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Railway Industry

My hon. Friend makes some powerful points, to which I will return later in my contribution. The privatised rail companies propose to threaten the progress that has been made in the railways in recent years. They want their companies to take over the infrastructure, perhaps on leases that would coincide with the length of the franchises. There is talk of trialling such arrangements in Merseyside or Scotland. The train operating companies have promised that that will incentivise them to invest in the railways, but they have provided absolutely no evidence to support that submission. Indeed, the evidence of the past and of their tenure with the railway passenger services shows that they simply seek to maximise profit and boardroom pay, as I have already mentioned. In fact, the Government's own consultation document, ““Reforming Rail Franchising,”” states:"““European procurement law makes clear that contracts over 15 years require significant investment to be provided by the franchisee. Therefore, our starting proposition is that 12 - 15 years should be the standard length of franchises””." That seems to say that we should extend franchises to the maximum length at which franchise holders have no legal obligation to invest significantly and leave investment completely at the discretion of the franchise holder.