Railways Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 16th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, it has been an interesting discussion on this important group. My Amendment 325 would add a new requirement for Great British Railways to publish a cyber security and technology strategy. As we have heard from a number of noble Lords, it is important for the public and Parliament to understand how Great British Railways will use emerging technologies throughout the railway, including artificial intelligence. These new technologies, of course, may help innovation, develop resilience and improve the passenger experience, but this country also faces increasing threats to our national infrastructure, so we must make sure that our infrastructure remains safe and that passengers and those who work on the railway feel protected.

Alongside this serious cyber threat, we on these Benches continue to focus on ensuring that passengers are at the centre of this Bill and this new structure. Rail passengers will also expect and deserve modern accessible services, reliable wifi, real-time information and inclusive design. Investment in technologies that will benefit passengers and ensure that Great British Railways can develop the quality railway that passengers deserve is really important.

The other amendments in this group are variations around the theme of my amendment. Members want to see innovation and technology at the heart of Great British Railways and Amendment 91A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, also points to the supply chain having greater visibility of planned investment, which I am sure is something we all support.

Open data has also been raised. This has transformed travel in London, under the noble Lord the Minister’s leadership at Transport for London. iBus, when it was rolled out, was an absolute game changer for how people use the public transport network. The importance of allowing such innovation in start-ups developing apps, and the quality jobs that have grown in that sector, should not be underestimated. I hope that this same high standard will be the basis of Great British Railways as well. I will not comment on the debate being based on the 1970s, although, I have to say, many great things happened in the 1970s. I look forward to the Minister’s response to this group.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, before my noble friend responds, I would just like to make two points. First, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on steel products—the noble Lord, Lord Harper, also mentioned that. After some of the derailments in the last few months, there will be quite strong pressure to look at the quality of the rail and where it is manufactured, apart from whether it is laid properly. I think that this amendment is important so that GBR has the full freedom to procure the rail from wherever it believes gives technically the best quality. I do not know whether that applies also to something such as HS1 and whether Network Rail is involved in it. It would be good to know from my noble friend whether HS1 rails are out of the procurement or separate.

Secondly, I think on previous days we discussed wifi on trains and my noble friend was not very forthcoming about when we might be able to have wifi on trains that actually works. We have proven it on one train in the south-west, and the south-west offered to do the procurement, but, of course, my noble friend said that only the Department for Transport can procure wifi. I have to ask my noble friend about wifi for the whole network. I suppose that it is only the intercity type trains, but which trains will be included and when will we be able to see the result and be able to use it on trains?

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, before we hear from the Minister in reply to this group, I would just like to be a bit pernickety and urge Back-Bench speakers, if they can, to speak before Front-Bench winders. It is not in the Companion, but I think that it is good custom and practice and aids the flow and understanding of debate. Without further ado, I will let the Minister respond.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

What have I done wrong? I am terribly sorry.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My noble friend has done nothing wrong, as per the Companion, but usually in Committee Back-Benchers speak before the Front-Bench winders. It helps if noble Lords understand when people speak. Before we get into a long debate, it is not in the Companion, and we have freedom to speak and to intervene—it just helps the flow of debate, when we have a long Committee debate ahead of us.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

Green Members often speak as part of the Back Benches, but the noble Baroness is of course welcome to speak whenever.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I apologise to the Committee and in particular to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, I should first say that I am not buying any more cushions—I have bought enough cushions. Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to a discussion yesterday about the functions of Great British Railways. I will write to him with the views that I conveyed in a speech yesterday and to other Members, and place a copy in the Library, so that we are all clear about what the Government believe to be the case. Thirdly, today the Government published a paper on the long-term rail strategy, which will be particularly beneficial for this Committee. It was published this morning.

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[Lord Harper (Con)]

From the little frisson I have created here, I hope I have not damaged the noble Lord’s reputation among his Labour colleagues by agreeing with him. I do not wish to do that. Noble Lords should wait for my remarks and see how in line they are.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, for her extensive recounting of the considerable progress that Network Rail made on environmental matters, under the leadership of the board by the Minister when he chaired it, and of course under a number of Conservative Secretaries of State. I thank her for recognising the considerable environmental progress that was achieved, which I support.

