Jerome Mayhew MP: speeches

Speeches

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  This Committee has been a good example of the hon. Gentleman’s party and mine working collaboratively to improve the Bill. While he knows that I agree with the direction of travel that his amendment has in mind, I question its extension to an organisation as small as a district council. Given that district councils are a feature of two-tier local government—there will be a county council above them—can he explain why he thinks it is sensible to include them in the amendment?

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  That is just as well, because I am going to leave those to the Liberal Democrat spokesman, but I will be happy to support new clause 15 should he be minded to press it to a vote.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is always a pleasure to hear the Minister explain the Government’s positions, but I remain unconvinced in relation to amendment 241, which I believe is the only one that can be put to a Division at this stage. I would like to press it to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Not only.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 232, in clause 5, page 3, line 37, at end insert— “(2A) Where no arrangement between Great British Railways and a relevant local authority exists, the relevant local authority may appeal a decision made by Great British Railways affecting passenger rail services within its boundary under section 67.” This amendment is designed to give Mayors the right to appeal GBR decisions to alter passenger services in their area to the ORR in the event of no partnership existing.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is right partially to defend Network Rail. It is an issue of balance and of the culture going forward. He also talked about capacity—this is not a party political point—but that is determined by not just the number of trains, but the length of trains, which makes an enormous difference. Just increasing carriage numbers—in particular on the Northern rail network where the majority of trains are just two carriages—by a couple of extra carriages does not require significantly increased capacity on the line, but it does increase capacity enormously for passengers. That would allow a target for increased passenger numbers to be fulfilled, without an increase in line capacity.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  To clarify, that figure is about not just the private sector, but rail services in Scotland and Wales not being part of GBR. It is the non-GBR parts of the greater rail world: about 60% are nothing to do with GBR.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am very supportive of the intent behind this new clause. Where the Government have taken the political decision to put all their eggs in the nationalisation basket, it becomes even more important that we add as many clauses to the Bill as possible to force them to focus on the passenger experience. Nationalisation has been tried before, not just in the railways but in a number of other organisations, and not a single one of them is a byword for individual customer choice, so if experience is anything to go by—and if we are, as seems likely, going to be forced to have a nationalised approach to the railways—the legislation needs to bend over backwards to keep reinforcing the point that the passenger experience is the central element that the organisation should be aiming for. At the moment, the Government are woefully unambitious in their definition of railway services. If you look at clause 18(3)—which I am sure you have already, Sir Alec—you will see that the definition for railway service performance “includes, in particular, performance in securing each of the following in relation to railway services”. I was expecting a long list of all the good things that customers travelling on the railway should expect, but what do we get? We get “reliability, (including punctuality),” and “the avoidance…of passenger overcrowding”, and that is it. What poverty of aspiration. It really is very striking. It may be that the wording of new clause 8 could be improved—I am sure that the Government have the drafting firepower to do exactly that—but what is listed in subsection (2)(c)(i) to (vi) is a good starting point, and certainly much better than what the Government managed to come up with in clause 18. I support it.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Shadow Minister.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I listened carefully to the Minister’s explanation as to why, in his view, amendment 232 should be withdrawn. He said that GBR will agree to co-operation with mayoral combined authorities. He also said that other parts of the Bill contain a duty to consult and a requirement to receive advice from mayors, but there is no requirement to listen to that advice. As a result, the decision-making power remains with GBR, not the regional area that is most affected by the decisions, which the Minister, on a number of occasions today, has already said is best placed to decide the needs for its local community. That is fine—if the Minister wishes to keep the word “may”, it is, of course, his right to do so. However, if the less powerful of the two people in the relationship disagrees with GBR’s decisions, they need to have some form of recourse to an appeal. For that reason, I believe that the appeal process set out in amendment 232 remains important and that the amendment should be put to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 6, page 4, line 15, after “with” insert “Secretary of State and”. This amendment maintains the Secretary of State’s statutory co-operation duty with Transport for London to keep the position in line with other mayoralties.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Yes, I do, but then democracy is really messy, isn’t it? If we listen to passengers and our constituents, we hear all sorts of desires that may not be sufficiently persuasive to obtain Government funding, but the process of asking people for their views should not be shied away from. It sounds as though, in the experience of our former colleague Huw Merriman, some rather weak political decisions—or decisions of expediency—were taken. That does not mean that we should move away from the democratic process; we should listen to people. I do not say that the restoring your railway fund was a failure, because we listened and we heard. I will pick up on the other point because I was sitting down when I barracked the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield: modernisation is not just about working practice. I want to make that really clear: modernising is about productivity enhancement of at-times-sclerotic organisations. I am a former entrepreneur. I ran a business for well over a decade on a much smaller scale than this. At the end, I employed about 1,000 people; I took it from start-up