I beg to move Amendment 241, in Clause 3, page 2, line 17, after “including,” insert

“acting in a fair and non-discriminatory manner”.

This amendment would require equal treatment between GBR and non-GBR services.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 3, in Clause 3, page 2, line 20, after “services” insert

“managed by Great British Railways”.

These amendments would clarify that the research, advice and standards being published by Great British Railways are related to aspects to part of the railway and railway services which are managed by Great British Railways.

Amendment 4, in clause 3, page 2, line 22, after “services” insert

“managed by Great British Railways”.

See explanatory statement for Amendment 3.

Amendment 5, in clause 3, page 2, line 23, leave out subsection (2) and insert—

“(2) Great British Railways’ function under subsection (1)(a) includes making strategic plans as to the future provision of railways infrastructure in Great Britain and implementing those plans.

(2A) Decisions about access to, and use of, railway infrastructure for the operation of trains will be made by the Office for Rail and Road.”

This amendment aims to ensure that the Office for Rail and Road continues to make decisions about access.

Amendment 6, in clause 3, page 2, line 28, leave out subsection (3).

New clause 15—Great British Railways electrification programme—

“(1) Great British Railways has a duty to publish and adhere to a programme of rail electrification.

(2) The programme must seek to—

(a) reduce cost, and

(b) improve timely delivery of

construction and delivery of infrastructure associated with rail electrification.

(3) The programme must cover a period of five financial years, beginning with the financial year following the financial year in which the programme is first published.

(4) The programme must be published each financial year thereafter, covering the period of the following five financial years.”

This new clause would require Great British Railways to commit to a rolling programme of line electrification.

New clause 20—Great British Railways: environmental targets—

“In the exercise of any of its functions, Great British Railways must take all reasonable steps to contribute to—

(a) the achievement of targets in sections 1 to 3 of the Environment Act 2021,

(b) the achievement of targets set under Part 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008,

(c) the programme for adaptation to climate change under section 58 of the Climate Change Act 2008, and

(d) the achievement of targets set under the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010.”

This new clause requires Great British Railways to takes steps to contribute to meeting targets set out in existing legislation on climate change.

It is a pleasure to see you in your place, Sir Alec. Amendment 241, in my name, is important, as so many of these amendments are. We heard in both oral and written evidence that lots of people are concerned about the need for this amendment, which addresses the concerns of many in the non-Great British Railways sector, whether Trainline, open access operators, freight operators or the whole supply chain.

The amendment seeks to require GBR expressly to act in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. We had some discussion about that before lunch, but I reiterate the argument that I made. I will seek to press the amendment to a Division if the occasion demands it, but it would send a terrible message to investors in the independent sector if the Government voted down an amendment that merely asks GBR to operate in a fair and non-discriminatory manner.

Amendments 3 and 4 clarify that the research, advice and standards published by Great British Railways are related to aspects of the parts of the railway and railway services that are managed by Great British Railways. Many independent entities, such as freight, open access and the supply chain, as well as other networks, are not managed by or part of GBR. Those entities need to be free to publish their own standards and manage their own innovation and research. The current drafting of the Clause is a clear overreach. I suspect that that may be unintentional, so I ask the Minister or his officials to have a think about that.

Additionally, other cross-sector and national standards, such as those managed by the Rail Safety and Standards Board or the British Standards Institution, may be directly legally applicable to GBR itself under, for example, the Railways (Interoperability) Regulations 2011 and the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006. To avoid conflicts of interest, those cannot be published or managed by GBR itself, so the Minister needs to explain how clause 3 does not involve a conflict of interest. Has he—or, it is probably gentler and kinder to ask, his team—researched those apparent contradictions? If he or they have, perhaps he could set out how those conflicts are addressed in the current wording.

Amendment 5 would leave out clause 3(2) and insert in its place:

“(2) Great British Railways’ function under subsection (1)(a) includes making strategic plans as to the future provision of railways infrastructure in Great Britain and implementing those plans.

(2A) Decisions about access to, and use of, railway infrastructure for the operation of trains will be made by the Office for Rail and Road.”

This would be quite a big change, because it would address head on the structural conflict of interest that has been identified by very many commentators. The role of the Office of Rail and Road is a key concern for the non-GBR part of the industry, which is, after all, 60% of it. By “the role of the ORR”, I do not mean its safety role, which remains almost entirely unchanged; I mean its economic regulator role.

This is not an issue of ideology. Some play has been made about base views on whether nationalisation or privatisation are better or worse than one other, but let us leave that to one side—we have had our fun for the moment. This is a fundamental issue of fairness of procedure, which is necessary irrespective of the ownership structure of the organisation. We all know that Great British Railways will be the dominant operator. That position brings it structural advantages in any event, but it will now be the referee on access as well. That is a direct and obvious conflict of interest, and it is a very odd approach because it is so clearly unfair.

The alternative is to use an independent structure. We would use the ORR because it already exists and does not have to be created, it already has a reputation for independence, and its remit and direction are set by the Secretary of State, so it cannot be a loose cannon.

I accept in part the arguments put forward by the Minister in response to questioning on Tuesday. I recognise that the Government own the infrastructure and the taxpayer has invested many billions of pounds in the railway over time, and I accept that they should decide how those funds are best used. The issue is how the Government look after taxpayers’ money. Is it via a player-referee—GBR—or is it via the Office of Rail and Road, which is itself a governmental organisation, has its remit set by the Secretary of State and is given direction? It is not as though we would be handing the keys to a stranger; we would just be demonstrating the application of a fair and non-discriminatory process by an overtly independent organisation that is itself an arm of the state.

Amendment 5 aims to ensure that the Office of Rail and Road continues to make decisions about access. It is a common theme of the Opposition amendments throughout that we want to ensure that the Bill does not create a GBR with that structural conflict of interest that acts as referee and player. I intend to press the amendment to a Division, should the opportunity arise.

Finally, I turn to amendment 6, which would leave out clause 3(3). Subsection (3) is a very broad regulation-making power for the Secretary of State to confer further functions on GBR. It is unrestricted. It reads:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations confer on Great British Railways such other functions relating to railways or railway services as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”

Could it be any more widely framed? I do not think so. As long as it is something to do with railways, it takes power away from primary legislation and gives it to the Secretary of State to do as he or she will. It is a blank cheque for the Government and, by extension, for GBR. There are no details given as to why it is needed, and no reason why the powers have not already been considered.

We know that the Government have gone off half-cocked with this legislation. By Tuesday’s count, 19 serious documents relating to how GBR will work in practice have yet to emerge. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s justification for subsection (3). Why are the Government so keen to give such overarching powers to the Secretary of State?

Sir Alec, are we also going to deal with new clauses 15 and 20 tabled by the Liberal Democrats?

Yes.

That is just as well, because I am going to leave those to the Liberal Democrat spokesman, but I will be happy to support new Clause 15 should he be minded to press it to a vote.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I wish to speak to new Clause 15. In doing so, I must ask the Minister for his assistance with either a medical or a political problem—I am not entirely sure which it is, because I cannot get a GP appointment in Didcot as we do not have a GP surgery on Great Western Park, but that is an issue for another time. In the absence of a GP appointment, I really hope that the Minister will be able to save me from sullying my reputation. In speaking to this new clause, I find myself at risk of having to say something positive about the Thatcher Government, which is obviously somewhat politically embarrassing.

New clause 15 proposes adding a rolling programme of electrification to the Bill. The reason that I may need to say something nice about the Thatcher Government is that according to figures that I have looked at, nearly 3,000 km of railway was electrified under that Government during the 1980s, to which the just 170 km electrified under the 1997 to 2010 Labour Government compares very unfavourably. That perhaps comes as quite a surprise, given that there was significant economic growth during that later period, at least compared with today—[Interruption.]

I think we just heard an Opposition Member ask, “What were they doing?” in respect of the 1997 to 2010 Government. The answer, of course, is that capital investment had to be directed to safety in the aftermath of Hatfield and other disasters. When we look at where exactly that money was spent, it was on the safety improvements necessitated by some of the disasters caused by privatisation. I am a strong supporter of electrification, as I know the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage is, but I thought it was important to place that on record.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his Intervention. I will say two things in response. First, I hope that his Government and the Minister will support the new Clause, because, given the strong state of railway safety today, there should not be the same limits on electrification expenditure that he suggests. Secondly, the problem with his point is that very few electrification schemes were authorised between 1997 and 2000, the period before the Hatfield rail disaster, which led to the period of safety recovery that he quite rightly highlighted.

The direction that the Government are taking is a big concern. They have yet again cancelled the midland main line electrification, a scheme that would have happened 40 years ago in any other European country. Our stop-start progress on electrification compares very unfavourably with other countries in Europe. Germany has delivered a steady 200 km a year, or thereabouts, on average for many decades, and in so doing delivers significantly lower unit costs than our boom and bust approach to electrification. It is not just Germany. We often hear excuses about how electrification is too difficult for us because of our limited gauge clearance or our scenery, but that does not explain the fact that the entire Swiss rail network is electrified, including railways in UNESCO world heritage sites and more than 3,000 metres above sea level.

With the exception of the trans-Pennine route upgrade and a couple of other very small schemes, nothing is committed at the moment. That is a real shame, because the benefits of electrification are significant. I feel that we have perhaps lost our way in this country. We have become very focused on electrification as a means of decarbonising our railways, but that is a small part of the enormous benefits of electrification. Electrification delivers more reliable, lighter trains that have far less impact on the track and are also cheaper, because pure electric multiple units are the standard off-the-shelf product across the European rolling stock market. What wouldn’t any other sector—whether it is shipping, which I know the Minister has a keen interest in, aviation or the car industry—give for the ability to provide constant electrical power to get the amazing power-to-weight ratio that electrification delivers?

