Railways Bill

Paul Waugh Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holden]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It was interesting to hear Government Members saying, “Yes, yes,” while he spoke, because that is exactly what they did: they threw money at the transport unions. It is particularly interesting that the Secretary of State said today that the railways will face a £2 billion-a-year subsidy for the foreseeable future, because that is not what the Government have said in answers to written questions submitted by me or Opposition colleagues.

Let me be absolutely clear that when it comes to Britain’s railways, we are not against the idea of uniting track and train. We would back a model that brings coherence to the system, but not one that weakens scrutiny and clamps down on competition. That is why we have supported a concessionary model, which the Secretary of State will no doubt recall from her time at Transport for London, as will Members from Merseyside and Greater Manchester, where such a model is being proposed. I do not think anybody has ever considered them to be on the far right.

[Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman referred earlier to ideology; surely it was Tory ideology that privatised the railways in the first place. That ideology has not been copied anywhere else in the world precisely because it costs the taxpayer more and the passenger more.

[Mr Holden]

We can all see the ideology at play today. I think the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is in Greater Manchester, where the mayor is calling for a concessionary model—a partnership between the state and the private sector that is directly opposed in the Bill that he will support this evening. The hon. Gentleman is quite far off the mark.

The number of passengers on our railways doubled in the 25 years after services were returned to the private sector after half a century of decline. We support the vital role of open access operators, which always give passengers brand-new routes with cheap, affordable fares, and often run direct services to London. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) called for direct services recently, but I do not think that option will be available under the new system. Neither will a direct line from Cleethorpes to London, long campaigned for by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers)—I visited his constituency a week ago—be on offer.

We back a joined-up approach that places passengers and taxpayers at the heart of our railway. We recognise that fragmentation held our railway back, and have long championed partnership with private sector involvement to drive innovation and growth. That is why we conducted the Williams-Shapps review.

What the Secretary of State has brought forward is not a coherent model at all; it is something altogether different, and ought to trouble Members throughout the House. Her Bill ignores the evidence, the experts, and the fervent cries of freight that growth has to be at the forefront of any rail reform. Instead, in keeping with the worst traditions of the 1970s, a return to state control runs throughout her Bill. It is not about the growth in passenger numbers that would reduce taxpayer subsidy; otherwise, why is that not on the front of the Bill? It is not about the growth in competition that would bring down prices for passengers, the growth of freight that would take more lorries off our roads, or the growth of new routes to serve the length and breadth of the country. Nowhere on the face of her Bill is there a target for passenger growth. The Bill actively works against open access, which, if the Secretary of State gets her way, will be left wholly, and deliberately, vulnerable.