Tag: politics

Railways Bill Committee Stage Day 4

Published on by jonesjb

Natalie stepped in to cover the first part of the debate clashed with the Public Accountability Bill debate…

Amendment 114A moved by Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

114A: After Clause 17, insert the following new Clause—

“Passenger modal shift target(1) The Secretary of State must, after consulting the Scottish Ministers and the Welsh Ministers, set and publish a target, specifying a date by which it is to be achieved, to increase the overall distance travelled by passengers by railway.(2) In setting the target, the Secretary of State must have particular regard to—(a) increasing the distance travelled by passengers by railway relative to travel by private car and domestic air services, and(b) increasing the distance travelled by passengers by railway where railway travel forms part of a journey involving active travel, bus, tram, metro, coach, ferry or other public transport services.(3) The Secretary of State must, in respect of each year, prepare, lay before Parliament and publish a report setting out progress towards meeting the target, the steps taken to meet it and the steps proposed to be taken in the following year.(4) The Secretary of State must review the target at least once in every period of five years.

(5) The Secretary of State may revise or replace the target only if the revised or replacement target is no less ambitious than the target it revises or replaces.(6) Before revising or replacing the target, the Secretary of State must consult the Scottish Ministers and the Welsh Ministers.(7) Great British Railways must, when exercising its statutory functions, have regard to the target set by the Secretary of State under this section.”

Member’s explanatory statement: This amendment requires the Secretary of State to set a target to increase the distance travelled by passengers by railway.

Natalie’s speech: Lords, observant noble Lords will have noticed that I am not my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. She apologises that she is currently occupied in the Chamber with the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, although I hope she will rejoin the Committee shortly. My qualifications for taking part in this Committee are that, over 14 years, I have travelled an enormous number of train miles across these islands and I am passionate about greatly improving the reliability, affordability and practicality of train travel. I just looked at my diary and, in the next 10 days, I have journeys to Kidderminster, Manningtree, Sheffield and Manchester. I have my fingers crossed.

In moving Amendment 114A, I will speak primarily to all the other amendments in this rather diverse group, described as “general duties”. I briefly express sympathy with Amendment 118 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. I have heard the noble Lord on the subject of heritage railways many times, and I look forward to hearing him again.

Amendments 114A and 118B are about the role we expect Great British Railways to play in getting people on to rail, given the climate and environmental crises. At the moment, the Bill downgrades the role of the environment, at a time when we absolutely cannot afford to do that. Transport is the UK’s highest polluting sector, and a modal shift duty is an absolute must.

There is a reference in Clause 18 to the effect that railway services have on the environment, but it is a relatively narrow formulation. It is essentially about minimising the harm caused by the railway. We should ask for something much more ambitious: how can the railway itself be a tool in reducing emissions and car dependency, which could have positive cost of living impacts for families and communities, as well as helping us respond to the climate and nature emergencies.

There are demonstrations of what is possible across these islands. Wales has put clear numbers on this. Its transport strategy aims for 45% of journeys to be made by walking, cycling or public transport by 2040. Its net zero Wales commitments include reducing car mileage per person by 10% by 2030, from a 2019 baseline, and increasing journeys by sustainable modes to 39% by 2030.

Scotland has also recognised the importance of reducing car use. It previously set a target to reduce car kilometres by 20% by 2030 from a 2019 baseline. The Scottish Government have since acknowledged that this target is off track and are revising it according to a longer-term target aligned with their climate objectives, but the policy commitment to reduce car use is still there.

There is another important difference. Under Section 44 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, Scottish public authorities already have a statutory duty, when exercising their functions, to act in a way best calculated to contribute to Scotland’s climate targets and programmes. But Great British Railways, the Office of Rail and Road, and the Secretary of State will not have an equivalent overarching statutory climate duty under this Bill unless changes such as those proposed here are made. If Scotland and Wales can do this, why not us?

Amendment 127 is on affordability. It is obvious that, if we want people to choose trains over cars and planes, trains have to be affordable. I can cite many examples of where this clearly is not the case. Which? found a return journey from Edinburgh to Bournemouth costing £127 by train—I think I have made that journey, and it is not a great pleasure—compared to £38 by plane. Glasgow to London was £101 by train, compared to £67 by plane. At times, I am sure we could find even worse examples. We cannot seriously expect people to choose rail if it costs two or three times as much as flying.

Affordability is not just about the cheapest ticket you can find online. People have to travel when they need to travel. People on low incomes, shift workers, young people, passengers with disabilities and people living in rural and coastal areas, where there are few alternatives, are often faced with simply impossible costs. We need a clear duty on the Secretary of State and Great British Railways to improve the affordability and fairness of fares, with particular regard to those groups. I therefore explicitly ask the Minister: what is the Government’s ambition for affordable fares under Great British Railways? Will they consider putting that ambition into the Bill?

I come, finally, to Amendments 330K and 334A on the regulation of licences. These are about the relationship between the general duties of the Bill and the licences that will govern the railway. Under the 1993 legislation, licence conditions must have regard to the general duties. These amendments would make sure that this same connection is carried throughout the Bill. As I understand it, with the way the Bill is currently drawn, that link is being removed. This seems important, because the Bill gives us a set of general duties for Great British Railways, but then the licensing framework is no longer required to have regard to them. What will guide the conditions that are put on the licence if the Government are indeed taking away this duty? That is another direct question to the Minister. More broadly, where do these general duties sit in the hierarchy? If they are not reflected in the licences, while competition law and other regulatory requirements continue to have strong legal force, the duties could become more of a statement of intent than something that shapes how the railway is regulated. I beg to move.

