RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey is calling for urgent talks over the future structure of Great British Railways, following the Second Reading of the Railways Bill on 9 December.

Industry commentators have criticised the vague terms used in the Act, with many important decisions being delegated to ministers in Westminster, Cardiff or Edinburgh.

The RMT is particularly concerned about the implications for collective bargaining, because the Bill does not say who the employer or employers will be.

Speaking exclusively on the latest Railnews podcast, Mr Dempsey says: ‘What is Great British Railways? At this stage, we don’t know, and nobody has so far been able to describe it to us, beyond the very superficial staff that anybody picking up a newspaper would be able to discern.

‘What is the shape of it? How would it work? Who is going to be in charge?

‘There is a lot to be done really with GBR. I’m hopeful that in the New Year we can crack on with some of that. We would like to get into discussions, and start those deeper discussions with everybody involved sooner rather than later, so that we are not getting to the point of transition with GBR and realising that there are significant disagreements or problems that we could have been working out, many months or even years in advance.’

One major point of debate is that GBR is set to decide which third-party operators will have access rights on its network, instead of the Office of Rail and Road.

Arup director Stefan Sanders says: ‘I certainly get the concern that there is around ORR’s current control of access rights passing to GBR, but if GBR is going to integrate track and train to some degree it does need to take some responsibility for that. My reading of the proposals is that ORR still has quite an important role to play as the appeals body, not just for open access but also for Mayoral authorities who don’t feel their needs and wants have been properly considered.’

The Railnews podcast will go live at 13.00 today, and a link will be added here.

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