We constantly talk about the lack of freight on our rail network. A big part of that is that rail freight tends to be diesel hauled, which has far worse acceleration and consumes far more track capacity. On a recent journey across Germany and other parts of Europe, I did not see a single diesel-hauled freight train; they were all electric. That enables so much more to be squeezed on to the network, and would support private sector investment. For example, GB Railfreight has invested in a fleet of locomotives that can haul both diesel and electric. Having visited its Peterborough headquarters a few months ago, I know that it would like to run under electricity far more than it is currently able to because of our electrification rate. We are in a very poor state, and not just compared with western European countries; Poland and India have significantly higher percentages of electrified railways than we do. At the moment, I see no hope of that changing.

Our new clause 15, requiring a rolling programme of electrification, would also significantly reduce unit costs, because the supply chain would get used to doing it, we would become experienced at structures clearance, and so on. That is not my opinion; that is what Sir Andrew Haines, former chief executive of Network Rail and now chair of DfT Operator, said before the Transport Committee.

Correct me if I am wrong, but my recollection of Sir Andrew Haines’s oral evidence is that he gave an example of the experience not just on continental Europe, but in Scotland, where a steady-state period of electrification resulted in significant reduction of the cost per mile when compared with the stop-start approach in England. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

Yes, the hon. Gentleman is correct. Scotland, as a result of a longer-term commitment to electrification, has got unit costs down considerably, and has now electrified the bulk of the dense-traffic network in the lowland area and central belt. We can do the same in England and Wales should we wish to do so. I hope that the Government will change course and, in so doing, that the Minister will enable me to praise his Government and his commitment to beating the Thatcher Government’s electrification rate, liberating me from the difficult position of having to compliment the 1980s Conservative Government on their electrification progress.

I will speak to new Clause 20, which makes the simple ask that Great British Railways does all it can not to contribute to the climate crisis. I hope it is uncontroversial, because the bits of legislation that we are asking for GBR to adhere to are the Environment Act 2021 passed by the previous Conservative Government, the Climate Change Act 2008 passed by the previous Labour Government, and the Air Quality Standards Regulations 2010 passed by the coalition Government.

I am deeply concerned that climate change does not appear in the Bill at all, and we tabled new clause 20 to close down that problem. At a time when extreme weather is already disrupting services, damaging infrastructure and frustrating passengers, the absence of any clear environmental duty is extremely troubling. We are already seeing the impacts of climate change on our rail network. In West Dorset, services have been severely disrupted by soil moisture deficit, alongside flooding, high winds and extreme weather. Last summer, that led to a reduced timetable, widespread delays and endless bus replacement services. From August, services from London to Yeovil Junction were cut to one train an hour, and took more than half an hour longer, while services to Exeter were reduced to one every two hours. That is the cost of not planning ahead.

New clause 20 would require GBR to take climate risk seriously in every decision that it makes. That means factoring in flood risk, heat stress on tracks, coastal erosion and extreme weather, and designing infrastructure that can cope with hot summers and wet winters. If the Bill is about the future of rail, it must account for a future that is going to be impacted by climate change. The new clause would strengthen the case for rail electrification, encourage low-carbon construction methods and ensure that procurement decisions properly consider materials, the supply chain and energy use.

Without a clear statutory duty, environmental goals risk being treated as entirely optional. With new clause 20, climate and environmental objectives would become part of GBR’s core purpose. Decisions would be more consistent across the network, rail would be properly aligned with national climate and nature targets, and GBR would be more transparent and accountable.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. I thank hon. Members for the amendments and new clauses in the group. Before I turn to amendments 3 and 4, however, I will pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for South West Devon earlier about people across the country having an understanding of GBR and its functions, and knowing how it will impact the railway and their lives. The Shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham, has consistently given the statistic that 60% of functions on the railway will still be done by the private sector, once GBR is established—

To clarify, that figure is about not just the private sector, but rail services in Scotland and Wales not being part of GBR. It is the non-GBR parts of the greater rail world: about 60% are nothing to do with GBR.

I thank the Shadow Minister for that clarification. I want only to add, as a further clarification, that in the future GBR will account for about two thirds of passenger services in Britain, and GBR infrastructure will make up 90% of station stops. It is quite important to give that level of context, so that people can better understand the impact that these changes in the railway will have on their lives.

Amendments 3 and 4 would limit GBR’s research, advice and standards development functions to only the railway and services managed by GBR. I reassure the shadow Minister that the vast Majority of research and innovation carried out by GBR will relate specifically to the services that it provides and the operation and maintenance of its network.

However, research, development and innovation tend to be general in nature and application. It is critical that GBR’s research, development and innovation should be able to support the wider rail network, not just the elements that GBR manages itself. Collaboration between the independent parts of the sector on learning and innovation is, we argue, crucial for the rail network to operate as an integrated whole, and limiting this function could arbitrarily restrain wider adoption of best practice. Various organisations, including Network Rail and train operating companies, currently publish standards adopted on the railway, so this is not a unique or abnormal practice. However, these amendments could arbitrarily constrain it and might even hinder GBR from supporting research that might bring benefits to parts of the network, or services, not managed by GBR.

Amendment 5 seeks to return responsibility for taking access decisions to the ORR. That is one of the fundamental questions sitting at the heart of our debates on the Bill. The amendment is contrary to the Government’s manifesto commitment to establish GBR as the directing mind for the railways. It would reintroduce the fragmentation and conflicting accountabilities that exist in today’s system. At present, there is no single body in charge of taking a whole-system approach to making access work. That leads to conflicting opinions about what services can fit where and when. Differences in view between Network Rail and the ORR cause delays in producing the timetable, hindering efforts to tackle congestion, disruption, cancellations and overcrowding. The current system is not fit for purpose: it lets passengers down every day, and taxpayers are not getting value for money.

In the current system, the absence of a single directing mind, with a single set of objectives, leaves us with ridiculous situations such as the recent 7 am Manchester service that was set to travel with no passengers on it. I do not understand how hon. Members can think that continuing the current system benefits anyone, least of all passengers.

The Government have been clear that for GBR to have the space and authority to take access decisions consistent with the best use of the network, the ORR’s current role must change. GBR must be the decision maker on access; it must have authority and full accountability for what happens on the tracks. The ORR will play a key role as a robust appeals body that ensures that GBR’s decisions are fair. Without one body in charge of taking access decisions, we cannot deliver the performance improvements that we have promised passengers and the public.

Amendment 6 would remove the delegated power for the Secretary of State to confer further statutory functions on GBR in the future. Although Clause 3 has been drafted to cover the breadth of activities that we expect GBR to undertake, it is responsible to legislate with proportionate flexibility. For example, in the future there may be new technologies or other responsibilities relating to the railways that GBR would need to take on. We heard in oral evidence on Tuesday that the advent of artificial intelligence and wi-fi are two examples of that type of change, and that witnesses understood the need for this type of flexibility for GBR.

There is precedent for this type of power in legislation. For example, the National Health Service Act 2006 includes a power to add functions to special health authorities specified in regulations. That power is already limited to adding new functions that relate to the railways; any regulations conferring new functions would be subject to the affirmative procedure, which would ensure suitable transparency and parliamentary scrutiny.

Amendment 241 seeks to require GBR to act

“in a fair and non-discriminatory manner” when carrying out its statutory function in clause 3 —specifically, when GBR is providing back-of-house functions to facilitate railway services run by operators other than GBR, such as a journey planner. The amendment is not needed, because the duties set out in the Bill will govern GBR’s behaviours when carrying out its statutory functions. I assure the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham that the duties will require GBR to act in the interests of the public, taxpayers and passengers. GBR will act fairly and in accordance with its duties, not only when exercising this function but across the full range of its statutory functions.

In addition, competition law will apply in full to GBR. This requires GBR to act in a manner that is fair, non-discriminatory and not anti-competitive. Both the ORR and the Competition and Markets Authority will regulate GBR’s behaviour against its competition law obligations, so I hope that hon. Members will be assured that GBR must always treat all private operators with fairness and in a non-discriminatory manner. Given those safeguards, the addition proposed would be duplicative.

I turn to new clause 15, which seeks to implement a statutory electrification programme. Living near Selby station, I know better than most that rail electrification is important, including to realise the Government’s wider goals of decarbonisation. The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage ably set out the fact that decarbonisation is not the sole efficiency and aspiration that can be realised through electrification. We fully realise the need to reduce the cost of electrification and accelerate the delivery of committed schemes in comparison with past experiences.

We are currently developing a long-term strategy for rolling stock and associated infrastructure. That will be published in the summer and will consider the future approach to electrification. That being said, a legislative duty to carry out an electrification programme is not the right way to deliver these important upgrades. In the effort towards net zero, electrification may not always be the right solution—although the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage made a well-reasoned case as to how, in many cases, it is. Other opportunities, such as trains powered by batteries, may be more appropriate. It is also hard to predict the pace at which battery technology and other alternative technologies will progress over the next 20 or 30 years, and what that means for the extent of electrification that will be needed as we move towards net zero.

I appreciate the Minister’s points. How does he see the drive towards electrification, for all the good reasons he has set out, sitting with building a degree of resilience into the rail network? The hon. Member for Nottingham South, the other Minister, may have experienced the problem that I had last weekend, when, due to attempted overhead cable theft, a load of trains through the east midlands were cancelled. That happened because there is no back-up mechanism to move those trains if the electrical supply is not there. How do we square that circle of making sure that a bit of resilience is built in?

The right hon. Member makes an important point about resilience on the railway; it complements the points made by the hon. Member for West Dorset about the fact that we live in a changing climate. That creates pressing resilience challenges across the breadth of the railway. The right hon. Member makes a good point about not being over-reliant on one technological mode. That being said, I hope that, through an overall transition towards decarbonised rail transport, alongside the other decarbonisation measures that the DFT is taking across the piece, we will be sufficiently resourced, capable and in pursuit of innovative solutions to make sure that electrification can play a prominent part in the future of the railway.

