Response to Transport Committee inquiry on the UK Government Railways Bill

About us

Consumer Scotland is the statutory body for consumers in Scotland.[i] Established by the Consumer Scotland Act 2020 we are accountable to the Scottish Parliament.[ii] The Act provides a definition of consumers which includes individual consumers and small businesses that purchase, use or receive products or services.

Our purpose is to improve outcomes for current and future consumers and our strategic objectives are:

• to enhance understanding and awareness of consumer issues by strengthening the evidence base
• to serve the needs and aspirations of current and future consumers by inspiring and influencing the public, private and third sectors
• to enable the active participation of consumers in a fairer economy by improving access to information and support.

Consumer Scotland uses data, research and analysis to inform our work on the key issues facing consumers in Scotland. In conjunction with that evidence base we seek a consumer perspective through the application of the consumer principles of access, choice, safety, information, fairness, representation, and redress.

We work across the private, public and third sectors and currently have a particular focus on three consumer challenges: affordability, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and consumers in vulnerable circumstances.

Improving rail travel for passengers

Consumer Scotland supports the Transport Secretary’s six objectives for a reformed railway – reliable, affordable, efficient, high quality, accessible, and safe. We welcome the Bill as a whole, and especially, the proposal to create a single body accountable for the overall performance of the railway and the experience of its customers.

Under the proposals, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) will remain the independent health and safety regulator for the sector, will take on an enhanced role as an adviser on GBR’s business performance, and will enforce licences, but the Passenger Watchdog will take on most of the ORR’s consumer-related functions. The development and design of the new Passenger Watchdog, to be created from the current Transport Focus, is one of the most important elements of the Bill. Transport Focus is currently led by a Board of non-executive directors, including members for Scotland, Wales and London and these statutory appointments will be retained in the Railways Bill, retaining a clear role for devolved governments.

In our response to the UK Government’s consultation on the proposed legislation,[iii] Consumer Scotland recommended that the watchdog should be given regulatory powers to enable it to shape and drive-up service standards for consumers. We welcome the UK Government adopting this approach.

The following proposals in the Bill offer clear ways of improving future consumer outcomes:

• The transfer of powers to develop and monitor passenger experience standards from the ORR to the watchdog
• The transfer of the sponsorship of the Rail Ombudsman’s contract to the watchdog to ensure a “single front door” experience for consumers with unresolved issues
• the increased research and information gathering powers that the ORR will have to gather data and that the watchdog will have to identify risks and causes of consumer detriment
• the ability to set minimum passenger experience standards, via licence conditions for operators
• the ability to develop guidance and codes of practice in the areas of accessible travel policies, passenger information, complaints and delay compensation
• the ability for the watchdog to use investigatory powers and to escalate issues to the ORR for enforcement action where necessary.
  

Consumer Scotland previously recommended that the data gathered by regulators under the Bill’s powers should be capable of being broken down by operator, nation, and region. This issue is not specifically addressed in the UK Government response. Collecting this data would enable the identification of issues for consumers across the UK, and the development of local transport strategies to respond to these issues, in a more specific and targeted way.

Consumer Scotland also suggested specific measures to promote and improve the accessibility of the railways in the UK. The UK Government’s response to the consultation addresses this issue by implementing new duties on decision makers to take disabled passengers into account when making decisions across the railway. The terms of GBR’s licence will also require it to meet minimum standards for how its passenger services will serve disabled passengers. We welcome these new duties, along with the watchdog’s powers to monitor how services are delivered for disabled people, and to seek improvement where issues come to light. We note that the UK Government has committed to engaging with accessibility stakeholders and maintaining disabled representation on the watchdog’s Board.

While Consumer Scotland considers that the Bill offers substantial measures aimed at addressing and improving accessibility for consumers, there are opportunities to strengthen consumer representation within the watchdog’s governance structures. One way to achieve this would be to establish a formal consumer panel to advise the watchdog and we recommend that this approach is taken forward. Such an approach could be particularly valuable in helping the watchdog achieve the appropriate balance across its regulatory and advocacy functions. A consumer panel model has been utilised with success by other bodies with both advocacy and regulatory functions, such as the Financial Conduct Authority, Ofcom and the Civil Aviation Authority.

