Speeches by Smith.

“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 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 …”

“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…”

“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…”

“Will money be allocated by GBR to them? What has happened in Cornwall is great, but its neighbour Devon does not have a mayor and is not likely to have one any time soon. Is it therefore going to get less money for developing local services than Cornwall, just as an illustration?”

“So you are aiming to carry that on? Because none of that is being done under the current system. We are looking at what is going to happen—”

“That links helpfully to my last point on this, because I am conscious of time. Given that, how would GBR be expected to manage its capacity duty in conjunction with its other duties, such as the use of rail freight, on the already congested railway you have just described?”

“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…”

“Yes, sorry; my question was specifically on clause 63.”

“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…”

“So freight will still be prioritised?”

“Will it essentially be a rebadging of the National Rail app? There is already a website where you can buy tickets at a national level through the National Rail app.”

“But the National Rail website allows you to buy tickets, doesn’t it? I do not use it, because I do not find it very helpful.”

“Can you set out the expected development, operating and ongoing upgrade costs of the GBR retail app and website, which you are suggesting are going to happen and which are set out in the Bill? How will the Department demonstrate that this represents good value for money for taxpayers, particularly given that high-quali…”

“Very quickly, do you think that there needs to be a more level playing field between GBR and third-party retailers on the face of the Bill?”

“We have talked a lot about mayoral strategic authorities. There is lots of transport legislation going through at the moment with specificities about devolution. We also know that there are more areas than not around the country that do not have mayoral authorities at the moment, and a lot of those have been explicitly…”

“You mentioned the organisation’s agility at the beginning of your remarks. If we think about how Parliament works, ultimately, if there is an issue with GBR, my understanding is that the Secretary of State will have to come before Parliament and talk about that. How is that relationship going to work, and how understan…”

“You are right—there is no incentive at the moment, because actually, it is not the train companies that pay it, but Government. Forgive me on that point, but in terms of how you would use it to drive performance, now that it is the Government delivering the railway service and having to pay out delay repay, is it going…”

“At the moment, we have the delay repay system in place. If a particular train company is not delivering its passengers to where they need to be at the right time, it has to give money back. I have certainly benefited from that in the past, in getting to where I live. What are you going to do about incentives to improve…”

“Sorry—this year as in by December, or during the passage of the Bill in the Commons?”