Railways Bill (Sixth sitting) - 27th January 2026

Here are the climate-related sections of speeches by MPs during the Commons debate Railways Bill (Sixth sitting).

Full text: https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2026-01-27/debates/DC31F309-3144-41BB-AD8F-BE0A8DCFBB5E/RailwaysBillSixthsitting

16:52 Jerome Mayhew (Conservative)

From the Government’s perspective, yes, it would be, but we have recent experience—this is a slight tangent, but I hope the Committee will bear with me—of Governments passing key objectives to achieve long out in the distance. I am thinking of the Climate Change Act 2008 and its objective of achieving net zero by 2050. That all sounds good in 2008, but in my view it does not achieve the objective of balancing democratic accountability with a long-term direction. Look, we are slightly arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Both parties agree that we want a long-term strategy, but should it be 15 years or 30 years? In a sense it does not really matter, but it needs to be significantly beyond the current five-year control period.

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