We believe that the way to achieve that is to have something more flexible to future direction and opportunities, such as GBR’s business plan, which is already provided for in the Bill. Of course, the rolling stock and infrastructure strategy might be more appropriate as a way to set out GBR’s plans for electrification rather than their being in the Bill.

We move to new Clause 20, which would require GBR to work towards climate change targets. I assure the Committee that the environment will form an important part of GBR’s considerations through various mechanisms already included in the Bill. One of the strategic objectives for the long-term rail strategy will be environmental sustainability. GBR will have a duty to have regard to the Secretary of State’s long-term rail strategy and a general duty to make decisions in the public interest, which includes environmental considerations, when developing its business plan. Finally, it is important to point out that Network Rail is not currently directly obligated to deliver on those targets, but has still published “The Greener Railway Strategy”, which includes targets on net zero, climate adaptation, air quality, biodiversity and other environmental areas.

To conclude, we remain committed to addressing the environmental challenges faced not only by rail, which is already a comparatively green way to travel, but across all transport modes, and GBR will be an important partner in that work. I hope that hon. Members have been reassured and will consider withdrawing their amendments.

It is always a pleasure to hear the Minister explain the Government’s positions, but I remain unconvinced in relation to Amendment 241, which I believe is the only one that can be put to a Division at this stage. I would like to press it to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.

I beg to move Amendment 130, in Clause 3, page 2, line 22, at end insert—

“(h) complying with the provisions of the Passengers’ Charter laid under section [Passengers’ Charter]”

This amendment is consequential on NC8.

With this it will be convenient to discuss new Clause 8—Passengers’ Charter—

“(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed, lay before Parliament a Passengers’ Charter.

(2) A Passengers’ Charter must include—

(a) a guarantee about value for money, quality of service, and provision of adequate seating for any single part of a journey taken by rail for a duration greater than thirty minutes;

(b) targets for reliability of services;

(c) a timetable for implementing improvements to passenger accommodation on train services, including in relation to—

(i) seat design,

(ii) availability of high-speed WiFi and reliable cellular network service,

(iii) provision of power outlets,

(iv) storage for luggage, bicycles, pushchairs and prams,

(v) provision of toilets, including standards of cleanliness and accessibility, and

(vi) provision of on-board catering on any train service with a total duration of at least two hours;

(d) a guarantee relating to improving the accessibility of trains, stations, areas immediately surrounding stations and interfaces with connecting transport modes, and replacement road services, for passengers with disabilities;

(e) extension of the principles behind Delay Repay compensation to include a framework of compensation for failures to comply with the Passengers’ Charter for lack of specified on-board amenities;

(f) a commitment that Great British Railways will take all reasonable steps to ensure that systems for compensating passengers for delays or disruption—

(i) are digital by default;

(ii) minimise any administrative burden on passengers when applying for compensation;

(iii) allow, where practicable, for compensation to be issued automatically based on information attainable by Great British Railways from about a customer’s journey or from a ticketing account.”

This new clause requires the Secretary of State to lay a Passengers’ Charter and sets out the what the charter should contain, including provision relating to customer amenities, value for money, accessibility and compensation.

Amendment 130 and new Clause 8 constitute a Liberal Democrat proposal to introduce a 21st century update to passenger charters. I shall seek to be concise; in the unlikely event that hon. Members would like to hear more, I should say that I gave a ten-minute rule Bill speech on the subject in the House of Commons yesterday.

For context, given above-inflation fare increases over many decades, which I alluded to earlier, the modern rail passenger rightly expects more than they often get. On-board amenities are generally not subject to any form of compensation provision should they not be available. Indeed, passenger charters generally make good noises about having such amenities, but they do not get the same guarantees for them as they do for delays.

The issue is not necessarily about moving to this tomorrow; there are many older trains on our network that require either upgrading or replacement with modern amenities, but where the amenities exist they should be provided. It should no longer be considered a luxury to have functioning wi-fi or a mobile phone signal so that people can be productive on the train. Toilets should be reliable, a seat should not be considered a luxury—a standard class ticket does not entitle one to a seat—and there should be adequate space for luggage, pushchairs, bicycles and so on. In so doing, we will make the rail offer more attractive to the travelling public and ensure that people do not have bad experiences, as did my friend Jen from Wallingford who, after a particularly terrible journey between London and Glasgow on Avanti West Coast, has now returned to driving, even though the distance is—off the top of my head—some 350 miles.

Our proposal would require the Secretary of State to lay a passenger charter before Parliament within six months of the Act’s being passed. That updated charter would look at providing value-for-money guarantees not just for delays, but for provision of other amenities, with reasonable waivers such as for journeys under 30 minutes, which can be subject to commuter-heavy loading at peak times.

The whole principle of delay repay should be protected. I keep hearing rumours—I have no idea whether they are true; perhaps the Minister could give us assurances that there will not be any attacks on delay repay. We should be proud of it, as it is a much more generous compensation provision than in any other European country and it should not be diluted or reduced to save costs. Instead, we should focus on preventing delays and managing delays better so that we do not need to pay so much delay repay. That compensation provision should be extended to other onboard amenities, so that there is an incentive to create a 21st century onboard environment that enables us to retain our existing passenger base and attract far more people to our railway.

I have only a few brief remarks to make. Having read both new Clause 8 and Amendment 130, which is effectively consequential, I say to the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage that they appear to be perfectly reasonable and sensible proposals that seek to focus, as we should be doing, on the passenger. I have a couple of points consequent to that.

I see the intent behind the provisions; my only query is that I cannot see in the language of the new clause or amendment where the teeth are when it comes to enforceability. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman has in mind exactly how that would operate, but I would be grateful if he clarified how the provisions would be enforced and where the teeth are when it comes to the travelling public. I also associate myself with his question to the Minister, about delay repay.

The focus of all we are doing should be on the passengers—the service users of our railways. The passenger has paid to use that service. Again, I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to confirm on the record that there is no intention to weaken the delay repay scheme once GBR is in operation. The key is for the Government, rather than seeking to weaken delay repay to save money, to actually put their money where their mouths are and be confident that GBR will improve reliability. That way, GBR will not have to pay out so much because the trains will be doing what they are there to do for the travelling public. I hope the Minister can give that assurance as he winds up.

I speak in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage’s passenger charter. I recommend that any Member who was otherwise engaged to go and listen to his ten-minute rule Bill, which outlined it in far greater detail than I will today.

I have it here!

It is excellent reading—something for the train on the way home. It lays out why the passenger charter is so key to delivering a better experience for rail users. The Committee will spend a lot of time talking about rail upgrades, shorter journeys, passing loops and all the things that we should discuss—it is easy to understand why we focus so much on shorter passenger journeys—but the passenger experience is also key. When I agreed to sit on the Committee, I said that if I achieved anything from it I hoped it would be the return of the buffet trolley to any train going anywhere near West Dorset.

For a gin and tonic.

I could not possibly comment, Minister—I was going to say tea. But there are basic human rights that we should be respecting here—and a gin and tonic might be one of them.

On rail journeys lasting more than two hours, access to food and drink is a basic expectation. As anyone who has done the trip to Exeter or Dorchester South from London will know, numerous stations on that line do not have a café on the platform, or even one close by. I hope we are also going to achieve a reduction in the number of delays on that line, but once someone is on it they are on it; their options for access to anything are incredibly low. Whether for a parent travelling with children, older passengers on long journeys or commuters trying to work on the move, access to basic amenities—reliable wi-fi and food and drink—should be mandatory.

New Clause 8 would require the Secretary of State, within six months, to introduce a passenger charter as a core function of GBR. It would set out clear expectations for passengers, and clear accountability for operators. As my hon. Friend the Member for Didcot and Wantage laid out in his ten-minute rule Bill, it would include guarantees on value for money, service quality, adequate seating for journeys over 30 minutes, and improved accessibility across trains.

If my constituents travelled from London Bridge this evening and caught the 5.34 to Barnehurst or the 6.50 to Bexleyheath, in zone 5, those journeys would take 31 minutes, so do you actually believe that, under your guarantee, my constituents—many of whom, you would expect, would rather just get on a train and expect to stand for some of the journey—would get compensation if they did not have a seat for that commuter journey home of an evening?

Order. I remind Members that I do not believe one way or the other; please talk through me, not to me.

I am sorry, Sir Alec.

Thank you, Sir Alec, for the clarification, and I thank the hon. Member for his question. I understand the premise of the point: whichever number we put in, there is a risk that someone could come up with such an example. I think the point is that, for journeys over 30 minutes, for older passengers, for example, the guarantee of a seat may be an issue of whether they want to travel or not, so we must find a line to draw in the sand; I hope that able-bodied Members would stand up for the elderly, but it is not always the case. I would like us to move to a system where we do not have to stand on trains and where there is an expectation of seating—not least so that the drinks trolley can get through and get a cup of tea to me when I need one.

The charter would also set targets for reliability and a clear timetable for improving passenger accommodation, including seat design, reliable wi-fi and mobile signals, power outlets—I honestly cannot believe we are still questioning whether or not we should have power outlets on trains—luggage and bicycle storage, clean and accessible toilets, and onboard catering for journeys of more than two hours. We must focus much of our innovation on the passenger experience and not just the journey time, whether that is wi-fi for commuting workers or accessible toilets for everyone. Crucially, it would also extend delay repay principles to cover failures in onboard amenities and move towards automatic digital compensation that does not place the burden on passengers to fight for refunds—hopefully that speaks to the teeth that the right hon. Member for Melton and Syston mentioned.

Those are not luxuries. Almost every rail user has stood despite booking a seat, lost their signal mid-journey, missed a connection because of a delay, struggled to find a clean toilet—or a working one—or found nowhere to store a bag, yet too often there is no meaningful redress for those inconveniences. That undermines confidence in the railway.

