Speeches by Mather.

“I will give way one final time and then I want to make some progress.”

“I agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiment that it is unwise to hypothesise about what potential eventualities could befall GBR in specific instances, as the shadow Minister encourages me to do. What is important—my hon. Friend made an important point around consistency, both in our legislative work and the work of the Go…”

“I will turn in a moment to the specific points that the shadow Minister raises around the chief executive, but I think I share his views on the importance of GBR’s compliance with its fundamental functions and with the law. That is why amendments 15 and 18 are peculiar—they do not recognise GBR needing to be able to ha…”

“The Government have made it clear what the provisions within these clauses are designed to implement. I ask the shadow Minister to look at legislation passed under his own Government that contain direction powers that are remarkably consistent with those found in the Bill, and at the directions provided in other pieces…”

“It is a pleasure to see you back in the Chair, Sir Alec. I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham, for this group of amendments, which are primarily about the direction powers in the Bill. Amendments 11 and 12 would each limit the use of the Secretary of State’s direction power, requiring…”

“The shadow Minister is right to point out that allocation of funding for passenger services, as opposed to other GBR activities, initially takes place through the spending review funding process. I am about to address his point, but I should say that the Bill contains the ability for Ministers to extend the five-year f…”

“In today’s system, the ORR can require Network Rail to pay a fee to cover some of the costs of the ORR’s railway activities; that is done via Network Rail’s licence. The clause will ensure that, in the future system, the ORR will continue to have the independent funding it needs, by allowing it to require a similar fee…”

“I disagree with the shadow Minister’s interpretation of how the duties function in this regard. GBR cannot take a wholly self-interested, cynical interpretation of what constitutes “best use” under clause 60, which we will turn to in due course. GBR has to make a best-use decision that takes into account the needs of o…”

“I thank the shadow Minister for tabling amendments 22 and 23 and the hon. Member for South West Devon for speaking in their support. Amendment 22 seeks to require GBR to set reasonable charges for the delivery of its functions, and amendment 23 seeks to require the ORR to provide an appeals role for anyone who consider…”

“I thank the right hon. Member for Melton and Syston for his contribution. He is right to note that the five-year funding process has a different period from that of the spending review. It is tested in the sense that the funding process for Network Rail works similarly now. As was acknowledged in the oral evidence from…”

“Schedule 2 will establish a new funding process for GBR that takes what we have learned from the successes of the periodic review process and applies them to the new GBR world. The new funding period review will provide GBR with five years of funding to carry out its job in operating and maintaining the railway network…”

“That is a very important point. While the hon. Member points to a system that is simple in the objectives that it sets out for the railway overall, I see one that provides sufficient breadth to allow the organisation to develop over time and offer a system of operation that is closer to the communities it seeks to repr…”

“I respectfully disagree with the shadow Minister’s interpretation. This is about how GBR discharges those legally binding duties, and whether we should be overly prescriptive about the means by which it does so. It is important to have flexibility. Given the amount of technological change that we have seen in railway p…”

“Committees move in mysterious ways—that is all I will say. I will take each amendment in the group in turn, starting with amendment 124, which would require GBR to develop key performance indicators for each of its statutory duties. I am sure the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham will agree that KPIs should be rea…”

“I thank the hon. Member for the amendments, which seek to add requirements to the production of GBR’s business plan and the ORR’s advice on that plan. However, on the subject of the publishing of advice, I briefly return to a question that was put to me by the right hon. Member for Melton and Syston. I feel that I was …”

“The purpose of issuing advice is so that we can enter into an era for the railways where these discussions happen in a way that is far more commonplace than the broken-down patterns of accountability that currently exist. I therefore envisage the sort of adversarial situation that the right hon. Member suggests occurri…”

“No, I am not willing to say that those objectives, in principle, should not be pursued as a result of this legislation. The question is where within the Bill these things reside. If we are talking about short-term objectives relating to GBR’s operational efficiency as an organisation through, say, a key performance ind…”

“To my knowledge, I am not conflating the two amendments. My point is that setting objectives that are so closely tied to discernible and prescriptive standards would, in effect, contravene the original intention of the schedule, which is to provide flexibility in setting objectives over the five-year period. If, in the…”

“I thank the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for West Dorset for their amendments, all of which look to amend the Secretary of State’s statement of objectives. First, amendment 120 would require that the statement of objectives contains standards for GBR to meet when conducting its railway activities. I agree that w…”

“For the record, I said that we shared the aspiration to abolish boom and bust as it exists within the rail system. That applies to our infrastructure as much as it does to any other part of the railway’s operation.”