Speeches by Turner.

“I sit on the same Select Committee as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), and I know better than to speak for him. I have a degree of personal sympathy with the case that the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan) sets out. I also think there is something to be said for giv…”

“I thank the Minister for all her hard work over many years to bring this excellent statement to the House. Some 500 people are killed or seriously injured on Birmingham’s roads every year, including in my constituency. Sadly, due to the historical layout of many of our estates, schools, shops and other amenities are in…”

“I have a question about what will change on the network immediately after the creation of GBR. We have talked a lot about passenger services, but it seems to me that there is a lot of opportunity in station management to make changes that passengers will notice. Within Birmingham, there is a huge disparity between stat…”

“I have a final question, if I may. The legislation as drafted is phrased in terms of single agreements, but there are areas of the network where there is perhaps a case for greater local management that crosses borders. A good example is the CrossCountry service between Birmingham and Nottingham, which has been a bit o…”

“So within the first funding period—before any later changes might be made—if GBR had a very good, very efficient infrastructure programme and had an underspend, would it be able to redirect some of that funding to a different item, which might fall under passenger operations?”

“I think we do understand that as a Committee. The last point is important in terms of the public perception of funding of the railway and the spending of public money. Moving beyond that, Ms Ryan, you made the point about wanting GBR to have as much flexibility as possible between capital and revenue, if I understood t…”

“At the moment, British Transport police are funded by many police service agreements. I am not asking so much about the current three-year period, but once GBR is fully established, is that system expected to continue, is it going to be consolidated into one PSA, or are we looking at a different funding model?”

“Good morning. I am interested in those aspects of long-term rail strategy that might fall outside the gift of the Department to control. Minister, you have already touched on housing, which is one area that might be relevant. There was also a time when the then Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy su…”

“Sorry—you made reference to additional guidance.”

“You said the new guidance for mayoral areas will be published soon; how soon are we talking about? Will that come in the next couple of months?”

“I want to move on to funding. The factsheet and the Bill provide a good level of detail about infrastructure funding, but I am interested in understanding more about passenger funding. The factsheet says that the existing powers allow “the government to provide transparent and flexible funding to the railway industry”—…”

“Will the current split between regulated fares and unregulated fares be retained?”

“So that is yet to be determined?”

“Then there is the Secretary of State’s duty to set out an objective of balancing overall costs. Costs for commuters might mean something very different from levels of affordability and costs for business passengers or leisure passengers. How will the interests of different types of passengers be balanced?”

“The fares factsheet says, “We will gradually move away from the current approach of an annual blanket increase to the regulated cap and towards giving GBR more commercial freedom to manage fares”. First, how gradually are we talking about?”

“To go back to the last point in the question, on paper should we expect to see the amount of subsidy going into infrastructure fall because of the absence of track-access charges, and the subsidy going to passenger operations rise? It is a technical accounting exercise, but I want to be precise.”

“Thinking about elected mayors, particularly in mayoral combined authorities, should there not be more powers in the Bill for mayors directly, and combined authorities, to hold GBR to account? At the moment, there is the duty to have regard to local transport plans, but should there not be some formalised scrutiny funct…”

“It does. In terms of the formal mechanisms, clause 5 says Great British Railways “may enter into arrangements” with such bodies. I think that is the successor to the old section 20 and section 13 agreements, but “may” is quite passive language. For the mayoral combined areas, is it your expectation that GBR will enter …”

“Forgive me for interrupting, Mr Goodman. My question was not so much about what is happening now, but about the future process. To summarise, there will be a transition to a new system, but it cannot yet be said how long that will take. Is that fair?”

“Finally, GBR will have its own fares-setting process. Separately, where there is a passenger service contract for a different type of operator, I understand that fares objectives will be set out in the contract itself. How will you avoid a situation where GBR has one fare strategy but then fares-setting is set in time …”