Railways Bill (Sixth sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Keir Mather]

I thank the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for West Dorset for their amendments, all of which look to amend the Secretary of State’s statement of objectives.

First, amendment 120 would require that the statement of objectives contains standards for GBR to meet when conducting its railway activities. I agree that we need to measure GBR’s performance against clear standards to ensure high-quality delivery. However, the statement of objectives, which is a document to set direction and inform the funding process, is not enforceable, and consequently it is not the right place to require standards.

The original drafting provides flexibility, letting the Secretary of State specify what standards should be achieved by GBR when delivering against the objectives in the statement. This allows for circumstances in which providing a standard helps to better articulate the strategic vision for GBR over the five-year funding period.

However, it may not always be appropriate for an objective in the statement of objectives to be accompanied by a standard, particularly when an objective is straightforward or high level, such as a requirement to have regard for security threats or to support economic growth. The Bill contains other mechanisms, including the business plan and the licence, to ensure that there are robust and enforceable measures against which to hold GBR to account.

There is a similar case to be made on amendment 121, which seeks to set a structure for the statement of objectives, and amendment 123, which proposes to expand the list of potential objectives to include a section on productivity and efficiencies. The amendments would change the list from illustrative objectives to a set of requirements. It would fundamentally not be appropriate to impose such a structure on the statement of objectives, which needs to be able to take a different approach each time it is made, in response to wider environmental concerns and socioeconomic circumstances. The intention is that the list serves as a guide to future drafters, and I believe that the flexibility to allow adaptation to circumstances that we cannot predict will ensure that this legislation remains fit for purpose into the future.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

I understand, although I do not agree with, the argument the Minister is making on amending “may” to “must”—he says it would be unenforceable—but he seems, unless I have misunderstood, to have conflated that argument with his point about amendment 122, which seeks not to make a discretionary provision a mandatory one but to expand the considerations. The explanatory statement says:

“This amendment would require the Secretary of State to set the objective for…increasing passenger and freight journeys.”

Perhaps I have misunderstood.

[Keir Mather]

To my knowledge, I am not conflating the two amendments. My point is that setting objectives that are so closely tied to discernible and prescriptive standards would, in effect, contravene the original intention of the schedule, which is to provide flexibility in setting objectives over the five-year period. If, in the hon. Gentleman’s view, I continue not to meet that intention, I will happily give way again.

Railways Bill (Fifth sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Jerome Mayhew]

It is just as pleasurable to have you in the Chair today as it was last week, Sir Alec.

I remind hon. Members that clause 7 gives the Secretary of State the power to issue and publish directions to Great British Railways relating to its railway activities. It also outlines how the Secretary of State must obtain consent from Welsh and Scottish Ministers before giving directions relating to their devolved services, except where powers are used in relation to the access regime. The clause further outlines how GBR will be required to comply with directions, which are mandatory and binding, and intended to be used as a so-called

“responsive tool for necessary course correction, rather than as a proactive tool to set requirements on GBR,”

or, as further clarified in the explanatory notes, as “a last resort”.

Interestingly, although the explanatory notes state that a direction by the Secretary of State is a mechanism of last resort, the clause itself gives no indication to substantiate that. Instead, it suggests that the Secretary of State can act independently of their Welsh and Scottish counterparts’ views, especially as there is a reliance on non-legislative measures. My first question to the Minister is, therefore: why is this supposed last-resort requirement not on the face of the Bill?

When dealing with matters relating in particular to the interpretation of devolution, the risk is that any decision taken by the Secretary of State may be disputed by the devolved nations and end up as a political football, which only increases lawyers’ profits. Would it not therefore be prudent to set out in the legislation exactly what is meant? Without a clear breakdown of the procedures and directions, surely we run the risk of granting the Secretary of State a large degree of power with very limited oversight.

The clause gives the Secretary of State unrestricted power, other than for operations in Scotland and Wales, to intervene in the running of GBR. That is a step too far. While it is justifiable for the democratically elected Government of the day to set and agree GBR’s strategic objectives, key performance indicators and business plans, after those are set out, the Government’s role should be to hold GBR to account for the delivery of the targets, objectives and strategies, and not to tell it how to do so on a day-to-day basis.

A question arises on clause 8(4), and I would be grateful if the Minister could provide clarity on the oversight system outlined in clauses 7 and 8. Subsection (4) states:

“Before giving, varying or revoking a direction under this section the Scottish Ministers must consult the Secretary of State.”

Presently, GBR must decide whether a decision directly affects devolved services, but the Bill provides no statutory test, which leaves a delivery body making politically sensitive judgments, further increasing the risk of challenge by devolved nations. Clarity for Members, especially those from the devolved nations, will be extremely helpful, so I would be grateful if the Minister would address that directly.

