Railways Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Rebecca Smith and Sarah Smith

Committee stage
Thursday 29th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Rebecca Smith]

The Committee heard from some representatives of the private sector. Lord Hendy has also highlighted that Hitachi—I believe it was—has made multi-million-pound investments that the Government were very happy to accept. It may well be that that is backed up by Government, but that was welcomed by the Prime Minister, so to say that we do not want private investment seems a bit churlish—ultimately, it has been accepted by the Government in its entirety.

The new clauses in this group are pushing the accountability piece: the reporting back, to make sure that the Great British public has the opportunity to see what Great British Railways is delivering and whether it is holding itself to account in the right way. I do not understand why the Government do not seem to think that the new clauses are a good idea. If Great British Railways will be so wonderful, would it not be great if the British people can see what it actually achieves and hold it to account? Marking one’s own homework is never good, and being able to hold GBR to account in all its forms will be essential.

[Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. My remarks will be incredibly brief, ahead of the Minister’s responses. To echo some of what my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth said, as a representative of Hyndburn in Lancashire—which is currently not part of a mayoral combined authority—I look for reassurances that GBR will have regard to Lancashire’s transport authority and the local transport plans. This Government are clearly committed to the important agenda of devolution, but it would potentially undermine some of those efforts if in the transition phase—while we are trying to move as quickly as possible for as many areas as possible to benefit from that full devolution opportunity—a national body is undermining the local plans and those on the ground who understand the complexities of the needs of somewhere such as Lancashire. I would thank the Minister for reassurances in that regard.

[Keir Mather]

I thank hon. Members from all parties for their well-considered contributions to this debate. I shall endeavour to give full answers to them.

First, on the point made by the shadow Minister about how GBR will handle conflicting priorities that emerge within different strategies, as laid out by mayoral combined authorities or otherwise. As part of the business planning process, GBR will need to demonstrate how its integrated business plan aligns with the objectives contained in the long-term rail strategy and the Scottish Ministers’ rail strategy, reflecting the role that they have as funders of the network. The Bill also requires GBR to have regard to the various other national and local strategies. Fundamentally, however, establishing no hierarchy between the general duties to which GBR is subject, in my view gives the necessary flexibility to allow it to manage competing priorities where those may arise. It will be the responsibility of GBR to ensure that its decision making demonstrates consideration of potentially competing requirements and strikes an appropriate balance in making trade-offs.

On the statutory role of mayors as part of the process, GBR must have regard to their transport strategies. Mayors of course will have the right to request services and work in active partnerships with GBR. However, I also hear clearly the concerns of not only the hon. Member for South West Devon, but my hon. Friends the Members for Truro and Falmouth, and for Hyndburn about those who do not live in mayoral strategic authorities. I appreciate the hon. Lady’s scepticism when comparing this to our existing system. When it comes to engaging with private operators and with other arm’s length bodies, at the moment it feels as if parliamentary accountability cannot always be applied, and that where power resides is very diffuse, making it hard to tell who is responsible. We are actively trying to avoid and redesign that through the creation of GBR.

The hon. Member for South West Devon points to the fact that the business units might not have the teeth to engage properly and to reflect the needs of local areas, but I would say that we are creating a decentralised Great British Railways, where local areas are imbued with the powers to enter into dialogue with local authorities especially to avoid that being the case. That does not change the fact that the reason that within the Bill we have referenced mayoral strategic authorities is that we believe they are the right unit of economic and of demographic power to drive forward truly devolved change on the railway. That does not mean that we cannot not have regard to those who do not benefit from living within a mayoral strategic authority.

Railways Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Rebecca Smith and Sarah Smith

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Sarah Smith]

Q Do you think that duty could help to ensure that inclusivity is taken in the widest possible sense? I travel with my toddler, and there is a risk when I go to the toilet with him that he will hit the emergency open button and I will be exposed to the train. There is a conflict there: I absolutely recognise that disabled people need to be able to use those facilities and get support, but I also need to be able to use the train safely as a mother with a small person.

How will we ensure, if we move to co-creation in how we deliver accessibility, as Alex was proposing, that we consider a slightly wider group of people—as much as disabled people are absolutely the priority—to ensure that we deliver inclusive railways? Could that duty help to provide a bit of a framework for that to be considered going forward?

Ben Plowden: Yes. By definition, if you want to increase the volume of travel by rail, you need to make that network meaningfully usable by the broadest segment of the population that you can. That also relates to issues around affordability that we might come back to. If GBR had a legal incentive to increase demand over time, as well as a duty to demonstrably increase accessibility over time, I think that would encourage it to think very broadly about how to get the largest number of people possible using a safer, more accessible, more reliable and more affordable network.

