Welcome to our second panel. Will each of the panel introduce themselves?

I am Steve Montgomery, managing director of FirstGroup’s rail division.

I am Maggie Simpson, director general of the Rail Freight group.

I am Nick Brooks, the secretary general of AllRail, the international association of independent passenger rail companies.

To each of you, what is your reaction to the general focus of the Bill, and particularly the functions and duties of GBR set out in it?

We think it is light on detail with which to understand how it will affect all operators. As FirstGroup, we supported the Bill when it was first set out to bring GBR into being. We looked for a body that was able to set a strategy for the industry going forward. Going by what we see so far in the Bill, we require more detail and understanding, particularly where we operate open-access services, which are clearly a fundamental part of the long-term future as nationalisation comes into play. Again, it is the Government’s policy, and we are not against that policy. We have to accept it, but what happens to the other services that we provide to the industry? We hoped it was a great opportunity to bring the public and private sector together. We are still concerned about the role of the private sector and what it can bring with the Bill, but again we would need to see more detail.

In today’s world, Network Rail is the independent provider of the track that my members—the freight train operators and their customers—run their trains on. In the future, the track will be provided by Great British Railways, which has a vested interest in 75% of the passenger trains. Our members have therefore been concerned from the very beginning that that reintegration, as desirable as it may well be for passenger railway, risks lacking impartiality in the way that other operators are treated. We have pressed hard to have a framework of duties and structure for GBR that helps to offset that. We are pleased with some of the clauses in the early parts of the Bill, particularly the duties to promote the network for freight, to be impartial, to look at things in the public interest—so to look not just at the passenger fare box but at the wider environmental and economic factors—and the clause that requires the Secretary of State to set a target to increase rail freight. We welcome those measures; they are powerful and go some way to offsetting some of our concern about the impartiality. The question is: are they enough to overcome some of the worries that we have about other parts of the Bill, which we will no doubt get on to?

As an association—we are active internationally—we look for passenger rail growth. That comes, to a large extent, through happy passengers. Our members are active across the world—in Europe, the United States and Australia—doing open access and competitively tendered contract concessions. Rail reform happens in quite a few countries, not just this on; it happens quite regularly all over. The reform in this country, the Railways Bill, is a once-in-a-generation chance at reform. It will introduce a guiding mind of the type we have in other countries, built around GBR; but as far as I can tell, most key decisions on strategy, capacity, access, fares and ticketing—what you were talking about with the previous panel—are flowing through GBR and the Secretary of State. My concern is that, when things go wrong, GBR personnel may say, “We were following the Ministers’ instructions,” while the Ministers say, “Well, operations are GBR’s responsibility.” Passengers—happy passengers—would be left in the middle because no one is clearly accountable. The question that we, as AllRail, have is: although a new framework is very welcome, will it make life for passengers, and for you, easier or harder? Will growth be delivered? Will there be better affordability? Lower fares are key to attract people to the train. For example, just this month, we have some members in the south of France that have managed to reduce the fares by 18%—not just freeze the fares, but bring them down. That has resulted in a 48% growth in passengers over the last half year. We need affordability also for the taxpayer—those of you who are providing the subsidy. Is there a clear single point of accountability for both passengers and yourselves who represent the taxpayer? Our view is that, with a handful of targeted changes to this Bill, it can support the growth railway that we all want.

Cheaper fares but more opportunity to travel—I think that is what we all want.

What is your view on the ORR’s downgraded power merely to “advise” the Secretary of State on GBR’s performance, rather than having actual powers of enforcement?