Under subsection (5) of both clauses 7 and 8, directions must be published, but there is no requirement for them to be laid before and scrutinised by Parliament—the old trap of creating transparency without consequence. A reporting or laying requirement, perhaps through the Select Committee, would turn publication into genuine accountability. However, I am interested to hear what rationale the Minister has not to allow greater scrutiny of GBR in Parliament. Again, perhaps he will address that directly in his response. That is the rationale behind our suggested amendments to require the Secretary of State to lay directions before Parliament, in order to allow us to scrutinise the decisions in greater detail.

There is a fundamental question about leadership and who is the key decision maker. We are told repeatedly by the Minister and others that GBR is the directing mind, but will that really be the case if the clause goes through unamended? If GBR really is the directing mind, what is the necessity for the clause? It is a recipe for decision paralysis, with GBR, given the decision-making structures, undermined by guidance—we will come on to that when we discuss clause 9—and by directions from the Department for Transport in the name of the Secretary of State.

Clause 7 really does risk creating the worst of both worlds. We will have the cost of GBR and its oversight structures—we are told in the recently published job application for the part-time chair that GBR will have more than 100,000 employees; it will be an enormous organisation, with its own senior management team—and then we will have the same again, with an overactive Department for Transport second-guessing GBR’s day-to-day working and being able to give guidance and directions as a result of clauses 7 and 8.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend describes the growing size of the Department for Transport and Great British Railways, I am slightly reminded of the Department of Health and Social Care, and NHS England. The Government talk of doubling up and so are winding back by abolishing NHS England, but here they are doubling up in the Department for Transport over Great British Railways. I wonder whether he has any reflections on that analogy.

[Jerome Mayhew]

It is not a perfect analogy, because GBR is at least intended to be more akin to a business—a nationalised business—but my hon. Friend is entirely right that where we have two organisations in competition, each one thinking that it runs the railways, that is a recipe for confusion at the least, and disaster at the worst.

This is not an idle concern, because it has happened before. We all remember the Virgin West Coast franchise debacle in 2012, when the slightly arm’s length process of franchising did not go well, causing a communal panic in the Department for Transport. The phrase, “Something must be done to prevent this from ever happening again,” was no doubt repeated many times. The result was that more and more micromanaging took place by the Department for Transport in the setting of franchises. The Department no longer talked only about outcomes that needed to be achieved, leaving how companies went about that entirely up to them, which is the appropriate way to draft a franchise agreement. Instead, that devolved into mechanisms of how a franchise should be operated.

We had that mission creep, and I fear that under the Bill we might get exactly the same approach with GBR. It will be set up with the best of intentions, and perhaps in the first two or three years all will run smoothly and the directing mind in practice might well be GBR, but then something will happen, because something always does happen in the real world, with lots of people doing their best but sometimes making mistakes, and there will be a collective gasp from the Department of Transport, because it will feel like it is on the hook, so “Something must be done to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.” We have designed into this mechanism a structure that allows the removal of GBR’s operational independence, and it does so without any reference to actions of last resort by the Government—the Bill is silent on that.

We talk about the Secretary of State, but we all know that officials in the Department for Transport will be advising the Secretary of State on what he or she should be doing in a particular circumstance, and there will be a power grab. Without amendment, the clause will absolutely allow for that. We should be alive to the real-world experience that we all have and take this opportunity to strengthen its wording in order to design out that issue and ensure that there is proper accountability—with GBR accountable to the Secretary of State and, through the Secretary of State, to Parliament—and that operational independence stays with what will be a nationalised business, rather than creating a railway version of NHS England, as my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East mentioned a moment ago.

I have tabled two amendments to address this issue. Amendment 12 would limit directions to circumstances in which the Office of Rail and Road assesses GBR to be in breach of its statutory functions. It could be argued that the Secretary of State should have an emergency lever; that is fair enough, because bad things happen. One of our great complaints before the election, although I am beginning to hear it from Labour Ministers as well, was, “We pull the levers but they’re not attached to anything—we have no power.” When we form the Government after the next election, we will want to have levers that are attached to something, and I accept that it is necessary to have an emergency lever to pull should a significant unforeseen event occur—another pandemic, perhaps—and an intervention be required.

However, amendment 12 would still allow the Secretary of State to intervene in emergency scenarios, as the ORR would deem that such events make it impossible for GBR to conform to its business plan targets. Clause 74 sets out the ORR’s power to monitor GBR’s performance. Elsewhere in the Bill, we shall argue that the ORR needs more teeth to hold GBR to account, and this provision limiting the potential for the Secretary of State to intervene until such time that an independent regulatory body has recognised that GBR has not been able to fulfil its functions will be an important safeguard.

