutes after the ferry had departed. I imagine those are frustrations across pretty much every constituency in the land between trains and other forms of transport. If that situation is not addressed in the explicit way set out by the two amendments, it will continue to be a significant problem that will never get dealt with. Giving more attention and powers through the Bill will help to deliver improvements even for modes of transport, such as Isle of Wight ferries, that are not regulated by the Government and where they do not have explicit and express powers.

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[Keir Mather]

On locking in a 15-year strategy that can be reopened only if the Secretary of State chooses to revise it, it has been said throughout our deliberations that we do not want politicians micromanaging the railway. I therefore presume that the Secretary of State would want to reopen the three control period review envelope only in extremis. Given our deliberations about whether it should be three control periods or 30 years, I think it is better overall to bake that flexibility into the Bill and allow those discussions to take place.

I have to make a lot more progress, and I do not want to detain the Committee for long. In the evidence sessions, several witnesses said that the ability to update and change the strategy in response to unexpected events is critical. No one can accurately predict things such as technological and environmental changes over the next 15 years. For that reason, the Bill has been drafted so that the strategy is not a once and done document, but can be revised when it needs to be.

The next theme in this group of amendments is to ensure that the long-term rail strategy includes specific content. Amendments 137, 207, 224, 135 and 136 all do that. The strategy will not go into specific operational requirements in the way sought by the amendments, which relate to topics such as rural railways, co-operation with local authorities, timetable integration, international rail and electrification. Those are all vital topics—of that there is no doubt—but they are all matters for Great British Railways to consider as it develops its strategic plan for the operation and optimisation of the rail network, informed by the long-term strategy.

Although I agree that co-operation with local authorities is critical to the success of this reform, I do not think that that objective needs to be captured in the long-term rail strategy. Rather, it is already captured in the Bill via GBR’s duty to co-operate with mayoral strategic authorities. That duty is provided for in legislation and will be enduring, so it does not also need to be in the strategy.

The suggestion that the long-term rail strategy should set out obligations relating to the timetable is in opposition to the views of the majority of stakeholders who responded to the Railways Bill consultation. They want Great British Railways to have the autonomy to manage the timetable without Government micromanagement, and I wholly agree with that.

[Olly Glover]

We seem to be losing track of the words that have been tabled. Either that or, like a group of management consultants, we are in danger of getting plans confused with strategies and tedious things such as that. Amendment 207 is neither intended nor drafted to encourage or enable the micromanagement of timetables. It is about the development of and the longer-term vision for what those timetables are supposed to achieve, and that is very much in line with what should be a 30-year strategy. I just want to assure the Minister on that point.

[Keir Mather]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that assurance. I suppose that, in response to the amendments that he tabled, we agree that timetabling is of special significance because of the diffuse way in which it is currently organised between Network Rail and the Office of Rail and Road. We are conscious of the fact that making GBR a single driving mind for the railway means that timetabling needs to be dealt with in a way that is operationally responsive, but also not scattered throughout the Bill.

Although I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of timetabling and having due regard for how it is implemented over the long run, I think the way in which the duties under clause 18 allow us to consider the best interests of passengers through that work has a necessary long-term impact on the timetabling process overall. I hope that that would be adequate in meeting some of the concerns that he outlines and seeks to address through the amendment.

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[The Chair]

I call Olly Glover—Mr Glover?

[Olly Glover]

I apologise, Mr Western; I had forgotten I was due to speak, because we started to discuss this group the other day.

I do not have too much to say. I can understand some of the Minister’s points, but I certainly disagree with others. There is, of course, a balance between being too prescriptive and something being so woolly that it ends up being—this is a very tenuous analogy, but it could end up being like a glass of Ribena for a two-year-old, or predominantly water. That is the debate that we have been having, but I shall not detain the Committee for too much longer. I wish to press these two amendments to a Division, as I stated on Tuesday.

Also, I have a thought for our subsequent proceedings. We talk a lot about preserving things in aspic, but for the interest and attention of the Committee we may need a different analogy. Perhaps we should preserve things in stone, as the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband) did in the 2015 general election. Perhaps we should turn to that analogy a bit more.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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[Jerome Mayhew]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and for standing up for the jobs in his constituency, which is something we all need to do. I cannot speak for the actions of the Government before I was even elected as a Back-Bench MP, but we are certainly looking to improve. I would be the first person to say that the status quo ante was capable of improvement. Privatisation did bring many benefits to the railways, particularly in encouraging innovation and focus on the customer, leading to the increase in passenger numbers, which I have already spoken about in previous sittings, but was it perfect? Of course not.

As has been trailed by the Government, this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to redesign and improve our approach to the railways, and I think that taking a long-term approach to rolling stock investment and creating this framework would be taking advantage of that opportunity to try to improve predictability for the supply sector—for Alstom, but also for Siemens and other manufacturers as well.

New clause 36 would require GBR to publish and keep under annual review a 15-year rolling stock investment framework that sets out future needs for new and existing trains. That includes—this is important—not just the replacement of trains but refurbishment, digital upgrades, decarbonisation and accessibility improvements. It would establish how private investors could finance rolling stock and related upgrades, promote energy-efficient technologies such as battery, hydrogen and hybrid traction, and set expectations for competitive, innovative and, importantly, predictable procurement. The framework must align with GBR’s business plan and control period funding, which are two very sensible requirements, and it must also provide transparency on procurement volumes and timelines, explain changes to plans and show how private investment will be used to reduce whole-life costs, improve train quality and support jobs in the UK rail supply chain.

