Labour’s Railways Bill trundled back into the Lords this week, and peers spent the best part of five hours picking at the numerous holes in the Government’s plan to hand Great British Railways (GBR) control of the track, the trains, and the timetable. Running late as usual…GBR will decide who gets access to the network while also running its own trains on it. Guido hears rumblings of a serious conflict of interest…
That means GBR will rule on whether its direct competitors – like Open Access operators – will be allowed to bid successfully to run on its lines. The return of British Rail…
The Office for Rail and Road, which currently manages bids, will be reduced to an appeal body that can only receive appeals based on process. Toothless…
The concession system that has allowed the Elizabeth Line to continue in private ownership will be banned under the Bill. Bad news for fans of efficient services…
The Tories made amendments to the Bill in the Commons which were all rejected. A fight is inbound in the Lords…
Former Transport Secretary Lord Harper reminded ministers that on a capacity-constrained network, deciding who gets access is “incredibly important”, with Lord Grayling adding that the Bill now leaves the door open to GBR dominating this access, with “the big guys squeezing out the smaller operators”. The opposite of what ministers said they cared about achieving…Nationalisation creates one big employer, which hands the rail unions the power to call a national rail strike and squeeze ever-bigger pay rises out of the taxpayer. ASLEF already wants drivers’ pay levelled up across operators, and the RMT wants a 32-hour, four-day week. Take a guess who’s paying…
Pressed on whether operators would stay as separate employers, Rail Minister Lord Hendy offered: “I am not saying anything about the future”. Labour is about to unleash hell on rail commuters…
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was asked if Burnham will take Britain back into the EU:
“Yes, sure – his commitment is authentic. He really does understand from the grassroots up why restoring what I think of as normality in our continent is vital for every party economically, politically, culturally, in terms of security, and he’s able to articulate it in language that people can understand. So yeah, he is definitely”.