The data is stark. Only 32% of passengers believe that the rail network meets their needs, and just 59% are satisfied with value for money or onboard internet. Last year, there were more than 62,000 complaints about punctuality, nearly 40,000 about overcrowding, and more than 24,000 about onboard facilities. All those things act as a drag. They are why people do not want to travel on the trains and why they are choosing car journeys instead. If we want people to choose rail for economic, environmental and social reasons, we have to deal with these frustrations as well. New Clause 8 puts passengers back at the heart of the system, where they belong.

I am very supportive of the intent behind this new Clause. Where the Government have taken the political decision to put all their eggs in the nationalisation basket, it becomes even more important that we add as many clauses to the Bill as possible to force them to focus on the passenger experience.

Nationalisation has been tried before, not just in the railways but in a number of other organisations, and not a single one of them is a byword for individual customer choice, so if experience is anything to go by—and if we are, as seems likely, going to be forced to have a nationalised approach to the railways—the legislation needs to bend over backwards to keep reinforcing the point that the passenger experience is the central element that the organisation should be aiming for.

At the moment, the Government are woefully unambitious in their definition of railway services. If you look at clause 18(3)—which I am sure you have already, Sir Alec—you will see that the definition for railway service performance

“includes, in particular, performance in securing each of the following in relation to railway services”.

I was expecting a long list of all the good things that customers travelling on the railway should expect, but what do we get? We get “reliability, (including punctuality),” and

“the avoidance…of passenger overcrowding”,

and that is it. What poverty of aspiration. It really is very striking.

It may be that the wording of new clause 8 could be improved—I am sure that the Government have the drafting firepower to do exactly that—but what is listed in subsection (2)(c)(i) to (vi) is a good starting point, and certainly much better than what the Government managed to come up with in clause 18. I support it.

On delay repay, it is another factor of nationalisation that the Government now have direct skin in the game when they are deliberating about compensation. One of the many benefits of privatisation is that it is much easier for the Government to impose responsibilities, including financial compensation responsibilities, on private entities than they seem to find it when they are imposing such responsibilities on themselves. For that reason, it is very important that the legislation should bend over backwards to defend the rights of the passenger against the monolithic railway that we are now creating.

I thank the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage for new Clause 8 and Amendment 130, and all right hon. and hon. Members who have offered contributions in support of the notion of seeking to require the Secretary of State to lay a passenger charter. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am as zealous as he is in pursuing not only the rights of passengers, but their ability to have happy, fulfilled experiences on the railway—whether through a G&T, a cup of tea or whatever else.

Although I fully endorse the aim of raising passenger standards, I do not agree that a statutory passenger charter is the best approach. Great British Railways, not Government, needs to be in charge of the passenger offer, and it is being set up to be an expert-led directing mind, not a Government-led directive mind. There would be little value in reforming the system, only for the Government to continue to micromanage the railway, down to the level of specific seat designs.

During my conversations with the sector, one of the challenges that came up about returning, for example, the buffet trolley or other services to trains is that services have already been sold on station platforms. There is direct and inherent competition between any service that someone might receive on the train and something that might be provided, and has already been sold, leased or franchised out, on the platform itself. How can the Government put passengers’ interests at the core of service delivery when they will have an inherent business or profitability conflict with some of the services that are already in existence?

The hon. Member can intervene again if I have misunderstood his point, but I think there is a lot of utility in the fact that GBR, by being able to direct passenger services as well as having responsibility for long-term infrastructure such as stations, provides a coherent basis on which to tailor the passenger experience across the multitude of ways in which passengers engage with the railway and its infrastructure. From my perspective, it actually removes issues in cases in which competition may not be what is best for the passenger—where there is an offer in the catering car on their service down to London, but also a small business running a café from the station. We will have more of an opportunity to offer a holistic service for the passenger.

It is also important to me that we do not want to fix the passenger offer in statute. We want GBR to be able to adapt to passengers’ needs as they change over time. For example, I cannot imagine that many were thinking about wi-fi when the Railways Act 1993 was passed, but we know how fundamental it is to social and economic connectivity for passengers on the railway today.

To ensure that GBR does a good job of managing the passenger offer, the Bill will also establish the passenger watchdog, which will have strong powers to act in passengers’ interests. The Government and GBR will have to consult the watchdog when developing their policies, strategies and priorities for the railway, including when GBR is developing its business plan and passenger offer, and GBR will be expected to take account of the watchdog’s advice. The watchdog will also set minimum consumer standards, covering areas such as accessibility and passenger information.

The Secretary of State will have the opportunity to prioritise the needs of future passengers through the long-term rail strategy.

The Minister has just said that the watchdog will have strong powers, but then uses words like “consultation” and “taking account of”. I have taken Bills through this place, and there are other words, like “should”, “could” or “must have regard to”—in fact, Bills rarely say, “must”; they normally say, “should pay attention to” or “should heed”. What actual powers will the watchdog have to compel GBR or the Secretary of State to take a particular course of action?

That is a very important point. I thank the right hon. Member for his contribution. The passenger watchdog will have the ability to make sure that GBR is compliant with minimum consumer standards on accessibility and information—this will be an independent power to directly monitor the passenger experience—as well as investigation powers, including to demand information by a deadline. It will be fully established within 12 months of Royal Assent of the Bill, so it will be stood up quickly to provide the oversight that it needs to provide.

The Secretary of State will also have the opportunity to prioritise the needs of future passengers through the long-term rail strategy, as well as her statement of objectives, which must be addressed by GBR in its business plan, which itself must be signed off by the Secretary of State under the new funding process. It would therefore be inefficient and duplicative to create yet another document to achieve the same aims.

Let me turn briefly to delay repay. The passenger watchdog can set standards that relate to delay repay. It is namechecked as an example in Clause 46, and delay repay will still be available under GBR. The Opposition spokesperson—

Shadow Minister.

Forgive me. The Shadow Minister points to the fact that we have, in his view, a dearth of ambition when it comes to what we have set out in Clause 18. I would actually argue the inverse—the standards set out in clause 18 relating to reliability of services, avoiding overcrowding and promoting the passenger experience are fundamental to creating the turn-up-and-go railway with a single directing mind that GBR seeks to achieve.

At the heart of it, these are the fundamental building blocks of the passenger experience. Layer on top of that the ways in which GBR will be nimble and dynamic enough under this legislation to lay out the passenger offer over time, and that creates a suite of measures that allow us to enhance, in the whole, the passenger experience. On that basis, I urge the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage to withdraw the Amendment.

If you will indulge me, Sir Alec, I will briefly respond to the points that have been made. I thank the Minister for his comments. He will know from our past interactions on this that I very much agree with him that we definitely do not want the micromanagement and overprescription of GBR. That would be absolutely inimical to what I want to see happening, but there is a distinction to be made between setting the overall standards and the implementation of the work needed to meet those standards.

I do not read the rest of the Bill as quite saying, “We’re just going to let GBR crack on and define everything from scratch for itself”. Given the Minister’s comments about micromanaging, which I find encouraging, I look forward to hearing what he has to say about the later amendments that are designed to dilute the Secretary of State’s ability to interfere. Hopefully, given his comments, he might be minded to give them a fair hearing, but we shall see when the time comes.

The right hon. Member for Melton and Syston makes the good point that these things need to have teeth, and that is the intention of Clause 8(2)(e), which would extend the delay repay principle to onboard amenities. Work would clearly need to be done to establish a sensible framework for the evidence requirement for people submitting claims—that would need to be thought through further—but that has not been prescribed here precisely because that would be a matter for GBR.

We also want to add teeth with subsection (2)(f), which is all about making it easier for people to claim compensation and allowing them to do so digitally rather than just on paper. In fairness, a lot of that has improved, and we hope it will continue to improve. I also want to address the very fair point made by the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford. The challenge with these things is always where to define the cut-off, but it should not be inevitable that commuters in south-east London, Greater Manchester or anywhere else should have to stand by default.

Rolling stock cuts without replacements on some routes—maybe not the hon. Gentleman’s, but elsewhere—have partly added to some of those problems. That includes the premature withdrawal of British Rail class 455 trains on Southern without a replacement and class 365 trains on the Great Northern network. A lot of these poor decisions were made following the pandemic to save cost in the short term, which has added to some of the overcrowding problems—many of which are preventable. We have included a 30-minute minimum duration in new clause 8 to try to be reasonable and to recognise that things are not always perfect.

In conclusion, we are putting a passengers’ charter forward because we feel that there is value in improving the onboard offer and making it consistent. There are things in the charter that would support other elements of the Bill by strengthening accessibility provision. For catering, my temptation would have been to go even further and wax lyrical about restaurant cars on Swiss railways or Austrian railways, which—if anybody has not enjoyed them—should be very welcome.

In Switzerland, even inter-city trains of just two hours always have a restaurant car, and they have a separate Division for on-train catering, which is in-house—they take it very seriously. I have been on 55-minute journeys across Switzerland and have been attended to straight away. It is inexpensive and very good. I have decided not to be too prescriptive and to just talk about onboard catering. It is then for GBR, or whoever, to decide if they wish to embrace that particular bit of Swiss excellence, as well as electrification, as I mentioned earlier.

I think I have said more than enough, Sir Alec. I said earlier that we want to press new clause 8 to a vote. I expect I have to take guidance from the Clerk as to whether a vote on that or on Amendment 130 would be most helpful—either is good with us.

New clauses will be moved at the end.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.

Amendment proposed: 5, in clause 3, page 2, line 23, leave out subsection (2) and insert—

“(2) Great British Railways’ function under subsection (1)(a) includes making strategic plans as to the future provision of railways infrastructure in Great Britain and implementing those plans.

(2A) Decisions about access to, and use of, railway infrastructure for the operation of trains will be made by the Office for Rail and Road.”—

This amendment aims to ensure that the Office for Rail and Road continues to make decisions about access.