to about that stage. Even a fast-growth, highly entrepreneurial and—in the views of other people—highly dynamic business such as the one that I was lucky enough to lead had all sorts of internal inconsistencies and inefficiencies, and needed to focus relentlessly on improving working processes and practices. That was right at the sharp end of the private sector. If it was true for my organisation then, think how true it is for a very large organisation such as Network Rail, which has 40,000-plus staff, and will be much bigger still when it becomes Great British Railways. Paragraph (h) of new clause 1 states the need to improve and consider “the experience of disabled and vulnerable passengers”. Key terminus stations have good systems in place but that could be expanded with investment such as in the cross-party Access for All fund, which did huge work to improve disabled access in stations. Paragraphs (i) and (j) are on a key theme that we have explored throughout our consideration of the Bill: open access and freight. They would ensure “fair and transparent treatment of open access, freight and devolved operators” At times it feels like we speak too much about open access in relation to this Bill. If we look at the capacity—the number of passengers covered by open access operators—we see that in percentage terms it is very small.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. One of the stand-out moments from Tuesday’s oral evidence was that given by the mayors, Andy Burnham and Tracy Brabin. What it highlighted, apart from their articulate defence of their regions’ interests, was how different things will be, under the current proposals, in mayoral combined authorities: there will be the right to ask or be consulted on the devolution of aspects of rail to those authorities. That is great as far as it goes—they said that it did not go far enough, but it goes some distance in that direction. However, what if an area is not a mayoral combined authority? I believe that is the point that my hon. Friend is making: without the direct relationship that the Government are anticipating for mayoral combined authorities, at the expense of other parts of the country, the “purpose” clause becomes more important. That is another reason why paragraphs (e) and (f) and others are helpful. Many Members and constituents across the country were enthused by the restoring your railway fund and the new stations fund, which have unfortunately now been scrapped by this Government. They were set up in the last Parliament and led to a renaissance of interest in local railway investment and a focus on modernising working practices and innovating to improve productivity, efficiency and passenger experience. Working practices are not really spoken about in the Bill as it is currently drafted. This is not a new start-up—we have to be quite clear about that: it is building a new organisation out of some very old organisations, including Network Rail. The aim of modernisation is to do more for less. That is a good thing because it means that there is more money left over for further investment in improving infrastructure and improving or increasing passenger services and more left in the kitty to reduce subsidies—the taxpayer support—and by extension reduce the tax burden on our hard-pressed constituents. Doing more for less by modernising working practices and innovating to improve productivity efficiency is an unalloyed good. It should be very important and at the heart of any organisation—yet the Bill is silent on it. Although I can hear the subtext, but the new clause is not intended to be a union-bashing measure. It is intended to make a dynamic organisation that has its passengers—its users—at the heart of its interests and that there is a focus on ensuring that GBR continues to have growth as part of its objectives. That aligns with the Government’s decision to put growth at the heart of their mission.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Thank you very much, Sir Alec. We are making progress—it may not feel like it, but we are. Courage! We’re getting there. Clause 5 deals with co-operation with relevant local government bodies. It is not going to be a bestseller, but it is important, just like every clause in the Bill. It delves further into the devolution of powers. It is hard to quantify the clause while the Government’s devolution Bill continues its progress through the House, which creates an awkward chicken and egg scenario. The challenge with the clause, about the nature of the devolution of powers across local government, really ends up bleeding into clause 6. I am concerned that the Government and, by extension, GBR will end up picking and choosing who they wish to accept consultation decisions from. Clause 5(1) specifically uses the word “may” when referring to arrangements between GBR and local government. It states: “Great British Railways may enter into arrangements with a relevant local government body about the exercise by Great British Railways of its statutory functions in relation to railways and railway services in the body’s area.” There is no clear obligation to provide any functions to mayoral combined authorities, mayoral combined county authorities, passenger transport executives or integrated transport areas. Can the Minister help me and the Committee by clarifying what functions he has in mind in relation to this clause? How would it work in practice? Will there be guidance on it, and when will we have it? Has that work been done yet? If it has, why has it not been shared with the Committee, with its obvious corollaries? If it has not been done, why not? That leads me to amendment 232 in my name, which would create a new subsection (2A) of clause 5 as follows: “Where no arrangement between Great British Railways and a relevant local authority exists, the relevant local authority may appeal a decision made by Great British Railways affecting passenger rail services within its boundary under section 67.” To bring the amendment to life, we need to refer back to the evidence from Mayors Brabin and Burnham on Tuesday. The amendment would give mayors and other regional leaders the right to appeal GBR decisions to alter passenger services in their area. They would be able to appeal to the ORR, because it would be an independent appeals process, in the event that there was no partnership in existence. In their evidence, Mayors Burnham and Brabin were clear that they expected—in fact, I think Mayor Burnham said he would insist on—greater powers to influence rail in their regions. The amendment would help to achieve that through a continued role for the trusted and impartial Office of Rail and Road. At this stage, I should make it clear that while the power to appeal is set out in clause 67, the governance—what that appeal can look like—is set out in clause 68. I think I am right in saying that it was described as not being worth the paper it is written on as it is drafted, because it limits appeals to judicial review proceedings in the High Court where there is an error of law. There is strong evidence before the Committee to suggest that that clause should be amended to allow an appeal on the merits, and amendment 232 needs to be taken in conjunction with future amendments that we will put before the Committee to do exactly that. It is intended to include in the Bill the provision for an appeal on the merits to the independent ORR, in order to give succour to mayors and other leaders of regional transport authorities where GBR chooses to run roughshod over their local plans.