I am quite worried about this. I am quite sure that the ORR will do a very good job of that monitoring role. We have seen them do that on the highways. I am not, for one moment, casting aspersions about their ability to do that adequately, but you have to ask the question, “Why don’t you just appoint a consultant?” If you want to go out and monitor and report back, what is the add-on here? Obviously, there is an expertise add-on, but if the Secretary of State turns round and says, “I hear you, but I’m still not doing it,” what happens then? For GBR’s own trains, there will be huge political accountability for the Secretary of State, and so there should be—that is how it works—but for freight trains, that political accountability will not be there. For example, if GBR decides to downgrade or not maintain the bridges so that we cannot run the heavy trains, and the ORR monitors that and goes to the Secretary of State to say, “The bridges are all being downgraded,” why is the Secretary of State then going to act? In a cash-constrained world, GBR will say it costs a lot of money. We are really worried that that loss of independence to act will significantly impact on those people whose farebox is not going back into GBR.

Following on from that, the independence element of it—marking your own homework—is a big concern for us. How do we ensure that we do not see a perverse behaviour where GBR looks after its own operations to the detriment of others? Again, I am not saying that anybody would do that, but if there were behaviours like that, does the ORR get any power to stop it? As Maggie said, does it just mean that it gets put up to the Secretary of State, who says, “I believe they are acting in a reasonable way”? How do we get confidence that we will not be treated unfairly, as operators that are not part of the GBR operation?

I can only echo that. With GBR writing the rules, controlling capacity and being linked to the main operator in the country, there is a structural conflict of interest, unless there is a clear duty of fairness and non-discrimination. I do not know of other European countries that do not have a strong independent rail regulator, across the EU and beyond. To be the judge and the jury at the same time is somewhat worrying.

I would respectfully suggest that you can glean nothing. Obviously, there are lots of associated documents: the consultation response, fact sheets, and things that Ministers have said in the House, and so on. They are all helpful, but if it is not in the Bill, it is not in the Bill, right? I have reminded the Rail Minister of this quite a lot of times: he will not be there forever, so even if I believe what he tells me, it will be somebody else at some future point. This legislation will outlive all of us, hopefully, so we have to make sure that the Bill itself is powerful. I certainly think it would be reasonable for the Bill Committee to expect to see more about the licence and the access and use policies than they are currently able to see.

How can you make decisions when you do not know what the full licence is? How can everybody understand the full Bill and how it will fold out? There are all these bits missing at this moment in time. I believe that more work is required to bring it in so that the Bill Committee, and we as the industry, can have a greater understanding. At the moment, it is very, very light, and it is difficult to fully appreciate what will happen.

To lead from your further question: with the very broad powers for the Secretary of State and a certain lack of specificity on what will happen, what we are looking for is more key performance indicators, like in business. I realise it is a governmental entity, but the quantitative KPIs are not really there. An example of what they could be is: to what extent will fares go down? To what extent will there be passenger growth? There are targets for freight growth, but not for passenger growth or modal shift. How many cancellations will there be? What will the punctuality be? Other countries have that. What will the crowding be? There is also seat utilisation. For example, we know that Switzerland’s seat utilisation is 28%—that is well under their targets—but I am not seeing anything specific here. Last but not least, the subsidy per passenger mile—how many miles will be provided and what the average subsidy will be—is also crucial to see whether or not it is an efficient service.

There are lots of people at Network Rail and DfT working at pace on lots of aspects of this. To give them fair credit, they are being relatively consultative in lots of places, particularly on access and use policy. However, we are still a very long way from having policies, plans and licences that are finished and fit for purpose. There is so much yet to do. That makes me quite nervous because you are being expected to sign off legislation without seeing the next layer down.

From the ORR’s evidence, I do not believe they have those powers. It goes back to the point of who is actually going to be able to hold GBR to account. If it is almost managed internally, it is very difficult to see how you get that independence or that challenge into it. At the moment, the industry has many flaws, as we know, but at least there is an area of challenge coming from various angles. Going back to the overall power that is left with the Secretary of State, is that really going to be an area that we believe will focus and challenge what is ultimately a Government Department?

