My Lords, to some extent Amendment 13 follows on from my noble friend Lord Whitty’s Amendment 4 on responsibilities and scope. There is a strong, if not stronger, argument for having in the Bill a clause which sets out the duties of the strategic highways company, because there is already legislation which puts duties on the Secretary of State or the regulator as regards railways. Some noble Lords will recall the Railways Act 2005 and the Railways Act 1993, which was the basis of privatisation. The duties there included promoting,
“improvements in railway service performance … to protect the interests of users of railway services … to promote the use of the railway network in Great Britain for the carriage of passengers and goods”.
I was very pleased to see that goods got in there. The list of duties continues:
“to contribute to the development of an integrated system of transport … contribute to the achievement of sustainable development”.
I could go on reading out Section 4 of that Act. It very much mirrors what has been achieved by successive Governments and rail regulators such as the Office of Rail Regulation in succeeding years through putting those basic principles into effect. This is quite important, and we have the opportunity to put a similar range of duties on the strategic highways company—or companies, however many there are.
Looking at this amendment, it is important that we start to include the cross-modal issues that I and several other noble Lords spoke about at Second Reading. We should look at modes of transport such as highways and railways—probably cycling and walking as well, and maybe other things in the future—on a cross-modal basis, with the duties to secure something like, as I put in the amendment,
“the economic, social and environmental gains jointly and severally”.
I am sure Ministers could come back with a better version, but I hope this is a useful basis for suggesting what the duties of this strategic highways company should be. Unlocking development is important, as is encouraging occupancy and loading rates for passengers and freight and looking at the need to drive, the need to move around and, of course, its sustainability.
We shall be talking about some of these things in later amendments, but it is important for an organisation such as this one to have duties, which should be in the Bill just as they are for the railways. I have tried to mirror what is in the original Railways Act. It has changed over the years and is in a different format now, but the duties are still there, and if we had something like this for the strategic highways company, alongside the responsibilities that my noble friend Lord Whitty talked about, it would make us all feel a lot more comfortable. I beg to move.