Amendment 11 would put the words “last resort” on the face of the Bill, and would provide that a direction may be made only after the removal of GBR’s chief executive officer. The intention behind the amendment is to treat GBR as a business, which I think we all agree is what it is intended to be—albeit a nationalised one. Where there is a board of non-executive directors, they can question the executive team, and they can challenge decisions and require the chief executive to explain and defend the direction of the company. However, when push comes to shove, and the decision is made that the organisation is moving in the wrong direction, the weapon available to the chairman is the removal of the chief executive officer.

If GBR is operating on a day-to-day basis with oversight from the Department for Transport—the Secretary of State—and concerns arise as to its direction or performance, the sequence of severity of the response should not start with guidance from the Secretary of State and then mandatory directions. They might be the final requirement, because we all need those levers, but surely they should come only after the chief executive has been challenged and then removed, just as in the private sector with an arm’s length majority investment.

--- Later in debate ---

When we took through the Health and Care Act 2022 and the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, there were aspects that were not written into the legislation but were going to be in statutory guidance or something similar; they set out, for example, how independent domestic violence advisers and independent sexual violence advisers would operate. We did everything we could to bring forward even an outline draft so that members of the Committees considering the legislation had a chance to consider it and reflect on it. I am grateful to the Minister. He is very assiduous in correcting the record as he did, with his typical courtesy, but I gently encourage him to have further conversations with his officials about what might be within the art of the possible to publish, even on Report and Third Reading, to allow Members of our House to debate the Bill, and any amendments that have been made or could be made to it, with the knowledge of what might be in the licence.

[Joe Robertson]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec. My right hon. and hon. Friends have already spoken at length and I agree with them, but I will add just a couple of short points to place my disappointment on the record that not even a draft of the licence has been presented.

It is good that the Minister has clarified that it will be coming forward sooner than he suggested previously, but the reality is that it is already too late, as we heard from stakeholders last week during evidence. I urge him not to delay any further. Even an outline draft of the licence as soon as possible, rather than a more detailed one, would be clearly better than nothing. He should also bring forward the other 19 documents identified by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon—again, in draft form as appropriate—as soon as possible. As I say, it is already too late for this Committee today, as we debate this very clause and schedule. I wish to place that on the record.

[Jerome Mayhew]

I echo all the comments made by my right hon. and hon. Friends. I also thank the Minister for facing up to it with a point of order. It was obvious last week that a point of order was on its way. None of us on the Opposition Benches will hold him to his initial, rather quick, response—no doubt I will do something similar during the passage of the Bill—but that does not let the Government off the hook.

This is not business as usual for a Department bringing through a Bill of this nature. My right hon. Friend the Member for Melton and Syston, an experienced former Minister, gave two examples of primary legislation that also relied on secondary documentation. In those circumstances, the departmental teams did provide skeleton outlines for Parliament, which is what we are, to consider and do our job properly. I do not want the Minister to rush out a quick affirmative like last week, so I ask him to take time to consider, perhaps discuss with his officials, and reply later today on whether he and his officials are able to commit to some form of briefing—some skeleton outline—on the nature of the licence, at a time when we can collectively discuss and debate it, and see whether it points in the right direction.

Clause 11 simply enables GBR’s licensing to be set out in schedule 1, which we will come on to in a moment. That schedule amends part 1 of the Railways Act 1993 and sets out the detailed process by which the GBR licence will be issued and maintained. Both the Secretary of State and the Office of Rail and Road will retain the ability to grant licences to railway bodies other than GBR—for example, open access operators, freight operators and other infrastructure managers such as the core valley lines in Wales. I know we will discuss the contents of schedule 1 and the detail of the licence extensively.

Railways Bill (Second sitting)

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Laurence Turner]

Q But for inter-city, something similar to franchising?

Steve Montgomery: Yes, you can put it out.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

Q I have a question about GBR’s licence. What can we glean from the provisions for that licence in the Railways Bill, without having seen a draft of the document?

John Thomas: It is really difficult. As I said earlier, all we can glean is that, given the reduced powers that ORR will have, it will be a slimmed-down licence; ORR will not have the power that it currently has to enforce business performance. Until we see it, we cannot really comment on it.

I am a bit surprised that we have not seen a draft of the licence yet. We have seen the access and use policy discussion document, but not a draft of the licence. It has been a long time in the making, so I am surprised that we have not seen it yet. I was told that we might not see it for some time. It is a key part of the overall framework, so until we see it, we cannot really comment on that framework. We are having to—we are having to comment on the Bill—but until we see the licence it is difficult to determine what our position will be.

[Joe Robertson]

Q What role would industry expect to play in the production of that licence?

John Thomas: As a minimum, we want to be consulted and to help to shape the licence. Our ability to do that will be affected by what will ultimately be in the Act, but we certainly want to be consulted and help to shape the licence.

