Amendments made: 132, page 82, line 20, leave out paragraphs 6 and 7 and insert—

“6 Omit sections 13 to 15C.”

This amendment would repeal sections 13 to 15C of the Railways Act 1993, which concern a licence modification referral mechanism which is no longer required.

Amendment 133, page 84, line 15, at end insert—

“(1A) At the appropriate place insert—

““GBR company” has the same meaning as in the Railways Act 2026 (see section 96(1) of that Act);”.”

This amendment defines GBR company in the Railways Act 1993 for the purposes of the references added to that Act by amendments 97 to 105, 106 and 109.

Amendment 134, page 85, line 21, leave out “At the end of” and insert “In”.

This amendment and amendment 135 would provide for the general restriction on disclosure of information in section 145 of the Railways Act 1993 not to apply to information and advice published by the Passengers’ Council under clause 50 of the Bill.

Amendment 135, page 85, line 21, after “(5)(a)” insert—

“(a) after “71 above” insert “, or section 50 of the Railways Act 2026,”, and

(b) at the end”.

See the explanatory statement for amendment 134.

Amendment 136, page 88, line 5, at end insert—

“47A After section 12 insert—

“Local government bodies

12A Arrangements between local government bodies and Secretary of State

(1) A relevant local government body and the Secretary of State may, for purposes connected with railway passenger services for persons travelling to, from or within the body’s area, enter into arrangements with respect to the exercise and performance of their respective functions on such terms as may appear to them to be expedient.

(2) Those arrangements may include arrangements under which sums become due from the body to the Secretary of State—

(a) in respect of railway passenger services for persons travelling to, from or within the body’s area;

(b) in respect of station services provided in connection with such railway passenger services;

(c) in respect of bus substitution services provided as alternatives for such railway passenger services.

(3) In this section—

(a) “relevant local government body” means—

(i) a mayoral combined authority (within the meaning of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026),

(ii) a mayoral combined county authority, (within the meaning of that Act), or

(iii) a Passenger Transport Executive for an integrated transport area;

(b) a reference to the functions of the Secretary of State is to be read as a reference to the functions of the Secretary of State under—

(i) sections 22 to 24 of this Act (discontinuance of railway passenger services), and

(ii) sections 25, 28 and 30 of the Railways Act 2026 (designation of railway passenger services).””

This amendment would allow relevant local government bodies power to enter into arrangements with the Secretary of State in respect of railway and station services for their areas similar to those that amendment 94 would allow TfL to enter into.

Amendment 137, page 90, line 38, leave out paragraph 73 and insert—

“73 (1) Regulation 2(1) is amended as follows.

(2) In the definition of “railway undertaking”, after “private undertaking,” insert “other than Great British Railways or a subsidiary of Great British Railways,”.

(3) At the appropriate place insert—

““subsidiary” has the meaning given by section 1159 of the Companies Act 2006;””.

This amendment would exempt subsidiaries of Great British Railways from needing a railway undertaking licence under the Railway (licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2005.

Amendment 138, page 91, line 31, leave out from “2(1)” to “, after” and insert “(scope)”.

This amendment would remove a duplicated reference to Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007, and add a note on the Article being amended.

Amendment 139, page 91, line 34, after “Railways” insert

“or a subsidiary of Great British Railways”.

This amendment and amendment 140 would ensure that Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 applies to subsidiaries of Great British Railways.

Amendment 140, page 91, line 35, at end insert—

“79A In Article 3 (definitions), at the end insert—

“19. ‘subsidiary’ has the meaning given by section 1159 of the Companies Act 2006.””

See the explanatory statement for amendment 139.

Amendment 141, page 92, line 33, at end insert—

“88A (1) Regulation 3 is amended as follows.

(2) In the definition of “railway undertaking”, after “means” insert—

“(a) Great British Railways or a subsidiary of Great British Railways, but only in relation to the provision of services for the transport of passengers by rail where the operation of the trains providing the services is authorised by a licence under section 7B of the Act; and

(3) At the appropriate place insert—

““subsidiary” has the meaning given by section 1159 of the Companies Act 2006;”.

88B In regulation 8(1), after “Railway undertakings” insert “(other than Great British Railways or a subsidiary of Great British Railways)”.”

This amendment would include GBR and its subsidiaries in the definition of railway undertaking in the Railways (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2016. It would exempt them from management independence requirements under regulation 8, because the Bill includes similar requirements in relation to them.

Amendment 142, page 93, line 1, leave out paragraph 90 and insert—

“90 (1) Regulation 12 is amended as follows.

