Railways Bill

Laurence Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)]

And now we turn, at last, to a fundamental question which has perhaps gone unasked in this House for too long: what is the mass and acceleration of an average-sized peacock? The question does not spring from the pages of a script for “The Goon Show” or “Monty Python”. It is a real case that came before the rail industry’s Delay Attribution Board.

A delay caused by a collision between a train and a small bird is the responsibility of a private operator, which pays the cost of compensation, but if the unfortunate bird is deemed to be large, then taxpayers are on the hook. And so it came to be that one day expensive lawyers gathered to compare calculations and precedent, and argue out whether the unfortunate peacock was more akin to a goose than a duck. Few incidents better illustrate the costly absurdities of rail privatisation.

It is worth reflecting on the fact that the cost of privatisation is borne by all taxpayers, whether they use the railway or not. The railways received nearly £700 million in subsidy in 1990-91. By 2018-19, before the pandemic impaired the industry’s finances, the net subsidy requirement had increased to £4.3 billion—an increase after inflation of some 236%; more than doubling, even after passenger journey increases had been accounted for. To this day, subsidy is lower in Northern Ireland, where the railways remained in public hands.

Everywhere, the railway’s contingent parts are divided and separated by contractual barriers. For passengers, that can mean station staff who cannot even board a train to help someone with mobility issues, because they work for different companies. There is a multiplicity of such unnecessary contractual barriers, and public money and public confidence drains through each one.

We should not expect a complete change of services on day one of operations under GBR, as there was not on the Attlee Government’s vesting day for nationalisation in 1948, but change over time it will, and for the better, including for my constituents who travel from Longbridge, Northfield and Kings Norton. The Bill is the instrument of that transformation.

Tonight’s vote is on the principle of establishing Great British Railways. In the weeks ahead, there will be time for detailed line-by-line scrutiny, to which I look forward to contributing, including through the Transport Committee. But for tonight, I just want to say that there can be no doubt that this is the right policy and the right Bill. It has been a privilege to have had the occasional view of the development of this area of transport policy down the years. I look forward to voting for it tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

This has been a very popular debate with a lot of contributions; I congratulate all those who managed to make their points in just three minutes. I will do my best to summarise the debate, starting by noting the excellent contributions from Opposition Members.

My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) brilliantly managed to discuss a Railways Bill by referring to ferries, but he did make the serious point that we want pragmatism, not ideology, to reform the railways. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) made the good point that, through nationalisation, the taxpayer now has to replace private investment.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) made three important points: that the reforms simply advance the sprawling centralisation of powers; that, again, they involve practicality giving way to ideology; and that their drafting puts open access concessions at risk.

My hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), who is a member of the Transport Committee, was concerned that this was ideological time travel that takes us back to the 1970s. My hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) said that, post nationalisation, cancellations of South Western trains had increased on his Chertsey-Addlestone loop.

There were also many thoughtful contributions from the Liberal Democrats. It is telling that the Government’s insistence on nationalisation as the only answer has united the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. It is worth noting that we have heard nothing from Members of the fag packet party, who, I think, still support nationalisation. Then again, however, they would not recognise a transport policy if it slapped them in the face.

Then there was Labour, with speech after speech welcoming the nationalisation of the railways—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Bring it on. In speech after speech, they showed deep suspicion of the profit motive. The tone was set by the Transport Secretary, who said that the current system benefits companies over passenger services—as though the two things are mutually exclusive—and taken up by the hon. Members for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger), for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) and for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey), with claims of profit prioritised over customer experience, large-scale profiteering on the railways and dividends prioritised over people. I could go on.

This is the authentic voice of Labour: the private sector is not good—not good in the way that the state is good. The private sector invests to make a return, not to create unionised jobs. It innovates to make a return, not to satisfy a Government productivity goal. It innovates to beat the competition and make a return, not to satisfy a ministerial target. However, it does invest, it does innovate and it does improve to compete. Nevertheless, Labour clings on to its ideological faith in the efficiency of the state, despite all the evidence to the contrary—and there is evidence. After all, we have tried this experiment before.

[Laurence Turner]

When the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) was the shadow Transport Secretary, he was recorded saying that his party would likely not reverse nationalisation because the public would be unlikely to think it was a good idea. If this Bill passes, will it be the policy of the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) to privatise the railways all over again?

[Jerome Mayhew]

Let us wait to see if Labour actually nationalises it first; but the Conservatives are here to lead, not to follow.

There is plenty of evidence because we have tried the nationalisation experiment before. The railways were nationalised in 1948. [Interruption.] If Labour Members listen, they might learn something. When the railways were nationalised in 1948, there were a billion passenger journeys a year. Thereafter, the impact of nationalisation was immediate: year after year, fewer customers chose to use the trains; year after year, they voted with their feet because the service did not give them what they wanted and was not focused on them and their needs. There was low investment because the railways were competing with schools and hospitals, followed by poor industrial relations with an organisation more focused on itself than its customers—[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), says from a sedentary position that it was because there were more cars—let us just hold that in our minds.

By the 1990s, just 735 million passenger journeys were taking place a year, instead of a billion. In 1993, the system was privatised by the Conservative Government. The unions hated it, and Labour therefore hated it, too. However, every year, more and more passengers were attracted to use the trains—not just a few more, but vastly more. By 2019, 1.75 billion people were using the railways each year—and there were many more cars. Labour cannot explain it; it should not have happened, but it did.

If the purpose of the railway is to carry passengers, any rational observer must conclude that privatisation beat nationalisation hands down. Why? Profit is made only by attracting customers. Train operating companies focused on new and more trains, more services, innovative ticketing and customer service, and people voted with their feet.

The railways are a complex system where capacity is limited and costs are high. It is absolutely crucial to drive efficiency, maximise the scarce resources of track access and drive value for money with dynamic management. Can hon. Members think of a nationalised organisation that is a byword for management dynamism and efficiency anywhere, in any country at any time? I cannot either. If poor railway management is the problem, nationalisation cannot be the solution. Why is it that socialists and the fag packet party are such bad learners?