One of the things that gives a bit of optimism to those of us who are not necessarily completely overwhelmed—either in general or by this Bill—is the provision for a long-term rail strategy and for GBR to produce a five-year business plan, which will presumably relate to that long-term rail strategy in some way. That provides some clarity and transparency on the industry’s direction of travel. Do you have some optimism about that? Is that potentially a good thing coming out of this Bill?

I think it would be a good thing to come out of the Bill, as long as the right people have input and there is a wider consultation on the five-year strategy. If the strategy is set without wider consultation with the rest of the industry, that would be a concern to us. We all accept that setting some certainty for the industry is not a bad thing, but it has to give everybody the opportunity and ability to feed into it to try to change and shape it in the right way.

I think it is a good thing. We will come on to some of the clauses about capacity allocation, which refer to best value or the public interest. We need some definition of what the Government believe best interest, public value and so on are, and the strategy will help to inform that. We have to be realistic about political processes: a long-term strategy never survives a change of Government, because that is not how these things work, but they can inform. We have seen a relatively coherent continuation of railway policies over the last change, so I think it can only be helpful in that sense.

Nick, do you have any other thoughts?

I realise that according to clause 71, I believe, the Secretary of State will have the ability to alter existing access agreements and rights for 15 years. That is a bit troublesome for private investment. I think everyone here probably agrees that private investment in the supply chain is a good thing, because the taxpayer cannot fund everything. We see that not just in the UK, with the current fiscal situation, but elsewhere around the world—fiscal problems do not solely affect the United Kingdom. You need private investment. Private investors or privately owned companies—whether supply chain, operators or ticket vendors, which were being talked about earlier—need certainty, so that long-term investment is not discouraged. We need more certainty in terms of the clause 71 powers.

There are various things in the Bill about creating a new network access regime. I am sure that many people would not necessarily be overwhelmed with despair at changing the current arrangements to track access contracts and so on, but do you feel the provisions in the Bill for non-GBR operators are fair and appropriate?

As it stands, no. We have no confidence in that because, again, the access and use policy has not been written yet—discussions are starting. Given the inability to understand that, how do you get private investment into the industry when people do not know what part they may or may not play in the future? That will stop decision making. We set up GBR to try to drive the industry forward, set strategy and give people certainty about the future. As it stands, FirstGroup is an open-access operator, and it has no certainty on that. As we have all stated previously, the fact that we are unable to turn round and say that we will retain contracts that we currently operate, or that there may be new contracts in the future, is very difficult. It is difficult to see that we are playing on a level playing field with the rest of the DfTO operations. It is quite difficult at the moment to say that the policies, as they are written, are going to be helpful to any of us.

I agree. For a start, I think there are two different capacity allocation processes in the Bill. One is clause 60, on the infrastructure capacity plan—that is how we have been told it will all work—and then there is clause 63, which gives GBR the right, as discussed on the previous panel, to enforce its own services on the network, regardless of its duties. I cannot get a clear sense of how those two clauses work together. Secondly, we—and my members, too—are in a lot of meetings, discussions and consultations on infrastructure capacity plans. Of course, it sounds lovely to say, “We will award capacity according to best value.” Who would not want that? Our members will have more capacity for growth, and it will all be amazing. But when you start to drive down into the practical process of allocating capacity, it is very difficult. For example, we are asking questions on how different ports will know they have been treated consistently. We do not know how many infrastructure capacity plans there will be—there could be one, 30 or 200—or how they will be opened or reopened, but we do know that, when they are reopened, any train that is running could be removed if it is no longer judged to be best value. We are therefore concerned that somebody might reopen a plan somewhere in the middle of England and judge our freight train not to be best value, even though everyone else loves it. It is incredibly complex. If the notion were simpler and better—we are worried that we are going into something, and it is very difficult to see how we will get from it the contractual certainty we need to make those investments. That is not to say that there isn’t somebody who will come up with the answer, but we certainly have not seen it yet.