On this group of amendments, I am supportive of GBR—Network Rail in its new incarnation, as far as the infrastructure is concerned—continuing to have an important eye to environmental matters. But I want to flag pretty much the same concern as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, to recognise that rail travel is a relatively low-carbon form of transport. When we were discussing the civil aviation Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, was obviously very critical of aviation. One of the dangers here is that if we load lots of responsibilities, costs and burdens on to the rail industry, and we make it very expensive to build and deliver new infrastructure, we are making it harder to get more people on to rail, which means that we will be taking fewer of them away from aviation and the roads.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, gave me a perfect example by referring to the bat tunnel of HS2. One of the problems with HS2, and one of the reasons why I took the decision to cancel the second phase of it, was that the costs had run out of control. Although the present Government were critical of the decision at the time, I notice that in the two years they have been in power, they have not reversed the decision and show no sign of reversing it, because they recognise the same cost pressures. The only word of caution that I would have on framing these amendments is that, if the Government are tempted by the thrust of any of them, my advice would be to bring back some amendments that are more tightly focused. We do not want to make it more costly and difficult to build and operate railways, so that we have fewer of them, fewer services and less investment in infrastructure, which will push people into higher-carbon forms of transport. That would be shooting ourselves in the foot.

There are one or two aspects where I wanted to flag up some concerns. In Amendment 130A, for example, I notice that there is a reference to transition to a zero- carbon railway, as opposed to one that is net zero. I flag that as important for this reason. It talks about generating electricity on railway land, for example, which obviously makes a contribution. If you are trying to get to a zero-carbon railway, I am not sure that that is achievable, but, if you strive to do that with no eye on the cost, and given that public money is not infinite—it is limited—the effect is that you end up making less investment in railways than you otherwise would, which is a bit self-defeating. That is where I would be a little concerned.

There are two other areas about which I am concerned. One is whether this ends up making it so difficult to develop on railway land, either by selling it to others or using the joint ventures that we referred to in an earlier day of Committee, that we end up stopping development, reducing the income to GBR and making it more expensive to own and operate a railway, which is not helpful for the taxpayer. The positive thing, which I absolutely support, referred to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis, and a number of other noble Lords, is recognising that our climate has altered. The work involved in looking at and identifying the parts of the network that are particularly vulnerable to different forms of weather, then putting together a plan to deal with that, so it can be costed and judged accordingly, is very sensible. I know that Network Rail already does a lot of that work, but putting it all together in a coherent way is very sensible.

My final point concerns electrification, which I support. Much of the electrification on the railway in England and Wales was done under a Conservative Government—the Labour Government pre-2010 had done very little, leaving the bulk of it to be done under us. Again, one must have an eye for practicality and cost. Something like 70% of passenger journeys take place on trains that are electrified. Because of the nature of our network, and the years in which it was constructed, electrifying what has not already been electrified will be increasingly costly. That is due to bridges and the rest of the infrastructure. You get to the point at which it just does not make any sense, and this is where our earlier debate on innovation is very helpful.

Noble Lords may have seen some recent rolling stock procurement news, where trains were going to be battery electric. That is helpful, as you enable the train to be electric, without having to electrify the infrastructure. Electrification is not a problem, but we must be careful not to insist that every railway line has an electrical cable running above it and insist that that be how power is delivered. The principle is okay, but you need innovation and flexibility on how you deliver it. There are some parts of the network where trying to do overhead electrification is simply not sensible. It is either impractical from an engineering perspective, or so costly that it would make no sense to do it. Innovations like battery electric trains or tri-mode trains—where you enable that technology to best use the existing network—are the way to go. There is a risk of being too specific in primary legislation about the way we deliver some of these things, albeit that the overall objective is one that I support.