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to see you in your place, Sir Alec. Amendment 241, in my name, is important, as so many of these amendments are. We heard in both oral and written evidence that lots of people are concerned about the need for this amendment, which addresses the concerns of many in the non-Great British Railways sector, whether Trainline, open access operators, freight operators or the whole supply chain. The amendment seeks to require GBR expressly to act in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. We had some discussion about that before lunch, but I reiterate the argument that I made. I will seek to press the amendment to a Division if the occasion demands it, but it would send a terrible message to investors in the independent sector if the Government voted down an amendment that merely asks GBR to operate in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. Amendments 3 and 4 clarify that the research, advice and standards published by Great British Railways are related to aspects of the parts of the railway and railway services that are managed by Great British Railways. Many independent entities, such as freight, open access and the supply chain, as well as other networks, are not managed by or part of GBR. Those entities need to be free to publish their own standards and manage their own innovation and research. The current drafting of the clause is a clear overreach. I suspect that that may be unintentional, so I ask the Minister or his officials to have a think about that. Additionally, other cross-sector and national standards, such as those managed by the Rail Safety and Standards Board or the British Standards Institution, may be directly legally applicable to GBR itself under, for example, the Railways (Interoperability) Regulations 2011 and the Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006. To avoid conflicts of interest, those cannot be published or managed by GBR itself, so the Minister needs to explain how clause 3 does not involve a conflict of interest. Has he—or, it is probably gentler and kinder to ask, his team—researched those apparent contradictions? If he or they have, perhaps he could set out how those conflicts are addressed in the current wording. Amendment 5 would leave out clause 3(2) and insert in its place: “(2) Great British Railways’ function under subsection (1)(a) includes making strategic plans as to the future provision of railways infrastructure in Great Britain and implementing those plans. (2A) Decisions about access to, and use of, railway infrastructure for the operation of trains will be made by the Office for Rail and Road.” This would be quite a big change, because it would address head on the structural conflict of interest that has been identified by very many commentators. The role of the Office of Rail and Road is a key concern for the non-GBR part of the industry, which is, after all, 60% of it. By “the role of the ORR”, I do not mean its safety role, which remains almost entirely unchanged; I mean its economic regulator role. This is not an issue of ideology. Some play has been made about base views on whether nationalisation or privatisation are better or worse than one other, but let us leave that to one side—we have had our fun for the moment. This is a fundamental issue of fairness of procedure, which is necessary irrespective of the ownership structure of the organisation. We all know that Great British Railways will be the dominant operator. That position brings it structural advantages in any event, but it will now be the referee on access as well. That is a direct and obvious conflict of interest, and it is a very odd approach because it is so clearly unfair. The alternative is to use an independent structure. We would use the ORR because it already exists and does not have to be created, it already has a reputation for independence, and its remit and direction are set by the Secretary of State, so it cannot be a loose cannon. I accept in part the arguments put forward by the Minister in response to questioning on Tuesday. I recognise that the Government own the infrastructure and the taxpayer has invested many billions of pounds in the railway over time, and I accept that they should decide how those funds are best used. The issue is how the Government look after taxpayers’ money. Is it via a player-referee—GBR—or is it via the Office of Rail and Road, which is itself a governmental organisation, has its remit set by the Secretary of State and is given direction? It is not as though we would be handing the keys to a stranger; we would just be demonstrating the application of a fair and non-discriminatory process by an overtly independent organisation that is itself an arm of the state. Amendment 5 aims to ensure that the Office of Rail and Road continues to make decisions about access. It is a common theme of the Opposition amendments throughout that we want to ensure that the Bill does not create a GBR with that structural conflict of interest that acts as referee and player. I intend to press the amendment to a Division, should the opportunity arise. Finally, I turn to amendment 6, which would leave out clause 3(3). Subsection (3) is a very broad regulation-making power for the Secretary of State to confer further functions on GBR. It is unrestricted. It reads: “The Secretary of State may by regulations confer on Great British Railways such other functions relating to railways or railway services as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.” Could it be any more widely framed? I do not think so. As long as it is something to do with railways, it takes power away from primary legislation and gives it to the Secretary of State to do as he or she will. It is a blank cheque for the Government and, by extension, for GBR. There are no details given as to why it is needed, and no reason why the powers have not already been considered. We know that the Government have gone off half-cocked with this legislation. By Tuesday’s count, 19 serious documents relating to how GBR will work in practice have yet to emerge. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s justification for subsection (3). Why are the Government so keen to give such overarching powers to the Secretary of State? Sir Alec, are we also going to deal with new clauses 15 and 20 tabled by the Liberal Democrats?

