Railways Bill

Siân Berry Excerpts

Tuesday 9th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

The Green party welcomes the Bill. It is right in principle to end the failed, long experiment in surrendering public services to the private market.

We are pleased to see an extended role for the passenger watchdog set out in the Bill, and clear requirements for business plans and strategies to be published and consulted upon. I want the measures in the Bill to include deep scrutiny of those plans and strategies. Passengers, rail workers and locally elected representatives must use their voices to have more control over what Great British Railways offers, both in advance and during the development of these plans and strategies.

I am pleased that the duties laid out for Great British Railways include consideration for “potential passengers”. That will help to better include many people when they use the railways, such as disabled people, people with buggies, older people, people for whom toilet access is more than crucial and others for whom accessibility barriers are still too high on our railways. This and the public interest duty should help to create social benefits for people for whom the cost of rail travel is prohibitive, including young people, who need more connectivity and access to jobs and training.

However, the Bill still lacks on its face a specific duty to grow passenger numbers. We have an integrated transport strategy on the way, but the Bill contains a mode shift target for freight without including one for passengers. The Bill needs to say more about the need to plan for new capacity and services on the basis of creating maximum potential to reduce car dependency, to shift people away from the most polluting and socially unequal modes of transport, not just to respond to current demand or congestion on the railways.

Public ownership is popular with the vast majority of people. Before the last election, it was even backed by 60% of those who intended to vote Conservative. It is a strong desire for people in Brighton Pavilion, for whom the legacy of privatisation is too often one of expensive and unreliable services, with big gaps in accessibility. I believe strongly that local voices, such as those in Brighton, must be more in control of our public services. We need more clarity on how mayoral, local and combined authorities will be able to control investment plans and services.

During the passage of the previous rail Bill, I argued that there should be public ownership of rolling stock companies. I understand that decisions are being made for future rolling stock not to be purchased through the evil twin of the private finance initiative. However, the fact remains that the current rolling stock is a scandal. Rolling stock leasing companies—ROSCOs—paid £275 million in dividends to shareholders in 2024-25, and those payments are up by 59% in five years. That is outrageous profiteering and a drain on public finances, so I urge the Government to cut that waste, find ways to bring our rolling stock into public hands and look at a windfall tax on the current ROSCOs to address this injustice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Mather]

I have no doubt whatsoever that the right hon. Lady is perfectly capable of holding her elected mayor to account on rail infrastructure within her constituency, but she will also be able to do so through the passenger watchdog.

Time is short and I must address the Conservatives’ reasoned amendment, which I believe fundamentally misunderstands the Bill. It claims the Bill does not grow rail freight when in fact it contains two specific duties that require GBR to do so. It fails to engage with the reality that the Bill places the ORR at the centre of GBR’s functioning and allows open access to continue to play a vital role on our railway. The amendment is, frankly, as intellectually stunted as it is ideologically blinkered, and I urge Members across the House to reject it.

I am disappointed to say that we have received the news throughout this debate that the Conservative party will vote against Great British Railways and say no to its only chance to right the wrongs that it has committed. Let me therefore spell out to the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats that if they decide not to vote for the Bill tonight, they will be working against the interests of passengers across the country and their right to have the railway that they deserve. The Conservatives and their former coalition partners will have to look their constituents in the eye and explain why they want to continue the insanity, bureaucracy and waste of 17 different organisations running our railway instead of one united service; why they want to deny passengers a one-stop-shop app with timetables, tickets and accessibility support literally in the palm of their hand; and why they want to waste the opportunity of changing ticketing to take advantage of the first freeze in rail fares for 30 years.

[Siân Berry]

To the credit of those on the Conservative Front Bench, one line in the reasoned amendment mentions the need for a duty to grow passenger numbers. A number of hon. Members across the House have mentioned that today. Will the Minister come back to the House on the question of a duty to raise passenger numbers?

[Keir Mather]

That is critical. GBR will be set up as an organisation to facilitate as many people as possible to use our railway. Wanting to grow passenger numbers is inherent in what we are doing, but we do not want to do that in a way that overly congests the railway and is not strategic. That is something we will work on. Parties will also have to explain why they want to waste the opportunity to take this reform forward.

In sum, I ask everyone in this House to support the Bill, to seize the opportunities and to show the public whose side they are really on. This Government know who the Bill is for and who we are for: we are for passengers and not profit; we are for the commuters, the football fans, the hen parties, the grandparents and the rail enthusiasts; we are for everyone who gives our great British railway its distinctly British personality. If Members across the Chamber want to join us in that mission, I look forward to seeing them in the Aye Lobby tonight. I commend this Bill to the House.

Question put, That the amendment be made.