In conclusion, I very much support the work we have done over the years in recognising that GBR will be a very big public landowner, and it absolutely should continue the work that it is already doing. I just say that the existing legislative framework and the duties that fall under it have done a very good job, so I am not sure that we need to pile loads of extra duties on top, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I want to continue that work. I just have a note of caution, as he did, about making sure that we do not overdo it and make it so costly that we either do not develop the railway or reduce the number of people shifting from cars and planes on to a relatively low-carbon form of transport. That would be rather shooting ourselves in the foot. While supporting moves to be environmentally friendly, conscious of changes in the climate, we have to be a bit cautious about the practicalities. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government will balance those two competing objectives.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate, and I congratulate the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis of Summertown, on making strong points about the need for environmentally friendly policies to justify the ongoing construction and development of railways. As the noble Lord, Lord Harper, and my noble friend Lord Liddle referred to, there is always a risk that if you took the 300-odd amendments in the Marshalled List and applied them to roads, you would be laughing yourself silly. There is far too much detail, much of which is totally unnecessary. That is a different point to take forward.

My concern with Amendment 130A is that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is basically saying that the environment, nature, is more important than humans. That is a pretty rough thing to say. I am sure she will have a go at me when I have finished.

If you apply some of these provisions—I compare them with the recent policy whereby our Government have been encouraging people to develop housing near stations—there is a conflict, not everywhere but in certain places. The idea that you can have a nice place to live near a station, so that you can use a more environmentally friendly means of transport to get wherever you want to go, seemed a good one from our Government.

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[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Boateng for that introduction. I declare an interest in that, apart from having been involved years ago in the Channel Tunnel and Ashford station—getting that built in the right place was not very easy —I am now involved in one of the cross-channel services that he mentioned, Gemini, whose ambition is to stop trains regularly at Ebbsfleet and Ashford. It is all quite complicated because you have an independent infrastructure manager which obviously wants the maximum return. It operates local services to Folkstone, Dover and Ramsgate, I think, and they all have to be fitted in together. That is before you get involved in the frontier control issues, which I had probably better avoid for the moment.

On international services, which is what these are called, it is for the operator to decide its timetable of services and which stations it wishes to stop at, which is the same, really, as open-access operators in this country, with a few minor differences. It has to look at the costs of infrastructure, of police and of everybody else who has to be there; it has to find somewhere to park the trains at night, and all the other things that go with it. My noble friend’s point is that this needs some kind of economic encouragement—I hope from the Government. It is very similar to what should be being provided up in the north now, or in Wales, or even where I live in Cornwall—wherever it is needed—to try to balance the economies of these various areas.

It is then a question of who makes what decision as to where to run the trains. If it is an open-access operator—we have talked about that elsewhere in the Committee—we have the ability in the Bill to encourage or allow open-access operators if they do not get in the way of the other trains and the freight trains. It is more difficult when you get smaller operators that want to go on a short journey. Will they be allowed to operate? We really do not know that yet. The link between economic demands and what the railway can provide is fundamental. As my noble friend said, the needs of Ashford, and to some extent the rest of east Kent, are horrendous compared with other parts of the south-east. Therefore, stopping trains at Ebbsfleet and Ashford has many benefits; it also links to other routes down to Brighton and Hastings. It is all a question of the decisions the Government make on these various priorities, bearing in mind that they probably do not have too much money to spend.

I believe that the idea in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to abolish the ORR and create a new one would be a complete disaster for the railways, because I worked on rail freight as well. You need an organisation that can be seen to act independently on all the issues when you are trying to fit more trains than you can possibly need or want on to a track and decide who gets priority. There is the argument about fares, speeds and, basically, competition issues.

Over the years, the ORR’s terms of reference have been changed once or twice but it has mostly operated fairly and in a timely manner. We can compare its terms of reference and what it does with the Civil Aviation Authority or the similar one for maritime, whose name I cannot remember. All they do—I say “all”, but it is a very important thing—is to act as an independent appeal body, if you like, so that you do not have to go to court and you do not need the Competition and Markets Authority every time you want to blow your nose. The ORR, with whatever amendments are decided in this Committee and later, is a fundamental part of keeping the network fair and as full as it can be, and encouraging new operators. New operators, if my noble friend really wanted, could mean extra, more reliable traffic that is provided fairly and at the best possible price.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to my stand part notice opposing Clause 20. A duty is being placed on the Office of Rail and Road that I do not understand, which is about promoting competition. I am trying to probe exactly what the Government mean by the ORR’s duty to “promote competition”. I am concerned that there is a lack of clarity here between promoting competition and regulating competition. The ORR already has a role in regulating competition under the Railways Act 1993, but Clause 20 appears to give it a separate duty to promote competition. I would like to understand what exactly that means in practice and why it is necessary.