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for setting out his defence of the Bill. The problem with his argument is that, because the Government have gone off half-cocked, the Committee is not in a position to assess whether he is right or wrong on the nature of the KPIs, or even on where they should be, because we have not been furnished with any draft copies of the documents to which he refers. In those circumstances, I feel obliged to press the two new clauses to a vote. Question put and agreed to. Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his brief explanation of the clause. Under clause 3, the Committee was able to discuss the principles of the future structure of GBR, but clause 4 is the first instance of one of the open wounds that the Bill might create. The devolutionary functions of the Bill seemingly reopen aspects of the West Lothian question by failing to provide clear lines of power between the devolved nations, regions and Whitehall. The elephant in the room is the future surrounding England and Wales projects. We know from the evidence we heard that the Welsh railway is very different from, for example, the Scottish railway; 80% of all rail travel in Wales is cross-border, so it includes elements of English travel, as we can tell by Labour’s recent announcement that East West Rail and the Hull to Liverpool lines are being classified as England and Wales projects. Some members of the Minister’s party in Wales might think that is a bit of a stretch at the very least. The Government’s position has consistently been based on the fact that infrastructure is not subsequent to Barnett consequentials in Wales, and therefore should not be allocated to Cardiff Bay. However, the Minister’s own Labour party colleague in the Senedd, Cabinet Secretary for Economy Rebecca Evans MS, said: “Wales will have missed out...as a result of the incorrect classification of HS2 as an England-and-Wales project.” That was Labour’s position when it sat on the Opposition Benches, and it is seemingly still the position of the Labour Government in Cardiff. Is it still the position of the Minister and of Labour? Clause 4 allows the Scottish and Welsh Governments to maintain their nationalised railway structures within ScotRail and Transport for Wales. It is prudent that the Government maintain their and GBR’s final say in these matters, as set out in subsection (2). However, much of the relationship is predicated on the memorandum of understanding, which is missing in action and is not explicitly established in the clause. It is important to ensure that the Government are thinking clearly about the nature of the relationship they wish to maintain with the devolved nations, as this framework will exist within the future memorandum of understanding—which none of us has seen. That will be particularly important should the Wales Act 2017 be amended at some stage, given that Welsh devolved powers are a live political issue. Will the Minister explain Government’s approach to future transport devolution in Wales, given his party’s comments on rail funding?

