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I was very interested to hear what the Secretary of State said. I represent a two-tier local authority area, and I live in a two-tier local authority area, yet I seem to pay considerably less council tax than people living in neighbouring local authority areas that are Labour-controlled and single-tier. Can the right hon. Gentleman explain how?
Will the Minister update the House on the delay to the pension payment of civil servants who left employment under the voluntary exit scheme? A number of constituents have complained to me that they have been left without any income, due to the delay by the pension administrator Capita. Will the Minister take personal control of the situation, and will he update the House at some point on contingencies and a new escalation process for people who are affected?
I do have concerns about the undermining of democracy, not least in that some Members of the House who have always insisted on by-elections after defections now appear to be running away from the electorate. Will the Secretary of State absolutely dissociate himself from the comments made by a Member of the governing party who could not confirm, when asked three times, that the general election would never be delayed?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I completely appreciate what the Minister is saying. However, I suppose that the outstanding question is this: how will the general public come to understand what GBR is going to mean for them if it is not going to be established for 12 months and if there is not a fixed timetable for reporting back to MPs on how it is going? There has already been a fanfare about delivery; I am sure that there is going to be another fanfare from the Government once the Bill is passed. However, if we are going to take passengers on this journey, so to speak, we must ensure that there is an opportunity for us, as Members of Parliament, to be able to report back, even if it on an issue relating to our own constituency. I think the new clause tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham is actually quite sensible.
I beg to differ: they are all costed, because we are the official Opposition.
I appreciate the heart behind the hon. Gentleman’s proposal, but can he explain a bit more about why we need a national railcard? There are already all sorts of other railcards, as he rightly points out. There is one for the south-east, and I know there is one in Devon and Cornwall, but they are for specific sets of people doing specific types of journey. If there was a national railcard, would it not incentivise everybody to possess one, so that nobody ever paid a full rail fare?
I thank the Minister for the clarity on the code of practice, which has also been echoed in some written answers I recently received from him. While we are talking about open access, what thoughts have the Minister and the Department given to working with independent retailers who have probably spent billions of pounds developing an app and a website that do a particularly good job? What work will they do collaboratively with those organisations, rather than viewing themselves as competition?
The point I want to come back to is about value for money for the taxpayer. I want some reassurance that GBR will not go right back to the beginning of the journey of creating a ticketing app and website, which would effectively cost the general public an inordinate amount of money, when we already have a lot of platforms that could be brought in-house rather than having to be separate businesses. On the value for money point, call me a cynic, but my understanding of computer programming is that it is not very cheap. I assume that that is something that GBR will have to factor in. Perhaps using some of the existing independent retailers might be a better value for money option.
Does my hon. Friend agree that paragraph (e) and some of the other provisions will support what I am particularly keen to see: the growth of the entire railway, not just the areas that happen to have a mayor or are part of Scotland or Wales?
I will briefly make a few comments about each of the new clauses, though obviously I have already intervened on my hon. Friend. I support wholeheartedly what we have proposed in new clause 1, which is no surprise given that I am sitting next to my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. I want to pick up on what he said about the restoring your railway fund as an additional way of explaining why the lack of regional devolution, apart from mayors, is going to be so important for a lot of our constituents. I represent a constituency in the south-west that had some really great promises made under the restoring your railway fund, and was going to be able to make progress on a new station and railway line between Tavistock and Plymouth. That is really important if the Government want to see economic growth in the south-west, which they do, because they are investing enormous amounts of money in defence. But if we do not build in at this early stage the ability to see growth for regions that do not have a mayor, and are not likely to have a mayor for some considerable time, I remain unconvinced that the Bill is reassuring enough to say, “Don’t worry, these far-flung parts of the country will get a look-in.”
Knowing the hon. Member’s enthusiasm for all forms of transport as I do, I would like to build on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham made about amendment 214 in respect of district councils, and ask whether it would have been better to use the term “a transport authority”, which may well have linked it more clearly to the Bus Services Act 2025. That new bus legislation allows council-led transport authorities to control bus services. Perhaps that would have been good, safe ground to be on, which might well have enabled us to be more supportive.
