Recommendation 26

The Long Term Rail Strategy guiding Great British Railways needs to have a timescale of at least 30 years to provide the necessary vision for underpinning shorter-term decisions on specific projects and funding. It also needs to be protected from unnecessary or radical changes of direction that would undermine its value. Significant amendments to the LTRS should require formal consultation with industry and with Parliament. We recommend that the Secretary of State be required to lay the Strategy before Parliament, and that, where the Secretary of State makes substantive changes, it be required to be laid again in its amended form. (Recommendation, Paragraph 119)