This is not an issue that I will bring back on Report, because I cannot quite put enough passion into it, but we see that there is potential tension here because the ORR has a number of other responsibilities, including safety, access and economic regulation. The areas in which it is required to promote competition include important parts of the railway’s network services. I would like the Minister to explain how this new duty will interact with those other responsibilities. In particular, if there is a conflict between promoting competition and another statutory duty or the Government’s rail strategy, which takes precedence? I am not convinced that we need a general duty on the regulator to promote competition in the Bill.

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[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 99 in my name. The reason for this amendment is that I am genuinely concerned that we are going to end up with a state monopoly which squeezes out the small amounts of competition that remain through open access, that perhaps even becomes more unfriendly in time to freight, and that takes a difficult approach to heritage usage of the network, because it is all a bit of a nuisance.

The Secretary of State needs to be talking to people who are offering alternatives and raising concerns about the way things were in the past and the way things could be in the future. We have to remember that a number of the issues with and constraints on the network today date back to the days of British Rail. Budgets are, I am afraid, going to be tight in the coming years. We know that subsidy levels have rocketed, revenues are falling and the Treasury has no money, so the railways are going to get squeezed in the way they were in the days of British Rail. And what happened then? We all know the British Rail approach was that if the budgets were tight, it cut services, closed routes or took out capacity. The single-track line from Soham to Ely is a case in point, where the implications for today’s railway are significant—but it was a useful closure at the time to save a bit of money.

So, what happens now? If the Bill goes through as it is, then as far as I can see in the legislation, there is no duty for the Secretary of State to consult those who could be doing things differently, like offering alternative services; those who are using the network for open access; those who are using it for heritage railways; and those who may want to, such as those who may be looking for capacity and looking to offer alternative services, as part of the formation of the long-term rail strategy. That feels to me like a major omission.

I will come back later in this Committee to the question of what happens if GBR objects to an open-access application and then does not launches the service itself; or if GBR just wants to stop somebody getting in the way and objects to an open-access operator; or if GBR pulls out of a service and somebody else wants and is willing to run that service; or if somebody comes along and tries to run a service GBR does not want ever to operate, but wants to be difficult. Ultimately, the duty of the Government in the Bill is surely to deliver the best possible, most comprehensive public transport system available. There will be times when the state cannot and will not do that, and there will be times when there is a demand that the state operator will not, cannot and does not want to meet.

Therefore, what is the mechanism, in producing the long-term rail strategy, for the Minister to say that they think they are going to leave that space for open access, that they are going to need that capacity for extra freight, or that they are going to need to make provision for tourism access to the network? If there is no duty to have those conversations—which there does not seem to be in the legislation—where is the requirement for those conversations to take place? How will they take place? Or, in the rush to get a document out, will they actually not take place at all? This is a simple amendment with the effect of ensuring that everybody should, would and does have a say in what the Secretary of State does, on a reasonable basis, within a reasonable scope—but the requirement is there, and that is why this amendment is necessary.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly, first to Amendment 101A in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. She is absolutely right about quite a long list of things that need doing. The timescale she sets out in the amendment is probably quite challenging, because trains probably last for 30 or 40 years, and the track for quite a long time as well. The platform heights are of course the biggest problem. There was a very interesting article in the latest Rail magazine about platform heights. I have studied this over the years because of the issue of getting container trains through; it is very difficult, and there is no easy solution. She is absolutely right to table the amendment, and I certainly support it.

The other issue I will briefly speak on is that of heritage, which the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, spoke on initially. I like his amendments; on the other hand, the text of the Bill in Clause 15, line 8, is slightly odd:

“the railway services that the Secretary of State wishes to see provided in Great Britain.”