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.

I beg to move Amendment 133, in Clause 3, page 2, line 39, at end insert—

“(4A) Great British Railways must, when exercising its statutory functions, seek to increase passenger traffic on railways.

(4B) Great British Railways must set and publish targets in relation to subsection (4A).”

This amendment would require Great British Railways to exercise its statutory functions with a view to increasing passenger numbers.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 248, in Clause 3, page 2, line 39, at end insert—

“(4A) Great British Railways must, when exercising its statutory functions, achieve targets for—

(a) growth in in passenger traffic on railways, and

(b) growth in the overall share of passenger journeys taken by rail for the purposes of—

(i) work,

(ii) leisure, and

(iii) accessing goods and services, relative to other modes of transport.

(4B) Targets under subsection (4A) must—

(a) be set by Great British Railways, with the agreement of the Secretary of State, and

(b) take into account, and be published alongside, each Rail Strategy under section 16 of this Act.”

This amendment would require Great British Railways, when exercising its statutory functions, to meet a target for overall growth in the number and relative proportion of passengers using railways.

Amendment 35, in clause 18, page 10, line 17, at end insert

“and to increase the number of passenger journeys in absolute terms and as a percentage of passenger journeys by mode of transport.”

This amendment would require Great British Railways to carry out its functions so as to increase the number of passenger journeys.

Amendment 249, in clause 18, page 10, line 23, at end insert—

“(g) so as to achieve an increase in—

(i) the number of passenger journeys undertaken by railway, and

(ii) the proportion of passenger journeys undertaken by rail relative to other modes of transport.”

See explanatory statement for Amendment 248.

New clause 42—Passenger growth target—

“(1) The Secretary of State must set and publish a target to increase passenger numbers in Great Britain.

(2) The Secretary of State—

(a) must keep the target under review, and

(b) may revise or replace it.

(3) If the Secretary of State revises or replaces the target, the Secretary of State must publish the revised or replacement target.

(4) Great British Railways must, when exercising its statutory functions, have regard to—

(a) the target set by the Secretary of State under this section, and

(b) any strategy or policy of the Scottish Ministers relating to the growth of passenger numbers in Scotland.”

This new clause requires the Secretary of State to set a passenger growth target.

The length and complexity of this Amendment mean that hopefully I will be able to relieve hon. Members by making a very concise speech. The Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s commitment to a freight growth target as part of GBR. It is good that we have greater ambitions for the carriage of rail freight on our rail network, which tends to lag behind most European competitors in modal share. However, we think that the Bill has missed an opportunity by not including a comparable target for passenger growth. I have heard the argument made in front of the Select Committee and other forums that that could compromise or undermine the freight growth. I disagree with that premise. As so often in life, it is not either/or; it is both/and. Railways are useful for both passengers and freight.

Freight is arguably neglected on our network and the economic and environmental benefits are absolutely enormous, especially if electrically hauled. One freight train is able to convey many containers or aggregate wagons and take dozens of lorries off the road. We therefore very much support the freight growth target, but feel that there should also be a passenger growth target. Many of our roads are plagued by congestion and many people opt to take the car who, in other circumstances, would like to take the train, but have either had negative experience of overcrowding or fear that they could be subject to overcrowding and a bad experience. Amendment 133 would require GBR to set a target for increasing passenger traffic and publish progress in relation to how it will achieve that. I think that I have said more than enough and am very interested to hear the Minister’s comments.

The official Opposition, strongly support this Amendment because it seeks to increase passenger traffic on the railways, in addition to the welcomed inclusion of an objective to increase freight. We agree with it so strongly because it is almost identical to our amendment 35, which I shall also speak to. Amendment 35 would add a specific requirement to subsection (2) paragraph (b) of Clause 18—the duties clause—for GBR Ministers and the Office of Rail and Road,

“to increase the number of passenger journeys”.

This directly addresses the concern raised by the Campaign for Better Transport in the evidence received by the Committee. It is an essential amendment to ensure that GBR has a key focus and aim to increase passenger numbers—something that is essential for a railway. It would ensure that the dominant culture of GBR is not one where passengers are seen as creators of damage to infrastructure.

That is not a loose accusation that I have made; I have been listening to the industry for over a year now. The core structure of GBR is Network Rail. I know that I am bound to be corrected if I get this even a couple out, but I believe that Network Rail has about 41,000 members of staff. Network Rail is the central body to which train operating companies have been added at a rate of about one every six weeks or two months over the last period. An oft-repeated criticism of the culture of Network Rail has been that it sees passengers as a necessary irritation in the correct functioning of the railway. Sir Alec, if your organisation is engineer focused, the condition of the infrastructure is what is most important to you. Passengers demand lots and lots of trains, but lots and lots of trains damage the infrastructure. There is a concern in the wider sector— I am merely passing it on—that the culture of Network Rail has historically been one in which it wants to limit the number of trains to what it considers to be acceptable, so that it has a nice steady state of repair of the infrastructure. If that is the dominant culture that pervades GBR, now that it is bringing everything together, that will be a disaster for passenger services, because there would not be an automatic incentive to focus on an increase in passenger journeys, which is why amendments 133 and 35 are so important.

New clause 42—to go into the detail a little—would require the Secretary of State to set, publish and keep under review a passenger growth target. It would also require GBR to have regard to that target when exercising its statutory functions. In oral evidence to this Committee, Ben Plowden, chief executive of the Campaign for Better Transport, said:

“It is welcome that there is a duty to promote the interests of passengers and disabled people in the Bill. We think there is a case for strengthening that duty so that it aligns with the duty in relation to freight, which is to promote the use of the network for passengers and disabled passengers. There should also be an equivalent duty on the Secretary of State to set a passenger growth target, as she is required to do in relation to freight, so that, as we picked up on a minute ago, GBR does not end up being incentivised not to grow the network in order to meet its crowding and reliability duties, for example. It seems to us that giving it a statutory incentive to increase passenger use over time would be very helpful to build on the existing duty in the Bill.”––[Official Report, Railways Public Bill Committee, 20 January 2026; c. 24, Q49.]

That organisation was not alone, because John Thomas from ALLRAIL said:

“I think a passenger growth target is really important. At the moment, the duties for GBR only include improving performance. You can improve performance, as we saw during covid, by cutting the number of services, but that is not necessarily in the best interest of customers. We think a balance between a performance target and a passenger growth target is really important.”––[Official Report, Railways Public Bill Committee, 20 January 2026; c. 47, Q78.]

Finally, we heard from Rob Morris of Siemens. He said:

“What we seem to be missing in the Bill at the moment is the ambition for passenger growth, how that will improve the railway and the levels of investment that need to go with it.”––[Official Report, Railways Public Bill Committee, 20 January 2026; c. 64, Q122.]

It is unclear to me why, if the Bill can require a target to increase use of the railway network for freight, the same obligation is not applied to passenger services. The inconsistency suggests a deliberate choice not to mandate passenger growth. And why would GBR care about passenger growth? After all, if it will be dominated by Network Rail, there is at least a risk that its culture will be one of avoiding damage to infrastructure, in excess of looking after growing the number of passengers.

In written evidence to the Transport Committee, Rail Forum said:

“From Rail Forum’s perspective there is nothing specific in the Bill that will guarantee improved travel for passengers. Improvement is predicated on the goodwill of GBR and others driving things in the ‘right direction’. In our view the key to improvement is culture change within those organisations coming together to form GBR. Creating GBR from Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd…will not signal the need for change and creates a risk that the current Network Rail culture will be seen as the norm and hence the status quo will prevail.”

These are not arguments made up by a cunning Opposition to wrongfoot the Government. This is the Opposition doing our job properly and reflecting the concerns of the wider sector—not just from one organisation but from multiple organisations, right across the sector. They identify the drafting as a problem and the culture as potentially a problem unless the legislation makes it clear that it is a duty of GBR to increase passenger numbers.

As in this morning’s sitting, I draw attention to the fact that I am a member of Unite. I did not intend to speak in this particular debate, but I wish to respond briefly to some of the things that have been said and to mount a perhaps limited defence of Network Rail and the importance of engineering in such organisations. The comparator, of course, was Railtrack, which outsourced its engineering functions, had only a single engineer on its board of directors and had only one non-executive director from an engineering background, with deadly consequences, which are well understood and do not need repeating. If there is sometimes caution in the organisation, I suggest that the long Shadow cast by the events of the late 1990s and early 2000s is why.

There is good and sound logic behind not running too many trains across congested track. The real reason why we do not run as many trains as is theoretically possible is that lack of capacity on the network. Birmingham New Street, for example, will be exhausted once the Camp Hill services start in the spring—any more services simply cannot be safely got in or out on the network. When path allocators have to make decisions on which services to prioritise, freight tends to be squeezed out. That is a long-standing problem.

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is right partially to defend Network Rail. It is an issue of balance and of the culture going forward. He also talked about capacity—this is not a party political point—but that is determined by not just the number of trains, but the length of trains, which makes an enormous difference. Just increasing carriage numbers—in particular on the Northern rail network where the Majority of trains are just two carriages—by a couple of extra carriages does not require significantly increased capacity on the line, but it does increase capacity enormously for passengers. That would allow a target for increased passenger numbers to be fulfilled, without an increase in line capacity.

I thank the Shadow Minister for the constructive spirit of his Intervention. Indeed, in the days of cross-party consensus on High Speed 2, I worked with members of his party exactly to address some of the capacity challenges on the network. I just say to him that the two are linked. As he was alluding to, the length of the trains is related to the signalling blocks and the safe distance between trains, so that they can be run together. If he is right, we should be looking to put on more carriages. When waiting for a CrossCountry train, I can certainly remember the collective groan on the platform when another short formation appeared. There is a hard limit, however, to what can be applied without providing more caps on the network. That is where the passenger versus freight dilemma comes in, because sometimes hard choices just have to be made. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point that this is not always either/or, but sometimes it is. Sometimes one has to be prioritised over the other, and freight has historically been the loser.