Clause 19: Safety duty of Ministers and ORR

Amendment 131 moved by Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

131: Clause 19, page 11, line 31, insert—

“(aa) the exercise by Great British Railways of its statutory functions, and”

Member’s explanatory statement: This amendment adds Great British Railways to the parties with safety duties under Clause 19.

My speech: what a pleasure it is to be back on the Railways Bill with a dozen transport nerds. It is such a wonderful way to spend my Monday evening. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, that I have been talking about climate change for 38 years, and I am barely closer to what I was talking about at the very beginning.

I have Amendments 131, 132, 144 and 338 in this group. I want to explore the tension between safety and competition in the Bill. As the Railways Bill retains the competition law framework established during privatisation—in fact, it extends it further—we can call it the ultimate legal framework for the entire Bill. The concerns go beyond the duty to promote competition. Under Section 67(3) of the Railways Act 1993, the Office of Rail and Road has significant powers to enforce competition law alongside the Competition and Markets Authority. These are much stronger powers than simply encouraging competition.

The problem is that the Bill gives these competition functions priority over several other responsibilities, including the ORR’s general duties and, in some circumstances, its safety duties. It also limits the guidance that UK and Scottish Ministers can give the ORR on competition matters. In effect, competition regulation is being given priority over wider public interest decisions and democratic oversight, and we have to ask whether that is appropriate for a publicly-owned railway. Why should we carry forward and even extend a competition framework inherited from privatisation rather than putting the public interest at the centre of how our railways operate?

There is some reassurance in the fact that safety functions are protected in several of these provisions, but that does not resolve every potential conflict between safety and competition regulation. Wherever those responsibilities could pull in different directions the Government need to explain how that conflict will be resolved and why competition should ever take precedence over safety. That is my Amendment 131.

On Amendment 132, the new safety duty on Ministers and the ORR in Clause 19 is quite shocking: they

“must take into account the need to protect all persons from dangers arising from the operation of railways”.

This clearly has an exemption for competition regulation, which can only mean that, in a trade-off between competition and public safety, competition will win. That exemption should be struck, and we need a proper explanation of why it is present in the first place.

Clause 19’s safety duty does not currently apply to GBR, only to the ORR and Ministers. I would like to know the reason for that. Is it also in any way competition related? Amendment 131 would explicitly add Great British Railways to the safety duty in Clause 19 so that it applied not just to Ministers and the ORR. As we move to a new rail structure, it should be clear that Great British Railways has a responsibility to put safety first when carrying out its functions. It is difficult to see why decisions about competition should be exempt from a duty that exists to protect passengers and railway workers. Competition decisions can have wider consequences for how the railway operates, and safety has to be part of those considerations.

More broadly, I am concerned that the Bill gives too much weight to competition rather than putting public interest at the core of our railways. The purpose of our rail network should be to provide safe, reliable and well-integrated services for passengers, not to create more opportunities for commercial operators.

On Amendment 144, ultimately the ORR’s safety function should be above all other duties. This is a railway, one of the most potentially dangerous industries there is. It is not satisfactory even if safety is formally equivalent to competition. Rather, safety must take precedence over competition regulation. That is why Amendment 144 proposes a priority of safety functions clause, ensuring that there cannot be a trade-off between competition and the safety of the public and rail workers under any circumstances and that this parity is made clear and distinct in law. Taken together, these amendments would strengthen the safety duties on Great British Railways and the ORR and make clear that safety must come first.

Public ownership has to be about more than just changing who runs our railways. It should mean putting passengers, railway workers and public interest ahead of competition. That is why I have called for Clause 20 to be removed from the Bill. We do not believe that a statutory duty to promote competition belongs in this Bill. It puts competition at the centre of the regulator’s responsibilities rather than focusing on what passengers need from their railway. Plus, there is already too little in this Bill about tackling the climate crisis and making rail travel affordable. We should be looking at how to get more people on to public transport, reduce reliance on cars and make sure that taking the train is a realistic option for people on ordinary incomes. Those should be central priorities for our railway.

On to Amendment 338, there is the question of the status of the ORR’s safety duties under the Deregulation Act 2015, inserted by the Economic Growth (Regulatory Functions) Order 2017. This is not mentioned in the Bill as it stands, but this probing amendment suggests that the ORR be removed from that order. The reason is not, in this case, anti-growth. It is because, as few people seem to be aware, it relates to the ORR’s safety function specifically requiring it to consider the importance of exercising the regulatory function in a way which ensures that

“regulatory function is taken only when it is needed, and … any action taken is proportionate”.

Although this, in itself, does not override safety duties, it is clearly intended to influence decisions about what to investigate, when to intervene and whether to use formal enforcement. It is fair to say that it fundamentally has the effect of putting safety enforcement below competition regulation in a hierarchical sense. I beg to move.

Public Office Bill Committee Stage Day 1

Published on by jonesjb

My speech to my amendments on the first day of committee stage: I have six amendments in this group and will speak first on five of them—Amendments 64, 65, 67, 69 and 140. The purpose of these is to clarify which functions of higher education providers fall within the scope of Schedule 2, so that there is greater certainty about where the duty of candour and accountability apply.