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  I beg to move amendment 241, in clause 3, page 2, line 17, after “including,” insert “acting in a fair and non-discriminatory manner”. This amendment would require equal treatment between GBR and non-GBR services.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  The official Opposition, strongly support this amendment because it seeks to increase passenger traffic on the railways, in addition to the welcomed inclusion of an objective to increase freight. We agree with it so strongly because it is almost identical to our amendment 35, which I shall also speak to. Amendment 35 would add a specific requirement to subsection (2) paragraph (b) of clause 18—the duties clause—for GBR Ministers and the Office of Rail and Road, “to increase the number of passenger journeys”. This directly addresses the concern raised by the Campaign for Better Transport in the evidence received by the Committee. It is an essential amendment to ensure that GBR has a key focus and aim to increase passenger numbers—something that is essential for a railway. It would ensure that the dominant culture of GBR is not one where passengers are seen as creators of damage to infrastructure. That is not a loose accusation that I have made; I have been listening to the industry for over a year now. The core structure of GBR is Network Rail. I know that I am bound to be corrected if I get this even a couple out, but I believe that Network Rail has about 41,000 members of staff. Network Rail is the central body to which train operating companies have been added at a rate of about one every six weeks or two months over the last period. An oft-repeated criticism of the culture of Network Rail has been that it sees passengers as a necessary irritation in the correct functioning of the railway. Sir Alec, if your organisation is engineer focused, the condition of the infrastructure is what is most important to you. Passengers demand lots and lots of trains, but lots and lots of trains damage the infrastructure. There is a concern in the wider sector— I am merely passing it on—that the culture of Network Rail has historically been one in which it wants to limit the number of trains to what it considers to be acceptable, so that it has a nice steady state of repair of the infrastructure. If that is the dominant culture that pervades GBR, now that it is bringing everything together, that will be a disaster for passenger services, because there would not be an automatic incentive to focus on an increase in passenger journeys, which is why amendments 133 and 35 are so important. New clause 42—to go into the detail a little—would require the Secretary of State to set, publish and keep under review a passenger growth target. It would also require GBR to have regard to that target when exercising its statutory functions. In oral evidence to this Committee, Ben Plowden, chief executive of the Campaign for Better Transport, said: “It is welcome that there is a duty to promote the interests of passengers and disabled people in the Bill. We think there is a case for strengthening that duty so that it aligns with the duty in relation to freight, which is to promote the use of the network for passengers and disabled passengers. There should also be an equivalent duty on the Secretary of State to set a passenger growth target, as she is required to do in relation to freight, so that, as we picked up on a minute ago, GBR does not end up being incentivised not to grow the network in order to meet its crowding and reliability duties, for example. It seems to us that giving it a statutory incentive to increase passenger use over time would be very helpful to build on the existing duty in the Bill.” –– [ Official Report, Railways Public Bill Committee, 20 January 2026; c. 24, Q49.] That organisation was not alone, because John Thomas from ALLRAIL said: “I think a passenger growth target is really important. At the moment, the duties for GBR only include improving performance. You can improve performance, as we saw during covid, by cutting the number of services, but that is not necessarily in the best interest of customers. We think a balance between a performance target and a passenger growth target is really important.” –– [ Official Report, Railways Public Bill Committee, 20 January 2026; c. 47, Q78.] Finally, we heard from Rob Morris of Siemens. He said: “What we seem to be missing in the Bill at the moment is the ambition for passenger growth, how that will improve the railway and the levels of investment that need to go with it.” –– [ Official Report, Railways Public Bill Committee, 20 January 2026; c. 64, Q122.] It is unclear to me why, if the Bill can require a target to increase use of the railway network for freight, the same obligation is not applied to passenger services. The inconsistency suggests a deliberate choice not to mandate passenger growth. And why would GBR care about passenger growth? After all, if it will be dominated by Network Rail, there is at least a risk that its culture will be one of avoiding damage to infrastructure, in excess of looking after growing the number of passengers. In written evidence to the Transport Committee, Rail Forum said: “From Rail Forum’s perspective there is nothing specific in the Bill that will guarantee improved travel for passengers. Improvement is predicated on the goodwill of GBR and others driving things in the ‘right direction’. In our view the key to improvement is culture change within those organisations coming together to form GBR. Creating GBR from Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd…will not signal the need for change and creates a risk that the current Network Rail culture will be seen as the norm and hence the status quo will prevail.” These are not arguments made up by a cunning Opposition to wrongfoot the Government. This is the Opposition doing our job properly and reflecting the concerns of the wider sector—not just from one organisation but from multiple organisations, right across the sector. They identify the drafting as a problem and the culture as potentially a problem unless the legislation makes it clear that it is a duty of GBR to increase passenger numbers.