[The Chair]

I am afraid that the next question will probably be the last to this set of witnesses. I call Sarah Smith.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

Q Both mayors have touched on this point in some detail already. I just wondered what your view was on whether the Bill contains the right elements to ensure that we can get the simplest and most local improvements made. A frustration that so many of us in this place have is that the current rail network is deeply fragmented, so completing even the most minor changes, such as repairing a door or reopening a disabled toilet, takes months if not years. I certainly have that at my local train station in Weymouth.

How do we make sure that GBR is able to be as responsive as possible to those very local, very small-scale but otherwise very important improvements to stations and the wider rail infrastructure?

Andy Burnham: If we think about it this way, mayoral combined authorities and the transport authorities that Tracy and I lead will be able to add value to the railway by bringing resource to invest in our stations and adding more passengers to the railway, because the Bee Network cap covering all modes will encourage more people to travel by train. We have something to add to the railway to make it serve people and places better, and to make access improvements more quickly, so that passengers do not walk away from the railways because they see a problem that never gets fixed. That is the way to look at it.

However, if we are going to put our own resources and effort into improving the railway, we have to be a meaningful partner. We cannot have rail as a silo that may or may not listen to us—that would not be the right arrangement. We should have a Bill that really cements the partnership and requires joint decision making, as opposed to us being consulted but maybe not listened to. It is possible to do that.

We like everything that is here, the direction of travel is right and we support what the Government are trying to achieve, but if we always have in our heads that railways serve places rather than themselves, it follows that a properly balanced partnership between the two is needed. Sometimes it feels like the railway just serves its own purposes, and does not have enough regard for places. The Bill should leave no doubt that railways are there to serve places and the people who live in them.

Tracy Brabin: I concur with Andy. It is about accountability, and it is also about revenue, so that if you have built this great station and the toilets are not working, you have skin in the game, because you want it to work. Who actually owns that responsibility: Network Rail, GBR, or the mayor who knows the need and can get on and deliver?

[Joe Robertson]

Q In previous questions today, I have asked about the integration of railways and other public transport, which the Government say they want to improve. When I have talked about my constituency and the example of connecting rail and ferries, given that our ferry companies are unregulated, privatised and controlled by private equity, the answer has come back that mayoral combined authorities will have powers to improve connectivity and timetabling issues. Notwithstanding the fact that the Isle of Wight does not have a mayoral combined authority yet, I want to ask you as mayors how that can work in practice. Does the Bill give you any extra powers, particularly on integrating modes of transport, where you have little or no regulatory powers at the moment?

Andy Burnham: It is important to say that we are doing that without the Bill at the moment. Again, we thank the Department for coming with us on the Bee Network journey. We will bring the first two rail lines into that this year; and over the next three years, eight rail lines will come into the Bee Network system. It is complex, because some of the lines begin outside of our borders, such as in Glossop and Buxton in Derbyshire, or in Southport in the Liverpool city region, but because those lines are GM commuter lines, so are not going to Liverpool, it is right for them to be in the Bee Network. We have made that argument and the Government have supported us.

We have already created an integrated ticketing system for tram and bus travel in Greater Manchester: you can tap in on both now, and there is a London-style cap. We want to add rail to that as soon as possible. When the first lines come into the Bee Network in December, people will be able to buy a paper ticket that covers tram, train and bus, but in time we want that to be integrated.

There is absolutely no reason at all why you could not have that over train and ferry travel—I know that the Mayor of Liverpool wants Mersey Ferries to be a part of his integrated system. It is complicated, but it is absolutely possible. The Department has already shown a willingness to do it, and is putting the technology into the rail industry to support that.

[Joe Robertson]

Q In the best case, as mayors, would you like to see more powers in the Bill? I get that you support the Bill, but in the best world, would you like to see more powers for mayors to integrate in it?

Andy Burnham: I think there should be a presumption in favour of integration; you are absolutely right. Other countries, such as the Netherlands, have had that as their guiding star, but we went down a fragmentation route in public transport, and have suffered as a country as a result. Integration is the way to think. People are not just loyal to one mode; they want to use transport in as convenient a way as possible. The railways have not had an imperative to think that way for a long time, but you are absolutely right to think of integration as the watchword.

[Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q You have sort of answered one of my questions: I was going to ask about combined and integrated local transport offers and ticketing, and how that would work. I think you answered that you could consult. Will you say something about safeguards in terms of how that ticketing would work and how you would share the tickets with GBR? Can you foresee any issues with that?

Tracy Brabin: As Andy says, we are already doing it. We are sharing with the bus operators in our integrated Weaver network, where we have, for example, brought in the “mayor’s fare”. I think it is the only one in the country, and it is a day saver. It is capped and can be used on any bus, anywhere, for any number of journeys and on any operator. We work with the operators to divvy up the checks and balances of the passengers. I think you can see that it is possible.

