Speeches by Smith.

“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…”

“You have not actually answered my question. My question was, what are you going to do to incentivise performance along the lines of that? It is great to have that ambition—I hear that and it is laudable—but in the process of getting from A to B, from where we are now to this utopia of perfect performance, what will hap…”

“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?”

“Are you fairly confident that the Secretary of State will not end up running it by decree, and that separation exists?”

“The Secretary of State may issue directions and guidance to GBR in the exercise of its statutory functions. Could those provisions not fatally undermine the concept of a railway run without daily micromanagement from Whitehall?”

“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…”

“I did not mean delayed, but we get this a lot with Bills: we are told it is going to come and then we do not actually see it till very late.”

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

“I will not stay too long on licensing, but we talked earlier about the delay in being able to see the draft licence, and we have talked a lot about the role of the private sector, and particularly some of the retail businesses. Given the fact that the retail code of practice does not really get given life until the lic…”

“But we do not know what is in either of them yet.”

“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…”

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

“I do not mean the devolution settlements; I just mean the work through of your relationships with the British Government on the Railways Bill. Do you think your outcomes will be worse than Scotland’s, as a result of that?”

“Will the Wales and Border business unit have the detail of how it works in that MOU, or is that a separate thing that we need to be mindful of in the workings of that unit?”

“As Ministers in Scotland, you will have powers of direction over GBR under the Bill, at clause 8. Do you think that those sufficiently reflect the devolution settlement that you already have?”

“I do not mean the devolution settlements; I just mean the work through of your relationships with the British Government on the Railways Bill. Do you think your outcomes will be worse than Scotland’s, as a result of that?”

“In Bills coming through Parliament recently, we have seen a lot of things like the code of practice not being set in stone before the Bill Committee. Are you confident that the memorandum of understanding will be finalised before we start scrutinising the Bill, so that we can make sure that everyone is happy with it, o…”

“We have covered bits of my questions already, so I am going to pick out bits that we have not, and then possibly throw in something else. To start, given the different devolution settlements between Scotland and Wales, do you have concerns that Scotland will get better outcomes than Wales under the Bill?”

“Fiona, you touched on the elections that are coming up. You said you have been around over a number of years, so I am sure you have seen changes of Government in Westminster and Scotland. Are you concerned that any future changes would threaten the ways of working that are set out in the MOU, or are you experienced eno…”

“That is useful.”