I will touch briefly on two points that are not necessarily related, but overlap. First, let me build on what my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham said about the word “may” in clause 5(1). Anyone who was at the oral evidence session earlier this week would have heard the Manchester and west midlands mayors talking about wanting a meaningful relationship. They could not pinpoint exactly what meaningful would look like, but the gist was a desire to make sure that the relationship has some “oomph” or a decent foundation to it. I am therefore concerned about the use of the word “may”. Will the Minister define what “may” means and when “may” might happen? Ultimately, that is potentially the biggest get-out clause for not having to act. I know that that is not the intention, but I do not think that the Bill as drafted clearly describes that. I referred earlier to the general premise of devolution and the Minister tried to reassure me about devolution outside strategic mayoral authorities, but I still do not think that the Bill is clear enough about what is going to happen. Given that the Bill sets up a railway system that the Government hope will last forever, it is not clear how other parts of the country will come into play. The Transport Committee has debated that and heard lots of evidence as well. The question remains. While I appreciate the Minister’s reassurances, they do not go far enough to help me and many others across the country to understand what is in the Bill for them regarding local control and power. We have debated changing language today and I have already talked about the potential for referring to “local transport authorities”. I am intrigued about why subsection (5)(c) is the end of the line. It refers to a “Passenger Transport Executive for an integrated transport area.” Why does this not go further? We know that the Government have huge intentions for devolution and local government re-organisation but, despite their best intentions, that might not come to pass in the way they think. How can the Bill be changed to reflect areas of the country that do not have a mayor or any of the bodies included in subsection (5)? How will the Government ensure that the whole country benefits from GBR, not just those areas that have great, charismatic mayors—of all colours? They keep being brought in front of the Select Committee as the solution to all of our transport problems, but unless other areas in the country get a mayor, they will not see the benefits of any of it. I know that that is the Government’s intention, but I genuinely do not think that it will be the reality for a number of years.
The Minister’s point speaks directly to something else I am concerned about: how the business units relate to local government areas. His explanation still uses language that makes it sound like the authorities will be much smaller, granulated local authorities rather than larger strategic ones. Can the Minister help me to understand how the business unit will work in an area that does not have a mayoralty—that top level of devolution—in place? I do not want to be parochial, but two railway companies currently provide services in the south-west, and there are three in the far south-west, if we look at some of the other routes down from London to there. If there is a business unit, what is it controlling? Is it controlling the entire south-west? Is it controlling the railway company providing that service? Does it have to be linked to a level of devolution, or will it exist anyway, meaning that local councils, such as the one in my area, would still refer to them?
I thank the Minister for the further detail that he has provided. A lot of these regions feed into London and the big cities. If local councils are holding their local business units to account, how does that connect with services going from those regions to big cities such as London or Birmingham?
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
We now come to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. Bill Esterson will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement. These should be brief questions, not full speeches. I emphasise that questions should be directed to the Chair of the Select Committee, not the relevant Minister. Front Benchers may take part in the questioning.
That has made me feel hungry. I call Andrew George.
With the 100 in, one out deportation scheme having had the same impact as the Prime Minister’s many resets, compulsory digital ID was billed as the next magical answer to illegal migration. Now that it has been U-turned on, what is plan C?
I questioned the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons), earlier about the U-turn on compulsory digital IDs. Much to our confusion, he said that there had been no U-turn. Will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster clear this up? Is digital ID going to be compulsory—yes or no?
In his statement last month, the Paymaster General promised us that he had secured a great deal for the first year of the Erasmus programme. It is a technique that will be familiar to mobile phone and satellite TV customers around the country. Can the Minister tell us what the Paymaster General could not tell us in that statement: what will it cost in the second and subsequent years?
I think the Minister has given the game away: he has just said that it would be wrong to walk away from that. He will know, as the whole House knows, that any negotiation is successful only if you know, and more importantly your negotiating partners know, that there is an alternative to a negotiated agreement. Can the Minister assure the House that, if the European Union is not able to offer similar terms and similar cost for second and subsequent years, he would be prepared to walk away from the negotiations?
North East Lincolnshire council has just received a planning application for 3,500 homes in the strategic gap between Laceby in my constituency and the west of Grimsby. When developments are proposed, the developer usually says that it will provide a new school and doctors surgery and so on, but that does not guarantee that the teachers or doctors will be available to work in them. Could the Leader of the House arrange for a Minister to explain to the House how this can be resolved, given the Government’s relaxation of local input into planning applications?
