Speeches by Smith.

“I will briefly make a few comments about each of the new clauses, though obviously I have already intervened on my hon. Friend. I support wholeheartedly what we have proposed in new clause 1, which is no surprise given that I am sitting next to my hon. Friend the shadow Minister. I want to pick up on what he said about…”

“I will touch briefly on two points that are not necessarily related, but overlap. First, let me build on what my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham said about the word “may” in clause 5(1). Anyone who was at the oral evidence session earlier this week would have heard the Manchester and west midlands may…”

“The point I want to come back to is about value for money for the taxpayer. I want some reassurance that GBR will not go right back to the beginning of the journey of creating a ticketing app and website, which would effectively cost the general public an inordinate amount of money, when we already have a lot of platfo…”

“The hon. Member is making a very powerful speech for an area of the country that is still two tier. However, having been a representative in a unitary council and lived in one for a number of years, it is worth putting on the record that being part of a unitary authority does not mean that potholes or SEND provision ar…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) for securing this debate. I have made no secret of my views, unlike some Members who have kept their views to themselves on the outcome they would like. That is because I have a deep convic…”

“Or at least make them jointly. Is that what you are after—that joint decision making? Andy Burnham: Yes, I think that would be what we would want. The risk would be that GBR is too remote and not responsive—everything that Lloyd was saying about slow decision making. That is not what we would want. From our point of vi…”

“Q Can I just come back to you on that? One of the other things that came out when we had the Rail Minister in front of us was the devolution aspect, and my understanding is that each of these individual railway lines will still be run as an individual line. It will be like we have it now; they are just going to be publ…”

“Q Will you get that with GBR, though? It is great that those relationships exist across the network and the region, but the point in the Bill is specifically that you will be consulted by GBR, but you will not necessarily get to make the decision. You are saying you would like to make the decisions, or at least— Andy B…”

“Q As I understand it, one of the ways that a lot of it will be delivered—the detail of what GBR has to provide—is through the licence. Do you think it is a problem that the Committee has not had sight of the draft GBR licence yet, setting out what we expect accessibility to look like in the Bill versus the reality of w…”

“Q One of the things that has been touched on in that conversation, particularly around universal design and the Bill’s aims to improve accessibility, is that we already have huge discrepancies around the country on each individual line. It is worth asking, for the record, whether you agree that there will be a signific…”

“It is more the fact that there are not going to be any more in certain parts of the country for this Parliament. Andy Burnham: For us, though, we are moving to a situation where Cheshire and Warrington are going to have a mayor soon, and I believe Lancashire will too—hopefully, Sarah. That would mean an all-devolved no…”

“Q But the responsibility for the delivery of services will be theirs. Going back to my original question about how we hold it to account, are you effectively saying that when it comes down to the individual railway lines and the services, we as MPs will be going to that chief exec and then having to figure out how we e…”

“Q I was going to ask more about devolution. I will just make the point that I was going to make, and then I will ask you a very quick question. The application of the term “devolution and local leadership” to this Bill is quite distracting, because ultimately, unless you are a mayoral combined authority, you do not get…”

“Q I want to go back to the accountability piece. You said to the Minister that there are adequate checks and balances in the system. I have spent quite a lot of time looking at this on the Transport Committee, and the closest thing I can relate GBR to is the NHS. It is not necessarily run by the Department of Health an…”

“Plymouth Culture has launched its bid for Plymouth to be the city of culture 2029, and I wonder if the Secretary of State realises that there has never been a southern city of culture, let alone a south-western city of culture. Does she agree that the city of culture 2029 would be the perfect opportunity to rectify thi…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. Horse and rider safety is a matter of real importance to urban fringe communities like mine, and many of my constituents, both urban and rural dwellers, asked me to attend today. Whether it is the Dartmoor pony on Devon’s coat of arms, Wembury bay riding schoo…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I thank my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) for securing this important debate. I want to briefly link the lessons of Ajax to wider concerns in MOD procurement. My hon. Friend has frequently mentioned the Boxer; having met …”

“Straight after questions, I have a meeting with the managing director of Stagecoach in my region. I have worked closely with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and Tavistock (Sir Geoffrey Cox) to mitigate the impact of increased prices for young people travelling to school from villages like Horra…”

“We know the Bill will strip the ORR of the ability to grant access rights to the network, and instead allow GBR to make those decisions. With that, is there a danger that GBR will effectively just cherry-pick the best bits? What will you do to make sure that the lines that might currently be offered to open access do n…”

“I suppose the specific question is around what is currently offered through open access. It makes sense that the existing network would not necessarily be changed, but, on those routes that could now be offered under the current open access system, how would GBR ensure that that competition and opportunity still exists…”