To the previous point, devolution means that every region is different, so you do not always have to have one size fits all; you can have whatever works for you and your community. There are definitely ways to do it. Certainly, if it is done in London, that should give you comfort that it can be done elsewhere.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that. I also assure her that I have raised the importance of public transport accessibility with the leadership of Luton airport, as well as the integration of the National Rail network and the Direct Air-Rail Transit link. I am happy to discuss that matter further with her.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

The Government talk about affordable transport for passengers in the UK, but on the Isle of Wight we are at the mercy of privatised, unregulated ferry companies that charge extortionate prices for unreliable services. If those companies refuse to lower prices and improve services, will the Minister intervene, given that he would not accept that for any other community in the United Kingdom?

Railways Bill

Joe Robertson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

I support some of the aims and intentions behind the Bill, and having listened to the Secretary of State’s opening speech, I certainly agree with her reasons for it, but I do not believe that what she is doing will deliver what she says.

Key parts of the Bill are taken from the previous Conservative Government’s 2023 plans to unite train and track, which were not realised due to the change of Government at the election. That does not inevitably have to be done by nationalisation; indeed, under the last Government’s detailed plans, it would have been done under a concessionary scheme. That is not ideology but pragmatism. It is using the state and the private sector to deliver better railways. That model is very similar to the model used by Transport for London, which was designed by Labour and is run by Labour in London.

It is unfathomable why the Government will not look at that sort of pragmatic scheme for the rest of the UK through this Bill. I suspect that the only answer is the inevitable one offered by the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden): this is a matter of ideology. It is about satisfying Labour’s union paymasters and Back Benchers—those Back Benchers who fundamentally run this Government, who vetoed the Government’s attempt to cut the welfare bill last summer, and who ensured that the Budget two weeks ago increased taxes to allow more welfare spending. For the Secretary of State and the Government, this is about a politically prudent pay-off, but it is bad for passengers.

I did some market research earlier. I travelled on a publicly owned service on a publicly owned track from Portsmouth Harbour to London Waterloo, and it was delayed because of signal failure. In fact, I do market research on that route quite often. The track has been in the public sector for over a decade, and signal failure continues to be the most common reason for delays to the train. The issue is not the train company, which was historically private, but the publicly owned track. It is not inevitable that nationalisation will lead to improved services, and there are no guarantees in the Bill that prices will be held down long term, or that services will improve and more passengers will travel by rail. That is simply a matter of faith, driven by a belief in nationalisation.

[Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)]

Southeastern was nationalised under the previous Government, and it remains nationalised under this Government, but this year, it has been brought into one organisation with Network Rail, and there has been the best customer satisfaction for my constituents in Bexleyheath and Crayford, and the best journey times you could see. Southeastern is at the forefront of this programme, so does the hon. Member agree that the proof is in Southeastern’s statistics?

[Joe Robertson]

The hon. Member obviously was not listening to what I said at the beginning, which was that I absolutely believe in uniting the trains and the track; that was the 2023 plan of the previous Conservative Government. If he is right about the improvements in his part of the world, I suspect that the reason is not nationalisation, but bringing the two together, so that they are subject to similar decision-making processes.

The Secretary of State opened her speech by saying that she wanted a railway system that was greater than the sum of its parts. I agree. If she were to buy a National Rail ticket in Shanklin on the Isle of Wight, get on a train there, and travel to London Waterloo or Guildford, she would, like me, use the ferry service that connects parts of the railway. Fares are not being frozen for that part of the rail route, because the Secretary of State has no powers to do that, and is not creating those powers. In fact, the cost of rail travel from Sandown, Shanklin or Ryde on the Isle of Wight through to Guildford or Waterloo will go up if the unregulated ferry companies put their fares up. The Secretary of State is doing nothing to deal with that part of the railway for people who live in my constituency.

In fact, the situation is worse than that, because the Government are extending the emissions trading system levy to Solent travel. The ferry company Wightlink, which connects the railways, will pay £1 million a year in extra charges because of that levy being extended to it. The Government talk about freezing fares for mainland rail travellers, but they are in fact putting up the costs for Isle of Wight train travellers. The use of fossil fuels cannot be avoided in crossing the Solent, because there is not the electric grid capacity in the mainland ports or the Isle of Wight ports to allow the ferry companies to go fully electric, as the trains have done. That grid capacity will not be there until the mid-2030s. The Government are putting that cost on Isle of Wight rail and road users, but they have exempted Scottish ferry companies, because they say that those provide a lifeline service. Isle of Wight ferries are every bit as much a lifeline service for my constituents, who use them to access education, NHS, friends and family and all the things that everyone else enjoys.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Simon Lightwood]

It is vital that local bus services work for local communities, and that is at the heart of the Government’s bus reforms. I encourage the local operators to consider the feedback that my hon. Friend has mentioned, recognising the role that bus services play in supporting people to meet their families and friends and make important visits, such as to the crematorium.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

9. What steps she is taking to help improve the integration of public transport in the Isle of Wight East constituency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)]

I thank the hon. Member for his continued advocacy for this issue on behalf of his constituents. Soon the Department will publish its integrated national transport strategy, setting the long-term vision for domestic transport in England. It will focus on creating a transport network that works well for people so that they can get on in life and make the journeys they need to make easily, wherever they live.