Having served as both a district and a unitary councillor, I actually support the Government’s move towards unitary authorities. My Brigg and Immingham constituency is served by two unitary authorities—North Lincolnshire council and North East Lincolnshire council—both of which want to continue as they are, and that position is supported by the hon. Members for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) and for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin). When the Secretary of State reviews the two-tier Lincolnshire county council area, can he give an assurance that he will leave the two existing unitaries exactly as they are?
Thank you for that welcome, Ms Vaz. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous), who is also the chair of the APPG on global education, on securing this debate and on his long-standing interest in this matter. I also thank the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for his gracious words of welcome, particularly because he was due to be standing at this Dispatch Box. When I saw him walk into Westminster Hall, I have to admit that my blood ran slightly cold, worrying that perhaps our shared team had prepared the same speech for us both to give—I should have known better. We on this side of the House recognise the huge benefits that education brings to supporting aspiration and helping to fulfil potential. Whether at home or abroad, we know that education lays the foundation for young people to build better futures. Here in England, the last Conservative Government raised standards in our schools and lifted the UK’s standing in international league tables for literacy to first in the western world, and fourth in the world. We also increased the number of full-time teachers by around 27,000, which is about 2,000 a year on average—a higher annual rate of growth than the 6,500 over five years promised by the current Government. Internationally, we played our part in supporting initiatives to lift people out of poverty. With the United Nations International Day of Education approaching on 24 January, this is an opportune moment to reflect on the links between education and economic development, and the role that the UK can play. Members will be aware of the UN’s sustainable development goal 4, which focuses on quality education to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. The previous Government focused effort and resources on this area, including expanding and improving access to education, especially for women and girls, who face particular barriers to securing a meaningful education and childhood in parts of the world. This led to 19.8 million children, including 10 million girls, being supported with a decent education since 2015. That made a profound difference to those lives. The international women and girls strategy launched in 2023 had a strong focus on education. It highlighted the wider societal benefits of improved education for women and girls in developing countries, including that “A child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to live beyond the age of five”, is more likely to be immunised, and is about “twice as likely to attend school.” Girls benefiting from higher levels of education are also less likely to be affected by violence from a partner, less likely to marry as a child and more likely to find employment and start businesses. One of the great untapped potentials in developing countries is the enterprise and entrepreneurial spirit of women. Better education can help to unleash that potential. That is something that Members in all parts of the House can agree on. That strategy also focused on the three Es of educating girls, empowering women and girls and championing their health and rights, and ending gender based violence. But education is the essential first step. I ask the Minister, are the Government committed to implementing that strategy? With international development budgets understandably being reduced to support efforts to bolster our defences and national security, can the Minister update the House on the areas where the Government intend to focus resources for the rest of the decade? My team and I had prepared a rather different speech, but I have been very struck by the fact that four Members have mentioned Afghanistan. If the Chamber will indulge me, I, like the sponsor of this debate, would like to understand from the Minister what the Government are doing in terms of education in Syria, Iran, Gaza and the west bank and Sudan, but I want to tell a rather different story about international education. It is 2009 and we are in Basharan in the Helmand river valley of Afghanistan. There is a small village in Basharan with a defunct school. A young company commander by the name of Sean Birchall takes over that area and is determined that the school should open for boys and girls. He spends vast amounts of time going backwards and forwards, at great risk, to Lashkar Gah to try to get the education department there to provide teachers and school equipment, such as books and chairs. Sean was killed by a bomb, leaving a widow and an 18-month-old son, Charlie. Nevertheless, the men and women in his company of Welsh Guards continued his extraordinary work and the school got up and running. Fast forward to April the next year and I am the commanding officer of the Lashkar Gah battlegroup. We have Basharan in our patch, and very near one of the routes into Basharan was an impassable road—the Taliban had put a tax office on it and seeded it with a number of improvised explosive devices. I was given the mission to clear the road. I discussed it with the company commander and said, “It looks to me like we now need to start at one end and go to the other, or start at the other end and go to the other.” He said, “Let me have a think.” Then he said, “Right. I want to start in the middle and clear out in two directions.” I said, “Right, okay.” Taking the Taliban tax office would send a signal to the area that there was greater control. This involved a lot of moving people and equipment around, which alerted the locals that it was happening. I