Lords Grand Committee
12 October 2026
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Chamber Actual start House of Lords
15:28 - 15:45
Speaker 1
My Lords, if there is a division in the chamber while we're sitting, this committee will adjourn as soon as the division bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes. Grand Committee on the Railways Bill, in clause 15, amendment 91, Lord Moylan.
15:46 - 17:23
Speaker 2
My Lords, it's immensely good that we're back here discussing this very slow Railways Bill and the attempt it puts before us to recreate the railway system of the Soviet Union in Great Britain. Freight is an important part of our rail infrastructure, our rail business, of course. It's very important. Everyone agrees on that. There's no dispute in this committee as to the importance of freight.
But the bill is woefully inadequate when it comes to addressing the question of freight. Now, the government has a target, which is to increase rail freight by 75% by 2050. That is a target inherited from the Conservative government and the author of that target, I think I may say, who is in his place, is my noble friend Lord Harper when he was Secretary of State for Transport. So there is a commonality of view in support of that target.
However, there is a tremendous absence of detail and a great deal of vagueness about how that target is going to be achieved. And in recent weeks, the government has announced that there is to be an interim target. That is a helpful step, but the interim target is to have a 40% increase by 2040. 2040 is so long away that a great deal of the rail, I believe the rail freight rolling stock might well have been renewed by 2040. It's such a very long time away.
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