I am trying not to make too many interventions or to be tedious, but I cannot resist the temptation of that. Where the choice is either/or, does that not suggest that that particular route line requires an upgrade to provide sufficient capacity for both?

The hon. Gentleman and I are members of the same Select Committee and we tend to agree on most things, and I think that I agree with him again. In the here and now, however, and in the circumstances in which the Bill will start to apply, I share the fear that if the freight growth target is accompanied by an equivalent passenger growth target, in effect the freight growth target is neutralised; it is no longer the essential correction to the tendencies that have sometimes seen freight services being squeezed off the network. I say to the Shadow Minister that the previous Government put in place a freight growth target and not a passenger one at the same time, presumably for exactly the same reason: at times when the two are in tension, freight can suffer the detriment. I thought it was important to put that concern on the record.

I regularly find myself agreeing with the hon. Member for West Dorset—possibly to the detriment of us both—on a whole range of things, and I agree with the Liberal Democrat spokesperson again on this occasion.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham is right to highlight that amendments 133 and 35 are not dissimilar in their intent and in what they seek to achieve. It is important, notwithstanding what the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield says, that while we do recognise the desire and the need to drive up an increase in the use of railways for transporting freight, at the moment we risk disproportionately focusing on that to the detriment of traveling passengers. If there was any tension there, I would posit that freight may win out.

Yet in the Bill, it is the traveling passengers who will be not only paying for their tickets but essentially, as taxpayers, paying to subsidise or backfill any additional funding needed for the railways as a nationalised industry. Given that, it is vital that the passenger is front and centre of the thinking behind the Bill and how GBR comes into being. My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham rightly highlighted the importance of the culture of the organisation. It may inherit DNA from predecessor organisations, but GBR will be a new organisation, and that gives the Minister and the Secretary of State an opportunity to help shape that culture.

I have a genuine concern that in what is being done, the power of the passenger—of the paying public or the market—is diluted by virtue of creating what is essentially a state monopoly in GBR. What the amendments proposed by both my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham and the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage seek to do is to put the passenger back into the mix in some way, and require that their voice has to be heard alongside that desire to drive up usage for freight. If there is a target or an obligation on GBR to drive up passenger numbers, it will have to be responsive to what passengers want, what they see and the experiences they have on the railways, which will drive them to use those railways more often.

I take the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield, who knows of what he speaks. But at the moment, with the perfectly reasonable desire to increase the use of railways for freight, we risk that being unbalanced to the detriment of the passenger and their voice not being heard. For that reason, I am supportive of both amendments in seeking to make sure that the passenger remains front and centre of how GBR operates.

I genuinely thank the Shadow Minister, the Lib Dem spokesperson and Members from across the House for their considered and meaningful contributions on this matter. It shows the strength of feeling that we all have about making sure that the passenger experience sits at the heart of the way that our railways function. On the detail about the length of trains, which I agree is an interesting point that has been teased out in this debate, the rolling stock strategy that the DFT is bringing forward will have specific regard to the issue of train length. That will hopefully assuage some concerns.

The shadow Minister also pointed to the potential deficiencies in Network Rail caused by having an operational focus on the maintenance of infrastructure as opposed to promoting the needs of passengers. I would contrast that with the point that a lot of the issues that come with accessibility on the railway and sufficient provision of passenger services arise as much from the access regime and diffuse accountability as they do from cultural or institutional failings in Network Rail. In the current system, access is ultimately decided by the ORR and timetabling by National Rail, and we can end up with a situation where there is a 7 o’clock train from Manchester Piccadilly to London with no passengers on it. The existing system cannot put passengers at its heart, because its decision making process is too disjointed to be able to look at the railway in a holistic way. That is what the Bill is seeking to change.

As all amendments in the group relate directly to the notion of passenger numbers and increasing the number of passenger journeys, I will respond to them as a whole. As a commercial organisation, we believe that GBR will be naturally incentivised to drive up revenue through growing its passenger base and attracting more people to use the railway. GBR must also have the flexibility to determine how it can deliver on that ambition without adverse incentives, for example to congest the network at the expense of passenger experience, being established.

The Bill already includes a duty for sector bodies, including GBR, to promote the interests of users and potential users. That will require GBR to consider during decision making how to encourage new users on to the railway. That is a natural incentive to grow passenger numbers to enable them to realise the benefits of rail travel. That might include working towards encouraging modal shift, extending the network to areas with poorer connectivity or making informed choices to grow different types of services, such as leisure journeys.

In discharging its full remit of duties, including in particular its public interest and making efficient use of public money duties, GBR should make sensible, rounded decisions on where to target passenger growth across the network. It should do that in a sustainable way, and not to meet a passenger target frozen in aspic that might not be appropriate for the needs of the railway at the time. I urge hon. Members to withdraw the amendments.

I thank the Minister for his comments. I do not doubt that his intentions are genuine and that he would like to see the Bill and GBR lead to greater passenger numbers, but I gently suggest that that cannot necessarily be taken as read. In periods in the past—arguably to a smaller extent since the pandemic, but to a much greater extent going back to the 1980s and before—there was an approach called managed decline. That was a Trojan horse for closing a line of route; intentional efforts were made to reduce passenger numbers. I do not think it can be taken as read that there will always be a desire to grow the network.

May I test something from the hon. Gentleman’s perspective? The Secretary of State has a lot of oversight over how GBR functions under this new regime. One of her duties, and a duty for GBR, will be to ensure efficient use of public money. Do you not think that that creates a strong incentive for her to drive up passenger use on the railway to ensure that we have a balance of service? Going back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield about the importance of freight, do you not think that the point about the essential correction for freight is important in a way that does not apply to passenger services?

Order. May I remind Members again that we do not use the word “you”?

Thank you, Sir Alec. I say to the Minister that there but for the grace of God go I. I totally understand what he is saying, but it is perhaps slightly paradoxical: if there are all these reasons why it is almost inevitable that the Secretary of State will want to do this anyway, what is the harm of having a provision in the Bill?

The Minister made some very good points about nuance and needing to have the right targets for the right part of the country, but Amendment 133 to Clause 3 does not preclude that. Critically, proposed new subsection (4B) says that GBR must set and publish “targets”. It does not suggest that there should be one big monolithic target for the entire nation that everything would need to be attuned to.

It would be perfectly sensible for targets to be set by a business unit, or whatever it is going to be—it is currently Network Rail routes and Network Rail regions. There is plenty of room for nuance. This is simply about the principle that GBR should have increasing passenger numbers as a statutory function. I would therefore like to press the amendment to a vote.

The Committee divided: Ayes 5, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 1—Purpose of Great British Railways—

“(1) The purpose of Great British Railways is defined by the following objectives—

(a) prioritising the needs of Great British Railways passengers in decision-making,

(b) delivering reliable, safe and accessible railway passenger services,

(c) providing value for money for passengers and taxpayers, including consideration of the affordability of fare prices,

(d) increasing passenger numbers and growing usage of the network year-on-year,

(e) expanding and improving the network, including services, connectivity, and restoring or adding routes,

(f) modernising working practices and innovating to improve productivity, efficiency, and passenger experience,

(g) supporting economic growth, national productivity and improving connections between towns, cities and employment centres,

(h) improving the experience of disabled and vulnerable passengers and ensuring consistent access to assistance,

(i) ensuring fair and transparent treatment of open access, freight and devolved operators when allocating access and charges,

(j) growing rail freight, including supporting delivery of the national freight growth target,

(k) strengthening the financial sustainability of the railways, reducing reliance on operating subsidy over time,

(l) integrating track and train, simplifying structures, and avoiding duplication, and

(m) supporting multimodal integration with buses, trams and local transport networks.

(2) The Secretary of State and Great British Railways must have regard to the purpose set out in subsection (1) in exercising their functions under this Act.”

This new clause defines Great British Railways’ purpose.

New clause 2—Great British Railways: Key Performance Indicators—

“(1) Within six months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a framework of key performance indicators for Great British Railways (the ‘framework’).

(2) The framework must include targets for each of the following key performance indicators—

(a) reliability, including punctuality, cancellations, short-forming, delays and the reliability of key connections,

(b) safety and security, including safety incidents, security incidents affecting passengers, staff presence, and delivery of safety-critical maintenance,

(c) comfort and on-board experience, including cleanliness, functioning of heating, air-conditioning, and lighting, overcrowding, availability and performance of an internet connection, power sockets and toilet facilities,

(d) affordability and value for money, including the level of fares, availability of discounted fares, availability of flexible fares, transparency of information about fares, and passenger perception of value for money,

(e) passenger growth and network expansion including growth in passenger numbers, number of communities served, service frequency, and provision of new or restored services,

(f) financial sustainability, efficiency and productivity including operating subsidy levels, productivity improvements, delivery of projects on time and on budget, simplification of processes, including an explicit savings target set by the Secretary of State, and

(g) freight growth and performance including rail freight volumes, punctuality, reliability, allocation of freight paths and capacity at pinch points.

(3) Within three months of the end of each financial year, Great British Railways must publish a report on its performance against each part of the framework under subsection (2) during the previous financial year.

(4) The Secretary of State must lay any report required by subsection (3) before Parliament.”

This new clause requires the Secretary of State to set a statutory KPI framework for Great British Railways.

New clause 5—Great British Railways: reporting requirement—

“(1) Great British Railways must publish an annual report.

(2) The annual report must include Great British Railways’ performance against its key performance indicators as set out in section [

(3) Great British Railways must publish quarterly updates on its performance against its key performance indicators as set out in section [

This new clause would require Great British Railways to report annually and quarterly against its key performance indicators.

I will first address Clause 3, and then listen to Members’ comments on the new clauses before responding to them in full.