[Joe Robertson]

Does the Minister accept—and, indeed, do the Government accept—that public transport will never be truly integrated for the Isle of Wight while it continues to rely on unregulated, unlicensed ferry services that are owned by private equity groups making bumper profits? He would not accept that for any other community in the UK; why should the Isle of Wight be left in a different situation?

[Keir Mather]

Again, the hon. Member makes a powerful point on behalf of his constituents—it is right to be frustrated by the affordability and reliability of ferry services to the Isle of Wight. I agree that urgent action needs to be taken to resolve the issues that he and his parliamentary colleagues are campaigning on. That is why it is incredibly important that we get a cross-Solent chair in place quickly, so that they can grip this issue. Fundamentally, though, we must work together to get the data necessary to create a single version of the truth, so that we can assess how to deal with these problems in the round on behalf of the hon. Member’s constituents.

Regional Transport Inequality

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Catherine Atkinson]

I am grateful for the support that my hon. Friend, alongside many colleagues, has shown for electrification and the benefits that it can bring. It would be a fitting celebration of 200 years of the modern railway to continue the electrification of the midland main line, which would bring jobs, skills and hundreds of millions of pounds in economic benefits particularly to the east midlands.

I love my region, and like so many in this Chamber I know my region’s strengths and can imagine the possibilities if investment were genuinely equitably distributed around our country. If our regional transport was more equal, it would create more prosperity, economic growth, social equality, regional development and carbon reduction as well as better air quality. Our transport infrastructure is the country’s circulatory system: it connects and enriches wherever it reaches. If someone’s circulation is not great, they feel the cold a little more in their fingers, as I well know. If it is restricted more, their arms and legs get fatigue, numbness and pain. In the extreme, it eventually leads to organ failure. That is where we had been heading for far too long, but over the last year the Government have been getting the blood pumping again.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Catherine Atkinson]

I am just about to finish.

If the UK is a body, Derby is geographically at its heart and is asking to have the same chance as everywhere else to be connected. We need to maintain our change of direction to reduce the inequality in the spend per person on transport, stay on track towards the reduction, and ultimately the elimination, of regional transport inequality, and deliver fair funding for transport.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

In just one year, this Labour Government have already failed rural Britain on transport. They have scrapped the £2 bus fare cap, pushing up costs for working people; they have wasted £250 million in the process of nationalising South Western Railway, while my commuters are still stuck with cancelled peak services; and they continue to pour billions of pounds into London, while communities such as Farnham, Bordon, Haslemere and Liphook in my constituency are left behind. My constituency is just 40 miles from London, yet the difference in connectivity is stark. London enjoys a world-class system—well, when it is not being held to ransom by greedy tube driver unions, as is the case this week—but Farnham, Haslemere, Bordon and Liphook are treated very differently.

The contrast with London is outrageous. In the capital, there is a bus stop every 400 metres and services run every five to 10 minutes throughout the night. In my constituency, buses are 30 to 90 minutes apart, if they run at all, and many disappear entirely after 7 pm. Students at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham cannot get to Guildford in the evening. Meanwhile, Londoners can choose from over 100 night bus routes. Whereas passengers in London pay a fixed £1.75 fare, people in rural Surrey and Hampshire pay much more, because Labour hiked the cap.

My constituents will remember that Labour put up their fares, which is why I took action. I convened the Bordon taskforce to bring Stagecoach, local councils and local leaders around the table, and the results speak for themselves. The newly revised No. 18 bus service now runs every 30 minutes on weekdays and Saturdays, and hourly on Sundays, linking Bordon, Whitehill, Farnham and Aldershot. The No. 13 service between Bordon, Alton and Basingstoke has also been strengthened, with six Sunday return journeys. Stagecoach even trialled free travel this June after my push for better value. These are tangible improvements that make life easier for thousands of people, but gaps still remain.

It is extraordinary that there is no bus connection between Bordon and Petersfield—only 11 miles apart—except for a single school service. That is why I am in talks with East Hampshire district council to establish a new route, modelled on the Waverley “hospital hoppa”—a scheme for which I secured funding in Farnham.

[Joe Robertson]

I agree with the points that my hon. Friend’s is making. The train to my constituency runs through his constituency, and he has referred to it already. Unfortunately, my constituency is reliant on entirely privatised ferry companies in order for us to get there. Does he agree that if this Government’s outlook on transport is to be truly integrated, they need to connect all parts of the United Kingdom and stop focusing only on cities?