The Government have acknowledged that universities perform public functions, including teaching and awarding degrees, but their position leaves important questions about the boundaries of those functions to be resolved on a case-by-case basis. What about activities such as student welfare and pastoral support, safeguarding, accommodation, complaints and appeals, or the way that universities respond to serious incidents? These are a big part of what universities do, and the decisions they make can have a huge and lasting impact on students’ lives.

These amendments spell out exactly which of universities’ activities I am talking about; they cover admissions and assessment, academic progression and disciplinary processes, student support and welfare, safeguarding, accommodation, complaints and appeals, and responses to serious incidents, including student deaths and subsequent investigations. These amendments seek to give us a clearer picture of which university activities should count as public functions and would help ensure that the right standards of openness and accountability apply.

The importance of this question becomes painfully clear when we hear from families who have lost a child while they were at university. A parent who contacted me through ForThe100 told me that their son died by suicide in April 2022, just four hours after the university had informed him that a restriction it had already imposed upon him had been escalated to a complete ban from campus. The family had not known that he was facing disciplinary action. After his death, the parent described to me a long and difficult process of seeking answers, including the struggle to obtain information and get the university to answer their questions properly. Even after the inquest, their attempts to obtain a full response to their concerns continued for a further 18 months. Families should not have to spend years seeking information, answers and accountability while they are already dealing with an unimaginable loss.

The National Review of Higher Education Student Suicide Deaths, published in 2025, recorded concerns from families about transparency, communication and their involvement in investigations. It recommended a duty of candour tailored to higher education, and those concerns underline why we need to be clear about the responsibilities that apply when universities make decisions around students’ welfare and respond to serious incidents.

A government letter of 1 September recognises that some university activities are public functions, but it leaves just too many questions about the other important areas. It does not make clear how the ethical conduct requirements in Chapter 2 are intended to apply to universities. These amendments would help to clear that up. They would give universities, students and their families a clearer understanding of where these responsibilities lie, while still allowing individual circumstances to be considered.

If there are concerns that extending these provisions to higher education would mean that universities become responsible for providing healthcare or guaranteeing every student’s safety, I can reassure your Lordships that this is not what these amendments are about. There is an important difference between a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent harm and a duty to be open and honest about what happened if something goes wrong. The Bill’s duty of candour and assistance is about openness and co-operation in the inquiries and the investigations it covers; it means being prepared to explain what an institution knew, what it did and why.

I will put four specific questions to the Minister, reflecting concerns raised by families through ForThe100 on the Government’s intended treatment of higher education. Do the Government consider pastoral support, student welfare, safeguarding and university-arranged accommodation to be activities forming part of the provision of higher education? Does that extend to academic disciplinary processes, student complaints and appeals, and responses to serious incidents including student deaths? If these are public functions, is there a reason that they should not be expressly identified in Schedule 2, rather than leaving the boundaries to case-by-case judicial interpretation? How do the Government aim to ensure that Chapter 2, on ethical requirements, applies to the relevant public functions of higher education providers? I would really like the Government to explain how the Bill will operate where a university’s activities involve both public functions and arrangements with private contractors.

My Amendment 66A moves on to all of your Lordships, because I do not understand why politicians like us should be held to a lower standard of honesty than other public officials. That is what this amendment is about. Why are Members of this House and other UK Parliaments and Assemblies excluded from this new offence of misleading the public? Is it clear enough when the offence applies? The Government have decided that intentionally or recklessly deceiving the public on matters of serious public concern should be a criminal offence for public officials. We are talking about serious deception proved to the criminal standard in court, not making a mistake, getting something wrong or changing your mind. The offence will apply to Ministers, civil servants, police officers, members of the Armed Forces and other public officials, but Members of this House, the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru and the Northern Ireland Assembly are excluded. I simply do not understand why that distinction has been drawn. If the purpose is to improve accountability in public life, should that principle not also extend to this House—to people who actually make laws, scrutinise the Government and speak to the public on matters of national importance?

There is a second issue that this amendment is for: uncertainty about when someone is acting in their official capacity. The Bill makes the offence dependent on a person acting in their capacity as a public official or public authority, but it does not clearly define what that means. People should be able to understand the law before they act. It has been raised that the Law Commission previously warned, in its examination of misconduct in public office, that the meaning of actingin an official capacity was insufficiently clear. The Bill abolishes the common law offence of misconduct in public office because of the uncertainty around it, yet the new offence of misleading the public relies on almost the same language. Should we not be careful not to repeat the very problem that the Bill is meant to address? I was going to talk about the case against Boris Johnson, but I will skip that.

When creating a new criminal offence, should Parliament not seek to provide as much clarity as possible, rather than leave key questions about its scope to be settled by the courts? This amendment would bring Members of this House, the House of Commons, the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru and the Northern Ireland Assembly all into the definition of public official for the purposes of duty of candour and the offence of misleading the public. It would apply the principle of accountability to those who make our laws as well as those who implement them.

Secondly, it would protect parliamentary proceedings and political opinion. Nothing said or done in the proceedings of any UK Parliament or legislature could be caught by these offences. The amendment would also expressly protect expressions of honestly held political belief or opinion by Members of those Parliaments and Assemblies, so it is not about restricting debate in Parliament or criminalising political differences; it is about holding politicians to account for serious deception.

Thirdly, it would clarify when certain officeholders are acting in their official capacity and would provide that Members of this House and other UK Parliaments and Assemblies, Ministers and specified mayors are treated as acting in their official role when speaking to the public about matters of serious public concern, while they are still free to express their political views. Communications made in a judicial capacity or concerning solely private life, family life or private business are obviously excluded.

