Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder.

It's Wednesday the 17th of June, which means that it's the day of the King's Speech,

where we find out exactly what the new Labour government has in plan for the nation.

And in particular, what are they going to do about the railways? Well, we kind of know

already because in April, Labour brought out what they called a plan to fix Britain's railways.

I've read it, so you don't have to. And I can tell you what the now Transport Secretary Louise Haig has said. She says,

as Secretary of State, I won't be running the operation of the railways day to day. And by the way,

this is me speaking now. That's important because at the moment it's being micromanaged by

civil servants at the department of transport.

She says, I will be the passenger in chief, setting the standards, the strategy to improve the railway.

Well, that sounds great, but I do know from past experience that there are lies, damned lies and

party promises about making the railways better.

Well, there are those some concrete steps about what is going to happen.

So a new incoming Labour government will establish a new arm's length public body.

This is called Great British Railways, which will be a directing mind in charge of Britain's railway infrastructure and service.

You might think, well, I've heard of that before and you would be quite right because, well, actually,

we saw the very same thing being proposed by the old conservative government. This was as a

result of a very, very, very long-running investigation into what needs to happen to the railways

by Keith Williams,

former boss of British Airways, by the way,

which then became the Williams Shaps plan for rail,

was named after the Great Grant Shaps, former Transport Secretary,

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