[Gregory Stafford]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful and important point. He is absolutely right: this Government are focused on metropolitan areas, and constituencies like his and mine, which are rural and semi- rural, are simply left behind. His mention of rail neatly brings me to my points on rail.

Rail tells the same story as buses. Three of my four major towns have train stations, but Bordon, the third largest one, has none, and the lines that do exist are fragmented and unreliable. Only this week, the 7.28 from Farnham to Waterloo was cancelled. Too often, peak-time trains arrive at Haslemere or Liphook with just four coaches. When I challenged South Western Railway on that, I was told that to avoid cancellations nearer London, it reassigned carriages away from my area. I made it clear: my commuters are not second-class citizens, and that needs to change. At South Western’s Farnham depot this summer, I pressed the company directly on the £250 million Arterio fleet, which is meant to relieve overcrowding but is still sitting idle for want of drivers or because of faults. I secured assurances of change, and I will now hold the company to account.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned, the Government wasted £250 million nationalising South Western Railway. That money could have delivered a permanent Bordon-to-Liphook bus link for 1,000 years. Instead, urban areas get Crossrail and trams, while my constituents get cancellations and four-carriage trains. That is clearly not acceptable. Much more help is needed for my constituents. Rural communities such as mine cannot keep being treated as second class. Levelling up, economic growth and net zero—all laudable aims—mean nothing if millions of people in my constituency and the surrounding areas cannot get a bus on a Sunday, or a train with more than four carriages on a Monday morning. That is the reality of Labour’s transport policy: higher fares, wasted money and broken promises. That is unacceptable to my constituents and, I hope, unacceptable to the constituents of every single Member of this House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)]

I am incredibly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson) for bringing forward this important debate. She spoke with passion about the subject.

The south-east can be described as leafy and rich, with Kent being the garden of England, but parts of that garden have been left unnurtured, untended and left behind. Transport inequality can be framed as a north-south divide. In my constituency, there is a north-south divide where people living in the north of the constituency have a lower life expectancy of over a decade. But both the urban and rural communities have been left behind.

When I spoke with young people during the campaign and more recently, they told me that transport is their No. 1 issue. It is about connectivity and getting across Gravesham, because there are no buses on a Sunday that can take them to town to meet their friends, and there are no buses that can take them after school if they want to stay and do extracurricular activities. A mum recently contacted me about her 16-year-old who was excited to start at Northfleet technology college, which specialises in engineering. They chose that college because of the bus route, the 305, but that has now been scrapped. We see this up and down our country: bus routes are there one day and scrapped the next. The new bus route means nearly an hour’s journey with a 20-minute walk. On top of that, a pass costs £640 for that privilege. The Kent freedom pass, which is run by Kent county council—previously Tory but now Reform-led—used to cost £50. Now it is over £550 a year and rising.

Families are being priced out, and although I helped to secure options to pay in monthly instalments, the cost remains out of reach for many. In urban areas of my constituency, reliability is a major concern. The cliff collapse at Galley Hill in the neighbouring constituency is having a major impact on the reliability of buses.

Under the Tories’ Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, millions of pounds have gone to shiny, fast-track routes. However, they serve the new developments while existing communities have lost their services altogether. The people of Northfleet lost their bus route. They were promised a physical connection between Northfleet station and Ebbsfleet International—a place that has some of the highest levels of deprivation—but that has been placed on hold indefinitely, meaning that new housing developments see that investment while those who really could do with that opportunity have been left behind. That is a two-tier public transport system, and it is not fair.

In Gravesham we see bus companies competing in a relatively small area for similar routes, undercutting each other and making timetable choices based on profit, not where people actually want to go. I am incredibly confident that the new bus services Bill will enable local people to make the routes better for themselves.

I must mention the ferry—bring back the Tilbury-Gravesend ferry—because it is not only about getting across the borough but getting to Essex, supporting our businesses as a place for growth.

[Joe Robertson]

The hon. Member mentions ferries. Perhaps she will show a little sympathy to me and my constituents, because we are entirely reliant on ferries that are unregulated and privatised, so neither the local authority nor the Government have any say over those services, whereas her local authority does have a say over her ferries. She might want to reflect on the role of Government in all modes of transport across the UK.

[Dr Sullivan]

The hon. Member and I share a passion for ferries. My ferry no longer runs, so despite having a local government agency that could intervene and supply a ferry, it let go of that contract. I will continue to bang that drum, because ferries are an incredibly important mode of transport for so many people, especially his constituents on the Isle of Wight.

