Speeches by Turner.

“Q2. NHS waiting lists in Birmingham are down by almost a quarter under Labour, and they are still falling. That is more than 28,000 people no longer stuck waiting for essential treatments. Yes, there are challenges still, but they are being addressed and progress is being made. Does the Prime Minister agree that this p…”

“Will the right hon. Lady give way?”

“I am sorry to have missed the start of the right hon. Lady’s speech. I am listening carefully to what she says. I am curious to know whether she raised concerns about the cancellation of services in Birmingham in the days when the authority was suffering the sharpest cuts in funding of any metropolitan council, amounti…”

“I am most grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way; she is indeed being generous with her time. I listened to her comments about the former Mayor of the West Midlands with half a smile on my face; in my constituency I find that I have to chase up on endless promises made to my constituents about things that would…”

“I have one final question, if there is time.”

“Q Forgive me; I am particularly interested in policy development over time with this question. Ben Plowden: I see.”

“A discontinuity or a change is that the draft Rail Reform Bill, published at the start of 2024, did not include a statutory freight target. I am interested in your views about the interaction between freight and passenger services, and whether the freight target is in place of a Bill or not. Alex Robertson: I do not th…”

“Q I have a follow-up about passenger growth targets and freight growth targets. This question is not new: the freight growth target is inherited and was included or announced in the Williams-Shapps plan for rail White Paper. Mr Plowden, I am conscious that this was before your time in your present post, so perhaps this…”

“Q I have one final question for Mr Hynes and Mr Westlake. We talked on the Transport Committee some time ago about progress with shadow GBR and the preparations for implementation. As it has been some time since that was discussed, and this Bill has subsequently been published, could you give us an update on the work t…”

“Q So the concern is about potentially losing access to some data flows that currently exist. John Davies: Potentially. There are already moves within the industry to restrict those data flows. Again, if it goes to the point that this is not entirely a theoretical risk, then yes, we would—”

“So that is privileged information. John Davies: It is certainly information that I do not have access to.”

“Q Finally, I will continue a line of questioning from the Transport Committee. As you know, we had an exchange about executive remuneration; in the subsequent written evidence that Trainline provided, it referred the Committee to the annual reports of published information. It also said that that salary or package was …”

“Q Does that data flow come through Rail Settlement Plan at the moment? John Davies: It does not. It comes from the Rail Delivery Group, through its provision of RAAS, which is the rail availability and reservation service.”

“Q In Trainline’s written evidence—possibly to the Transport Committee rather than this one, or possibly to both—there is a reference to a view that there might be some particularly sensitive data within GBR that Trainline believes should be firewalled off from any ticketing function. I think the suggestion is that ther…”

“Q Good morning. I first have a couple of questions to Mr Larkinson, but if other witnesses wish to come in, please do so. Mr Larkinson, in the ORR’s last annual report and accounts, it stated, “we began engaging with infrastructure managers on how to reduce the administrative burdens we impose”— in the context of the B…”

“I am also a member of Unite the union. Examination of Witnesses Jeremy Westlake, John Larkinson and Alex Hynes gave evidence.”

“Q Picking up on a point that was made by witnesses on our devolution panel, the geography of, say, West Midlands Rail Executive does not overlap entirely with the geography of the combined authority. Similarly, there might be a case for reaching a clause 5 agreement with more than one mayoral authority at the same time…”

“Q I must say, I think I must have been listening to a different set of evidence today than the shadow Minister, but there we are. I want to raise devolution, and specifically clause 5. There is a lot of history to the clause, and a line of continuity with the old section 20 of Barbara Castle’s Transport Act 1968. A lot…”

“Q But for inter-city, something similar to franchising? Steve Montgomery: Yes, you can put it out.”

“Q Moving on, the ORR will remain the regulator in Northern Ireland, as I understand it. It is quite a general question, but how does the role of the regulator under the Bill compare to the system in Northern Ireland, which, am I right in saying, broadly has a more European approach? Also how will it compare to other ra…”