Extracts from committee stage (Lords) (day 2) of the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill - Oct 23

The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab);...I can also confirm what has happened previously when a service is transferred from private to public ownership. For example, following the transfer of services into DOHL, the ONS recently considered the classification of Transpennine trains, and concluded that they should remain classified as a public non-financial corporation. That fact that these publicly owned operators are classified in this way, along with the privately owned operators, means that their costs already impact the public finances. For example—and this is particularly relevant to Amendment 25—both private and publicly owned operators' rolling stock lease payments already come out of the department's resource budget...

Lord Moylan (Con): My Lords, once again I am being deflected more than answered. I did not suggest that existing open access operators were going to be closed down. In fact, it says quite explicitly in the biblical document Getting Britain Moving that current

“independent operators (such as Hull Trains and Lumo) … will remain”.

I take it that the existing operators are guaranteed to remain, at least as far as the current terms of their arrangements are concerned...

To read the whole debate, OPEN HERE