Extracts from Queen's Speech debate in the Commons and Lords: Great British Railways - May 11

Extract from Queen's Speech debate (Commons)

Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab):...We are regenerating former colliery sites such as Parkside. They are not just a monument to those who worked there, proud as we are of that heritage. They are places that will create new employment opportunities for a whole new generation of people across our coalfields. We are revolutionising public transport, we are taking steps to bring buses back into public ownership, and we are seeking to “bring rail home” to where it originated, with the Rainhill trials, through our bid to host the headquarters of Great British Railways in our borough...

Extracts from Queen's Speech debate (Lords)

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton):...The Government were elected on a reforming platform and our proposed legislation is bold and ambitious. Our transport Bill will deliver new, modern and more sustainable railways fit for the country that created them. Despite the enormous benefits of privatisation which saw the doubling of passenger numbers and the quadrupling of government investment, it has long been clear that major, industry-wide change is needed. This Bill will give us the powers to deliver the Williams-Shapps plan for rail, the biggest reform to our railways in a generation. It will create Great British Railways—GBR—a single national leader and the new guiding mind for the railways, which will contract private operators to run train services for passengers. GBR will drive efficiencies and economies of scale, while arresting the spiralling costs associated with the current model. The Bill will allow GBR to replace franchising with new passenger service contracts, which will free up and incentivise operators to focus on improving the passenger experience and delivering reliable services...

Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab):...On the issue of railways, I look forward to line-by-line scrutiny of the long-awaited proposals for the new Great British Railways body, particularly on how proposals will put the passenger back at the heart of decision-making and service delivery. I am afraid that none of the proposals can make up for the broken promises on building new railways. Ministers are scrapping not only plans for a new line between Manchester and Leeds via Bradford, but also the HS2 eastern leg. We remain committed to delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail and HS2 East in full. The Government are now offering people in our regions watered-down half-baked plans and the absolute bare minimum...

Lord Shipley (LD):...First, I shall make some remarks on transport. I was very pleased to hear from the Minister that the Government are planning a world-class transport system. I wonder whether she might inform us whether that includes the eastern leg of HS2 and HS3, which only a few months ago the Government decided not to proceed with. Nevertheless, there are some important initiatives to be proposed, particularly around electric vehicles and e-scooters, and we look forward very much to looking at the detail of those Bills in due course. I also welcome the plan for Great British Railways  a single strategic structure for our railway system. That has to be right—but will it be able to improve services, especially as short-term cuts are planned in many places because of the downturn in commuter markets? Given the provisions of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, what are the opportunities for that new body to work positively with combined authorities and counties to help them to deliver good-value services?

Baroness Humphreys (LD):...Finally, I was delighted to hear the reference to Great British Railways in the gracious Speech and would be interested to know what plans the Government have to improve the railway infrastructure in Wales, an issue that is not devolved. We have been making the case for improvements in terms of electrification for years. I have referred to this in responses to at least two or three gracious Speeches. If levelling up is to mean anything, it means levelling up our railway service in Wales. I will be grateful for the Minister’s comments...

Lord Snape (Lab): My Lords, I join the general acclamation of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford for his maiden speech. I hope the House will forgive me if I move from acclamation to condemnation so far as some aspects of the Queen’s Speech are concerned. I will confine my remarks entirely to the transport section of the gracious Speech. I listened with interest to the Minister opening the debate. She painted a bright picture of the future, particularly the introduction of Great British Railways  It is not an organisation that has been greeted with such acclamation elsewhere. I refer your Lordships to yesterday’s Times where, in the business section under the heading

“Danger signals flash at British Railways”,

Mr Robert Lea had some hard facts, in his opinion, to express about this future organisation. He wrote:

“Does the consumer side with railway leaders who want to move ever closer to autonomous and guardless vehicles? Do passengers want or need the human interaction with ticket offices; or is everyone happy ordering tickets and getting journey information on an app? Are travellers relaxed that the track fitness regime can now be determined by algorithms and predictive maintenance rather than boots on the ballast?”

Scottish colleagues will be aware that the lack of boots on the ballast was directly responsible for the recent Stonehaven accident, where fortunately—I mean that sincerely—only three people were killed. Had it been a normal service train, the carnage would have been much greater. That accident was caused entirely by the failure of any boots on the ballast. Carillion, the contractor, installed the drainage system almost a decade ago. The system had gone without any physical checks over that decade, and that accident could have occurred at any time. The lack of maintenance and of boots on the ground ought to concern all of us who are concerned about railway safety and railway maintenance. That Network Rail, the organisation responsible for railway maintenance currently and in future, is proposing to dispose of 1,500 people ought to give us cause for concern.

So far, at least, Great British Railways appears to provide only photo-opportunities for the Secretary of State. The other thing is the lack of any detail about future fares reorganisation. I have looked at fares reform, and I have mentioned it before in your Lordships’ House, and before making this speech I consulted Mr Barry Doe, who those of us who take an interest in these matters know and respect as a man who has written a column called the “The Fare Dealer” for Rail for the past 20 years or so.

