Railways Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Olly Glover and Lilian Greenwood

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Lilian Greenwood]

Q I have a quick follow-up for Transport Focus. Will you be able to work effectively with the ORR to deliver for passengers?

Alex Robertson: Yes, definitely. We are already in dialogue with the ORR about its change in responsibilities and the transfer of functions from it to us. We will put in place an MOU to make sure that works in practice. We are comfortable with it. As you will have heard from the earlier panel, it aligns very well with our general consumer functions, which I think makes sense. Having one single enforcement body on the licence in the new system also makes sense.

[Olly Glover]

Q Emma, further to your previous comments, will you say a little more about the current general duty in the Bill to promote the needs of disabled passengers being vague and unenforceable? Do you have any further suggestions for how it could be strengthened, perhaps using examples from other sectors? I am interested to hear what the rest of the panel has to say about that as well.

Emma Vogelmann: In the Bill now, the power is very much centralised with the Secretary of State. We feel that there is already a lack of sufficient safeguards in place to make sure that accessibility does not become beholden to political will and the discretion of the Secretary of State. The Bill as drafted depends too heavily on discretion, future strategies and changeable licences. We want to make sure that the accessibility considerations and requirements are meaningful and enforceable and do not leave disabled people politically vulnerable.

Michael Roberts: For my part, rather reiterating my earlier comments, what is important is the expression of what GBR wants to achieve in accessibility, which is not necessarily to be written on the face of the Bill but should be part of the long-term rail strategy or the business plan. Alongside a duty, however it is expressed in the legislation, there must be some clear milestones and outcomes to which GBR aspires—for example, a milestone for the proportion of stations that should have step-free access by a certain point in time, as the Mayor of London and TfL currently have in the capital, or aspirations for the quality of provision of passenger assistance. There has been a rapid increase in the demand for that sort of service by mobility-impaired passengers, but the level of resource has woefully fallen behind the need. Expressing the stepping stones to a truly more accessible railway in strategic documents needs to go alongside the duty, however it is expressed.

Alex Robertson: I agree with Michael about the important milestones. We need to see real shifts in the ambition on accessibility. One of the other things that has been mentioned is that we will have the ability to set the consumer standards for accessibility. Alongside taking over sponsorship of the Rail Ombudsman, I want to see a really good, strong set of standards on which we would consult and engage with disabled passengers. If they were not complied with, they would be passed to the ORR for enforcement.

On complaint handling, at the moment, if you have a failed passenger assist, it is possible for some of the train operating companies to refund you only the price of your ticket, and not compensate for the distress and inconvenience that caused you. That is completely wrong. We would be in a position where that could be looked at properly and changed, so we could take an individual’s complaint and get better redress for them, but also use it to identify systemic issues that might be affecting other people as well. It puts us in a stronger position to do all those things.

Ben Plowden: It is not clear to us that the Bill gives GBR a sufficiently strong incentive to increase accessibility over time, in the same way that it does not give an incentive to increase passenger use over time. One issue might be whether you could amend the Bill to require an increase in accessibility over time to be determined through the other documents that the Government and GBR will produce.

Michael Roberts: I want to pick up a point that Transport for All made separately on the public sector equality duty, which GBR will be obliged to fulfil. The observation from Transport for All is that the impact of that duty is felt retrospectively and depends on disabled members of the travelling public challenging a failure in service when they find it. There might be some merit in the industry—GBR, ORR—co-creating a definition of what the exercise of that duty feels like in practice. That should be up front, as part of the strategic documents against which GBR will be held to account, with the passenger watchdog monitoring and the ORR enforcing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Olly Glover and Lilian Greenwood

Thursday 8th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

Across the country, people enjoy traffic-free walking, cycling and wheeling on disused railways such as the Tissington trail in Derbyshire, the Mawddach trail in Gwynedd or the Deeside way in Aberdeenshire. What steps will the Secretary of State take to make it easier for local government and communities to gain access to the 8,000 miles of disused railway that we still have, which creates such a good opportunity for family-friendly cycling trails, as part of a national network?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood)]

The disused part of the rail network is currently in the custody of National Highways. I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that many of those trails provide excellent opportunities for walking, wheeling and cycling; indeed, I have spent many happy times cycling on the Tissington and Monsal trails in Derbyshire. We will continue to work through Active Travel England and with local authorities to encourage them to make great use of those greenways.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Olly Glover and Lilian Greenwood

Thursday 9th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

3. What steps she is taking to help improve road safety for vulnerable road users.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Lilian Greenwood)]

I assure the hon. Member that this Government treat road safety with the utmost seriousness. We are committed to reducing the number of those killed and seriously injured on our roads. My Department is developing our road safety strategy, and will set out further details in due course.

[Olly Glover]

I join others in welcoming the Secretary of State to her place. Bikeability is the world’s largest road safety programme. Recent data from the Bikeability Trust showed that in areas with higher levels of training for children, the number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads decreased. Does the Minister agree that Bikeability training is an essential life skill that everyone should have access to, and will she commit to joining me on a visit to a local Oxfordshire school to see the scheme in action?

[Lilian Greenwood]

A total of 1.6 million people have participated in Active Travel England’s training programmes, including a record half a million children receiving cycle training last year. I am a keen cyclist and, having been knocked off my bike in the last couple of years, I understand how important it is to feel confident about cycling safely. I would be happy to join the hon. Member to see some of that work in action.