(2) In paragraph (2)(c), omit “the strategy referred to in regulation 11 and”

(3) In paragraph (4) after “railway undertaking” insert “(other than Great British Railways or a subsidiary of Great British Railways)”.”—(Keir Mather.)

This amendment would exempt GBR and its subsidiaries from the business plan requirements under Regulation 12 of the Railways (Access, Management and Licensing of Railway Undertakings) Regulations 2016, because the Bill imposes similar requirements on them.

Third Reading

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Madam Deputy Speaker, with your indulgence, I would like to start my remarks with a short story. This time two years ago, like many colleagues on the Government Benches today, I was not a sitting MP. I was a parliamentary candidate standing for the first time to represent my home town of Swindon, a place with a proud railway heritage, with its people unashamedly ambitious for the future. When I stood in that election, I stood on a promise of renationalising our railways.

There were some who doubted whether we would ever do it, but as this Bill heads off to the other place for its next stage of parliamentary scrutiny, I say to the doubters that this is what change looks like: a Government doing what they said they would do in their manifesto; a Government delivering for the ordinary men and women who use our railways, the businesses that depend on our railways, and the staff who work on them; a Government replacing a privatised system, which was corroding in a state of perpetual decline, with one where there is now new hope.

When I stood at London Bridge station last December, as we unveiled the new Great British Railways branding and train livery, I saw hope in the eyes of the passengers I spoke to—hope for a better, more reliable railway; hope for an end to waiting for trains that never arrive; hope for the basics of working toilets, enough seats and simple fares—because if we are honest, hope has been in short supply on the railways for far too long. For years, the industry delivered poorer performance for higher prices. As a nation, we spent billions on upgrading infrastructure, but a fragmented system could not translate that into passenger benefits. We have had 30 reviews since 2006, all diagnosing the same problem—re-diagnosing it time and again—yet the previous Government were not able and were not willing to do the hard work to create solutions. Today, we make that change.

Thanks to this Bill, we will deliver the biggest reform to our railways in 30 years. Where there is fragmentation, we will bring integration; where decisions used to be made for private profit, they will now be made for the public good; and where passengers were forced to navigate multiple companies and unclear accountabilities, they will soon deal with one railway and one team with one mission, which is to deliver better services for the travelling public.

People obviously need to be able to get to the railway station. This Bill gives me the power to establish Great British Railways. I will talk to Great Western Railway about the issue the hon. Member raises—the company is still in private ownership—and I will write back to her with further detail.

I would like to summarise the main features of the Bill and remind Members what we have already achieved. Over half of operators are already under public control, thanks to legislation we introduced weeks after entering office. The benefits are starting to be felt: around 40 new Arterio trains on South Western, rolling stock that was sat for years in the sidings under privatisation, now released into service; performance among operators under public control now outstripping those still in private hands; pay-as-you-go ticketing being rolled out to more stations across the south-east; easier to understand fares in Greater Manchester; and passengers keeping more of their hard-earned cash thanks to the first rail fares freeze in 30 years.

This Bill will be the most significant step yet. For decades, the industry has been crying out for coherent direction and leadership. With Great British Railways that is what it will get: a single national leader co-ordinating track and train, setting timetables and fares.

My hon. Friend has been a dogged campaigner on the railways for her constituents in Hastings and Rye. I believe her proposals are worthy of consideration by Southeastern, a company in public ownership. I would be happy to pursue that further on her behalf.

GBR will sweep away decades of inefficiency and waste. We will finally bear down on spiralling costs. We will wave goodbye to a system riddled with perverse incentives, in which armies of lawyers argue over whose fault a delay is. Instead, GBR will be a publicly owned and commercially agile company run by industry experts, not politicians. We will turn a web of competing interests into one railway that makes decisions in customers’ interest and their interest alone.

I have always been clear that there is a role for open access operators on our network where they provide value for money.

If I may now turn to passengers, I am not ashamed of the fact that GBR will be obsessed with delivering for its customers. In fact, it will have a statutory duty to promote their interests. That starts with ticketing, which is currently a mind-bendingly complex system. I have said it before and I will say it again: buying a ticket should be effortless. Fares should be simple and consistent, and passengers should know they are always getting the best value—and under GBR, they will.

A new ticketing app and website will give passengers the ability to buy tickets, check train times and access a range of support all from the palm of their hands—no booking fees, no navigating lots of websites; just a 21st-century way of paying for a service. If passengers are let down, if accessibility falls short or if performance is not up to scratch, they will have a powerful champion fighting their corner: a strengthened passenger watchdog.

I will not give way.