was at the checkpoint nearest to where we were going to start the operation the next day, and a young lance corporal called Cammy sent a message saying, “Commanding officer to the front gate,” so I went there. My approach to counter-insurgency, which I told the battalion, was: “We need to take risks to be safer.” It is one of the paradoxes of counter-insurgency; it is incredibly dangerous but, nevertheless, it can bear results. Cammy introduced me to a fellow with a wooden leg—a local—who had come to the gate and asked what was going on. Cammy said—he did not ask me—“I’m going to tell him the plan for tomorrow,” and I said, “Crack on.” So he told him the plan: that we were going to go in the next day and take down the tax office, and that we were going to clear the bombs but knew it was very dangerous indeed. The man, who was known as the Muj—mujaheddin—said, “Well, I’m going to come with you tomorrow at dawn and I’m going to show you where the bombs are.” I asked him, “Why are you going to do that? It’s incredibly risky.” And he said, “I will show you where the bombs are so that you can clear them, so that you can open the road and my daughter can go to Basharan school.” We all had a fitful night’s sleep, and, good as gold, the next day, at dawn, he turned up and we gave him a can of yellow spray-paint, and he hopscotched his way around a high-density minefield and sprayed paint on where the bombs were. It is so rare for the good that we enable off the security line of operations—namely education—to play so directly into local consent, in order to advance the cause and British interests. Under the UK aid flag, our support for education should be a sign of hope and freedom for those who receive it. We have had strong successes in recent years in delivering quality education for those who need it across the world, providing new opportunities for millions. Along with our key partners, the UK should continue to play a leading role, exercising our resources, leverage and expertise to improve educational outcomes and lift millions, globally, out of poverty and into a better future.
The news has broken that overnight the first asylum seekers have been moved into Crowborough barracks in Sussex. The Minister for Border Security and Asylum stood at the Dispatch Box and told me that the Stanwell hotel in my constituency would not be kept open as an asylum hotel for a minute longer than necessary. Will the Leader of the House please use his good offices to encourage the Home Office to come here on Monday to make a statement, which I am sure would be of interest across the House, to find out where the asylum seekers that have been moved into Crowborough barracks have been drawn from?
Has the fish supper had its chips? Fish and chips were so critical to morale during wartime that Churchill insisted they were never rationed, but now my constituent Romano Petrucci, the proprietor of the Central Café in my hometown of Stranraer, warns that this staple is becoming an unaffordable luxury. I appreciate that the Government do not set the price of fish and chips, but this is none the less a cross-cutting issue for Government, whether it be through fish quotas, energy prices or the cost of hiring. Having tried and failed to get either a Westminster Hall or an Adjournment debate on this matter, I ask for guidance on how we might air this issue here.
The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) raised the question of the correct method of dispatch for lobster. May I counsel him against the method that I tried, which was to pop them in the freezer? By the time I opened the door, they had eaten all my ice cream and three of my Fab lollies. Even as we speak, chic Parisians are enjoying langoustines and coquille Saint-Jacques, perhaps with a crisp glass of Chablis—lucky them. That seafood almost certainly comes from the pristine waters of Scotland, but one of the difficulties we face in getting that seafood into France via Boulogne is red tape, and this is where the Government should step in. That red tape is blamed on Brexit. In fact, it comes from the far side of the short strait. This is a difficulty created by the French—perhaps because of protectionist ideas, who knows?—but it should not take an entire renegotiation of the SPS agreement to get this sorted out. We could have this changed and changed quickly. The other danger with the renegotiation of an SPS deal is that it may have an impact on the free trade agreements we are doing around the world. We have recently signed one with India, for instance. The comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, the CPTPP—which is easy for me to say; we need a better name for this—could be imperilled by effectively reducing ourselves to rule-takers rather than rule-makers with a new SPS deal. The other issue that many of our fragile coastal communities face is that they have full employment. Going to sea is not forever. I speak as the son of a marine engineer—I, meanwhile, get seasick in the bath, so I would certainly not want to go aboard a fishing boat. As we have heard, it is an exceptionally dangerous occupation and, even at the best of times, is difficult and hard work. The Home Office has a role here because it is exceptionally difficult to fulfil the requirements to bring in from elsewhere the workers who are crucial to this industry. I wonder if the Minister might touch on this—I appreciate it is a different Department—because we need some simplification of the rules and a realisation that they are making things exceptionally difficult for sometimes long-established businesses that should have a great future. Again, touching on that red tape issue, one of the seafood producers in my constituency, West Coast Sea Products from Kirkcudbright, is facing difficulty even now with getting scallops into France—not because the quality of its product is anything less than exemplary, but, again, because of the rules and the difficulties being placed in its way, not by Brexit, as I say, but by the French themselves. Perhaps we could hear something on that, and perhaps we might be able to unblock this logjam.
