Roads: Congestion

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I suspect that the noble Lord should refer his question to Transport for London, but as I mentioned in reply to my noble friend Lord Tebbit, we are trying to come up with innovative schemes to reduce the congestion caused by roadworks and utilities. We think that the lane rental scheme will make a major contribution to that, but of course, we are always in the market for other ideas if people have them.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I have got another idea: the quickest way to reduce congestion is actually to reduce traffic, so what about introducing road pricing? It has been on the agenda at various points, but it seems to fail. There are some very sophisticated schemes whereby the length of a journey, the emissions caused and the time of day can be measured. This would be a very effective way of reducing traffic.

[Lord Callanan]

I am sure it would be—and I think it would be extremely unpopular with motorists. I am aware that various cities in this country and around the world have trialled road pricing schemes, and that several initiatives are being looked at. However, I do not have any further information to give the noble Baroness at the moment.

Diesel Vehicles

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 3rd April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Given my noble friend’s knowledge of London roads, she is well suited to be adviser to the Mayor of London. She makes the salient point that we need to ensure that any road schemes are integrated and that any changes that are implemented are sustainable for the long term in addressing the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in his Question.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

My Lords, one of the problems I have with this Government is that they show no leadership on issues that are national scandals. Air pollution is not only killing thousands of people every year, it is reducing children’s lung capacity so that in the future they will have endless respiratory problems. Why do the Government not see that the health of the people is their biggest concern?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I do not agree with the noble Baroness, and perhaps I may put this into context. I have already talked about a total of £2 billion spent since 2011, with £116 million invested in green bus technology. We have also talked about the £5 million investment by Transport for London in 900 buses, along with £14.1 million for the clean bus technology fund, £8 million for the clean vehicle technology fund and £100 million for Highways England. Those are some of the examples of how the Government are putting money towards schemes across the country for transport support. I accept that we are currently facing challenges on health, but at the same time we are pursuing sustainable transport solutions.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

2: Before Clause 22, insert the following new Clause—
“Bus safety
(1) An operator of a local service may not participate in any scheme, and an authority or authorities may not approve the participation of an operator as party of any scheme, unless the operator has given a written undertaking to the applicable authority or authorities that—(a) it has subscribed to a confidential safety reporting system that—(i) is suitable for bus operations staff;(ii) can demonstrate it is adequately experienced, resourced and staffed; and(iii) is entirely independent of any bus operators’ control,(b) it has used its best endeavours to ensure that all staff of the operator have been made aware of their right to use this confidential safety reporting system to enable bus operators’ staff to report incidents, unsafe acts, concerns and safety-related issues that they do not feel able to report through normal channels, or where normal reporting channels have not resolved the issue,(c) it will collect and monitor bus casualty data in a manner to be prescribed by the applicable authority or authorities from time to time, and(d) it will make its bus casualty data available to the applicable authority or authorities by way of a report on at least a monthly basis.(2) The authority or authorities must publish on their own website, every quarter, the bus casualty data that they have collected from operators.”

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I was very pleased with the support, sympathetic noises and comments that I had from other Peers when I first tabled this bus safety amendment and I have brought it back at Third Reading, with thanks to the Minister for not disallowing it. The amendment was drafted with the assistance of the Campaign for Better Transport’s “Save our Buses” campaign and benefited from written evidence submitted to the Transport Committee by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, or PACTS. It was largely rewritten by the campaigner Tom Kearney, who has been the victim of a bus crash.

The amendment seeks to do two things. First, it would help with confidential reporting, meaning that bus drivers would have access to a system that has long been happening on the railway and within the air industry. This is called the confidential incident reporting and analysis system, or CIRAS, and it means that bus drivers could report anything about faults or problems that they perceived with their vehicles or their routes.

Secondly, it would allow for the quarterly publication of bus casualty data. When we were on the London Assembly, the Greens persuaded Boris Johnson, when he was London Mayor, to improve operational safety performance monitoring and reporting of TfL’s bus routes by adopting this measure. As a result, confidential safety reporting has been in place in London since 4 January this year. TfL has also made its bus operators’ subscription to CIRAS a precondition for running a bus service contract. These safety practices have made London’s bus system, which is about 25% of the UK’s entire bus fleet, substantially more safety conscious. London also has access to casualty data reporting, which has been in operation for nearly three years, since January 2014. TfL publishes bus safety data every quarter, clearly identifying the bus operator involved, incident location, type of injury, sex and age of the injured party, general cause, mode of transport involved, and borough and month in which it happened.

The importance of confidential safety reporting is shown by the statistics now published by Transport for London. The latest statistics suggest that every TfL bus driver has a 0.2% chance per annum of killing someone; a 63% per annum chance of injuring someone; and a 0.016% chance of sending someone to hospital every single day. Given that safety incidents impose costs and cause delays, one would think that bus operators would be motivated to encourage such reporting by their employees. Surprisingly, even though London’s bus operators have franchises across the UK, only their London franchises are subscribed to CIRAS. While I support the idea of localism, it seems strange to me that London’s bus franchises should have a manifestly better operational safety reporting system than any other locality in the United Kingdom.

