I will first say that I am delighted to see the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, in her place. I hope that her questions will be easier than the ones she has asked me for the last 16 years.
I thank noble Lords for explaining their amendments in this group, which consider the impacts of public ownership on the freight sector and the British Transport Police. I shall speak first to Amendment 6, in the names of my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and Amendment 41 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lords, Lord Bradshaw and Lord Moylan.
These amendments highlight the importance of the rail freight sector, which has a crucial role to play in supporting a productive economy and in helping to decarbonise transport on the way to net zero. The Bill in front of the House sets out with two very specific purposes: to enable franchised passenger services to be brought into public ownership as existing contracts
expire, and then to enable the Government to keep them there in accordance with their manifesto commitment. As such, the Bill has no direct impact on freight operators or on the availability of network capacity to accommodate freight services. Indirectly, though, freight operators should benefit from public ownership of passenger services, for reasons I am happy to explain.
In the old franchising model before the pandemic, a franchise operator’s commercial motivation was to maximise its own profit—evidently, the difference between its revenues and its costs. If that meant running additional services, it would seek to do so through the usual industry processes of bidding for access rights and then for a timetable that included the extra services. It would not matter, and has not mattered, to the franchise operators that this might deprive freight operators of the opportunity to serve new markets in the future. There are various examples of franchise bidders seeking to win contracts on the back of proposed service enhancements that risked crowding out, or actually have crowded out, potential future freight growth.
Under public ownership, that unfortunate incentive will no longer exist. Publicly owned operators will instead be remitted to act in the interests of all users of the railway, including freight customers. We have made it clear that the forthcoming railways Bill will require Great British Railways to enable the growth of rail freight and that the Secretary of State will set an overall freight growth target to ensure that it remains a key priority. I am sure that we will debate these points further once the railways Bill is before your Lordships’ House.
The noble Lords, Lord Bradshaw and Lord Young, my noble friend Lord Berkeley and others asked how capacity will be allocated. I can certainly tell them how it is done now, because we have had an immense struggle to obtain a timetable on the east coast main line which seeks to justify the £4 billion-worth of public investment to speed up services and provide more passenger capacity. One reason we have had that struggle is that, although there is an appeal mechanism to the Office of Rail and Road, there is in fact no current decision-making process to allow a timetable to be completed, except by agreement. I believe and hope that it is currently in its last stages, but I am not certain.
One of the things that the Government have in mind is that Great British Railways ought to be the body that decides. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, will recall what was the case on the old railway: somebody had to decide which services were of greatest priority and which ones had to be fitted round them. Under the current Bill, however, there is no change to the existing role of the ORR in access decisions for passenger and freight services. Under the future railways Bill—and we will consult on this—there will be appropriate safeguards for both freight and open access operators. We will set out details on that in due course, before any changes to the current approach are made. There is no need to require the publication of a report on this matter. Commissioning a report after this Bill, when in fact there will be no change at this point, will not add benefit to the debate.
I turn next to Amendment 40, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pidgeon and Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.