Transport secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan confirmed this week that the Transport Bill would be delayed, after the DfT had “lost the opportunity” to take it to the Commons in the current parliamentary session.
Trevelyan denied that this was linked to U-turns on the government’s mini-Budget when explaining the situation to the Commons Transport Select Committee.
She said: “The challenges of things like the energy legislation we've got to bring in and various others has meant that we have lost the opportunity to have that [the Bill] in this third session.”
Industry group Rail Partners called the delay “disappointing”, with chief executive Andy Bagnall urging government to avoid a prolonged delay.
The draft law – first introduced by Trevelyan’s predecessor Grant Shapps in May last year - included a mechanism which would allow for the creation of Great British Railways [GBR], a new public body operating Britain’s rail network.
Set to be based outside the capital, GBR would be tasked with setting timetables and prices, selling train tickets within England and overseeing rail infrastructure, as well as being in charge of issuing contracts to private rail firms to run services.
Shapps had said that such a body was needed to shake-up what had become a “fragmented” rail system.
The government had hoped for GBR to be in place by early 2024, but Trevelyan conceded that this is now unlikely to happen.
However, the transport secretary reassured that the “hiatus will be short” and that the draft legislation allowing for GBR to be formed would be brought to Parliament during the next session starting from May 2023.
She added that the government was progressing on changes that could be made while the Bill was not progressing, such as assembling a transition team.
Trevelyan explained: “Because we can't bring in this big, all-encompassing piece of legislation immediately, we're going to take the opportunity to break it down into its constituent parts and work out how we can drive forward some of that modernisation.”
She also said that a smaller piece of draft legislation addressing the use of e-scooters was something that she was pursuing and hoped to bring to the Commons in the meantime.