Clause 3 is fundamental to establishing Great British Railways as the integrated rail body that this country needs. It sets out GBR’s statutory functions, which provide a list of things that GBR is here to do, fulfilling ministerial commitments to set out GBR’s purpose in the Bill. This is not just a technical provision; it is the foundation for a simpler, more accountable railway system.

Currently, responsibilities for managing infrastructure, operating services, setting fares and driving innovation are fragmented across the sector. That fragmentation has led to inefficiencies, duplication, and a lack of clear accountability. The clause addresses that by providing GBR with the statutory basis for bringing those functions together under one roof. It empowers GBR to act as the directing mind for the railway.

GBR will look after railway infrastructure, which includes maintaining it, operating it and making decisions on who can access it. It will provide railway passenger services, set and manage fares, sell tickets or secure that tickets are available for sale. It will provide services that help to run the railway and make it easier for customers to use, even when those railway services are provided by other operators. It will carry out research and development, support innovation, and publish advice and standards to improve the railways. Those functions do not limit GBR, however. The clause also clarifies that GBR can exercise company powers under existing law, so that it can act as a fully commercial organisation, and it provides GBR with appropriate operational flexibility by enabling the statutory functions to be exercised by its subsidiaries.

In short, the clause sets the statutory foundation for a railway that works as one system and is simpler, more efficient and more accountable. Without the clause, it would not be clear to GBR, or to anyone else, what GBR is here to do. I commend the clause to the Committee.

I do not propose to divide the Committee on Clause 3. If the Bill is going to progress, then some version of the clause needs to be in it. We are doing our best to improve it; we have not been successful so far, but I have not given up hope—there is more to come.

New clause 1 is a purpose clause. One of the very obvious gaps in the Bill is that there is no clause setting out its purpose. It is based on a number of objectives, which are set out in subsection (1)(a) to (m)—13 paragraphs. Paragraph (a) sets out the mission that the priority in decision making should be the needs of GBR passengers. That builds nicely on the discussion we have just had.

With a nationalised organisation, we need to go the extra mile to clarify exactly what its focus should be, because it is, by design, a top-down command structure of the state. In a functioning—I stress “functioning”—competitive market, the market will force operators to focus on their passengers, because the passengers are also their customers and that is how they grow their profits. When we take the deliberate decision to move away from market competition, something has to replace it, and the only thing that can replace it is the legislative process. That is why the new clause is so necessary. The priority in decision making needs to be GBR passengers; although we can infer this from statements by the Government, enshrining the mission statement would ensure that it remained a beacon for the organisation to follow.

Paragraph (b) states the objective of

“delivering reliable, safe and accessible railway passenger services”.

I do not think that that is controversial for any of us. Paragraph (c) sets the aim of

“providing value for money for passengers and taxpayers, including consideration of the affordability of fare prices”.

With a state service, the public expect value for money to be the driver, to ensure continued investment and reinvestment in our rail network. At the moment, fares remain a key concern of passengers and taxpayers. The affordability of fares must be one of the primary objectives.

Paragraph (d) points to increasing passenger numbers and growing usage of the network. We do not want to see what happened during the nationalisation era, when service quality fell and people consequently turned to other modes of transport when reliability decreased. Keeping people adopting the railways, as we have seen explode under privatisation, is very important. That links nicely with paragraph (e), which would ensure that the network is continually expanded and improved, with constant analysis of service and connectivity improvements as well as restoring and adding routes.

Does my hon. Friend agree that paragraph (e) and some of the other provisions will support what I am particularly keen to see: the growth of the entire railway, not just the areas that happen to have a mayor or are part of Scotland or Wales?

My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. One of the stand-out moments from Tuesday’s oral evidence was that given by the mayors, Andy Burnham and Tracy Brabin. What it highlighted, apart from their articulate defence of their regions’ interests, was how different things will be, under the current proposals, in mayoral combined authorities: there will be the right to ask or be consulted on the devolution of aspects of rail to those authorities. That is great as far as it goes—they said that it did not go far enough, but it goes some distance in that direction.

However, what if an area is not a mayoral combined authority? I believe that is the point that my hon. Friend is making: without the direct relationship that the Government are anticipating for mayoral combined authorities, at the expense of other parts of the country, the “purpose” Clause becomes more important. That is another reason why paragraphs (e) and (f) and others are helpful.

Many Members and constituents across the country were enthused by the restoring your railway fund and the new stations fund, which have unfortunately now been scrapped by this Government. They were set up in the last Parliament and led to a renaissance of interest in local railway investment and a focus on modernising working practices and innovating to improve productivity, efficiency and passenger experience.

Working practices are not really spoken about in the Bill as it is currently drafted. This is not a new start-up—we have to be quite clear about that: it is building a new organisation out of some very old organisations, including Network Rail. The aim of modernisation is to do more for less. That is a good thing because it means that there is more money left over for further investment in improving infrastructure and improving or increasing passenger services and more left in the kitty to reduce subsidies—the taxpayer support—and by extension reduce the tax burden on our hard-pressed constituents. Doing more for less by modernising working practices and innovating to improve productivity efficiency is an unalloyed good. It should be very important and at the heart of any organisation—yet the Bill is silent on it.

Although I can hear the subtext, but the new clause is not intended to be a union-bashing measure. It is intended to make a dynamic organisation that has its passengers—its users—at the heart of its interests and that there is a focus on ensuring that GBR continues to have growth as part of its objectives. That aligns with the Government’s decision to put growth at the heart of their mission.

The hon. Member particularly mentioned workforce productivity.

Not only.

Okay, perhaps we will come back to that. However, the hon. Member also mentioned the restoring the your railway fund, which he talked about as a success. When the last Conservative Rail Minister, Huw Merriman, appeared before the Transport Committee he said, of that programme, that

“The challenge was that a lot of people had their expectations dashed. A lot of business cases were, “Let’s move it to this stage so we can keep the dream alive.” That just wastes money and expertise because you know that scheme is not going to get a return. I have mixed feelings on it as a result.”

Does the hon. Gentleman share some sympathy with that perspective?

Yes, I do, but then democracy is really messy, isn’t it? If we listen to passengers and our constituents, we hear all sorts of desires that may not be sufficiently persuasive to obtain Government funding, but the process of asking people for their views should not be shied away from. It sounds as though, in the experience of our former colleague Huw Merriman, some rather weak political decisions—or decisions of expediency—were taken. That does not mean that we should move away from the democratic process; we should listen to people. I do not say that the restoring your railway fund was a failure, because we listened and we heard.

I will pick up on the other point because I was sitting down when I barracked the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield: modernisation is not just about working practice. I want to make that really clear: modernising is about productivity enhancement of at-times-sclerotic organisations. I am a former entrepreneur. I ran a business for well over a decade on a much smaller scale than this. At the end, I employed about 1,000 people; I took it from start-up to about that stage.

Even a fast-growth, highly entrepreneurial and—in the views of other people—highly dynamic business such as the one that I was lucky enough to lead had all sorts of internal inconsistencies and inefficiencies, and needed to focus relentlessly on improving working processes and practices. That was right at the sharp end of the private sector. If it was true for my organisation then, think how true it is for a very large organisation such as Network Rail, which has 40,000-plus staff, and will be much bigger still when it becomes Great British Railways.

Paragraph (h) of new Clause 1 states the need to improve and consider

“the experience of disabled and vulnerable passengers”.

Key terminus stations have good systems in place but that could be expanded with investment such as in the cross-party Access for All fund, which did huge work to improve disabled access in stations.

Paragraphs (i) and (j) are on a key theme that we have explored throughout our consideration of the Bill: open access and freight. They would ensure

“fair and transparent treatment of open access, freight and devolved operators”

At times it feels like we speak too much about open access in relation to this Bill. If we look at the capacity—the number of passengers covered by open access operators—we see that in percentage terms it is very small.

Two per cent.

I was going to say 1.5%, but maybe it is 2%. Let us call it approximately 2%; I leave rail freight in a separate category. But open access operators have a disproportionate impact on driving competitive challenge.

One of the very significant concerns of the sector, which I share, is that if the very dominant GBR is created and the operator and open access operators are not supported, even though they represent just 2% of passenger transit what will be lost is the competitive comparator for what good operating processes and customer-focused activities for train operations look like. It is disproportionately important that GBR should be held to account practically by the operations of open access operators, so such operators must receive fair and transparent treatment. That is what paragraphs (i) and (j) set out. They would ensure that the system is transparent where we believe that the legislation as drafted is currently vague.

Paragraph (j) enshrines the growth freight targets that we all agree on and that the Government have outlined. Paragraph (k) states the need to strengthen

“the financial sustainability of the railways” to reduce reliance on subsidy. That should be an objective, and a purpose, of GBR. The taxpayer has lots of things that his or her money needs to be spent on. If we can reduce, over time, the need for subsidy on the railways, that money is freed up either for tax cuts, which make everyone richer, or to be spent on other important priorities of Government.

Meanwhile, paragraphs (l) and (m) speak to another key aim—integration, both of track and train, and of the mayors, with their local transport integration beyond rail, which are important to have. The lack of explicit inclusion in the Bill feels like an oversight that we are more than happy to shed light on for the Government.

Sir Alec, you will be pleased to know that that is it as far as new Clause 1 is concerned, but I do have new clause 2 to entertain you with, which is about key performance indicators. The Government have been asked multiple times over the last few months to provide, even in draft, the KPIs that they intend Great British Rail to operate under. This clause is a first attempt to fill the gap that the Government have left by refusing time and again even to discuss what the KPIs will be, other than to say, using their go-to phrase, that they will be “robust”. What does that mean? We do not know.

The new clause would set a statutory key performance indicator framework, which must include targets for a number of areas, such as reliability, safety, cleanliness, affordability, passenger growth, financial efficiency, freight and others. It is necessary because of the failure of the Government. I would be delighted to withdraw it if the Minister were to stand up and say, “These are the KPIs that the Government have in mind—let’s debate them.”

