Railways Bill

Cat Eccles Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)]

As a long-time supporter of our railways and rail workers, I am proud to speak on a key Labour Government manifesto commitment. The Bill is about putting passengers, workers and the national interest back at the heart of our railways. For too long, a fragmented model has left the public with a patchwork quilt of competing interests, with tracks separated from trains, timetables misaligned and confusing incentives. Great British Railways offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to stitch the network back together, with a single, publicly owned guiding mind with a 30-year horizon, stability in planning and clarity in purpose.

In 2023 I organised the country’s biggest campaign of its type to save the ticket office at Stourbridge Junction, alongside local rail users and Stourbridge’s favourite feline: George, the station cat. I heard at first hand how much our communities value an accessible, staffed railway. Passengers are not abstractions; they are neighbours, carers, shift workers and pensioners. They expect and deserve service, safety and support.

The Bill’s promise will be realised only by the people who deliver it: our railway workers. Our drivers, guards, signallers, engineers, station teams and cleaners are not a cost to be cut; they are an asset to be invested in.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as chair of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers parliamentary group. There is currently no reference at all in the Bill to staffing. Who will be the staff’s employer? What will happen with their pensions? Will TUPE apply on transfer? Will their existing benefits apply? Will there be a mandate on the levels of staffing on stations and elsewhere? That is an agenda for constructive engagement with the Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that the Minister commits to that when he responds to the debate?

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[Cat Eccles]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his valuable intervention. He makes the really important point that there is currently no mention of staff in the Bill. As I have said, there will be no Great British Railways without those staff and all the protections and assurances they need.

I welcome the move to bring track and train together, but we must also bring the workforce together with clear pathways on employment, pensions and facilities, as well as a strong voice for staff and their unions in governance. When passengers say they want confidence and care on the network, they are asking for people—present, trained and empowered. Let us ensure that the transition to GBR provides clarity and security for staff, underwrites safe staffing levels on trains and at stations, and ends the false economy of fragmented outsourcing that undermines both service quality and value for money.

Let us not forget that nothing moves without logistics. Rail freight is the green backbone of that system, moving goods predictably and efficiently with about three quarters fewer emissions per tonne-kilometre than road. The Bill’s statutory freight growth target is the right signal, but that signal must be backed up with a firm plan. We need safeguards so that GBR’s capacity duty does not allow passenger services to squeeze freight off the network, and that means transparency, fair charging and protection of strategic freight corridors.

To unlock genuinely transformative growth, we must match governance with infrastructure. We need targeted electrification, including infill schemes on freight critical routes, which will cut costs, carbon and journey times. In some corridors, dozens of miles of electrification have already unlocked thousands of net tonne-kilometres of cleaner freight every single day, and each additional electrically-hauled train means congestion avoided, carbon reduced and reliability improved. Put simply, the freight target and electrification must work together.

For more than three decades, the leasing model has extracted hundreds of millions from the railways in dividends and charges, which is money that could and should be reinvested in the frontline. If we believe in long-term public stewardship, we should procure rolling stock directly where it delivers better value, using public finance to reduce lifetime costs, standardise fleets and support the UK supply chain. Let us be ambitious about green technologies. Electric traction is the gold standard, and battery and hydrogen can play targeted roles. GBR should set a whole-system rolling stock strategy that is modern, modular and interoperable, as well as cleaner, so that when we renew fleets, we do so with purpose rather than with piecemeal leasing at a premium. Open access has sometimes brought welcome competition, but it has also cherry-picked the most profitable flows, complicating timetables and undermining network planning. In an integrated system, capacity should be allocated to maximise public value, not private extraction.

To conclude, this Bill is about integration, not ideology; about service, not shareholder return. Backed by a long-term strategy, safeguards for freight, a workforce treated as an asset and a modern plan for electrification, we can build a railway that is cleaner, simpler, fairer and proudly public. If we do so, we will deliver a railway for Britain that we can rely on and be proud of for the next 30 years.