Railways

My Lords, I think that I, like anybody else, have a right to speak. I welcome the Government’s announcement and the White Paper. It is a moment of miracles. The Government admit that the power of the Executive needs to be diminished one day, and two or three days later they put forward a plan for long-term investment in the rail industry. One intensely wants to know what will happen next week; if it goes on as well as this, things may actually get better. There are some interesting little reservations in the Statement, particularly to do with the cost to taxpayers of the rail system. That fits in with what has been said by other people about the need to balance expenditure on the roads with expenditure on the railways. Roads are built and maintained by taxpayers. How much cost-benefit analysis has been done on expenditure in the two modes of transport, particularly now that climate change, global warming and so on are coming more to the fore? Has all that been factored into the idea of creating a balance between public and private expenditure, as between road and rail?