The Government want to see transport as a gateway to opportunity, which I fully support, not the barrier that it is today and has been for many years. We must unleash community power and agency to bring voice to the people of Gravesham, especially the young people, who deserve the right to opportunity via buses and boats.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

I understand everyone’s frustrations with the tube strikes; I use public transport in London every week, and I know that when the tube is down, not only are there queues for buses, but there is gridlock on our roads. It is right that the Mayor of London has called for the RMT to get back around the table with TfL. That is what this Government want, and it is what the travelling public want. I will be talking to the director of operations at Transport for London, Claire Mann, this afternoon, to understand what the next steps are in resolving this dispute.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

6. What steps she is taking to include ferry services in the integrated public transport strategy.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Minister—welcome.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

This year, our Department will publish the integrated national transport strategy outlining our long-term vision for transport in England. It will set out how the transport sector, Government and local leaders should work together to improve people’s everyday journeys however they choose to travel, including how people access ports and airports. We look forward to providing more information in due course.

[Joe Robertson]

I welcome the new maritime Minister to his place—it comes to something when Isle of Wight ferry company Red Funnel is operating ferries that are older than the new Minister. Will he speak to his new colleague in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Minister responsible for English devolution, to ensure that the new Mayor for Hampshire and the Solent actually has regulatory or licensing powers over transport across the Solent? If the Government create a new local leader without any powers over integrating the island that I represent, as the Member for Isle of Wight East, into the mainland, they will have failed to deliver any form of genuine integrated local transport for my constituents.

[Keir Mather]

The hon. Member speaks with passion about the state of ferry services in his constituency. It is an issue that I am keen to engage with him on further; I know the former maritime Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), was very engaged in this work, too. I am looking to meet the hon. Gentleman next week, alongside my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley), to take this conversation forward. On stakeholder engagement with the ferry operator itself, that local engagement is something I will be taking part in through the Department. I look forward to engaging with the hon. Gentleman as I take that process forward.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 10th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. I refer the House to Norfolk county council—another Conservative council, and the one in which my constituency is based—which has an enhanced partnership with bus companies. That partnership has been more effective in driving bus ridership than the franchised process has been in Manchester—at least as enacted by the Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham.

I will now deal with franchising more fully. This bizarre draft legislation appears to have taken a good idea in principle and made it worse in practice. The hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) is quite right that the Conservative Government recognised in 2016 the potential for region-based transport integration. In principle, mayoral combined authorities had the scale, resources and financial sophistication to take on the responsibility of creating a franchised scheme, and would thereby have more control over the design of public transport in their area. That was a Conservative innovation, and I support it.

Under the 2017 legislation, other local transport authorities also had the ability to apply for franchise status, if I may loosely call it that. However, there was concern that smaller local authorities would not have as many resources—be they financial or top-tier management resources—to deal with and design such operations, so a critical safeguard was inserted in that legislation requiring such authorities, should they wish to go down the franchise route, to obtain the approval of the Secretary of State for their plans. It is a sense-check—a needed safeguard—because franchising exposes local transport authorities to huge commercial risk. They are not just letting contracts and, as with an enhanced partnership, adding a bit extra on, after negotiation with commercial operators; they also become responsible for the design of the full bus map and timetable, and have the resulting commercial liability of providing all the buses and drivers. Authorities can either pay a bus company to operate for a fee, and so take no commercial risk—the company just turns up and does what it is told—or expose themselves further by creating a municipal bus company and doing everything themselves. If that goes wrong, it can bankrupt a local authority.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

On the point about financial risk for local authorities, does my hon. Friend agree there is absolutely nothing in the Bill that local authorities such as mine, the Isle of Wight council, would possibly want to touch when it comes to franchising for buses across my constituency? The risk for small unitary authorities is just far too great. If there is any opportunity at all in this Bill—I am not sure that there is—it will apply only to large city councils and metropolitan areas.

Road and Rail Projects

Joe Robertson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend was in contact with me directly a couple of days ago about mobile connectivity improvements on GWR that improve services in her constituency. I know that an integrated bus network in Cornwall is absolutely vital to her constituents, and through our Bus Services (No. 2) Bill, we want to give local leaders more powers to shape the bus networks that communities like hers need and deserve.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

As the Secretary of State knows, the biggest connectivity issue for the Isle of Wight is its ferry services. I welcome her engagement on that issue. Might she consider cross-Solent ferry services to be part of the UK’s road and rail network? The Isle of Wight’s roads and rail are connected to the rest of the UK only via entirely privatised, very expensive and completely unregulated ferry companies.

[Heidi Alexander]

I understand the importance of a reliable and affordable ferry service. The Isle of Wight’s ferry services are obviously provided privately, and our road network, and our rail network especially, will increasingly be in public ownership in the future. While I cannot commit to doing what he asks, I can commit to working with the hon. Gentleman and his colleague on the Isle of Wight, my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley), to try to improve this situation for their residents.