Fourthly, it would clarify what constitutes harm for the purposes of the offence. It would provide that harm can include undermining public confidence in public authorities, public officials, the exercise of public functions or democratic processes. Then it identifies six purposes for which such a communication might be made. It covers situations where deception could have serious consequences, such as misleading the public to justify military action, concealing risks to public safety or misrepresenting how public money is spent.

This is Bill needs clarification. I have a lot of sympathy for almost all the amendments that we have heard today. I urge the Minister and the Government to actually listen and act on what they are hearing. There are difficult questions where criminal law and political speech intersect, but difficulty is not a reason to look away; it is a reason for us to engage, examine the wording carefully and get it right. I support Amendment 66 from Lady Coffey, as well.

Hansard record here: Public Office (Accountability) Bill – Hansard – UK Parliament

Railways Bill Committee Stage Day 3

Published on by jonesjb

Amendment 78A moved by Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

78A: Schedule 2, page 79, line 2, at end insert—

“(b) protect or improve the environment or mitigating or adapting to climate change, or(c) secure, maintain or improve the accessibility of railway passenger services, station services, railway infrastructure or rolling stock for disabled persons.”

Member’s explanatory statement: This amendment broadens the exclusion from subsidy control rules to include financial assistance with the primary purpose of environmental protection or accessibility.

My speech: I am not going to speak briefly. I am probably going to compete with Lord Moylan and Lord Harper, in the length of my comments and the thoroughness with which I cover the amendments. I have put my name on all amendments in this group, and I care very much that they are properly debated and understood.

The aim of Amendment 78A is to broaden the exclusions from the subsidy control rules. The Subsidy Control Act 2022 has created a fundamental split in the Bill which translates directly into how policy will be made and what can be done with public money. As I understand it, only funding for the primary purpose of infrastructure under Clause 3(1)(a) is excluded from the subsidy control rules. The implication is that everything else will be subject to them. I think that helps to explain the split between the different budgets, with infrastructure funded through the funding period review while operations and other areas, including capital projects and enhancements, come through the spending review, with a close eye being kept on cross-subsidy. That seems to run against the long-standing aim of GBR, going back to 2021, of bringing infrastructure and operations together. The Rail Industry Association warned last year that if track and train integration is to be achieved both need to be covered by the same funding process.

However, my specific concern with this amendment is public interest policy-making, particularly accessibility and climate. For accessibility, will these rules make it harder to reform and integrate funding programmes and plan investment in a rational way so that we can make progress as quickly as possible? On climate, the issue is even more complicated. Many of the things we have been talking about, and will talk about later today, are vital to increasing passenger numbers and shifting people from cars to rail. These could potentially be subject to subsidy control rules, which include things such as electrification and other capital investment. Environmental measures are also subject to additional requirements under the Subsidy Control Act—so this is a complicated and underdiscussed area, and I would like the Minister to explain the practical impact of these rules on accessibility, climate funding and policymaking.

This amendment would create exclusions for both, when the primary purpose of the financial assistance is to protect or improve the environment, mitigate or adapt to climate change, or secure and improve accessibility for disabled people. I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurance about how these subsidy control rules will work in practice and whether the Government would be prepared to look at exclusions of this kind.

My Amendment 130A builds on Amendment 129 from the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, which I support, but I want to ask whether we could be a bit more ambitious. We are legislating for a new Great BritishRailways at a time when we face both a climate emergency and a biodiversity crisis. We should be asking what this new body can actively do to address those challenges, rather than simply ensuring that it does not make them worse. The railway estate gives us an extraordinary opportunity. Network Rail is one of the largest landowners in Britain, with around 52,000 hectares of land. Its own description of the railway estate is as a “green corridor”, recognising that railway land can connect fragmented habitats across the country. I suggest that we find a way to put that opportunity into the Bill. Imagine a continuous green corridor running from Penzance to John O’ Groats, following the railway where possible—not necessarily a continuous strip of woodland or one uniform habitat, but a connected network of grasslands, wetlands, scrub, woodlands, ponds and other habitats joined together by the railway estate.

The railway already provides the basis for that network. Network Rail itself recognises this and acknowledges that the railway estate “provides a habitat” for a wide range of species, so that is a vital starting point, but the targets that Network Rail has set itself are rather vague. Its 2035 targets talk about managing biodiversity

“in a way that protects and enhances”

it and says that it will

“lead the way in land management”.

Now, those are good ambitions, but they do not tell us what success looks like. That is why this amendment asks for

“measurable targets for biodiversity recovery, habitat creation and restoration … connectivity and renewable electricity generation”.

I would like us to imagine what it would mean if, every time a railway line passes through a fragmented landscape, we ask whether the railway estate could help to reconnect it. If we did that across the whole network, we could begin to create something really significant: a national nature recovery network, running alongside our national railway network. It seems to me exactly the sort of long-term thinking that we should be building into GBR from the beginning.

The amendment would require GBR to manage its land as part of a connected national network for nature recovery. That means working with local nature recovery strategies, restoring habitats, improving ecological connectivity and creating wildlife corridors “wherever reasonably practical”. We are not asking railway engineers to become conservationists or putting nature ahead of railway safety. The amendment is deliberately framed around what is practical, but we have a chance to recognise that the railway estate is not just an operational asset—it is also land running through some of the most fragmented and depleted landscapes in the country, and GBR will have the responsibility for managing it.