GBR will also manage access decisions in relation to track capacity, enabling us to unlock the full potential of the whole network. That also means unleashing the huge economic and environmental potential of freight. Rail remains the best way to send bulky goods long distance, which is why GBR will have a legal duty to promote rail freight in line with our 2050 target.

GBR represents a simpler, more transparent railway to do business with. No longer will suppliers need to make their case to multiple parts of the network. GBR will be the single decision maker, able to take a long-term view, giving the private sector the confidence and certainty it needs.

I finish by thanking all Members who have taken part in the debates on the Bill so far—particularly those on the Transport Committee for their diligent approach.

No. I am conscious of giving time to the Shadow Secretary of State.

I thank all members of the Public Bill Committee for completing the painstaking task of line-by-line scrutiny. I also thank Members on the front bench, as well as those sat on the Back Benches, for their vital perspectives. I particularly thank the Minister for Aviation, Maritime and Decarbonisation for handling the passage of the Bill so dutifully and ably. I also thank my colleague in the other place, the Rail Minister, and give a huge thanks to all the officials in my Department who have worked so hard to get the Bill to this stage.

This Government promised to fix what was broken in our economy and reform what does not work. That is why the Bill matters. We will fix our broken railways. While I cannot promise it will be achieved overnight, I say this: will GBR put the needs of passengers and freight users above all else? Yes, absolutely. Will passengers soon see the difference in ticketing and reliability in a railway that is easier to use? Most definitely. Will GBR help to unlock economic growth, house building and opportunity across the country? Undoubtedly. The Bill draws a line under the decline and dysfunction of the past. Today, we are bringing hope back to our railways. I commend the Bill to the House.

I do not know what my hon. Friend Jerome Mayhew and Keir Mather are going to do when they are not spending so much time together, week in, week out.

We are gathered here to witness this slowly-collapsing Government put passengers and taxpayers on the hook for, over time, more expensive fares and more subsidy—or both—for fewer trains, and for a service run in the best interests not of passengers but of the Labour party’s union paymasters.

Opposition Members all know, as perhaps do some on the Government Benches—perhaps even the Secretary of State, who has reportedly had some doubts about total state control—that the Bill is not the answer. If Labour really cared about passengers, wallets and purses, Labour Members would have backed our amendments on railcards to protect young people and our brave veterans. We know that “no plans” does not mean no: just ask farmers and small businesses up and down the country about the promises from this Labour Government.

That is the bigger story about the Government’s plan for state control. The Bill is not about bringing track and train together—something I think we can all agree on. This Labour Government have no qualms about concentrating power, no concern about removing independent challenge, and no thought for the taxpayers who will be asked to foot the bill if and when their experiment goes wrong.

Under the Bill, the organisation that runs the trains will also decide who else gets to run the trains. The organisation that sets the fares will also dominate selling the tickets. When something goes wrong, the Secretary of State will have nowhere to hide.

My right hon. Friend makes an important point.

If the Government truly believe in putting passengers first, why are they making life harder for the very operators that have delivered some of the lowest fares and highest levels of passenger satisfaction on the entire network? Why are they squeezing open access operators off the tracks? Why are they creating a system in which GBR will be both player and referee at the same time? It is just ridiculous. We were told that Great British Railways would be accountable, but accountable to whom? The regulator loses powers, competitors lose protections and the Secretary of State gains more control.

Labour came to power promising to change the railways for good; it has accomplished a Bill that will reduce passenger rights and, at the same time, lead to fewer services. By gutting the ORR and letting GBR be judge, jury and executioner, the Secretary of State is ensuring that on her watch, everyone but the unions will be worse off.

We tried to rectify this blatant power grab with our amendments, supported by the Liberal Democrats, to make it easier for others to appeal against the GBR overlords after removing the bizarre judicial review benchmark. To no one’s surprise, Labour Members—all of them—voted against every single one of the very sensible Opposition amendments. That is the problem that Labour MPs have: they were forced to sign up to an ideological experiment, and it is going against everything that their constituents and the country desire.

When the complaints start arriving, when the cheaper rail fares disappear, as they are doing already, when services are cut to make the statistics look better and when passengers discover that Great British Railways is more like “Little Britain Railways”, I hope the Secretary of State will appreciate that this is no way to run a railway.

The Opposition are voting against the Bill because state control is not the same thing as improvement, because bureaucracy is not the same thing as accountability and because putting major decisions in the hands of one giant state body is a retrograde step, not a positive move. When all is said and done—when the fares rise, the services shrink and the complaints pile up—the Secretary of State and the Labour party will have nobody but themselves to blame.

Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

The House divided: Ayes 278, Noes 149.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Bill read the Third time and passed.