Great British Railways: Rolling Stock

Lord Hintze Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right. The reason it is entitled the rolling stock and infrastructure strategy is that, with modern technology—including, mainly, batteries—for the first time we can look at bi and tri-mode vehicles. Of course, that is exactly what we need to do. In fact, very few manufacturers are now making diesel-only trains, because it is recognised that we need to be carbon-neutral in future. The strategy will indeed address the issues that she refers to.

[Lord Hintze (Con)]

My Lords, how does the rolling stock strategy interact with the strategy with regard to the personnel who will be driving those trains, and with regard to their pay and training, and making sure we have adequate people to be able to do it on weekends?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that you certainly need staff to drive the trains, and in many cases, but not all, you need conductors. I do not think the rolling stock and infrastructure strategy deals with that directly, but he is absolutely right that one of the critical things to establish reliability on the railways is sufficient staff to drive the trains—in particular, on Sundays, at least on some routes. One of the things that has been done since this Government got elected, one of the input measures that I seek for both this year and future years in the business plans of operating companies, is an increase in the number of drivers so that there are not cancellations and there are reliable Sunday services.