We are asking GBR to maximise renewable electricity generation from its own infrastructure, from station rooms to depots, car parks and other suitable sites, and, where it can, to use that electricity to power railway operations. Where the railway has suitable land or infrastructure for generating clean electricity, it should make the most of it. The amendment also asks for “measurable targets” and a published plan, with progress reported annually. That is important, because we have seen environmental commitments before. Network Railalready has biodiversity commitments and has recognised the role that its estate can play in nature recovery. The question is whether we want to give those ambitions a statutory footing in the creation of Great British Railways, and the Bill gives us a rare opportunity to do that. The railway is a national network; its land should be part of a national network for nature recovery.

Amendment 130B, on nature’s rights, takes the same principle a little further. I support the idea that GBR should actively contribute to nature recovery, but could we go beyond saying that nature is something GBR should take into account and instead recognise that healthy ecosystems are fundamental to our own well-being and to the economy on which we all depend? The amendment would require GBR to recognise the intrinsic value of nature and to protect, restore and enhance nature when exercising its functions. It would also require GBR to consider cumulative and indirect harm, the needs of future generations and the possibility of restoration and regeneration.

That is an important shift in how we think about infrastructure. We tend to ask whether a railway project is technically possible and financially viable. Those questions obviously matter, but we should also be asking what the project means for the living systems around it and whether there is a way of achieving the same objective while causing less harm. There is of course a wider debate about this already taking place in the House. The Nature’s Rights Bill, introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is currently making its way through our House, and takes a much bigger step of recognising nature as a legal subject and establishing an integrated framework for protecting its rights.

I am not suggesting that we try to put the whole of that Bill into the Railways Bill, but it is an opportunity to take some of its thinking and apply it to GBR. We are creating a new organisation with enormous responsibility for land, infrastructure and investment decisions across the country. We should build into that organisation from the beginning the principle that nature is not simply an externality to be considered after the economic and engineering decisions have already been made; it should be part of the overriding decision itself. I saw the Minister smiling there; I hope that means he is in total agreement with what I am saying.

I support Amendments 93, 111 and 129. Amendment 93, on climate resilience, needs to be central to the railway strategy. We know that extreme heat, flooding, drought and soil moisture changes are already disrupting the railway. I know there are some hot weather procedures in place, but we need to ask whether we are testing and designing the railway for the climate we actually face rather than the climate we used to have. The Minister said some quite supportive things about this yesterday, and I hope he feels free to repeat them today.

The regulator has previously found that climate adaptation planning was not keeping pace with the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather. We have seen the consequences during heatwaves, with speed restrictions and failures affecting services. Some overhead line equipment, for example, was designed around operating temperatures of up to 38 degrees, yet we are increasingly seeing temperatures approaching that level. I recognise that Network Rail is already doing a lot of work on climate adaptation, and there are good examples, but that work is not necessarily consistent. Responsibilities have historically been divided between different organisations and different owners of track, stations and land, and the creation of GBR obviously gives us the opportunity to change that. We cannot keep treating these events as exceptional and simply responding when they happen—we actually have to design, test and maintain our railway on the basis that extreme weather is now a serious and growing threat to the network.

I strongly support Amendment 313, tabled by Lord Russell. It is an important amendment, because we are in a climate emergency, yet England has had virtually no new electrification for quite a number of years. There are two sides to this. We need to make the railway resilient to the climate change that is already happening, but we also need to reduce the railway’s own emissions. We cannot just adapt to a changing climate while continuing to build and operate infrastructure in ways that add to the problem.

I welcome the proposal for a framework looking at both climate resilience and decarbonisation, but I have tabled Amendment 330J because we need to go further. A framework is a good starting point, but I want to see a plan with binding targets, timescales, funding and a clear programme of delivery. Scotland gives us a useful example of what that can look like. Scotland has a rail services decarbonisation action plan, and it is continuing with the rolling programme of electrification. Three-quarters of passenger journeys are already made on electric trains, and the Scottish Government say they remain committed to further electrification. Of course, you have to remember that Britain lags behind much of Europe: 60% of passenger services run on electric trains here, compared to 74% in Germany and 85% in France.

Electrification is not just about emissions. Those trains can be faster, quieter and more efficient. They can increase capacity and reduce reliance on diesel. A railway powered by electricity can increasingly benefit from the move towards renewable energy. We should not talk about rail decarbonisation as though it is some additional environmental project that we might get round to if there is enough money left; it has to happen as soon as possible.

Every year, we delay decisions on infrastructure that can last for decades, which makes it harder and more expensive to decarbonise the railways. The same applies to resilience: we know that some parts of the network are vulnerable to flooding, extreme heat, landslides, drought or coastal erosion, so we should identify those risks now and have a funded programme for dealing with them. New infrastructure should be designed for the climate we expect over its lifetime, not simply the climate we have experienced in the past.

We need binding targets for reducing emissions, a comprehensive assessment of climate risks, a prioritised programme of infrastructure improvements, funding arrangements, whole-life carbon assessment and annual reporting. GBR would also be required to operateconsistently within the plan. I support Amendment 313 because it moves us in the right direction. We need to move from identifying what needs to be done to committing ourselves to doing it. This is the opportunity—let us all go green and build climate resilience and decarbonisation into the railway from the beginning, rather than leaving it for somebody else to do.

