The Railways Bill rebuilds the doctrinal architecture put in place by the Railways Act 1993 around a new directing mind — Great British Railways — that combines the functions of Network Rail and most of the franchised passenger operators. Where the 1993 Act distributed track ownership, train operation, regulation and franchising across separate actors, the Bill collapses track and train into a single statutory body whose functions are set out in the new cl 3(1) and whose licence is issued by the Secretary of State rather than the regulator.
The Office of Rail and Road's role is reconstituted, not abolished. Its s.4 duties are replaced by a reformed duty-set (cl 18–20) that adds a positive public-interest duty and an obligation to consider the cost of public funding, but strips the long-standing duty to promote competition from the regulator's appeals work on GBR's network. ORR retains health and safety, competition law concurrency with the CMA, consumer law, rail statistics, train driver licensing, oversight of non-GBR networks (HS1, Core Valley Lines, Elizabeth Line core) and the Channel Tunnel — and continues to issue licences to non-GBR operators.
Access and charging move materially. Under the current regime ORR approves access contracts and sets charges for Network Rail; under cl 13(1) and cl 59–67 GBR sets its own access charges and produces an Access and Use Policy, a charges scheme and a performance scheme. The Railways (Access, Management, and Licensing) Regulations 2016 (AMRs) are disapplied to GBR by cl 72(2) but continue to govern non-GBR infrastructure managers — creating, by design, a two-track access doctrine across the network.
ORR's residual leverage over GBR runs through three channels: enforcement of the GBR licence (issued by the SoS); statutory monitoring under the inserted s.69A; and a judicial-review-style appeals jurisdiction under cl 68 over GBR's access, charging and performance decisions. The appeals power is deliberately narrow — ORR may quash a decision, order reconsideration or substitute a decision only where there is a single legally available answer (cl 68(4)(b)). This is significantly weaker than the current ORR directing role under the Railways Act 1993 or its appeals function under regulation 32 AMRs.
Funding is restructured through the Funding Period Review (Sch 2). The Secretary of State issues a Statement of Objectives (replacing the HLOS) and a Statement of Funds Available; GBR produces an integrated business plan; ORR advises rather than determines. A new Passenger Watchdog, grown out of Transport Focus, takes on functions currently exercised by ORR on passenger information, accessible travel, complaints, delay compensation and the Rail Ombudsman, with binding standards delivered through GBR's and non-GBR operators' licences.