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

The Commons voted on 19 November 2024 to reject Lords Amendment 2 to the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, by 350 votes to 108. The amendment, passed in the House of Lords, would have required the government and stakeholders to identify and consider relevant passenger performance data when carrying out the franchise transfers the bill provides for. The Commons motion to disagree with the Lords on this point passed comfortably. The vote means the bill proceeds without any requirement to weigh specific performance metrics before transferring train franchises from private operators to public sector companies. As franchises expire or are terminated, the government will be obliged to award contracts to publicly owned operators, regardless of how the incumbent private operator has been performing. Critics of the amendment's removal argued that good and poor performers alike will be brought into public ownership on the same terms, with no mechanism in the bill itself linking the sequencing or conditions of transfers to passenger satisfaction or service data. Labour and Co-operative MPs voted unanimously in favour of rejecting the Lords amendment, joined by the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, and several independents. Conservatives voted unanimously against, joined by Reform UK, the Democratic Unionist Party, and a small number of independents. There were no notable cross-party rebellions. The vote sits within a series of divisions on the same bill, including a rejection of Lords Amendment 1 on the same day by 344 to 172, and earlier committee-stage defeats for similar amendments in September 2024, in which the government also won by large margins.