My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Moylan on Amendments 12 and 13 and I echo some of the great speeches in this group. As my noble friend said, it is right to ensure that, through some mechanism, the nations and regions are consulted, and, crucially, engaged, to ensure that they are brought into the decision-making process so that the service which eventually emerges is as effective as possible.
I am sure some will hark, yet again, that we are calling for more consultation and bureaucracy, but let us be clear: we on this side have always believed in
devolution and power to the people. As my noble friend Lord Moylan said, the Government themselves have committed to the concept of devolution when it comes to transport. Therefore, is it not right that we utilise the opportunity to bring the Council of the Nations and Regions into discussions to ensure that we have the best services possible where there is overlap between the nations? Everyone is citing different quotes, but the PM said when the council was created that “we work as one team” and a “partnership”. If it is the view that that is too onerous, as I am sure the Minister will say, then we could at least try to engage the much- trailed but lesser-spotted envoy to the regions.
I support the noble Lord, Lord Snape, as I always do, in his Amendment 43. It calls for the Secretary of State to produce a report on whether a service could be devolved when it awards it to a public operator or renews a private franchise. That is wise and right, and I assume the case for doing so would be to assess the pros and cons for commuters, which we on this side of the Committee believe should be the focus of the reforms.
Supporting this amendment takes me back to what was said on day one of Committee on my amendments, when it was deemed that:
“Amendment A1, to which the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, spoke earlier, would create another bureaucracy”.
Later, this noble Lord hoped that the Minister would
“not get too bogged down in the bureaucratic desires of the party opposite
”.—[Official Report, 21/10/24; cols. 433, 435.]
Who was so opposed to putting in a mere purpose clause, lest it be too bureaucratic? Lo and behold it was the one and only noble Lord, Lord Snape, who is now calling for an amendment to include a report when a rail service is awarded to a new operator. I welcome this Damascene conversion from the Labour Benches; I say yes to the noble Lord’s amendment but yes to Amendments A1 and 48A.