At the moment, we have draft legislation in front of us—we are a scrutinising Committee and we are here for a month to go line-by-line through the Bill to improve it and understand how GBR will be operated—and yet we have no idea what the Government are even thinking on KPIs, which are a central set of objectives. This new clause seeks not to bind GBR or the Secretary of State to rigid targets, but instead to provide an overall remit for where the Secretary of State and GBR must report within.

Accountability is at the core of public trust in nationally run services, and setting targets in statute ensures there is a positive feedback loop for officials—very importantly—and GBR agents to work against. It helps frame discussions and engagement between the Departments and GBR, and allows a number of different datasets and parameters to be considered. The new clause would also require the Secretary of State to publish these indicators and lay them before Parliament.

The KPIs work as a strong starting position by which GBR can judge itself, and how it in turn can be judged by passengers and the public. Again, the Opposition are having to do the Government’s work for them. We should not be in that position. The Government should have brought forward this Bill with the accompanying documentation, which, as we have heard, is missing— 19 important documents and counting.

Finally, I turn to new clause 5. You will be pleased to hear that it is much shorter, Sir Alec. The new clause would give reporting requirements to GBR, continuing the theme of accountability, which new clauses 1 and 2 also have at their core. The layout of the new clause is self-explanatory. Subsections (2) and (3) link to new clause 2 on key performance indicators, and the clause would enhance accountability further, not just by having targets in place, but by having a clear reporting criterion.

In the same way that a Secretary of State is expected to appear in front of Parliament on a rotating basis in Urgent Questions, in Committees and through written ministerial questions, it is reasonable to expect that GBR should publish an annual report in which it reports on the targets set by the Secretary of State. Given the eminently sensible and logical outcome of the new clauses, I urge the Government to consider seriously on what basis it would not want to create greater transparency.

I will briefly make a few comments about each of the new clauses, though obviously I have already intervened on my hon. Friend. I support wholeheartedly what we have proposed in new Clause 1, which is no surprise given that I am sitting next to my hon. Friend the Shadow Minister. I want to pick up on what he said about the restoring your railway fund as an additional way of explaining why the lack of regional devolution, apart from mayors, is going to be so important for a lot of our constituents.

I represent a Constituency in the south-west that had some really great promises made under the restoring your railway fund, and was going to be able to make progress on a new station and railway line between Tavistock and Plymouth. That is really important if the Government want to see economic growth in the south-west, which they do, because they are investing enormous amounts of money in defence. But if we do not build in at this early stage the ability to see growth for regions that do not have a mayor, and are not likely to have a mayor for some considerable time, I remain unconvinced that the Bill is reassuring enough to say, “Don’t worry, these far-flung parts of the country will get a look-in.”

I appreciate the point made by the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield that, often, the good news is just pushed further down the road but, with the greatest of respect, the announcement made by the Secretary of State about Northern Powerhouse Rail the other day was exactly the same thing. Ultimately, this huge announcement was entirely around a business plan and business case being developed, which was exactly what the previous Government were doing with the restoring your railway fund. I appreciate there is an ambition there; that is what we had when we were in government and that ambition for the south-west of the UK was particularly important.

Indeed, we have already seen what can happen when investment is put into those places. The noble Lord Hendy likes to cite the Mid Cornwall Metro, which is a very small piece of railway that has been connected down in Cornwall, which is great, but it is very, very small. He also rightly set out that Okehampton station was opened recently in Devon. That sees an enormous amount of traffic, so we know there is a case for ensuring that our more far-flung regions get support. The new clause would put that in the Bill and enable communities to hold Great British Railways to account to deliver for them as well.

I now come to new clause 2. I have the privilege of sitting on the Transport Committee; we had the noble Lord Hendy in front of us a few weeks ago when we were scrutinising the Bill. I completely appreciate that the aim of the Bill is to create a near-perfect railway. That is what the Government hope to achieve and I completely understand why that is their aim. However, when I challenged him on how we are going to judge Great British Railways’ performance, he did not have an answer. He said it would be a perfect railway and I said that was fine, but we have to get from where we are now, which is not perfect, to where we want it to be in this utopia, and there is no measurement set out in the Bill for the public and for parliamentarians to be able to hold the Government to account.

Interestingly, it is my understanding that all the existing franchises have KPIs: they publish them on their websites, so I can go to Great Western Railway’s website and see how it is doing on its KPIs on punctuality and performance. But we are not sure whether that is included for Great British Railways. The new clause has been tabled because that is not clear enough. We want it to be set out in the Bill so that we can make sure the great British public, who are going to be using Great British Railways, have a marker to be able to say, “It’s not that great yet”, or, hopefully, congratulate the Government and say what a great job they are doing. I do not understand why the Government would not want to agree to new clause 2, or at least table their own new clause to ensure that the KPIs are clear.

Finally, I suppose the reporting requirement in new clause 5 connects to what I have just said on new clause 2. Again, we have made it clear that we do not want this to be a public versus private challenge. I know the ideological arguments are clear on all sides of the Committee, but where there are no shareholders other than the public, the public surely deserve to be able to see how well the new entity is delivering for them. A board would get an annual report. Shareholders would be able to see what difference their money is making and how much money they are getting back. We are not receiving that and, frankly, referring back to those devolution points, if we are not in Scotland or Wales or with a mayoral authority, we have no way of knowing what our train fares are paying towards if there is nothing reporting back so that we can say, “Hang on, I live in a part of the country that is not getting the investment we have been promised and we want to make sure we do get it.” So I support wholeheartedly the three new clauses for the reasons that I have set out.

Let me first pick up on the points made by the hon. Lady as they relate to devolution, which is incredibly important. We will cover it in more extensive detail later, but it has a material impact on the new clauses we are considering. She is right to point to the fact that mayoral strategic authorities are the lens through which GBR intends to play out its devolution work under statute. That is because we believe that mayoral strategic authorities provide the right lens through which to use the transport network—the rail network in particular—as a catalyst for economic and housing growth. That is due to the powers that devolved mayors have in that space.

I also wish to reassure the hon. Lady that GBR’s ability to engage with local authorities will go far beyond just mayoral strategic authorities. That plays into an important consideration about the structure of GBR as an organisation, which we want to be a lot more flat and a lot more concentrated on ensuring that it can make an important regional difference in every part of the United Kingdom. Through the business units of GBR, we will be able to facilitate that work.

What we do not want to do, however—given any future Government aspiration for more places to have mayors—is to freeze a patchwork programme of devolution into legislation in a way that does not allow us to work closely with a range of devolved areas in future. GBR will be able to engage in that work comprehensively with local authorities, irrespective of whether they have a mayor.

On new Clause 1, which seeks to add a purpose to the Bill, I am pleased to say that it largely mirrors provisions that already exist. I confirm that the Bill already makes that clear through the combination of GBR’s statutory functions, which set out what we expect GBR to do, and the shared general duties in clause 18, which set out what we expect it to consider and achieve. Taken together, the functions and duties already set out GBR’s fundamental purpose.

In addition, the duties in clause 18 can already cover the breadth of the outcomes that the proposed new clause is driving at. For example, sector bodies including GBR, and the Secretary of State, will be required to make decisions in the public interest, which includes social and economic benefits. The duties in the Bill are those that will endure and should be at the core of any railway. Instead of setting out a clear purpose, new clause 1 would duplicate many of the provisions already in the Bill and actually make GBR’s purpose significantly less clear.

New clauses 2 and 5 would set key performance indicators for GBR and introduce a requirement for GBR to publish an annual report on them. I can certainly support the intention of the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham that GBR should have a comprehensive set of performance objectives against which it is robustly held to account. I disagree with him, however, on where and how those indicators should be implemented. The right place for GBR’s KPIs is in its integrated business plan, alongside the detail of what activity GBR will be carrying out over the five-year funding period.

There are three main reasons for that, and I also point to the fact that the arrangement is mirrored in other public organisations, such as National Highways, set up by the previous Conservative Government in 2015—its KPIs are not included in primary legislation. First, the indicators should be realistic and measurable, meaning they also need to be grounded in GBR’s specific proposals for delivery. Therefore, it is appropriate that the indicators are developed as part of the business plan, rather than in legislation.

Secondly, key performance indicators need to be able to evolve over time as the railway network and customer needs change. The way an indicator is set out can influence how an organisation behaves, and we should be able to refine the indicators over the course of several funding periods to get GBR to deliver in the way it needs to. Therefore, a more flexible process, such as that used for developing the business plan, works much better than fixing the indicators in legislation.

Finally, it is important that the ORR, in its role of scrutinising GBR’s proposed plans and monitoring GBR’s delivery, is able to assess whether commitments made by GBR are ambitious but also realistic. As the independent expert adviser to the Secretary of State, the ORR should have a clear route to influence the formulation of GBR’s key performance indicators. By keeping them within the business plan, the ORR’s involvement is ensured by legislation. Unlike legislation, the integrated business plan will also be updated, likely on an annual basis, and it can only be updated following scrutiny from the ORR and the new passenger watchdog, which in my view provides additional flexibility and accountability.

I hope that the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham can agree that GBR’s business plan is the right place to develop and set GBR’s performance indicators. Given my explanation, I encourage him not to press his new clauses to a vote.

I am grateful to the Minister for setting out his defence of the Bill. The problem with his argument is that, because the Government have gone off half-cocked, the Committee is not in a position to assess whether he is right or wrong on the nature of the KPIs, or even on where they should be, because we have not been furnished with any draft copies of the documents to which he refers. In those circumstances, I feel obliged to press the two new clauses to a vote.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

It may help Members to know that we debate new clauses where convenient in the Bill. We will vote on whether to agree to the new clauses when we get to the end of the Bill.