“(1) Within twelve months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a report containing a review of the Restoring Your Railway Fund.

(2) The review under subsection (1) must consider the effect of the fund on the reopening of railways lines and stations.”—

This new clause requires the Secretary of State to review the Restoring Your Railway Fund, announced by the previous Government in February 2020.

Brought up, and read the First time.

I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 58—Rails to Trails Programme—

(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, establish a programme to facilitate the conversion of disused railway lines, sidings and associated land into active travel routes for—

(a) walkers,

(b) wheelers,

(c) cyclists, and

(d) horse riders.

(2) The programme must include—

(a) a national statutory framework to support community groups and local authorities to acquire and convert the land set out in subsection (1),

(b) a long-term fund to provide financial incentives and resources for local authorities and public bodies to convert the land for such use;

(c) mechanisms to ensure landowners are fairly compensated for any land that is acquired or converted.

(3) The programme under this section is to be referred to as the “Rails to Trails Programme”.”

This new clause would require the Government to turn disused railways into active travel paths.

New clause 60—Safe bicycle storage at railway stations—

(1) Great British Railways and all passenger railway service operators have a duty to provide sufficient safe bicycle storage facilities at all stations that they operate.

(2) In this section “safe bicycle storage” means cycle lockers or cycle hangers.

(3) For the purposes of this section, safe bicycle storage is sufficient if each railway station has—

(a) at least one safe bicycle storage facility on or adjacent to its premises, and

(b) at least one additional safe bicycle storage facility for every 30 vehicle parking spaces at the station.”

This new clause would require every station to have safe bike storage in place for passengers.

New clause 66—Reopening of services to underserved areas—

(1) Great British Railways must establish a department for the purpose of identifying areas underserved and unserved by railway services.

(2) In meetings its purpose, the department must consider—

(a) options to restore and reopen any lines closed after March 1963, and

(b) the potential to add stations onto existing lines.

(3) The department must cooperate with relevant transport authorities.

(4) In subsection (3), relevant travel authorities means—

(a) Scottish Ministers;

(b) Welsh Ministers;

(c) in England—

(i) any—

(a) mayoral strategic authority,

(b) combined authority, or

(c) combined county authority

with responsibility for rail transport or integration of services with rail transport, and

(ii) in relation to Greater London, the Mayor of London.”

This new clause would require GBR to establish a department to look at options to reopen closed lines, or add new stations to existing lines, to increase service to underserved and unserved places.

I shall be concise because we have perhaps started discussing this new Clause unwittingly in the previous segment. New clause 12 would require a review of the previous Government’s restoring your railway fund. Given the comments made by the Shadow Minister, I am not sure that the wider populace would be quite so effusive about the success of the program—for £500 million, it delivered just 11 miles of reopened line and two new stations. Having said that, the heart of the idea was positive and that is exactly why we tabled our new clause 11, which we have debated previously. New clause 12 would require the Secretary of State to undertake a review of the now cancelled restoring your railway fund, to understand the pearls of wisdom that could be salvaged from its wider failure, to improve things for the future.

New clause 58 is about our rails to trails programme, which would create the potential for communities to more easily acquire disused railway lines and turn them into walking and cycling routes. Of course, lots of disused railways in the country are no longer owned by railway organisations, but some are. The new clause would facilitate acquisitions so that we can create more spaces on routes that are segregated from traffic for people to enjoy.

New clause 60, tabled by my hon. Friend Vikki Slade, concerns safe bicycle storage at railway stations. It would introduce a new requirement that every railway station should have at least one safe bike storage facility, and one additional facility for every 30 motor vehicle parking spaces at the station. The new clause was prompted by my hon. Friend’s receiving lots of Constituency casework on bike thefts at stations in her constituency. The wider context is the extensive coverage in recent months of issues with how British Transport police investigate bike theft—something they have recently clarified and put on a firmer footing.

The new clause is important because the first couple of miles from the railway station to local communities is often a major barrier to the uptake of public transport. Walking and cycling are particularly important for that, and people can of course travel much further on a bicycle than they can by walking. The new clause is particularly important given that in 2024 more than 4,000 bikes were stolen from stations, with only 22 thefts leading to a criminal charge.

The Bill seeks to reinvigorate our railways and make them the preferred travel option for many across the country—those seeking fast, direct routes, those seeking to reduce their environmental impact, and those who cannot drive or do not have access to a car. To ensure that the railways can properly fulfil this function—to truly let the train take the strain—we must ensure the connectivity of railway lines with other local travel options, including cycling routes. With that in mind, I urge the Minister to support the new clause, although I am happy to tell you, Sir Alec, that we do not intend to press any of the new clauses to a Division.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I had not planned to speak to the new clauses, but as they are pertinent to things going on in my Constituency, I will make the most of the opportunity to have the floor.

In principle, new Clause 12, on the restoring your railway fund, is a good idea. The hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage was cynical about the scheme, but it has had some significant successes. It reallocated money that was being spent exclusively in the north of the country to other parts of the country, such as the south-west.

I believe the Minister will admit that the Dartmoor line has been hugely successful. The latest statistics show that 775,000 journeys were made between its opening and March 2025, so I assume we will have probably hit the magic million mark by now. The line goes from Exeter to Okehampton, which is slap bang in the middle of Dartmoor and not very easy to access by road, and has allowed people who live there to get to work, leisure and whatever else in Exeter.

