My Lords, before I turn to the substance of the Bill, and in response to what the Minister said, I remind noble Lords who may have forgotten that the remarkable thing about election night in 2010 was that it initiated a period of approximately a week in which, in effect, the country had no Government at all. Labour had lost and the victors were locked in some room in Whitehall trying to work out terms of their agreement. In those circumstances, there was nobody to stop us doing what we did to Tube lines; it shows that you can move fast and fix things when you get the opportunity.
I am very grateful to the Minister for the courtesy he has shown me outside the Chamber as he has given me assistance in relation to this Bill and for the patience he has shown inside the Chamber. It is always difficult for a new Minister when dealing with a Bill which is open to such criticism, but he has handled it with great good grace.
I am also grateful to the Minister’s officials whom I have met and who have offered me advice and briefings. On our own side, I received support in our Opposition Whips’ Office from Abid Hussain and Henry Mitson, and I am very grateful to them. I am also grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in debate in considering this Bill. I shall not attempt to name them; the Minister has already mentioned their names. We had a very good series of debates on this Bill.
None the less, it is not a good Bill. Everyone agrees that the railways need reform. The privatisation model has produced record growth in passenger numbers. There has been a true rail renaissance over the last 25 or 30 years in this country, but the railway has not recovered from the effects of Covid on its operations and reform is definitely needed. The basis of that reform appeared to be the Williams review, which gained a wide measure of cross-party support. It envisaged an important role for private train operating companies but on a different financial and operational model from the existing privatisation model.
Labour has broken that consensus. Why? It is hard to tell, but it is noticeable that the rail unions have been pushing hard for full nationalisation, which will of course increase their power and leverage over the travelling public. Labour now owns the train set and can call the shots. I suspect it will fall to the Conservatives to fix it again when it all goes wrong, as in 2010, on election night, it fell to a Conservative mayor to fix the problems created for London Underground by Labour’s disastrous PPP.
However, the Bill now goes forward to the Commons greatly improved. As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, it would be churlish and wrong of the Government to refuse to accept those amendments or some variation on them. If we see it back here at all, I hope it will be rather different from how it was when it first came to us.