Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill - Report – in the House of Lords at 2:30 pm on 6 November 2024.
Votes in this debate
Lord Moylan:
Moved by Lord Moylan
5: Clause 2, page 2, line 15, after “Regulations” insert “or by the competitive award of a contract in the form of a concession to a private sector entity.”
Lord Moylan
Chair, Built Environment Committee, Chair, Built Environment Committee, Shadow Minister (Transport)
My Lords, if I may respond to what the Minister said, he is asking us to make a huge bet on what he refers to as the benefits of public ownership. Most of us who are of a certain age can remember public ownership, and we remember that the benefits were few and far between. He is asking us to take a leap of faith that this time round it is going to be different, but he will not—
Lord Bradshaw
Liberal Democrat
The noble Lord has spoken as if public ownership is something evil. I remember, when I worked on the west coast main line, that 90% of the trains ran on time. That is a far cry from what is now the case. It was so different from what he is saying that he really should take a history lesson in what was right about British Rail.
Lord Moylan
Chair, Built Environment Committee, Chair, Built Environment Committee, Shadow Minister (Transport)
My Lords, I made no reference to good or evil. I am talking about operational efficiency. I am sure the noble Lord is correct in drawing attention, as has happened several times today, to the deficiencies of the current operation of the west coast main line, but other noble Lords have rightly drawn attention to the fact that there are private sector operators in this country currently operating with the efficiency levels that he refers to, and better—so the private sector has a lot to be said for it as well.
The fact is that public ownership is something about which the country largely breathed a sigh of relief when we moved away from it—rightly or wrongly, whatever the history behind that might have been—and every other European country over the last few years has moved away from exclusive public ownership operation. Even train companies such as Deutsche Bahn, which stood once at the pinnacle of public regard, are now something of a joke in their own country.
Lord Watts
Labour
My Lords—
Lord Moylan
Chair, Built Environment Committee, Chair, Built Environment Committee, Shadow Minister (Transport)
I am only trying to move an Amendment.
Lord Watts
Labour
It is the introduction to it that is the problem. Is it not the case that the public support public ownership of the railways, and that the public sector had to take over the east coast line because the private company failed to deliver the service?
Lord Moylan
Chair, Built Environment Committee, Chair, Built Environment Committee, Shadow Minister (Transport)
My Lords, the noble Lord brings me to exactly my point. The benefits of public ownership that the noble Lord was able to refer to were, first, that it is popular and, secondly, that it was in the manifesto. Those two things might be absolutely true, but they are not quantifiable passenger benefits. They are not passenger benefits at all; they are political facts that sit there in the background.
Of course the system has broken down, especially since Covid. I have acknowledged that, and the need for reform. What this Amendment seeks to do is allow a degree of variability, non-uniformity, difference of practice, choice, options to the Government, rather than having a single, purely nationalised, purely state-controlled machine that we are told will bring us benefits, one of which, as far as I can make out, will be flexibility.
I really did not discern any others, except that we will not be paying fees to private sector operators—a point the Minister has made several times. We will not, but in the picture of the cost of running the railways the fees are extremely small; they are a tiny percentage of what is involved. If the private sector can continue, post Covid, to generate the sort of growth in passenger numbers that it generated before Covid after privatisation, and we can get back to those happy days, the amount of money being paid to operators would be swamped by the revenues that would be coming in. That is the bar that public ownership has to match and we have no guarantees that it will do so. We are asked to take the whole thing on trust. To that extent, I wish to press my Amendment 5 and test the opinion of the House on it.
Ayes 95, Noes 138.
Division number 3
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill - Report — Amendment 5
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As a bill passes through Parliament, MPs and peers may suggest amendments - or changes - which they believe will improve the quality of the legislation.
Many hundreds of amendments are proposed by members to major bills as they pass through committee stage, report stage and third reading in both Houses of Parliament.
In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.
The Speaker - or the chairman in the case of standing committees - has the power to select which amendments should be debated.
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