Recommendation 27

HM Government Rejected

The Government notes this recommendation. The Government welcomes the Committee’s support for the freight target set out in clause 17 and the freight duty set out in clause 18, the inclusion of which reflects the Government’s ongoing commitment to maximising the environmental and economic opportunities that rail freight provides. The Government notes the Committee’s concern that the relationship between clause 60 and clause 63 is unclear and the risk this may have on certainty for freight operators. However, the Government disagrees the Bill needs amending to clarify this and will instead provide additional clarity below which Ministers would be happy to repeat on the floor of the House to reassure stakeholders and the Committee alike. GBR will set out what it considers to be the best use of the network when it develops its “Infrastructure Capacity Plan” under clause 60. The clause 63 duty does not apply at that stage. Clause 63, subsection (1) sets out that the capacity duty applies only in two specific circumstances: a) when deciding whether to permit any person to access or use GBR infrastructure for the operation of trains other than GBR passenger services, or b) when preparing, issuing, and revising a working timetable. Limb (a) refers to GBR making individual decisions to grant a specific operator permission to use GBR infrastructure to allow them to operate services, typically in the form of a contractual agreement. Limb (b) refers to GBR’s statutory function to prepare, issue and revise a working timetable. Both are very different functions from developing an Infrastructure Capacity Plan at clause 60. The Infrastructure Capacity Plan will set out GBR’s view of the best use of the network in terms of capacity allocated to different types of train service. For example, GBR passenger services, open access passenger services, devolved government services or freight. It will not confer any right on any specific person to access GBR infrastructure to operate services, and it is also clearly not a timetable. The Government is therefore clear that this means that clause 63 duty does not apply at the clause 60 capacity planning stage. The clause 63 duty applies when GBR is issuing capacity commitment contracts to individual operators, and when it is developing its timetable. This means that when GBR is developing its Infrastructure Capacity Plans it will consider its clause 18 duties at that stage. GBR will have no legal basis to apply the clause 63 duty when developing Infrastructure Capacity Plans and if it were to, this would be appealable to the ORR. This model is reflected throughout Network Rail’s Access and Use Policy Discussion Document published in December 2025, which includes detailed proposals for how the Infrastructure Capacity Plans will establish market uses. Network Rail state in their document: ‘‘Capacity plans are... designating and describing the capacity allocated to markets or service types and regular engineering work in the medium and longer term. Plans will allocate capacity to types of service as capacity designations and provide the information for GBR to make capacity commitments to specific users and itself.’’ It is clear that individual commitments are not given at the capacity planning stage. The Government is therefore confident that the Bill is already clear on this matter, and has been engaging with stakeholders to that effect in recent weeks.