I intervened again later: I thank all noble Lords who have spoken and the Minister and his team for their response. I will just make a comment or two. I am in such awe of the Minister’s extensiveknowledge of railways that I always find his replies in these meetings very comforting. It is only when I walk away and start rereading them that I think, “Hold on”. I will be coming back to these issues on Report. That is a warning, not a threat.

Lord Russell, used a word that I had not used but will incorporate into my thinking: “vulnerability”. I think that that is what we are talking about with all these things. He is so environmentally aware that it is fantastic. It was good to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, said about corridors in other countries. It comes back to what the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, said, that none of this is new. We can do this. We have examples that we can take from other countries and even other railways.

Prince Philip once said to me—quite unkindly, I thought—that the problem with us Greens was that we never gave anyone else any credit for what they did. I took that to heart, because we do not. We think that other people never go far enough. It is never enough. We always want more. Lady Willis, was absolutely right to say that Network Rail has been doing stuff—I really should accept that. The fire risks and the flooding are things that we really need to keep down.

To the point made by Lord Hampton, of course this all should have started 10 years ago—or 20, or 30, or 40. We have known about the climate crisis and its approach for well over 50 years. We should have been thinking ahead then, but we were not. This goes back to what the noble Lord, Lord Harper, was saying. Yes, the Tories were better in some ways, but they are regressing now. Had they listened to the Green Party, HS2 would not have started where it started and we would not have had the bat tunnel fiasco. Please remember that the Greens were right back then and we are right now.

I intervened again: I will speak to my stand part notice opposing Clause 20. A duty is being placed on the Office of Rail and Road that I do not understand, which is about promoting competition. I am trying to probe exactly what the Government mean by the ORR’s duty to “promote competition”. I am concerned that there is a lack of clarity here between promoting competition and regulating competition. The ORR already has a role in regulating competition under the Railways Act 1993, but Clause 20 appears to give it a separate duty to promote competition. I would like to understand what exactly that means in practice and why it is necessary.

This is not an issue that I will bring back on Report, because I cannot quite put enough passion into it, but we see that there is potential tension here because the ORR has a number of other responsibilities, including safety, access and economic regulation. The areas in which it is required to promote competition include important parts of the railway’s network services. I would like the Minister to explain how this new duty will interact with those other responsibilities. In particular, if there is a conflict between promoting competition and another statutory duty or the Government’s rail strategy, which takes precedence? I am not convinced that we need a general duty on the regulator to promote competition in the Bill.

I intervened again: Passengers’ journeys are very rarely just a train journey—there might be a bus to a station, a train and then another bus, or tram, or whatever—and if those parts of the journey do not connect properly, the whole journey becomes more difficult. I know this from personal experience. A missed connection, a long wait, separate tickets or poor passenger information can all make public transport less attractive. The National Transport Survey found that for England in 2023, 50% of public transport trips were across more than one type of public transport. That is why integration is one of the strongest levers we have for getting more people to choose public transport.

The Railways Act 1993 included a duty on the Secretary of State and the regulator to contribute to the development of an integrated transport system, and that duty has now been dropped. Amendment 128 would put some of that principle back into the Bill, by requiring the Secretary of State and GBR

“to promote the integration of railway passenger services with—(a) bus and coach services, (b) tram and light rail, and (c) micromobility.”

I also support Amendment 105 from the noble Lord, Lord Beith, which approaches the same issue from within the railway strategy. It specifically talks about improving connections and co-ordinating timetables, ticketing and passenger information, and includes ferry services. The two amendments complement each other rather well. One establishes integration as a duty, while the other sets out some of the practical things integration should mean for passengers. This is not just about making journeys more convenient; if we want people to make more journeys by public transport, the whole journey needs to work.

I ask the Minister why this duty to integrate transport has been removed from the Bill, and what will replace it. Will GBR have a clear responsibility to work with local and regional transport authorities to improve connections between different modes? Will the Government consider putting some of the practical elements in Amendment 10 —timetables, ticketing and passenger information—into the statutory framework? We have an opportunity here to create a railway that works as part of a wider public transport network, rather than as a system operating on its own. That should be one of the purposes of GBR from the very start.

Hansard record here: Railways Bill – Hansard – UK Parliament

Public Office (Accountability) Bill Second Reading

Published on by jonesjb

I support the Bill and hope that the Government will listen to some of the amendments that will be tabled, because it can be improved. It seems that noble Lords from all around the House agree that it is a stain on the country when families who have suffered so much should then have to fight the state for the truth and for understanding that it did wrong.

Public institutions should tell the truth, even, or particularly, when the truth is uncomfortable. Hillsborough should have changed this culture, but again and again what we are seeing is the same instinct—the same culture—to protect the institution rather than the people it has failed. All tribute to the Hillsborough Law Now campaign for the fact that it pushed so hard and made us listen. In fact, many of us have been calling this the “Hillsborough Bill” from the start.

Of course, this goes much wider than Hillsborough. We have heard of the incredible losses that people experienced, but there is the Post Office scandal, the infected blood scandal, the Grenfell scandal and the Manchester Arena scandal—scandal after scandal where institutions cared more about protecting their reputation than they did about helping the people who have been impacted.

The Bill will be an important step in changing that culture, but only if it is tough and only if we understand that you do not change a culture just with words. A lot of processes have to really work inside it. For example, making something a criminal offence will not change that culture on its own. I welcome Clause 10 and its duty on public authorities to promote and maintain ethical conduct, but that needs to mean more than just another policy document. It needs leadership and proper monitoring, alongside practical codes of practice. The question should not simply be, “Has the law been complied with?” It should be, “Has the culture changed?”