When it comes to long-distance rail, one of the frictions in this country is that you have concessions and open access on the same tracks, essentially between the same stations, which is different from a lot of other European countries. For example, in France, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Germany, long-distance services are done entirely by open access. It is different in this country. I think we would look for clarification, regarding clause 63, that GBR cannot reserve capacity for hypothetical future GBR long-distance services at the expense of privately funded open-access proposals or existing services that provide immediate benefits—and extra infrastructure income, of course, because open-access operators are paying track access fees too. For that, I think you need to prioritise funded open access over speculative GBR services “someday in the future.”

Could I ask a quick supplementary—it probably sounds niche, but I think you will all appreciate its importance—about a fairly specific aspect of the current network access charging regime? That is EC4T—a terrible acronym, even by railway standards—which stands for electricity charges for traction, I think. I am not an expert on this, but I have heard people say that it is not necessarily working as it should at the moment, and has perhaps sometimes been a barrier to the uptake of electric traction. I have not seen anything in the Bill about that aspect of the charging regime, but do you have any particular concerns about EC4T? Would you look to this Bill to improve that aspect of things?

Like a lot of other things, there is not a lot of detail. On the charges point, there are some clauses or parts of the Bill that we are okay with, and some parts that we do not like at all. The bit that we do like widens the ability of GBR to offer a discount. In existing legislation, the ability to offer a discount is very tightly worded—it is very narrow. Network Rail offers some discounts, but it is quite constrained. We welcome that being widened. It will be no surprise that one of the things we are talking about, as a potential candidate, is to encourage more electric traction use in freight. That is not EC4T, but it would probably enable the same thing.

You have teased something out there. It does enable a discount, but it also enables GBR to charge more if they think that an operator can pay. Does that get to the heart of needing to make sure there is good policing of those powers, to make sure they are not abused?

Yes. In today’s law—I am going to get very techy for a minute, so forgive me—Network Rail can charge more, but the test is, “Can the market bear it?” When that is assessed, we look at, “If you charge a shipping company a lot more money to move by train, what would they do?” They would go back to road. Therefore, the market cannot bear it, so it does not get levied. Whereas, in iron ore or biomass, for example, it is judged that the market can bear it, and it does get levied. The way it has been written in the new law is a much broader test. That will make it much harder for us to segregate between different markets and say, “That charge isn’t justified,” so that is one of the clauses we are worried about.

For passenger operations in particular, with the mechanism of charging, if GBR decide to increase the charges via Network Rail, it becomes a bit of a money merry-go-round between the DfTO operations and Network Rail. But if you are sitting independent of that and you have to bear those charges as well, what control do you have over that, and what is your ability to try to influence that? Again, GBR says, “Well, that is the market price now,” but who sets that rule? We are left to pick that up, potentially, which could put businesses under pressure. For new applications for open access, again, how do you set that? How do you try to price it? We talked earlier about discounts. The way the system currently works for an open-access operation is that they are discounted on their track charges for the first two or three years, and then they start to step up into the charges. Again, that is because of the level of investment that has to be put in at the beginning, and it gives the operation a chance to succeed. There are all these different things that we need to look to retain for the future if we are going to bring in, as in this case, further passenger services. Freight is slightly different, but how do we bring on passenger services?

Thank you. Go on, Nick.

I was just going to say something about privately owned investors and privately owned operators, specifically privately owned investors that want to invest in our sector rather than in other sectors—aviation, the road sector, or even completely different sectors. There is a certain risk. There is a commercial risk, of course, and ultimately they are looking for lower fixed costs and higher variable costs. The worry with GBR is this: who determines what the market can bear? Is GBR an independent entity, or not? I think the Bill says it should be GBR itself that determines that, if I am not mistaken. It is a little bit like another conflict, or potential problem, with track access fees. Who decides the size of the track access fees? If you are a privately owned operator, is it your competitor—GBR—that decides your track access fees? That is a potential cause of worry.

