Speeches by Mayhew.

“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 t…”

“That demonstrates that the current system is working to hold Trainline to account, and that where there are abuses—if what the hon. Gentleman outlined amounted to abuses—effective systems are in position and they have been corrected. The hon. Gentleman’s intervention did not speak to the overriding point: what do the G…”

“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.”

“That is just as well, because I am going to leave those to the Liberal Democrat spokesman, but I will be happy to support new clause 15 should he be minded to press it to a vote.”

“I have great respect for the Minister and I hear with interest what he said, but I am not convinced that the sector will receive sufficient reassurance from that, so I intend to push the amendment to a vote. Perhaps others, subsequently, as well, but we will deal with those later. Question put, That the amendment be ma…”

“I am grateful to the Minister for setting out his defence of the Bill. The problem with his argument is that, because the Government have gone off half-cocked, the Committee is not in a position to assess whether he is right or wrong on the nature of the KPIs, or even on where they should be, because we have not been f…”

“It is a pleasure to see you in your place, Sir Alec. Amendment 241, in my name, is important, as so many of these amendments are. We heard in both oral and written evidence that lots of people are concerned about the need for this amendment, which addresses the concerns of many in the non-Great British Railways sector,…”

“I beg to move amendment 241, in clause 3, page 2, line 17, after “including,” insert “acting in a fair and non-discriminatory manner”. This amendment would require equal treatment between GBR and non-GBR services.”

“To clarify, that figure is about not just the private sector, but rail services in Scotland and Wales not being part of GBR. It is the non-GBR parts of the greater rail world: about 60% are nothing to do with GBR.”

“My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. One of the stand-out moments from Tuesday’s oral evidence was that given by the mayors, Andy Burnham and Tracy Brabin. What it highlighted, apart from their articulate defence of their regions’ interests, was how different things will be, under the current proposals, in ma…”

“It is always a pleasure to hear the Minister explain the Government’s positions, but I remain unconvinced in relation to amendment 241, which I believe is the only one that can be put to a Division at this stage. I would like to press it to a vote. Question put, That the amendment be made.”

“I am very supportive of the intent behind this new clause. Where the Government have taken the political decision to put all their eggs in the nationalisation basket, it becomes even more important that we add as many clauses to the Bill as possible to force them to focus on the passenger experience. Nationalisation ha…”

“Shadow Minister.”

“The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is right partially to defend Network Rail. It is an issue of balance and of the culture going forward. He also talked about capacity—this is not a party political point—but that is determined by not just the number of trains, but the length of trains, which makes an enormous di…”

“The official Opposition, strongly support this amendment because it seeks to increase passenger traffic on the railways, in addition to the welcomed inclusion of an objective to increase freight. We agree with it so strongly because it is almost identical to our amendment 35, which I shall also speak to. Amendment 35 w…”

“Does anyone else on the panel disagree with that assertion? Michael Roberts indicated dissent.”

“Q It is a very good podcast; I listen to it a lot. Thank you very much for giving oral evidence. I now realise how you get a CBE in this country—you just have to be involved in the railways and they come along. You are certainly the third—probably the fourth—that we have had before us today. I am going to focus on a co…”

“Q And your combined evidence—again, I am putting words into your mouth, but correct me—is that the Bill as drafted not only does not solve that problem of 30% of increased costs, of the £40 billion every five years, but actually exacerbates it, because it removes what little certainty there currently is. Rob Morris: Yo…”

“Q What if the Government refuse to carve it off, as has been done in other international examples? The Bill does not require a level playing field. Would you support improving the Bill by expressly stating that GBR must provide a level playing field on data and access for all retailers? Ben Plowden: We would. In partic…”

“Q What sort of sums of money are we talking about in the control period? Rob Morris: The overall figure is normally about £40 billion, in terms of renewals and operations maintenance.”