My Lords, I support the intention of the amendments in this group. There is one amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Pidgeon, Amendment 16, which the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has signed, as I have signed his Amendment 12. Unlike him, I want to talk about devolution in Wales and Scotland, because that issue
is very important. Railways cross borders; that point is addressed by the noble Lord’s amendment. I agree with his idea that there should be proper formal consultation with the devolved Governments—by the way, I can assure him that the new Council of the Nations and Regions should have a crowded agenda, because many devolved issues have been building up over a long period.
Let us look at the case of Wales. If, for example, you travel from Cardiff to Wrexham, you find yourself crossing between Wales and England; your start and end points are in Wales, but the middle of the journey is in England. That complexity needs to be built in. Devolution of rail powers to Scotland is pretty clear, but in Wales it is—I hope—a work in progress. I will explain to noble Lords why I say, “I hope”. The Welsh Government do not have powers over rail infrastructure. The operation of the railway in Wales is the responsibility of the Welsh Government, but infrastructure planning and funding remain with Network Rail. This is a cause of considerable frustration; the Minister answered a question about it earlier today.
This frustration is largely because Wales gets under 2% of total infrastructure spend in the UK, while having 5% of the population and more than 5% of the land mass. Our rail systems in Wales are in such a poor state, so there is a good argument that we should be getting more than 5%. The failure to allow Wales the Barnett consequentials of HS2 just rubs salt into the wound, and it is a lot of salt—£4 billion of it. I urge the Government to rethink the situation and the tendency set out in the Minister’s letter, because surely there is no hard and fast rule on this. Back in 2007, the Labour Government of the UK made noises which suggested they were willing to offer Wales control of infrastructure. Unfortunately, at that point, the Welsh Government were not keen to take it on, but I think they would be very keen now.
I am keen that this Bill does not in any way prevent further devolution. Transport for Wales, which is owned by the Welsh Government, is investing widely. Despite problems in mid-Wales, services are improving, and passenger numbers were up 27% in the last three months alone. That is a sign of progress. Can the Minister explain why the Welsh Government might not be considered capable of doing the rest of the job?
As my noble friend Lady Pidgeon has said, Transport for Greater Manchester, which I recently met representatives of as well, is enthusiastic about its success and devolution plans. They spoke to me about the Bee Network, which has lower costs than what went before, higher levels of punctuality and higher numbers of passengers. It is a real success story. They have firm plans to devolve eight rail lines within the next four years. I gather that they may be looking at some form of public/private partnership. That is the sort of thing referred to in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, in Monday’s debate.
Can the Minister specifically reassure us that the aims of the declaration of intent that Greater Manchester signed with the previous Government still hold good? Can he specifically reassure us that there is nothing in this Bill that will prevent Greater Manchester’s ambitions being implemented? We on these Benches want to go further. Where Greater Manchester leads, why should not Birmingham, Liverpool or several other places
follow? Shutting off the devolution of rail is at odds with the Government’s plans to give local authorities more powers over buses, for instance. It does not sit comfortably together.
I have two pleas for the Government. First, as I said on Monday, I ask them please to leave their options open. Do not close off avenues in the Bill: allow for unexpected events in the future. Secondly, it is illogical to allow open access operators to pick off rail routes, and it is illogical to encourage local authorities to have more control over buses but not to encourage them to fully integrate their local transport services by having control over trains and railways as well.