Railways Bill

Lord Doyle Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Doyle (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, who made a typically thoughtful contribution to the debate. I fully associate myself with his remarks on the anniversary of 7/7, which was a time when I was working in government and certainly will never forget.

I also associate myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed of Tinsley, on the recent rail crash near Bedford. Like him, I use that line regularly to travel home. Our thoughts are with all of those who are affected by it and our thanks go out to the emergency services who responded so heroically.

It is a source of real pleasure to be able to speak in this debate on the Railways Bill, which delivers a crucial manifesto commitment for the Government. There can be no doubt that taking back control of our railways and ending one of the most disastrous Conservative privatisations of the 1980s and 1990s was one of our most popular policies at the last election —I would argue for good reason. We know that that privatisation was flawed from day one because of the split between track and train. The Bill will bring the management of those back together to improve performance, with Great British Railways managing day-to-day operations and taking long-term decisions in the public interest. This means that we will have a more reliable and accessible railway, with better value journeys.

On that word “accessible”, I want to mention the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. Any of us who follow her on Twitter will know the stories she regularly tells of just how much the railways are failing at the moment and how much we need the Bill to succeed. That is one example of how the structure of the railways at the moment is a mess, with passengers at the mercy of a myriad organisations. From buying a ticket to finding out who is responsible for a delay, there is a Kafkaesque process of opaque rules and shifting blame. That is the reality of the current fractured system.

Let us take the example of Network Rail and the train operating companies employing hundreds of full-time staff simply to establish who should cover the costs of delays. Given the pessimism we have seen about the Bill from some of those on the Benches opposite, I will stress some of the reasons why these changes are so welcome. Great British Railways will create a single organisation to operate, maintain and improve our railways, to ensure smarter decision-making around interchanges and reliability, and to align incentives ensuring that action is taken against the common causes of delay, providing access and accountability to passengers and taxpayers alike.

Taking back control of our railways under Great British Railways will have the potential to deliver the improvements that customers and taxpayers rightly expect to see. That will need hard work and hard thinking and, yes, hard choices. Great British Railways is a great opportunity but it is incumbent on all the industry stakeholders to grab it. Costs across the railway are too high, rightly infuriating taxpayers and farepayers, who see their bucks deliver far too little bang, as the cost of building a mile of rail in Britain is the highest in the world. Let us be frank, industrial relations are not where they need to be. All sides must embrace the new era of Great British Railways if we are to have the truly new start that our railways need.

Fortunately, this is all in the capable hands, as we have heard, of my noble friend the Minister, who I have no doubt will resolve these issues. Having paid him that compliment, I want to use this debate to ask a few questions about a project that is close to my heart and which is crucial to delivering the Government’s growth ambitions, and one that I hope will benefit from the new strategic co-ordination through Great British Railways: East West Rail. The line will transport people from Oxford to Cambridge as the core of that growth corridor as we replace the much-missed Varsity line.

First, can my noble friend the Minister give an update on the Oxford to Milton Keynes section, where construction has finished but operating contracts are apparently still being negotiated? What is his latest estimate of when we will see services running? Secondly, on the Bedford to Cambridge section, this is a wonderful and much-needed opportunity to reopen a line that was closed back in the 1960s, but I hope my noble friend will not mind me again pushing on delivery timetables and plans, given the centrality of this project to so much of Bedfordshire’s ambitions.

It is welcome that the Government have pledged £1.3 billion towards transport infrastructure for the new Universal United Kingdom resort, especially the much-needed station at Wixams. Of course, that station is supposed to be not just a simple addition to the current north-south line but an east-west junction. Given that the development consent order for East West Rail will not be submitted until 2027, what is my noble friend’s level of confidence that both lines will be operating at Wixams when the Universal UK resort opens in 2031?

There is a second government ambition for which East West Rail is crucial: the new town at Tempsford. The feasibility studies for that new town have focused on the great potential of Tempsford as the junction point between the London to Edinburgh east coast main line and East West Rail, so the early development of the station is crucial, not just as a station but as the anchor project for the development of Tempsford new town, which the Government have said they want to be under way by the time of the next general election. Can my noble friend the Minister express confidence that that timeline will be sufficient to deliver these two crucial projects?

I touch briefly on the issue of open-access train operators, which has been mentioned by a number of speakers. We have seen the success of open-access operators such as Grand Central and Lumo within the current railways landscape. Can my noble friend the Minister reassure us that the new set-up will ensure that there is a fair basis for open-access operators to come into the system and that they will be able to provide a form of competition and choice for customers in the new service? I ask this as someone who likes taking railway journeys for fun: can my noble friend reassure us what the capacity will be for heritage operators within the new system, that those will not get squeezed out and that there will still be a chance for us to have those routes that benefit tourism and travel around the country?

The railways have long suffered from misaligned incentives—thanks to this Labour Government, no more. Passengers will benefit, waste will be cut, fares will be lower, the new Great British Railways app will simplify booking, and the passenger watchdog will give travellers recourse. This can truly be a new golden age for our railways and our country.