The Bill rightly creates consequences when a public authority fails to meet its duty of candour, including the possibility of financial penalties. But if a public authority is fined, it is the taxpayer who pays. How on earth is that a deterrent? We really have to rethink these things.

We need to be clear about who is accountable when there is serious institutional failure. I am not suggesting that every institutional failure is the personal responsibility of a chief executive, but where those at the top are responsible, there needs to be a clear line of accountability. Obviously, this would apply to water companies as much as any other sort of organisation. Codes of practice mean that people can speak and can be judged on what they say.

I emphasise the role of whistleblowing. I have had an experience with a whistleblower myself, and if I have time at the end I might talk about my little brush with a public institution that lied to me and distorted things. It shows that almost every public institution will hide its wrongdoing if it possibly can.

Of course, all this raises the wider question: what about politicians? How are we going to pass a law that does not include ourselves? Why is it that everybody else has to tell the truth but not elected politicians and Peers? That is very wrong. It is wrong to pass a Bill that does not include us. I am not questioning parliamentary privilege—I accept that we can protect political debate—but we have to draw a line around deliberate deception. If we are prepared to demand candour from public servants, surely we should be prepared to ask it of ourselves.

Do we have the legal capacity to deliver the Bill? The Government anticipate an increase in legally aided inquest cases from a few hundred to potentially over 11,000 per year. I hope this will be off-set by the fact that the duty of candour will mean swift justice as opposed to long, drawn-out cases. That would be a really positive result.

University life ought to be covered in the Bill as well. I am not sure which bits are covered and which are not. How will the duties of candour and ethical conduct work in practice in higher education? What happens after an inquiry or inquest? What is the point of establishing the truth if nobody is responsible for making sure that changes happen?

My experience of being lied to by a public institution was being lied to by the Met. Back in 2012, somebody in my team at the London Assembly suggested that I ask for my record with the police. Other people had been doing it. The police very kindly sent me a report. They had me on their domestic extremist database, which obviously, for a rabid Green like me, was useful notoriety. I really did not mind at all. There were only 17 entries on this report and every single one was something that I had boasted about, either in newsletters or on social media—speaking to a rally in Trafalgar Square, going on a bike ride with some protesters and that sort of thing. I laughed at this. I thought it was so trivial: why on earth had they spent all those years trying to compile a report on me when I was telling them what I was doing anyway?

Later, however, a whistleblower came forward and told me that in the same month after I had asked for my report, he saw three officers engaged in physically destroying a number of police records by shredding. He believed that all those records were related to me. There were in excess of 30 reports. One of those officers then began to electronically delete a number of police records from a police database. Again, the whistleblower thought those records were about me. He had an absolutely miserable time afterwards in the Met and finally left. He said that he did not become a police officer

“to monitor politicians or political parties, nor to pay casual disregard to policy and procedure”.

Whistleblowers are people who we have to protect very seriously. We have to make sure that they are not driven out of their jobs by people who do not want to be reported on.

I very much support the Bill. I hope that we can amend it and make it much better.

Hansard record here: Public Office (Accountability) Bill – Hansard – UK Parliament

Railways Bill Committee Stage Day 1

Published on by jonesjb

I said in my speech at Second Reading that I welcome the Bill; the Green Party has long argued that our railway should be run as a public service, not for private profit, and that is exactly where my five amendments here are going: they all make basically the same point. It was very kind of Lord Moylan, to point out that he did not agree with me; in fact, it sort of made me feel slightly better because, worryingly, there are times when I do agree with him.

What I am trying to do with these five amendments is to make sure that public ownership of our railways really means public ownership. The Bill, as it currently stands, could allow companies within Great British Railways to have private shareholders. The Bill is, or should be, about bringing our railways back into public ownership, and we therefore should not be creating a back door that allows private ownership to creep in.

This is the worry that the Association of British Commuters, We Own It and Bring Back British Rail have brought to us. They and the others are asking a very simple question: what exactly do we mean when we say that Great British Railways will be publicly owned?

At the moment, the answer is not clear in the Bill. The Government made a welcome commitment that all the shares in the parent company of Great British Railways would be publicly owned, but does that extend to the companies sitting beneath it?

The Bill defines a GBR company as a subsidiary within the meaning of the Companies Act 2006. A subsidiary does not have to be wholly publicly owned; it can be partly owned by private investors, provided that the parent company retains control. We could have a railway where the parent company is entirely publicly owned but where companies carrying out important railway functions have private shareholders. Does that not fundamentally change what public ownership means? The Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 used a much clearer definition: a public sector company had to be wholly publicly owned. The Companies Act itself provides the Government with the wording they could have used if they intended to require wholly owned subsidiaries. I think we have to ask this: why was that stronger definition not used here?

This is not helped by the Government not being clear about exactly which functions GBR companies will carry out, as the Bill gives these companies the ability to carry out potentially any GBR function. That could include train operations and infrastructure management, which leaves the door open to a very different railway in the future. In a worst-case scenario, the new definition of GBR companies as subsidiaries could even lead to the part-privatisation of rail infrastructure management—a direction of travel thought impossible in the UK since the days of Railtrack.

Railway privatisation has been a disaster: it fragmented the railways, drove up costs and put private profit ahead of passengers. We should not be creating a structure today that would enable a future Government to say, “Well, the legislation already allows private investment and we’re simply making use of the powers that Parliament has already given us”. These amendments would stop that happening. I should also say that I have not yet had the delight of meeting with the Minister, but I am sure that that is in progress.