What happens if the Secretary of State does not wish it? It is a pretty stupid question to ask, but the word “wish” to me seems possibly to be the wrong one. Heritage, I assume, covers any type of non-timetabled service. I do not know if that is true or not—there might be occasional commercial services or local train movements. Does heritage include the smart restaurant cars on the main lines, or the branch lines which occasionally have it?

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 128. I really want to go, but—

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Feel free.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill]

I thank the noble Lord. I was looking at what I might say in group 7 about Amendment 118, which might well deal with that. Clearly, the access sought on the national network is access for specific trains at specific times, and therefore it is in the access and use arrangements that that is formalised. Of course, those services pay track access charges, so on the whole it is in GBR’s interest to want to run the services, providing that it is capable of finding the paths. We will come to that in Amendment 118.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Will a definition of what a heritage railway service is be included?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will think about that, if I may. There are various phrases, such as “tourist”, “charter” and “heritage”—I was replicating the use by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, of “heritage” to embrace all three. That is probably the best way of doing that. Some of the heritage seems questionable, as it seems to have occurred during my recent life—but I am quite old now. We are talking about heritage including both charter and tourist trains; the noble Lord nods, so I feel confident about that.

I turn to Amendments 92, 95, 96A, 97A, 101, 98, 99 and 100. While I appreciate the intent of Amendment 92, it is not clear to me that the Bill needs to set out that the strategy will be 30 years’ long in legislation. We have stated a clear intent for the strategy to cover 30 years in multiple locations, including in the strategy’s factsheet, in the Bill’s explanatory notes, and at the Dispatch Box in the other place, and I confirm it again today. I also confirm that it will feature in the discussion document on the long-term rail strategy, which we have referred to. Although nothing in the Bill requires the Strategy to be 30 years’ long, I remind the noble Baroness that precedent plays a strong role in government.

On amendments 95, 101 and 96A, the Bill already requires the strategy to be published, and we have also committed to the Transport Select Committee to place copies in both Houses’ Libraries and to publish a Written Ministerial Statement alongside the strategy publication, so that the contents are immediately brought to the attention of the House. Our intention is that that should also apply to any changes in the strategy. I am confident that if the strategy were to fall short of its 30-year goal or if Members of your Lordships’ House took issue with its contents, there would be many, including the noble Baroness and noble Lords present in the Committee, ready and willing to hold the Government to account, including by requesting a debate, without needing to say that in legislation.

I do not agree with amendments 97A, 98, 99 and 100. One of the Government’s key ambitions is to grow passenger numbers and encourage modal shift. The passenger watchdog is valuable in recognising barriers to passenger growth, enabling the Secretary of State to prioritise tackling obstacles to it in the strategy. Wales is included as a statutory consultee because, as we discussed previously, the devolution position in Wales is different and the strategy will cover England and Wales in full. Mentioning Wales on the face of the Bill therefore demonstrates the Government’s commitment to ensuring that the Welsh Government’s views are represented. Meanwhile, our memorandum of understanding with the Scottish Government already sets out that Scotland will be engaged on the strategy, to ensure that our respective strategies are aligned, but the Bill reflects the different devolution settlements in rail. I add that the Scottish Government have consented to this Bill as drafted. While I agree that mayors play an important role in local transport planning and economic development, it is not necessary to name every single one of them as consultees on the strategy. I assure noble Lords that engagement with mayors is planned as part of the strategy’s development, and that engagement will inform the final strategy. That is made clear in the document we published today.

On Amendment 98, the role of the ORR is that of a regulator and adviser. It is not for the ORR to set out priorities for the railway for 30 years; that is clearly for the Government of the day to do, and it is for the ORR to provide advice about how that vision is actioned. That is exactly what the ORR will do by providing advice on the funding and business planning processes for GBR, which will include advice on how GBR should go about achieving the wider priorities set out in the long-term strategy. The Government will engage with the ORR in the development of the strategy, as we do in the development of almost all railway publications, but this is regular business and does not require a statutory footing.

