Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 2

Parliament voted on 19 November 2024 to reject Lords Amendment 2 to the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, with 350 MPs voting in favour of disagreeing with the amendment and 108 voting against. The result means the government's original version of the clause in question is restored, removing a change the House of Lords had inserted. The Bill is designed to bring passenger rail services back into public ownership by ending the franchising system under which private companies operate train services.

The vote has direct practical consequences for the pace and scope of rail nationalisation. The Lords amendment would have modified the government's approach, and by rejecting it, MPs have reinforced the government's intention to proceed with public ownership on its own terms, without additional constraints or conditions imposed by the upper chamber. The Bill affects passengers, rail workers, and private train operating companies across England, and its passage represents one of the most significant changes to rail policy since privatisation in the 1990s.

The division followed clear party lines. All 330 Labour and Labour and Co-operative MPs who voted backed the government, as did the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, and the Social Democratic and Labour Party. All 94 Conservative MPs who voted opposed the government, joined by Reform UK, the Democratic Unionist Party, and most of the independents who voted. There were no notable rebels on either side. This vote followed an earlier division on the same day rejecting Lords Amendment 1, which passed with a somewhat wider margin of dissent at 344 to 172, suggesting Amendment 2 attracted less cross-party support than Amendment 1 had done.