That is very clearly put—thank you. Can I just go back to the point made earlier about long-term certainty and concerns that have been raised about the impact of short-termist political meddling or chopping and changing of policies, particularly between different Governments? It has been said that the protections against those things are not in the Bill. How could the Bill be improved to mitigate against such things?

One thing discussed on the previous panel was the ORR’s appeal function and the role that the ORR plays in access. Today, for example, when the track access contract—the legal document that lets companies on the network—of one of our members expires, there will be a presumption that the contractual rights for trains that are running will be carried forward into the new contract, and the ORR has that. Under the new infrastructure capacity plan, that is all thrown up in the air and those trains might not get that continuation. Then, we are down to appealing to the ORR, with that weakened role that John and Stephanie spoke about. One of the issues with long-term certainty is how those access contracts are played out and how those committed rights play out through that new infrastructure capacity plan process.

Something you touched on earlier with the previous panel is that some other countries provide long-term investment in the rail sector so that it is independent of a change of Government, which of course occurs in many other places. Those countries do it specifically for the infrastructure—not so much for the operator—so that there is planning for building bridges and tunnels and other such infrastructure over a longer period of time. Having such a long-term strategy for the infrastructure and how it will be paid for, separating it from the operator, is what other countries do, such as Austria or Switzerland. That would be desirable.

You have been answering questions that we have not yet asked, so we are just trying to keep track. Olly, do you want to ask something?

No, I’m happy, Chair, but I believe my colleague Rebecca is keen to ask something at this point.

Have your questions been asked, Rebecca?

Again, I think it is really important. We come back to the fact that GBR will be a monopoly, so how do FirstGroup or other private sector operators get the comfort that they are playing on a level playing field? We want to continue to invest in the industry. We have invested; we have ordered new trains in orders of £500 million, which has helped keep Hitachi Newton Aycliffe in particular and the economic impact that we have in areas, allowing growth. How do you continue to invest when GBR is saying, “We will maybe allow it and maybe not”? At the moment, at least when I go to the ORR, they are meant to look at that without any pressure from—I will rephrase that slightly; they are meant to look at it independently. They have got criteria laid out that will look at whether it will be revenue forgone for the industry and whether we create new revenue. Lumo is a classic example of where statements have been made that we have taken revenue from LNER. Clearly, we can demonstrate that passenger growth is up 30% on the east coast main line. It has grown for all operators; Lumo is obviously new, but LNER has also grown, as have Grand Central and other operators. It is really important that we have somebody who can look at that wider aspect, rather than saying, “Well, that’s all our revenue, and that will all come to us.” Competition is not a bad thing. Lumo was set up to be in competition with airlines. We changed the whole landscape of people flying between Edinburgh and London and London and Edinburgh, and we took a market share that brought us above what it used to be. Airline used to be more dominant; now rail is more dominant, and 95% cleaner than airlines. There are all these different things. That is why we need somebody looking at all those different things, rather than somebody saying, “That’s our railway”.

Absolutely. When it comes to private investment, we made the point earlier—I think Nick made the point—that we pay track access charges to what will be GBR. That gives greater income to the industry and keeps the infrastructure maintained, so we are something on top of what is already there, rather than an insular money-go-round. We are bringing money from the private sector into the industry, which must be seen as a good thing. The Secretary of State has got to try to give some support to that.

Stepping back a little bit, rather than backwards or up—zooming out a little bit—I am conscious that there are various things where we just do not know the detail. That has affected a number of the topics we have discussed this morning, but I am interested in each of your general assessments of the Bill as it is, from the point of view of how it impacts your businesses and sectors. Building on what Rebecca asked, but more broadly, do you think changes are needed to what we now have in front of us in order to ensure the right balance between a cohesive rail network and the free access rights of non-GBR operators? How do you see it at the moment? What is the talk of the town inside the businesses in the sector you are representing?

