Britain’s Railways

Greg Clark Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I should point out that the railways have not been some sort of money spinner for the Treasury in the last year. We have spent £12 billion, including on the Welsh services, so I am not sure that anyone would have welcomed the cost of the lines. Of course, I have devolved the core valley lines to Wales. In general, though, the infrastructure is run at the moment by Network Rail and it will be run by Great British Railways. I do want to challenge the hon. Gentleman on the figure he used, because I do not want it to go uncommented on. I am sure he is aware that the 11% and 1% figure is hotly disputed, due to the fact that it does not look at passenger numbers and that geography is different in different parts of Great Britain. None the less, on the main thrust of wanting to see those services developed, I am entirely in support of that and I will do whatever I can, while, as the name suggests, Great British Railways will cover the whole of Great Britain.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s decisive action on flexible ticketing. It is ludicrous that, since the 1950s, the railways have operated on the assumption that commuters go to their place of work five days a week. That has not been true for years and it is high time that it was brought up to date, and my constituents will strongly welcome it. Will he continue to press the case for reform by making sure that contactless travel is available? It has been available for 20 years in London. It is ridiculous that it is not available beyond London so that people can avoid having to queue up to print paper tickets before they can travel.

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about contactless travel. I mentioned that the experiment that happens to run out to Welwyn Garden City has been enormously popular. The problem with actually running the system out is that, as soon as someone crosses more than one different train operating company, or even if they do not and there is only one, there is a huge resistance in the system, because it is so incredibly complicated, with its fragmented nature at the moment, to bring that in. Great British Railways will allow us to bring in more contactless travel, which he will clearly warmly welcome, and I should mention his phenomenal campaigning on the subject of transport for his commuter constituency, particularly in Tunbridge Wells and Paddock Wood. I notice all the time how hard he is working for them and I think these reforms will be warmly welcomed by his constituents.