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Rail Reform

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement and repeat our thanks to Sir Roy McNulty and his team for their work. We did not agree with all his conclusions and, if we had been in government, we would not have accepted all his recommendations. It was a valuable piece of work, however, that is helping to drive a number of reforms in the industry that we welcome. Passengers have every reason to be concerned about the direction that the Secretary of State has just set for the rail industry, with year after year of inflation-busting fare rises, ticket offices closed, fewer staff on trains and at stations and cuts in investment in the rail network. In each case, the interests of private train companies are being put before those of passengers and the principle that we established in government of a clear separation of infrastructure and maintenance from private profit is being abandoned, for the first time giving private train companies the whip hand over Network Rail. That is a dangerous experiment that takes the industry on the road to breaking up and selling off Britain's railway infrastructure, all because this is a Government who are simply unwilling or unable to stand up to vested interests on behalf of passengers. [Interruption.] The question that the Government have yet to answer is this: if we are all in this together, why is the burden yet again to fall on the fare payer and not on those who are already making huge profits—[Interruption.]