To make value for money for taxpayers and passengers, to improve scrutiny, and to tighten the transition powers so that they continue to support private investment and do not undermine it. That is a good thing. We have talked already about the duty of fairness and non-discrimination in terms of access to capacity, and about KPIs. At the moment, the KPIs are not very specific. There should be a passenger growth duty similar to the freight growth duty, and we should keep the door open for competitively tendered concessions, which is something I do not think we have talked about already today. We see the benefits of them from elsewhere in terms of saving taxpayer money and bringing fares down, so why can they not continue in this country?

That is very helpful. Thank you.

Nationalising the passenger railways and creating GBR is a long-established policy. It is not my place to comment on that, but if I go out and talk to my members—these are global investors, such as people investing in ports and quarries around the world—they want to use more rail freight because it is good for the environment and their business. They want to be in the UK and investing. Those investors are looking at this and going, “Can you tell me that in 10 years’ time I will be able to run the trains I want to from my port or quarry?” I will go, “Well, that will depend on the playout of clauses 61 and 63, the very weakened appeal role for the regulator, whether clause 71 has any teeth, and clause 72, which gives the Secretary of State power by regulation to tell you what you can do in your own terminals.” They will then say, “You know what, Dubai’s looking great—less hassle and more sun. See you.” I am paraphrasing, but there is not enough in here for those international investors to say, “I am confident.” When we talk to the players—Network Rail and DfT—they want to see rail freight thrive; I don’t get a sense that they don’t. We see that at the beginning of the Bill, but the back of the Bill—the part on access—is undeliverable as it is at the moment for those key industry bodies.

Thank you for your candour. Can I ask the same question to you, Steve?

I will be quick. This is a huge opportunity for rail to shine in the UK, but it has to shine for the customer—the fare-paying customer and the freight customer. That means having certainty, understanding, opportunity, growth and alternatives, rather than it just being a case of saying: “It's always going to be that way.” We have seen with the open-access operators that their customer service scores are way above the national operators. We can bring different things to it and give people choice as well. That is the other thing: “Do I want to go by air? Do I want to go by road? Do I want to go by train?” This Bill should encompass all of that, but at the moment it is too narrow and, in my view, too monopolistic.

That point about modal shift, both for passengers and freight, is important.

Nick, can I go back to what you said before about this hypothetical GBR service being blocked by a real-life open-access service? You said that you would like to see policy to address that. Where would you like to see that policy? Would it be in the Bill or in guidance—and from whom?

I think via some amendment of clause 63.

That is all on that, thank you. We have somewhat covered this already—particularly with Maggie—but given the parameters placed on the ORR as an appeals body for access decisions, will it be equipped to act in the best interests of the rail network as a whole?

I have already started, so I will carry on. There are a number of problems with that appeal function. First, it will be incredibly hard to ever get to it. We are told that the appeal will have to meet the standards of a judicial review—illegality, irrationality or procedural unfairness—so there will be a very high bar to meet to even get there. On top of that, the law allows the Secretary of State by regulation to set out some steps you would have to take in advance of going to the ORR. We do not know what those are. There is also a fee, and we do not know what that is. Even getting to the ORR will be very much more difficult than it is today. If we do get up there, in most cases, the ORR will be able to ask GBR to have another look at its decision. It has another look, and it reaches the same view—so what? Only in a minority of cases can it quash a decision and only if there was an error of law. We are trying to get clarification of what an “error of law” means in the context of those access policies and the access and use document, but also when there was only one other decision that GBR could have reached. I am confident that the ORR will try to set up an appeal function within those parameters to their best effect, but the parameters it is being given—and our ability to get there in the first place—are very limited. Passengers are going to get a very powerful watchdog when, conversely, we feel that in freight, we are having those rights of access watered down.

Considering other large public sector organisations—like GBR is going to be—you have to ask, “Why would you not have an independent regulator of it?” Why is rail going to be different from other large public sector organisations where there are regulators looking at them?