Is my hon. Friend surprised to hear that the SNP denies the existence of spatial squeeze, and advisers told senior figures in the Government not to talk about spatial squeeze? Spatial squeeze is real. I return to his point about Bridlington being the lobster capital of Europe. We do not have to divide on this, but I think he will find that it is, in fact, Port William.
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
I thank the Leader of the House for that update. The House will know that I am obsessive about improving education, skills and life opportunities for young people; I know that the Leader of the House, with his own background, shares that passion. I cannot let this week pass without noting that on Tuesday our new specialist technology and engineering university in Hereford, the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering, formally launched its new autonomous robotics degree, which is sponsored, designed and delivered in collaboration with the British Army. I thank the Defence ministerial team, and in particular the Minister for the Armed Forces, for coming up to Hereford and supporting that. I believe that it is the UK’s first undergraduate drones technologies degree. It starts in September 2026, which is light speed compared with the normal progression of these things in higher education. It will be of inestimable value not only to young people up and down the country, but to the defence of the realm and in a host of other sectors, including food and agriculture, infrastructure and energy. Otherwise, what a week this has been! Rising international tensions, heated public disagreement, desperate attempts at diplomatic solutions—and that is just Brooklyn Beckham’s Instagram account. Talking of elites, we have had the amusing spectacle this week of that self-proclaimed friend of the people, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), hoovering up the free food and glugging down the champagne with the global bullshiterati in Davos.
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I thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to exercise my quadriceps on several occasions. Yes, of course I unhesitatingly withdraw that appalling term from the record. All this, I should say, comes from the hon. Member for Clacton after a lifetime spent denouncing Davos as a hub of evil globalist elites where, in his words, there is “no space for the little man”. At least we know that that is not true any more. Oh, the irony of it all, Mr Speaker! A wildly anti-establishment figure and long-time member of the Reform club—no relation—now joining the globalist elites. Can it be long before he aspires to join the Garrick club, or indeed joins the Prime Minister in professing publicly that he prefers Davos to Westminster? Amid all this nonsense, other, very serious changes are under way. Last week, the Government published the results of the latest auction for renewable energy, which set a floor price for renewables of £91 per kilowatt-hour. No one in this House disputes the importance of green energy, or the importance of renewables in the energy mix—[Interruption.] Few sane people dispute the value of green energy, but energy prices are already unfeasibly high for British businesses and, despite the Government’s promises, are set to go higher still, especially once the cost of new nuclear is added in. The effect of the policy will be to punish taxpayers, and of course bill payers, but it is also a form of corporate welfare, because the only benefits will come to the better-off. Meanwhile, the Government have decided to ignore North sea oil and gas, gravely damage the north-east of Scotland, undermine the employment of thousands of skilled workers, in disagreement with their own unions, and import gas from overseas at greater cost, with more carbon and more carbon miles. In its own way, this is a repetition of the private finance initiative scandal of 30 years ago, in which the country paid tens of billions of pounds more than it should have for public infrastructure, and a lot of wealthy people in the City of London—now resident in overseas countries—made out like bandits. In 1919, John Maynard Keynes wrote a little book called “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” about the disastrous effects of the treaty of Versailles and the demands that it made for payment from the other side in the first world war. I am not suggesting for a second that there is any comparison between these times and those, in Weimar Germany and the rest of it, but I will say that we are facing severe economic constraints as a result of energy prices. I therefore ask the Leader of the House whether we can have a debate on the economic consequences of the Energy Secretary.
