Mark Harper has declared the Government is ‘pressing go on rail reform’, but gave no timeline for the creation of the new model for the industry under the proposed Great British Railways (GBR).
The May 2021 Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail set out a strategy to create a new public body, GBR, to run the railway. It was originally due to be established in 2024.
However, last October, the then transport secretary, Anne Marie Trevelyan, told MPs that there would not be time for a Transport Bill in the current session of Parliament and that the 2024 deadline was unlikely to be met.
Mark Harper
This week, current transport secretary Mr Harper told an industry audience that the Government will establish GBR and would respond ‘by the summer’ to a consultation on legislative powers for the new body that closed last summer.
He added that in the meantime, ‘following ministerial direction, the GBR Transition Team will develop the guiding long-term strategy for rail, which we will publish later this year, and I hope will provide strategic direction to the sector’.
Mr Harper said that ministers would also reveal the location of the GBR HQ ‘by Easter’.
Ms Trevelyan’s predecessor, Grant Shapps, announced in October 2021 that a competition would be run for the location of GBR’s headquarters, ‘outside of London’.
The competition was launched in February 2022 and Mr Shapps announced a shortlist of the six ‘most suitable potential locations’ – Birmingham, Crewe, Derby, Doncaster, Newcastle upon Tyne and York – and launched a public vote. At that time, he told MPs that a final decision was expected ‘later in the year’.
The Labour party’s London Assembly transport spokesperson, Elly Baker AM, said: 'Five years after the government first promised a review of the railways, and nearly two years since they published their plans, we are still waiting for them to deliver on all the 62 commitments.'
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