Rail Freight

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Government have been quite clear that setting a statutory target is in the Bill, and we have also been clear that it is 75%. In practice, that protects those freight paths that have been in the timetable for a long time but are not necessarily used other than at short notice. That is the reason for the proposed statutory inclusion in the Bill. For that reason, GBR will not be in competition for those paths. Those paths will have to be reserved in order to allow the target to be effective in the future.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister mentioned the issue of competition for rail freight. I am pleased to hear him say that the Government are keen to grow rail freight, but it is difficult to see, in the text of the Bill, how Great British Railways, which will have control of most passenger services as well as access to the track, will be able to treat fairly open access passenger operators and rail freight operators. Is this something on which the Government have consulted the Competition and Markets Authority to see whether there is any potential for conflicts of interest?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Railways Bill is framed to give Great British Railways the authority, for the first time in over 30 years, to control access to the railway and make sure that it is fairly distributed and serves the nation’s economic and social purposes. That is in Clause 60. Clause 63 talks about GBR operating passenger services. The reason that the freight target is specified in the Bill is so that GBR will have the obligation to leave both freight paths that are used in the timetable for freight trains and those paths that are not used but will be needed for the expansion of freight services and are needed at short notice to be used by freight operators.