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Our progress in overhauling the railways

How the government is reforming the railways to put passengers first.

From: Department for Transport and The Rt Hon Louise Haigh MP
Published 11 November 2024

Mandate for change

I would like to start off by welcoming the Member for Orpington to his place on the opposite benches, Mr. Speaker.

And I’m sure the opposition will be interested in what I have to update the House with this afternoon.

Because after 14 years of neglect, our inheritance was  a railway that was failing its passengers with cancellations at a 10-year high, and punctuality that is consistently inconsistent across the network

Back in 2015, cancellations represented around 2% of all services. 

But thanks to our inheritance of extraordinary failure, that doubled to around 4% when the last government left office.

The situation is holding back our economy, stifling our businesses, and making life miserable for passengers.

That’s why – as part of this government’s public service reform agenda – we are pushing ahead with the biggest overhaul of our railways in more than 30 years.

So, I am grateful to you Mr. Speaker for this opportunity to update the House today on the progress we are making.

Reform progress
As members will be aware, the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill is making its way through the other place.

It will allow the government to give 3 months’ notice to the first private train operating company (TOC) to be taken into public ownership which we will announce as soon as Royal Assent has been achieved.

But, Mr. Speaker, no one has ever pretended that public ownership alone is a silver bullet.

For the people impacted by delays and cancellations, who can no longer rely on the train to get where they need to, they don’t care who owns the trains – they care if they are working or not.

Under the model we inherited, no one could argue they were working.

So, we will soon launch our consultation setting out plans for unification across the railway.

As part of this Great British Railways (GBR), as the single directing-mind, will plan services on a whole-system basis, to better deliver for passengers and freight customers, unlock growth, and provide the services a modern, efficient railway should.