It is very nice to have you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. I think this a conversation among Labour Members, and I do not want to get in the way of a private dispute. I might just sit down and listen to what the Minister has to say.
I do. I apologise to the Committee; I erroneously thought that we were dealing with amendment 257 in isolation. There is huge interest in this Bill, which will directly affect lots of people. It will affect the employees, of course, as well as Network Rail, the train operating companies, the remaining franchisees and those already in the public sector, freight and open access operators, the mayoral combined authorities, Transport for London, High Speed 1, the huge supply sector, the trade unions and many others—and that is before we even start to consider passengers. This is a generational change in the organisation of the railways, and it is crucial that the Government do not mess it up. One of the key themes that will run through a lot of our conversations over the coming four weeks is accountability, and new clause 38 would address just one small part of that issue by requiring a ministerial statement, once a quarter, on the progress of the setting up of GBR and its becoming fully operational. There is huge public interest in the Bill, which must be successful, so it would be sensible for the Minister to come to the House and make a statement. That would increase transparency, maintain focus and prevent drift. Mrs Hobhouse, can you give me some guidance? Are we going to talk about the clause more widely later, or should I deal with that now?
Thank you. We have this generational change in the organisation of the railways; the Government, with their majority, have taken a political decision to nationalise the sector. We know that nationalisation of the railways has been tried before. They were nationalised in 1950 or 1951—
The hon. Gentleman is quite right. From 1950, we had the high point of post-war passenger numbers on the railways—about 1 billion passengers. From that period of nationalisation, the number of passengers choosing—I use that word advisedly—to use the railways started a long and seemingly unstoppable decline. It went from 1 billion in the early 1950s all the way down to about 735 million in the period of privatisation—1993. It seemed like that was due to the public changing the way in which they chose to live their lives. The Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Nottingham South, suggested from her seat on Second Reading that it was obvious that people did not want to use the train so much, even during a period of increasing population, because they were increasingly affluent and they bought more cars. That is a possible explanation. But then something very odd happened. In 1993, the then Conservative Government legislated to privatise the railways. Now, we can debate—and I am sure we will multiple times over the coming days—whether that was a good or a bad thing in principle and whether the way the privatisation was done, through the Railways Act 1993, and subsequently amended was perfect or whether it could have been improved upon, but if we consider that the primary objective of a railway—leaving freight to one side for a moment—is to carry passengers, the data shows that the privatisation of the railways in the United Kingdom was an unqualified success. The seemingly inevitable decline in passenger numbers changed direction immediately. It was not just a slow bottoming out; that long-term decline immediately turned in the other direction, and then continued to grow until covid meant that all bets were off from 2019. Those numbers did not just grow to recover all the lost work of the previous 40 years—they did not go back up to 1 billion customers; they increased to 1.75 billion. That was a period of increased affluence, when the number of cars available to passengers increased enormously. The only explanation for the absolute reversal in passenger numbers is the decisions taken through privatisation—the profit motive and the incentive to focus on passengers rather than on the organisation.
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I recognise that improvements are needed for the drafting of the board were it to go ahead. He makes reference, however, to the board of GBR and that it will have a number of directors on it. In normal circumstances that would include a number of non-executive directors outside the main organisation. Will the Minister confirm that that is the intention for this board? If it is the case that external non-executive directors are anticipated for that board, could he go down the list in new clause 24(2)(a) to (f) and describe whether those are the kinds of organisations that might be represented in a non-executive capacity on the GBR board?
I enjoyed listening to the Minister read out the explanatory notes; we are all under no illusion as to what clause 2 stands for. The Opposition think it is eminently sensible—in fact, it lifted directly from the structure proposed by the previous Conservative Government for the draft Rail Reform Bill. Government amendment 164 appears to be a clarifying amendment to help with the dotting of i’s and crossing of t’s and we have no objection.
I beg to move amendment 2, in clause 3, page 2, line 15, after “sale” insert— “by promoting a thriving competitive market in the retail ticketing market”. This amendment makes Great British Railways’ duty to promote a competitive retail market explicit and aligns the Bill with the Government’s stated aim of delivering a system where competition drives better outcomes for passengers.