On Amendment 99, the strategy is about setting out a vision for rail, including the long-term outcomes that need to be delivered to support the Government’s broader social, economic and environmental policy ambitions—for example, growing housing or improving access to jobs. Rail operators can help to deliver that vision, and they will of course be involved. As a routine matter of business, the Government engage with freight and passenger operators regularly, and we have had multiple discussions on the development of the strategy already. This has allowed them to feed in without the requirement for them to be formally consulted. They will of course also be consulted on GBR’s business plan, which will explain how the rail industry will achieve the Secretary of State’s objectives. The access and use policy deals with consultation on access decisions and service frequency.

On Amendment 100 and consulting the British Transport Police, although I agree that safety and security are key for users of the railways and that the British Transport Police are critical to supporting this, the strategy will not set out operational decisions which will be more relevant to the transport police. The strategy will set out what the Secretary of State wants to achieve and GBR’s business planning will work out how to achieve her goals. That is when the engagement with the BTP will take place.

On Amendment 102, the existing duties in Clause 16 already ensure that ministerial strategies will be prioritised. GBR and the ORR will be expected to demonstrate how they have considered the strategies and how their activities align with the objectives set over time. As already mentioned, GBR’s business plan will work towards delivering the long-term rail strategy and the Scottish Minister’s strategy, and will set measurable KPI targets to help it achieve the overarching long-term goals. The Secretary of State will sign off the business plan only after the ORR has confirmed that the plans align with these strategies and GBR’s other duties.

I propose not to talk to Amendments 103 and 104 as I note that the noble Lord, Lansley, who is not in his place today, and I agreed last week not to repeat the debate. As I said then, I will reflect on the valuable points he has made.

On Amendments 105 and 128, I briefly address the Moreton-in-Marsh transport hub collaboration that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, raised. I am a great supporter of projects such as this which seamlessly link rail and bus services, taxis, pedestrians and cyclists to reduce road traffic and congestion and, while I cannot pre-empt the community infrastructure levy process, I encourage the town council and the Great Western Railway to continue their engagement with it. I look forward to hearing more about this in the future. I hope that will do him.

The Government agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about the importance of integrating rail passenger services with other public transport modes, which is why we published a strategy for integrated transport in April this year that set out our ambition to create a simpler, more connected and people-focused network across England.

In addition, I have also committed to the long-term rail strategy including objectives to improve the integration of railway passenger services with other modes of transport. The discussion document discusses the importance of meeting multimodal expectations and reducing end-to-end journey times and this will be a key long-term priority. We are absolutely committed to improving connectivity across the country. When noble Lords read the Secretary of State’s introduction, they will see commitment to integration set out there too.

The Bill also includes practical measures to make integrated transport a reality. Both GBR and the Secretary of State will be required to promote the interests of passengers and to act in the public interest, which would absolutely include working with the providers of other transport modes to improve connectivity. In addition, as we have already discussed, GBR will have regard to local transport plans, which will naturally lead to improvements in connectivity by encouraging collaboration with mayoral strategic authorities that have responsibility for wider local transport services.

The Bill also continues to enable the local devolution of railways, and the Government have published guidance to support this, creating more opportunities for integration of train and bus services. If the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is talking about the commitment in the 1993 Act, I am firmly convinced that the commitments to the mayoral combined authorities in this Bill and the other commitments that I have discussed equally meet that commitment.

I will just say in passing to the noble Lord, Lord Harper, that he can have his own views about British Rail and integration but, in fact, it used to be quite good and it is the deregulation of buses outside London in 1985 that destroyed a lot of the integration over much of England. For example, railway tickets were interoperable with bus services, but that Act finished that one.

I turn to Amendment 101A, from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. It was a pleasure to discuss all the issues that she spoke about today, and more, with her and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, when we met this week. Our overarching plan for the framework is that the Secretary of State sets objectives in the long-term rail strategy and GBR delivers them through an integrated plan. It is our strong view that accessibility should not be considered in isolation. Decisions about stations, rolling stock, passenger assistance, information and investment are most effective when planned together. Embedding accessibility within the long-term rail strategy rather than a separate document ensures that it informs every major decision GBR takes, rather than being treated as a stand-alone issue.