The Government have thrown the sector into a period of uncertainty—that is inevitable with large-scale redesigns like the ones we are going through at the moment. My concern is that the way in which they have chosen to do this, through a process of drifting nationalisation before knowing the details of its replacement, has exacerbated that uncertainty and extended it over a prolonged period. As the hon. Member for Derby South has already noted, we are already seeing that uncertainty in the supply chain and the manufacturing base.

There is uncertainty—that is the problem. This is a shell Bill; it does not have the answers, and it does not give any confidence to industry that things will be better in the future. It relies on a whole raft of provisions in the 19 documents to which we have referred to time and again, but they do not exist. We do not know whether things will get better or worse, and neither does the industry. There is no supporting documentation on how GBR will function in practice. I am not sure the Government even know that yet, and they really ought to have done better than this. New clause 36 would point them in the right direction, and I certainly look forward to pressing it to a Division, should the opportunity arise.

New clause 37 would increase accountability by setting out a reporting and accountability framework for Great British Railways. The new clause states:

“Great British Railways must publish a business plan each year”,

which we have already considered, and it dictates:

“The business plan…must include…a summary of activities that Great British Railways intends to undertake during the following year”

and

“how these activities will support the delivery of the Rail Strategy”.

At the end of the year, GBR would be required to produce a second report setting out its progress against the business plan objectives, the first of which is passenger experience—we all know the Government substantially ignore passenger experience at the moment, apart from reliability in short trains, and have just brushed the other aspects under the carpet. The other objectives include

“freight growth…accessibility…passenger growth”,

which is also ignored by the Government in the Bill as drafted,

“integration with housing and local transport”

and

“the long-term infrastructure and service improvement.”

The ORR must assess GBR’s performance against the key performance indicators set out in new clause 2, which we have already debated but not yet voted on. If the ORR finds any material underperformance, it must give notice to the Secretary of State, who must publish a written response. This general approach is very business focused; it simply asks that GBR sets out what it is planning to do at the start of the year, and then having worked through the year, there is a process for GBR to mark its homework at the end of the year. Has GBR done what it said it would do? If it has not, the spotlight is on. It is also being assessed by the ORR, which retains its role as an independent expert adjudicator that is trusted by all parts of the rail sector.

Perhaps the best thing is that, in response to that, GBR must also set out what it will do to rectify any underperformance, and it must lay a report before Parliament and make a statement. The new clause would add critical levels of parliamentary and public scrutiny to GBR, allowing both to hold this new organisation to account, which we believe is paramount when such vast amounts of taxpayers’ money will be used. The current Bill is woefully short on accountability. It lacks strong incentives to encourage GBR to perform, to be held to account and to answer for its actions—or lack of action.

This all feels a little too comfortable. We have a nationalised industry reporting to officials from the Department for Transport, and it is not focusing on the experience of customers and passengers, passenger growth or all the other imperatives of rail in the future. The Minister will of course tell us that none of that is necessary. However, with the greatest respect, direct experience of running a business tells us that we need to design in strong incentives—this is crucial; it is not primarily a political point but a trying to improve this Bill point—so that GBR is inclined to focus on the right objectives, without having to respond to external direction. These new clauses would help to point GBR in the right direction. I look forward to the Minister’s support.

[Olly Glover]

I should have said earlier, Mr Western, that it is a pleasure to once again serve under your chairship as we debate another exciting group of amendments. I want to make some brief remarks on the Conservative amendments in this group. I eagerly await the Minister’s polite but withering put-down.

Amendment 26 is a matter of wording. Alas, unlike the shadow Minister, my only experience of the law is occasionally watching “Kavanagh QC”, a reference that no doubt reveals my age. I shall await the Minister’s comments on that amendment and shall reach a view in the no doubt incredibly nail-bitingly tight Division on it. On amendment 218, I agree with the shadow Minister that we need to get mayoral consultation right, and to have plenty of it.

New clause 33 seems sensible, given the Conservatives’ and Labour’s total obsession with rolling stock leasing rather than purchase, which I find utterly bizarre. Rolling stock leasing can make sense, particularly when gilt prices or the cost of capital is high, but it is quite expensive on a whole-life cost basis. Otherwise, why would rolling stock companies do it? There are some very nice people in them, but they are not charities. Rolling stock leasing happens elsewhere in Europe, but it is not as universal as it is here. However, that feels like either yesterday’s war or tomorrow’s—probably not today’s.

On new clause 36, I note that the shadow Minister has tabled amendments about the private sector to similar effect in group 36. I politely suggest to him that, in the same way that members of the governing party can sometimes be too ideologically committed to the idea that public sector is automatically better, the evidence does not necessarily support the view that private sector is automatically better in the rail context. It is context-dependent. ORR benchmarking from 2012 showed that our train driver and rolling stock maintenance costs, both of which have been in the private sector for some time, were generally significantly higher at that time than those of our European counterparts. I do not believe that those trends have changed significantly.

I would be interested to hear from the shadow Minister and from the Government the evidence that private sector is automatically better than public sector, or vice versa. I think it depends on the context. Perhaps more important is getting requirements and specifications for tenders right or deciding in each individual context the best way to get value on a whole-life cost basis. We definitely have a problem on the railway, and perhaps as a nation as a whole, with being obsessed with getting up-front capital costs down, but there is not quite the same level of attention for a decent appraisal of whole-life costs and deciding how to move forward on that basis.

On new clause 37, I understand the intention of an annual business plan, but my slight worry is that it could undermine the logic of the five-year funding review period. Perhaps the shadow Minister can address that when he sums up.