• 22 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Fourth sitting) · Hansard source

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  Correct me if I am wrong, but my recollection of Sir Andrew Haines’s oral evidence is that he gave an example of the experience not just on continental Europe, but in Scotland, where a steady-state period of electrification resulted in significant reduction of the cost per mile when compared with the stop-start approach in England. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q We heard evidence earlier today from Maggie Simpson of the Rail Freight Group, and she was very concerned. She said that her members are very concerned, and that that has fed into the ability to take investment decisions, which require a degree of certainty. She was very concerned about clause 63 and its relationship with clause 60. She was also concerned about the ability of the Secretary of State to take unilateral decisions about non-GBR infrastructure without notice and without consultation. We heard that those approaches, together with an effective inability to appeal, meant that investment for rail freight, but also for open access—other rail users—was put in doubt. Do you think she is overreacting? Richard Bowker: It is not for me to say whether she is overreacting, but I absolutely understand the concern, because rail freight in particular involves a lot of private capital. You have to have a degree of confidence and assurance that if you have access rights, you will be able to maintain them, so I understand that. I think the Government are right to create a directing mind. We have seen too many examples of timetabling processes that have gone wrong for precisely that reason—it is about balance.

• 20 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q In other similar organisations, such as SNCF in France, the decision was taken to recognise the structural conflict of interest, and set up the retail arm of SNCF as a standalone organisation, presumably to prevent or reassure investors that there would be no cross-subsidising. First, do you think that would be a better solution in the United Kingdom? Secondly, if we got that through, could you explain or provide more details to the Committee on what impact it would have in real life? I have in mind, for example, LNER currently being able to offer a full refund with one click on its website, and that service and facility not being made available to independent retailers even under the current system. Can you elaborate on quite how important that is for the independent sector? I would then like Catriona Meehan to come in with her views, too. John Davies: When we talk about the need for the right kinds of protections for retailers, we are pointing at something that is not theoretical—these are risks that are with us today. You point at the example of delay repay, where independent retailers are prevented from supporting customers who have purchased their tickets through them by submitting their claims directly. It also occurs with things such as loyalty schemes, retailer inability to offer customers pay-as-you-go fares, and our ability to offer assisted travel. Independent retailers are not permitted to have access to a very significant amount of propositions around rail travel that are a very meaningful part of the market. Catriona Meehan: I completely echo all of John’s points. For us, it is a concern that there would not be proper separation, which could lead to a degree of self-preferencing. You mentioned SNCF and the separation there, which is an example that we think works well. It is not perfect, of course; there are things that could be improved, but a colleague on the previous panel from ALLRAIL mentioned that EU markets are moving the other way: they are liberalising rather than nationalising. It is interesting to look at why it has happened and why there is a need for it. FRAND principles were mentioned. We are also seeing that in other markets. Omio operates across 46 markets globally, so we have a lot of experience in other markets. Obviously, the UK is very important through our partnership with Uber trains, but we should also talk about the wider sector of independent rail retailers. Unless we have proper safeguards and assurances in place, we are not sure exactly how GBR will not self-preference. That is not exactly clear to us right now.

• 20 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  My apologies.

• 20 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  Q I turn to Mr McDonald. It is very different in Wales. The vast majority of the Welsh railway crosses the border with England, as opposed to Scotland, where there is more of a discrete railway—if I can put it like that. I think only the core valley railway is wholly within the gift of Welsh Ministers. Bearing that in mind, and that there will then have to be consultation with the Secretary of State on the vast majority of railways that affect Wales, do you think the Bill has the right line between consultation and decision making for Welsh Ministers, since it affects so much of their railway? Peter McDonald: Yes I do, in terms of the legislation. However, I do not think we can come to a full judgment on this. This may also pre-judge your second question, because we do not have the full memorandum of understanding in front of us. It is only when we see that full package that we can make a judgment about whether the degree of consultation and partnership is sufficient for Wales.

• 20 Jan 2026 · Railways Bill (Second sitting) · Hansard source

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  That is amazing. Rob Morris: One thing I would say to support the figures that Darren mentioned earlier is that we have had a particularly sluggish start to this control period, which is actually prolonging that and impacting on skills and capabilities in the industry, which might add additional costs to remobilise.