UK: The government’s rail reforms must provide more robust guarantees and stronger regulation so that freight operators have fair and economically viable access to the Great British Railways network and investors will be willing to look at the sector, politicians and industry representatives said at the Rail Freight Parliamentary Reception.
Speaking on behalf of Rail Partners’ freight members at the event organised by the train operator owning group association at the Palace of Westminster on March 11, Freightliner CEO Tim Shoveller said ’it is clear that all the parties, and I would say the voters, want to see more freight moving by rail. But here’s the challenge, modal shift isn’t going to happen by accident. A shared vision is a good start, but we must turn vision into action.’
Saying rail reform provides ‘a real opportunity to put the right foundations in place for growth’, Shoveller argued that ’we’ve got three choices. We can keep doing what we have been doing for the last 10 or 20 years and hope for a different, better outcome. We can implement the vision that is outlined in the recently published consultation document and see how we get on. Or we can build on that vision, recognise the economic realities of road versus rail, and take action to create that solid platform that we need.
‘Now I’m very clear, only option three will get us to where we want to be.’
He welcomed proposals for GBR to have a statutory duty to promote freight, for maintaining growth targets and for more flexible track access processes. But he felt that ‘we must go further. The forthcoming bill must provide robust legal protections, safeguarding access to the network and ensuring fair charges for freight operators’, with the Office of Rail & Road needing stronger powers than currently proposed.
‘We have demonstrated it is possible to move cargo from road to rail temporarily by reducing track access fees for new services so it gives the chance for the service to build and grow’, he explained. But ’the reality is that over the last 10 years, road has seen minimal cost increases, partly as a result of government policies, whilst track access have soared and are continuing to grow. The tipping point for moving a container by rail from the southern ports used to be Birmingham. It is now Manchester, and the costs are still rising.
‘We innovate continually to reduce our costs, but to grow freight, we have to make the economics work. That’s what I hear from our customers.’
Boosting capacity
Ruth Cadbury, Chair of the House of Commons Transport Committee and Labour MP for Brentford & Isleworth, said rail freight is not something that constituents directly experience. However, ‘there is no doubt’ about its importance and ‘you have my assurance that that we want to see rail freight operators thriving in what is otherwise a largely nationalised system’.
She said priorities include protecting the sector’s existing rights, and addressing network constraints to increase capacity on the East Coast and West Coast main lines and unlock key junctions. Cadbury noted that that MPs keep telling her about the importance of the Ely area capacity enhancement scheme.
She said ‘there is still so much scope’ to increase capacity, and ‘some of it doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. These are all things that interest me and members of my committee.’
Growth ‘baked in’
A commitment to private freight operators was also stressed by Rail Minister Lord Hendy, who said ‘I want to make it absolutely clear that we believe that the private sector has a role’, and freight would remain ’private sector, yet an integral part of the network’.
A duty to grow rail freight would be ‘baked in’ to legislation to ensure operators have fair access to the GBR network and are charged fairly. ORR would have a ‘robust and independent’ appeal function established in legislation to ensure that GBR’s decisions are fair and non-discriminatory, so that private companies can invest with confidence ‘in a way that the current web of regulation does not allow’.
Opposition responds
For the opposition, Conservative MP for Orpington and Shadow Transport Secretary Gareth Bacon said ‘the danger is that, with so much political capital being expended on improving passenger rail, freight gets marginalised’. While the there are several references to freight in the GBR consultation, ‘the paper does not define what constitutes fair access might be’, and ‘as with all of these things, the devil will inevitably be in the detail’.
Liberal Democrat MP for Wimbledon and transport spokesperson Paul Kohler added that ’whilst my party and I are agnostic as to nationalisation or any ownership model, there’s clearly a need to bring the management of track and train closer together. That said, I have profound concerns, like many across the industry, about the proposals for GBR to manage track access whilst downgrading the ORR to little more than an appeals body.’
He said a system where ‘GBR has the power to dictate the access and timetable of not only themselves but other rail users, is not one that will give freight operators the confidence they need to invest in the future’.
He insisted it was ‘vital’ to ensure GBR does not have ’a monopoly status and the power to crowd out others in the sector, such as freight and open access [passenger services] as well, which I also am concerned about’.
- Explaining that he had to leave the reception early to answer a question in the House of Lords about the December 2025 East Coast Main Line timetable, Hendy said ‘I don’t think that a government minister ought to take a decision about railway timetables’. He told the Lords that ‘there are probably only two other countries in the world where ministers decide the times of trains: North Korea and Russia.’
