My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in this not terrifically long but interesting debate—not least my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham, who admirably demonstrated the potential benefits of a mixed economy in the provision of rail services and referred to reasons why the Government might in the future need the flexibility that these amendments would offer.
I go back as far as the mid-1980s, when I was a civil servant participating in a spending round not dissimilar to the present one in a Star Chamber, where different nationalised industries had their capital programmes traded off against each other. I have to say that cost-benefit analysis was not a significant part of that discussion; it was mostly a discussion of the political benefits or otherwise. I fear the same will be true in the future and that some investment projects that should be funded will not be. It will be a great pity if that turns out to be the case for rail services in future.
I do not have the benefit of knowing Mr Keith Williams personally. I am tempted, as a former Leader of the House of Commons, to say that we instituted evidence sessions in committee. I wonder whether we could take an evidence session before a committee in this House as well; perhaps we will think about that for the future.
I thank the Minister for at least laying it all out pretty straightforwardly. He may come to regret saying that, essentially, as the 1993 Act was an ideological determination that there should not be public sector operators on the railways, we must now have legislation that says there must be only public sector operators on the railways. I am with the many of those who take another view—not least the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, whose point on open access was about giving the private sector the opportunity under limited circumstances.
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All my amendment would do is, in effect, give the Government the ability in the future, while pursuing the policy that is in their manifesto, to have the option to go elsewhere if they need to. The Minister has told us that, although we are debating this Bill, it cannot in his view be amended because of future legislation that the House has not even considered—legislation that
establishes Great British Railways and says that Great British Railways will run all the railways, with track, trains and everything all in one place. That being the case, one wonders what the nature of the debate on these amendments can be. We are being told that future legislation will bind what is possible under this legislation. That is not a wise way to proceed. When they write legislation, Governments should try to build in flexibility for the future, because, precisely as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, we do not know what the future holds and Governments do not know what the future holds.
However, notwithstanding all of those points, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 3.