A strong independent rail regulator has two roles. The ORR, by the way, is part of the European group of independent rail regulators called IRG. Ideally, those roles are to protect passengers and other parts of the sector from monopolistic behaviour, and to ensure the best use of taxpayer money. Their role is also, in other countries, to ensure competition and non-discriminatory behaviour. We are worried that that might be watered down in this country and needs to be improved still.

You just touched on the passenger watchdog. Do you have any views on that? What do you think needs to change?

The passenger watchdog is obviously very important. It has to have the ability to help protect the true customer out there. The fact that it has powers within the Bill is not a bad thing—that will help—but again, will it have overall authority? Can it be changed by the Secretary of State in the way that the Bill is written at the moment? How do we give some clear accountability that customers can rely on, that somebody will be there looking after them? Back to this large monopoly, who sets out what the KPIs are for the industry, and how does the customer get protected through that?

I can only support what Steve says. Ultimately, the passenger is king and queen. Without the passenger, a huge amount of revenue is lost for the rail sector and goes elsewhere to less sustainable modes of transport such as road or aviation. That is what we do not want, so the passengers have to be looked after.

Maggie, in your evidence, you have highlighted some of the conflicts that exist. Yes, on the face of the Bill, there is a desire to increase rail freight, but as you have noted, GBR is the operator of passenger services, which are in competition for access to the network. What amendments do you feel would provide the protection for rail freight that you are looking for?

I certainly think that clause 68—the appeal function—needs rethinking. I think we need more clarity, and then almost certainly amendments, on the way that clauses 61 and 62 play out in that capacity duty versus the infrastructure capacity plan. It is really essential that we start to see those access and use policy documents coming through quickly so that we can understand more of that. Clauses 71 and 72, which give some pretty substantial superpowers to future Secretaries of State to intervene—particularly in clause 72, in my case, in off-network facilities—probably need some changes as well. There are others, but those are the main ones.

Thank you very much for your comprehensive answers. You have described very well your concerns about access and the consequences of that. Are there any other aspects of the Bill that you think we should focus our scrutiny on in this inquiry, or any specific changes you would like to see made to the Bill on issues we have not covered today?

I do not think I have anything, but I can write in if I missed anything. I think we have covered the main topics. One of the key areas will be the access and use policy, which is not seen in the Bill at the moment. When are we going to see something that is robust, which we can then debate and have the Bill Committee look at to see whether it is fair and transparent?

I would agree about the access and use policy and the licence. There is an overarching piece about all the powers that sit with the Secretary of State and with GBR to do things to each other at different points in the future. There is a huge amount of that, and an overarching review of whether that is balanced and appropriate would be sensible.

On the topic of ticketing, we talked about passengers and how they should have transparency on all rail options. As taxpayers, passengers are indirectly subsidising a lot of the system, so they should ideally be able to see and book whatever rail options are there. If GBR is, on the one hand, to be the ticket vendor, but also dealing with other third-party ticket vendors, you can see there is another conflict of interest there. When people open a rail app or website, they should not have to wonder, “Is there another cheaper or faster train, or am I really getting everything here in one place?” Is it a so-called one-stop shop? Clarity is needed on that. Finally, on devolution, we have seen some very good examples with TfL and in Merseyside. There are plenty of guiding minds for passenger rail across the EU continent. I live in Cologne, in Germany, and we have a regional body there similar to TfL. Cologne is the fourth biggest city in Germany. I think that the Government are saying that mayors should lead on integrated transport, but perhaps clause 81 needs to be strengthened so that the mayor or mayoress can get full statutory and financial control of rail in that region.

Thank you very much for your evidence today. We appreciate the time you have taken to speak and to prepare as well. The evidence we have heard this morning from both our panels has been really helpful. If there is anything you did not get a chance to cover, please write to us. We will reflect on the evidence we have heard from both panels today, and we look forward to our next session on the Railways Bill in a couple of weeks’ time. That concludes today’s meeting.