Railways Bill Second Reading

Published on by jonesjb

I do not say this often, but I welcome the Bill. The Green Party has long argued that our railways should be run as a public service and not for private profit. After decades of failed fragmentation, spiralling costs and confusing accountability, bringing the railway back under public leadership is important and overdue. The Bill is, therefore, a step in the right direction.

If we are creating Great British Railways, we must create a railway that is genuinely great: one that is affordable, accessible, integrated and capable of helping us meet the defining challenge of our age, which is the climate and nature crisis. At present, the Bill does notachieve that. It lacks ambition. For example, Great British Railways will have numerous duties, so why does the Bill not contain a clear duty to increase passenger numbers?

I welcome the target for shifting freight from lorries on to trains, but why is there no equivalent ambition to encourage more people out of their cars and on to trains? To do that, we must make train travel cheap and easy. For millions of people, the biggest barrier to travelling by rail is not whether a train exists but whether they can afford the ticket. Affordable fares are perhaps the single most effective tool available to increase passenger numbers, tackle inequality and reduce car dependence. Yet the Bill contains no explicit duty to promote affordable fares, and changes to the licensing arrangements of Great British Railways could see fares rising as there is less focus on public duties.

There seems to be even less ambition to create one system that covers the whole journey someone might take. As the Minister knows well, this works in Greater London, where TfL runs the London Overground under the mayor’s control. Manchester is moving that way, but what about democratic control over integrated transport for the rest of the cities and regions? People do not think in terms of operators or transport modes; they simply want one journey. Whether someone is connecting from a local bus, a tram, a cycle route or a ferry, the system should feel seamless. Integration should be one of the central purposes of Great British Railways, creating a public transport network where different modes work together rather than competing with one another. I hope that the Government will clarify how the railway will become genuinely integrated with other forms of public transport.

Rail is already one of the lowest-carbon forms of transport. We should be supporting every passenger to choose rail over driving or domestic flying. If we are to meet our legally binding climate targets, modal shift cannot simply be left in policy papers; it should be a statutory objective of the organisation that is responsible for running the railway. Staggeringly, environmental responsibilities appear only fleetingly in the Bill. There is little recognition that our railway must become climate resilient as extreme weather becomes more frequent or that it should contribute to restoring nature alongside the lines it manages. Some 10% of all train services were cancelled or severely delayed in the most recent heatwave in Britain. Last week, I spent six hours getting home instead of three, and I felt lucky to get home at all.

Great British Railways should have a clear public mission that recognises its contribution not only to transport but to our economy, our environment and our wider society. Passengers deserve the reassurance that a publicly owned railway will be judged not simply on financial performance but on whether it provides affordable access to work, education, leisure and family life. Profitable routes should be able to support socially essential services in rural and underserved communities, where success is measured not only in ticket revenue but in reducing isolation, supporting local economies and giving people a genuine alternative to cars. High ticket prices mean empty seats.

Equally important is protecting the workforce that keeps our railways running. I welcome the reassurances that the Government have given regarding the future of the Railways Pension Scheme, providing valuable certainty for thousands of rail workers. The future of Great British Railways will depend as much on the people who run it as it will on the infrastructure they manage.

Of course, the Bill misses one of the biggest opportunities of all: setting Britain on the path towards a fully electrified railway. Britain has spent decades pursuing a stop-start approach to electrifying its rail network. Only 39% or thereabouts of our railway is electrified, which is is well behind many comparable countries. We know what needs to happen. The Climate Change Committee has made it clear that substantially more of the network will need to be electrified if we are to decarbonise rail and meet our climate obligations. Yet the Bill is silent on this.

Finally, I hope that the Government will look carefully at how passengers themselves are represented. A publicly owned railway that fails to listen to the public will have missed the point entirely. Public ownership should not simply change who owns the railway; it should change for whom the railway works. Passengers, disabled people, local communities, rail workers, devolved Governments and regional authorities should all have meaningful opportunities to shape services, investment priorities and future strategies. Improving accessibility will be a huge benefit for our ageing population.

We also need more clarity on how mayoral, local and combined authorities will be able to control investment plans and services. The Green Party has long argued that rail should be viewed not simply as a transport system but as essential national infrastructure for delivering economic opportunity, social justice and climate action. Public ownership is not the destination; it is the foundation. The Bill moves us away from the disastrous experiment of fragmented privatisation—for that, it deserves support —but we should not settle for a railway that merely functions better than before. We should build one that actively reduces carbon emissions, restores nature, connects communities, integrates public transport, makes travel affordable and expands opportunity across every part of the country. Those ambitions really must be written into the Bill itself.

I welcome the Bill’s Second Reading and hope that, during its passage through this House, we can strengthen it so that Great British Railways truly lives up to its name as a railway that is run in the public interest, serving people, communities and the planet for generations to come.

Hansard record here: Railways Bill – Hansard – UK Parliament

Crime and Policing Bill Report Stage Day 6

Published on by jonesjb

As the Green Peers are not part of the usual channels, we were not able to give our views on the fact that this very important piece of legislation is being bullied through this House by the Government. It is absolutely outrageous that we do not have another day for Report. I hold both Members of the Front Bench accountable for this. It is not acceptable. This is no way to make good law, when we are going to be very tired in the later hours and possibly in the early hours. Continue reading “Crime and Policing Bill Report Stage Day 6” →