In relation to retail ticketing, Consumer Scotland restates our support for a simplified ticket retail landscape. However, simplification of the ticketing framework should not reduce consumer access to more affordable fares. Maintaining fares at an affordable level remains crucial in ensuring consumers can access the railways, and through travel, can access opportunities for learning, social contact and employment. We recommend that any future fare increases must follow a clear procedure which demonstrates the need for any such rise. Creating a price transparency mechanism that can be easily externally evaluated should help increase consumer confidence in Great British Railways and tackle affordability challenges.

Consumer Scotland supports the UK Government’s decision to continue to allow third party retail sites to sell tickets to consumers, as this will maintain competition in the market and help support consumer choice and affordability. We envisage that the proposals will allow continued consumer access to the ScotRail app for ticketing, which we welcome. We would also welcome collaboration between operators in Scotland and ticketing platforms to help ensure consistently good experiences for consumers purchasing tickets, especially for cross-border journeys, across Great Britain. The UK Government response does not explicitly address how this integration will be delivered, and we would welcome clarification on how this will be achieved during design and implementation of any new ticketing arrangements.

As some consumers may not be able to, or wish to, utilise digital retail platforms, we recommend maintaining the ability to buy physical tickets, at the best available price. We welcome the Bill allowing GBR to continue to sell via all available channels, including station ticket offices.

Consumer Scotland also welcomes the UK Government’s commitment to maintain existing Railcard discounts provided in statute for young people, older people and disabled people. In our previous response, we suggested this may provide an opportunity to consider whether such discounts could be better targeted. While the UK Government response does not commit to doing so, the Bill does provide flexibility over the future offer of discount schemes to consumers. We would welcome future consideration of the aims and intended targeting of these schemes, which do not currently target low-income consumers specifically.

Network Access

Consumer Scotland welcomes the UK Government’s continued commitment to permitting open access operators to apply to run services for consumers. These services offer more choice, can represent good value for money for consumers,[iv] and generally have competitive consumer satisfaction levels.[v] However, with high levels of applications from open access operators to run services,[vi] along with appropriate efforts to increase levels of freight transported via the railways, applications to run open access service must be carefully considered and only granted when clearly in the consumer interest.

We welcome the Bill’s provisions allowing oversight of these decisions, placing duties on GBR in relation to how they reach decisions on access and ensuring that they strike a fair balance between their impact on taxpayers, passengers and the performance of the network. We also welcome the requirement for GBR to produce, consult on, and publish policies, processes and criteria on capacity allocation, timetabling and use of the network and its dispute resolution processes. While the detail of these policies is still to be determined, we consider that these requirements will direct decisions on the use of the network, ensuring they are in the best interests of consumers.

Devolution

In our response to the UK Government consultation, we noted Scotland’s distinctive geography and the devolution of powers for railway operation to Scottish Ministers, as funders of the rail network in Scotland. Following the transfer of Scotrail into public control under Scottish Rail Holdings in 2022, track and train are already significantly integrated in Scotland. We understand that there has been regular dialogue between DfT and the Scottish Government during the development of the Bill and we support the continuation of this, to ensure that the new legislation does not have any unintended consequences for consumers in Scotland.

The Bill proposes that GBR will be steered by the objectives and outcomes set by the Transport Secretary via a new Long Term Rail Strategy (LTRS). Scottish Ministers will continue to set a separate strategy for the railway in Scotland and will also be able to provide guidance and directions to GBR regarding GBR functions, to the degree they affect Scottish railway activities. Consumer Scotland supports this.

We also consider it important that Scottish Ministers and bodies representing consumers in Scotland can influence any GB-wide strategy, especially in relation to those services which operate on a cross-border basis. The Bill requires GBR to consult Devolved Governments on certain significant changes to rail passenger services, to have regard to their transport strategies and to share certain information, which we welcome. These formal powers will be supplemented by a Memorandum of Understanding setting out how UK and devolved governments will work together in the exercise of their respective functions in relation to railways and railway services and this will provide an opportunity to set out any additional expectations and measures that do not require to be addressed in primary legislation.

Consumer Scotland previously recommended that the GBR Board should feature a member nominated by Scottish Ministers, and we recommend that this be considered when the relevant regulations constituting GBR are brought forward.