Mr Doe had this to say about fares, Great British Railways and the future:

“The supreme irony is that we have gone from a (nationalised) railway run totally by railway professionals to a so-called ‘private’ railway effectively run by civil servants … BR had gone from pence-per-mile to selective pricing, invented railcards and reached the structure we know today. All that has happened since is a severe muddying of the waters with complicated ticket restrictions and parochial fares that have given rise to split ticketing—but no new structure: in short we have had a wasted quarter century when it comes to fares and need to recoup those lost years … GBR must have an HQ with professional pricing managers, as BR once did, to ensure uniform fares”

and eradicate the nonsense of split ticketing. He concluded:

“The Treasury seems to be terrified of such fares reform lest it reduce income. That is as stupid as saying that Off-Peak fares reduce income. They don’t, because they increase usage”—

and GBR must be given proper control of the fares structure in future.

I revert to the Times view of the future so far as Great British Railways and its structure are concerned. Mr Lea went on to say:

“We come out of the pandemic with a renationalised national rail system, commanded from the DfT’s Marsham Street eyrie and operators merely fixed-fee contractors.”

Again, this is something that has bothered those of us who take an interest in and speak regularly on these matters.

A couple of years ago, I invited the Minister to accompany me on a trip around the Birmingham outer ring road on a National Express bus. Unaccountably, she turned me down. As her noble friend Lord Lexden suggested the other day, I suggest that she uses Avanti trains and comes, perhaps with me, to Birmingham. If we catch a not-too-late train and arrive at Birmingham International station after 10 pm, there will be no staff. Birmingham International is not a wayside halt; it is an intercity station a mile or so from an international airport. After 10 pm, more than 20 trains go to destinations as diverse as London and Reading, as well as local trains to Birmingham and Coventry, yet there is no one to sell or collect a ticket. The expensively installed barriers are open from 10 pm, so lots of people travel by train after 10 pm from Birmingham International without paying their fare—and who can blame them? There is no check. Surely that is the weakness of a contracting system that pays a company such as Avanti regardless of whether it delivers a proper standard of service—and I am afraid that it does not. If Great British Railways is to persist with the idea that after 10 pm there is somehow no need to staff mainline stations, fare evasion—which in my opinion is already at a considerable height—will get worse in future.

I have to say to the Minister who replies that not all of us are thrilled with the idea of Great British Railways  Those of us who have worked in the railway industry are aware of the negative nature of the Treasury so far as expenditure in the railway industry is concerned. We are aware that civil servants love to second-guess railway managers on where expenditure should take place. One of the reasons we have so many uncomfortable trains at present is that over the years the Treasury has insisted on cramming more and more passengers into smaller and smaller trains. When in the 1980s British Rail replaced its classic diesel multiple-unit services, which were built as three-car units, the Treasury insisted that those three cars be replaced by two-car Sprinter trains and trains of similar ilk. Cramming in more passengers will not attract any more people to travel by rail, regardless of whether Great British Railways is in charge and whatever the colour and nature of the staff uniforms.

In conclusion, in the words of Mr Nat King Cole, so far as the railway industry is concerned, I can see only “trouble ahead”. Unless the Government give GBR and its management the freedom to properly run the railway and get the Treasury’s dead hand off the railway’s windpipe, trouble is what we shall see in the years to come.

Lord Berkeley (Lab):...On Great British Railways  the noble Baroness said that we are going to have a world-class transport network. Those are fine words but there may be some way to go yet. I need convincing of the benefits of Great British Railways  This all started with the Williams review in 2018, which is four years ago now. He produced a very useful demand analysis which is still missing. Perhaps we will have a new one when the Government publish the Bill alongside it...

...When we finally get the new Bill, I hope we will see some evidence of demand and of the changes that have happened, and that we will have a little more transparency. At the moment, the only forecasts that I know of are connected with rail freight. There is a forecast of how much rail freight is needed north of Crewe on the way to Cumberland and beyond, compared with the HS2 and west coast main line. That forecast is commercially confidential. I hope that Ministers will publish that—it is only two years old—along with a lot of other information to support the view that Great British Railways will actually be worth the hassle...

The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con):...
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, on the plans for Great British Railways to improve rail infrastructure in Wales, I say that the Government are exploring a joint working agreement between Transport for Wales and Great British Railways to improve the rail offer in Wales.

I turn to HS2, on which there were many contributions. The Government have obviously set aside £100 million to look at the most effective way to take HS2 trains to Leeds. The terms of reference for the integrated rail plan will be set out shortly, and the Government are committed to delivering HS2 East.

In response to my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe on whether the transport Bill will implement the recommendations made by her committee on ticketing, I say that the Government have committed over £360 million of investment in fares, ticketing and retail, announced in the spending review. This will transform the customer experience. The transport Bill will empower Great British Railways to go further still in improving the customer experience...

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