The Dartmoor line is also why the reopening of Tavistock station was being looked into, as part of the restoring your railway fund, before the new Government scrapped it, with the money being put back into HS2 and the Manchester to Crewe line. The restoring your railway fund was a success, even if it was not as successful as the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage would have liked—but it only existed for a few years. Knowing what we do about the timescales for railway works, it was very good.

Whether we call it restoring your railway or not, I call on the Minister to ensure that we continue to look at branch lines, particularly for Tavistock, which would link Plymouth dockyard, and all the defence work going on there, to the wider population, and enable cars to come off the road. Yesterday, the A386 in my constituency was closed for the Majority of the day because of a car that flipped, meaning that commuters, schoolchildren and people going about their daily business were trapped and could not get in or out of Plymouth, which is the 15th or 16th largest city in the country. I do not think that is acceptable. All we need is an additional railway station.

Let me turn to the rails to trails programme, which I did not think would be relevant but unfortunately has become so. Plymouth city council is eager to install a cycle path in my constituency, but because it will use an old railway track, the road will have to be closed for 14 months. I was unable to attend a public meeting in my constituency last night at which more than 50 constituents turned up to say how unimaginative the council is being about the diversion required.

In principle, rails to trails is a good idea, but let us not be naive about the impact on communities where we seek to turn old infrastructure into a path suitable for walkers, wheelers, cyclists and horse riders. There is always a cost to taxpayers and a physical impact on their daily life. Although I am not against rails to trails—indeed, there are similar successful schemes in my constituency—such projects can be deeply inconvenient to develop. I wanted to be able to tell my constituents that I raised that with the Minister.

I thank the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage for speaking to the new clauses. New Clause 12 would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on the restoring your railway fund, which was set up by the previous Government and wound up in July 2024. Unfortunately, I do not believe it would be a good use of time for the Secretary of State to publish reports about the previous Government’s policies instead of getting on with the business of reforming the railway.

Will the Minister gently give way on that point?

Gently? Yes.

I gently take the Minister to task on that. Were not some of the first actions of Secretaries of State of this Government, when they came into office, to publish reports in which they—one can question how accurately—sought to look backwards over what the previous Government had done?

Now that we have dispensed with that important work, we can get on with the business of running the railway. The Government are doing more to improve things for passengers and freight than any Government have in decades. We are creating GBR to be the directing mind for the railway, cutting out the needless waste and duplication that has characterised the model.

If the Minister’s Wikipedia profile is correct, he studied history and politics. As an historian, does he not agree that to get the future right, we must learn from the past, and that we should therefore review the activities of past Governments?

It is continuously important to bear in mind where the last Government may have strayed from the path of productive policymaking, and we have done so robustly in reflecting on the 14 wasted years of the Conservative Government. We must now turn to the future and think about how we can build a railway that serves the interests of passengers now and in the decades to come.

GBR will take robust decisions on the use of the network, leading to better co-ordination of the timetable, which could reduce delays and costs over time and improve reliability. Those decisions could well see the opportunity for new routes or services and, where appropriate, the restoration of railway services that were previously closed. Nothing in the Bill will prevent GBR from doing that; indeed, quite the opposite is true. We have already seen the Government’s commitment to doing just that with the continued support for the reintroduction of passenger services on the Northumberland line and the confirmation of new stations at Haxby, Wellington and Cullompton, without the need for a specific restoring your railway fund. Having a guiding mind for the railway that is properly empowered to make decisions is better for everyone—for passengers, freight and open access operators.

New Clause 58 would require the Secretary of State to establish a programme to facilitate the conversion of disused railway land into active travel routes. I know the importance of such conversions, because there is a wonderful converted railway from Selby through to York, on the old rail route for the Selby coalfield. The DFT has already created Active Travel England to co-ordinate cycling, walking and other leisure uses in England. The funding of active travel in Scotland and Wales is, of course, a matter for their devolved Governments.

I agree with the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage that active travel is an important potential reuse of redundant railway land, but other potential options—including regeneration such as housing, along with heritage lines and retaining the land for future use—should be considered in the round. All the options need to be assessed against objective criteria, including considerations such as funding and safety. New clause 58 would unbalance those considerations by making active travel a priority over other potential uses of railway land.

The Government have been clear that they intend to transfer historical railways estates and other former railway properties to GBR, which will absolutely be expected to look for opportunities to reuse redundant railway land. The new clause would take away GBR’s independence to do that and its ability to look at a wide range of alternative uses for former railway property, including its potential reuse for railway, commercial opportunities and regeneration.

New clause 60 would require Great British Railways and all passenger service operators to provide a minimum level of secure bicycle storage facilities at every station they operate. The Government are committed to improving the integration of transport across the network and are already working to improve facilities to support those who cycle to stations. The Government encourage station operators to engage with local stakeholders when considering the provision of facilities to support those who cycle to and from stations. Funding for cycle storage is already available from a range of local transport funds, including the active travel fund.

With the forthcoming establishment of GBR, we want to ensure appropriate bicycle facilities that are suitable for local circumstances and provided where needed, while retaining operational flexibility and minimising unnecessary expenditure. The new clause would impose on GBR and all passenger service operators a rigid requirement that fails to take into consideration local circumstances such as station size, passenger numbers and demand for bicycle spaces, which could result in unnecessary cost. I therefore urge the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage to withdraw the new clause.

I enjoyed the debate with the Minister, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.