Emma Vogelmann: In terms of true co-production, you are really looking at how to create universal design. That universal design is beneficial to everyone. I want to stress that if accessibility provisions and things that are built in to promote accessibility are done correctly and in consultation with disabled people and other passengers, you will not have that conflict in access needs. Universal design would allow everyone to benefit from those improvements.

Alex Robertson: I agree absolutely with what Emma has said and what we are trying to achieve with this. The question, and this is obviously why you are asking it, is how much you can legislate for that.

We had an experience with Merseyrail developing its new trains in and around Liverpool. You completely need to engage disabled passengers throughout the process, from the specification to the design and implementation, because things that you think are possible at the beginning may lead to trade-offs later on. You want to have people in the room making those decisions with you and balancing the competing the interests of different passengers, and you have to do that throughout. That did lead to—I hope this is reflected by people’s experience in Liverpool—a much better experience for disabled passengers and for the general travelling public. How much you could legislate for that I am not entirely sure, but it will have to be absolutely integral to how GBR goes about its business.

The other advantage you will get through having GBR at the network-wide level is that we know that we have trains of different sizes, platforms of the wrong height—it is a mess across the network. Putting GBR in a position where it can make those decisions, plan long term, and get some consistency to a higher and better standard is what we are hoping for, and I believe we can do that with the changes that are being made.

Michael Roberts: I think at the nub of your line of inquiry is the need for inclusion in its broadest sense. However a duty is expressed around the interests that GBR needs to take into consideration, whether in the Bill or in other statutory documents, I think some consideration ought to be given to, for example, diversity in its widest sense—that is, the nine protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 rather than just necessarily one of those, important as the needs of disabled travellers are. There are needs of other travellers that also need to be taken into consideration.

[Rebecca Smith]

Q One of the things that has been touched on in that conversation, particularly around universal design and the Bill’s aims to improve accessibility, is that we already have huge discrepancies around the country on each individual line. It is worth asking, for the record, whether you agree that there will be a significant time lag in when this accessibility aim will actually be delivered to the general public. The Minister eventually suggested that it may take 30 years for some of these things to come into place, so do you think it is important for us to be realistic with the public about what the accessibility provision in the Bill will actually mean on the ground?

Emma Vogelmann: Overall transparency and really clear expectations and timelines are absolutely what disabled passengers need. However, there are still grounds for that rate of change to be challenged. The Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee said that at the current rate of change, it will take another 100 years before all train stations are made step free in the UK. We need to be transparent about that rate of change, but also be prepared to challenge it.

Alex Robertson: We need to be serious about the change: it is a huge change that we need and some of those things will take a long time. The infrastructure cannot be changed overnight. You had a conversation earlier about the need for long-term planning that puts you in a position to do that. You have to be realistic and up front about that and recognise that it draws on public money to do that.

There are other changes, however, that could happen much more quickly. You could get a much clearer signal about the priority given to accessibility, and you could get a change in how effective passenger assistance is delivered. I do not want to suggest that that can change overnight, because it is not straightforward; it is dependent on how you operate the railway and different expectations—for example, of staff members, their systems and so on—but you can make a more rapid change in relation to that.

I mentioned earlier the redress that people receive when passenger assistance fails—and when turn up and go fails. Turn up and go is completely unreliable, which is why people often have to rely on booking passenger assistance, but even that fails about one in five times so those people do not get the full service. You would want to see some pretty rapid progress on those things, and recognise that some of the longer-term changes to infrastructure are not straightforward. However, you would also want to have confidence that there is a sufficiently ambitious plan in place, and that people are going to hold the feet of those who are delivering it to the fire.

Railways Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Rebecca Smith and Sarah Smith

Committee stage
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Public Bill Committees

[Rebecca Smith]

Or at least make them jointly. Is that what you are after—that joint decision making?

Andy Burnham: Yes, I think that would be what we would want. The risk would be that GBR is too remote and not responsive—everything that Lloyd was saying about slow decision making. That is not what we would want. From our point of view, we would want a Bee Network business unit within GBR, with joint decision making and a very place-based focus. That would be meaningful.

[Sarah Smith]

Q In Hyndburn, we are less than 40 minutes from Manchester, but very proudly in Lancashire, obviously—

Andy Burnham: We have no plans to annex you yet, but I will let you know if that changes!