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That is not for me to determine; it is an issue for the UK Government. I will be ensuring, from a Scottish perspective, that they will not be affected. If you want to be confident about it, you will need to engage directly with the UK Government. I am sure that my counterparts at Westminster will be doing that.

That is not for this legislation.

I will bring in Bill Reeve on the detail. We have funding of £4.2 billion in the current CP. The new arrangements mean that we will have direction and guidance on what we fund and set a strategy for. That is the whole point of the bill—it will change the relationship with the ORR. The ORR will still have a role, but we will have a stronger role in how the direction can be set. From an accountability point of view, that is really important because, once a control period is agreed, we have to rely on the ORR to monitor it and ensure that the delivery is at pace and to the required level.

I am keen for the Parliament to provide letters of consent. That is one of the significant changes in the bill that will enhance Scottish ministers’ powers. It is anticipated that control periods will be folded into the new operation of GBR, which will give us more powers over the areas that we fund and set a strategy for and so on.

There are two reasons for that. The substantive part of the bill, as presented, was the result of the prior involvement of ministers—a good example of what should happen—so a lot of our issues about protecting and enhancing Scotland’s devolved position were agreed in advance of the bill’s publication. Building in devolved sensibilities at the start is always a good idea.

The bill is complex. There are provisions for Scottish ministers throughout the bill and that is why a lot of clauses require the LCM approach. We lodged the LCM in December and the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee did the right thing by taking time to go through everything, and I am confident that it has done that. There is no controversy about the bill’s contents and the legislative consent applications have been applied appropriately.

Protection of devolution is really important for everybody, and we have managed to do that. My main concern, however, is that, having secured that, we do not know what will happen next. If Parliament sets out an assertive position that we have protected and, to an extent, enhanced the powers of the Parliament, that would be a strong message to whoever is looking at the bill at Westminster thereafter.

The problem is probably the interruption of the Scottish Parliament elections, although I should not call it an interruption, because it is an important democratic event. What that will mean is that the new committee that is established will not have the same experience as this committee has. It will also have much less time—weeks as opposed to months—to consider the bill. The House of Lords will be the final place for amendments, and it will likely deal with them when it comes back from recess, so the time and opportunity for the future committee and Parliament to have a view is limited. The substantial amendments have already been lodged, and we do not anticipate major amendments at the next stage. However, if there were such amendments, the committee would have to look only at those aspects of the bill and the final text, and I think that that process would be restricted and limited.

I would also add that the supplementary LCM addresses a point that this committee identified, which is what happens to the provision of services at the end of the period of control of assets, when assets may be transferred. The supplementary LCM that we asked for has been provided and reflects what the committee identified when it considered the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024. An important responsibility for Parliament is to tidy up our responsibilities, this side of the election, on the substantive elements of the bill, with the statement of the LCM, as the bill stands. That is the view of the Government.

You will be aware that there is already a memorandum of understanding, but the bill makes the relationship statutory, which provides an important underpinning. The new memorandum is still being developed, but it will ensure that the relationships are strong in terms of the co-operation that will still be required. We will have powers for what we fund and for which we set the strategy, and we will also be able to provide direction and guidance to Network Rail, in relation to aspects of GB rail, which we have never done before.

Prior to the publication of the bill, I had three meetings with Lord Hendy, the Minister for Rail, and two meetings with Heidi Alexander, the Secretary of State for Transport, both of whom want to ensure that the memorandum of understanding is strong and that it helps us to administer the arrangement. The memorandum is still being drafted. There is no requirement for it to be published at the same time as the bill, but the fact that there is a requirement in the bill for there to be a memorandum on a statutory footing is important.

I assume so. Everyone would be interested in that. I gave evidence to the Westminster Transport Committee, which was looking at the legislation from a UK perspective and wanted assurances about how it would impact devolution, and it also expressed an interest in scrutinising the memorandum after it is published.

We are developing the heads of terms for the MOU. Access and freight are the two issues that are of interest to everybody UK-wide and which seem to be coming to a head. It is helpful that the bill already states that we have to be consulted about access issues that affect Scotland. The heads of terms have not been completed by any means, but Bill Reeve can discuss the content.

Frustratingly, although we had thought that it would be simple to transfer responsibility for access and equalities, it has been decided to keep that within the UK reserved area. When it comes to ScotRail services, we will certainly do what we can to have better-planned integration of works so that access, accessibility and equalities issues can be addressed at the same time. Greater integration will help us, but we still do not have the powers that we think we should have on straightforward things such as access.

We are very much in favour of promoting rail freight. We have strong targets. We have invested considerably in freight, which is currently driven primarily by private sector arrangements. I do not think that anything in the bill will prevent Scotland from doing more on public freight operators if we choose to. That would require investment, as would a different funding arrangement for the railways. I welcome ASLEF’s submission, but a lot of the aspects that it referred to were more UK-wide.

We are limited by our borrowing arrangements, so our funding does not create new money. There are ideas about using bonds, for example—the Scottish Government also wants to use them—as a different type of funding, but that would not necessarily increase the amount of funding, because our borrowing is capped.

I can give you my view—I am a minister for a few more weeks. I think that we should be open to that, but it would not be appropriate for me to tie the hands of a future Government minister, who might want to make choices in that area. That possibility is left open.