In the rail industry, 2015 marked the eighth year in a row with zero rail crash fatalities. This year of course we have had the Croydon tram fatalities. I do not know whether the Croydon tram was operating under CIRAS conditions; I would be interested to know whether it was, if the Minister knows and can tell us. We have acted for many years to prevent rail crashes and deaths, so I fail to understand why we so readily accept crashes, injuries, incidents and deaths on our roads.

As a result of the Minister’s previous comments, I have redrafted this amendment so that the section on confidential safety incident reporting conforms to existing rail standards and CIRAS’s name no longer appears, which would mean that it is not quite so time-limited as it might have been before. I hope that these tweaks will remove the barriers to the Government’s acceptance of this incredibly common-sense proposal. I beg to move.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot recall what position I took on the noble Baroness’s amendment in Committee, but I am not sure that it is one that we should accept. The reason is simply that air crashes and rail crashes are extremely complex events and it is not always clear what has caused an accident. The accidents that the noble Baroness refers to are road traffic accidents where, generally speaking, it is obvious what caused the accident. This is not an amendment that I would support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his generous reply. Obviously he did not go as far as I would have liked and I hope the House will allow me a little leeway in demolishing—or commenting on—some of the comments that have been made during this debate.

Earl Attlee: complexity. I have never driven a train or a bus but, as a train is taken along tracks with no steering wheel, it could be argued that a bus is more complex to drive and that there are more complex issues on roads. So that is quite a feeble argument.

Lord Snape, I did not quite follow what you were saying but I can assure you that, from an extra burden point of view—if you are talking about a financial burden, for example—if a company has a turnover of up to £1 million, it would cost it £300 to subscribe to the scheme. If its turnover is from £1 billion to £2 billion, it is £12,000. That is not onerous. You might argue that the data collection is onerous—but I would say, “No data, no measurement”. We cannot judge whether a company is safe if we do not have the data to look at. So this is money well spent.

Lord Horam, you talked about my interesting ideas—I think that was a criticism rather than a compliment—and you also called this heavy-handed. I can only say to you that this is tried and tested in London and it works for the majority of bus companies. You talked about London buses being so good, but they are so good partly because they subscribe to this scheme and bus drivers are allowed to comment on their vehicles and the problems they face. I thank the Peers who commented in a positive way and I shall come to the Minister’s comment in a moment.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Baroness has done a fabulous job in moving her amendment and has had success in her reply from the Minister—but will she undertake to study the Companion on the use of the word “you”?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I do apologise. I have no idea about that. Perhaps you would like to give me a seminar afterwards.

The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, questioned whether or not he was consistent between my bringing the amendment last time and now, I can assure the noble Lord that he was completely consistent. He did not like it then and he does not like it now.

I thank the Minister for the productive meeting and it was good to hear that he was sympathetic to the issues. This is a relatively minor change. Other people have called it heavy-handed but it is a minor change. It saves lives. I cannot think of a higher, nobler cause than saving lives—especially those of the people we purport to govern. We are saving lives and preventing injuries and devastation to families—and the numbers we are talking about are not inconsequential. This is a relatively light touch for something that has such heavy consequences. I am of course disappointed that the Government have not snapped up the amendment but I look forward to it being picked up later.

Its impact on society and on the taxpayer is much heavier than we realise. Every crash has a cost—whether it is in delays to business, to the service or to commuters—that we do not assess. When we talk about the cost to industry, we should also think about the cost to the life of the towns, cities and roads where it happens.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

I appreciate the noble Baroness giving way. Does she agree that one of the key duties on any board of directors is the management of health and safety? It is a legal requirement, so it is inconceivable that bus operating companies do not already collect this information. What we are talking about here are two things. The first is the matter of transparency in reporting and the second is the further step that the noble Baroness wants to take in terms of it being a barrier to granting a franchise. But the point about collecting data is that companies will be doing that already because they are legally obliged to do so.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for that comment. I actually do not know the answer to that and I will find out.

I hope that the economic impact of deaths and injuries will be taken into account by the Government when they assess the importance of this amendment. Having said all that and feeling only slightly better—I mean bitter—I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

Roads: Drink-drive Limit

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they are planning to lower the drink-drive limit in England and Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have no plans to lower the drink-drive limit in England and Wales. Our approach in tackling drink-driving is through rigorous enforcement, tough penalties and changing the social acceptability of drink-driving, including through our award-winning THINK! campaigns.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, but the RAC Foundation said last year that 25 lives would have been saved if the limit had been lowered. Police Scotland is about to produce a report on its two-year trial. If the report suggests similar findings, will the Government use that evidence to reduce the limit at the next available opportunity?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

We are certainly watching the situation, and the noble Baroness is quite right to raise the issue about Scotland, where the limit has been lowered. We have previously said—indeed, I have said from this Dispatch Box—that we will look at the evidence that is presented from the programme that was initiated in Scotland, we will reflect on that evidence and the experience there and then take forward any reviews that we need to. But let me make it absolutely clear: we currently have no reviews planned; we are not looking to review the limit as it stands.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - part two): House of Lords
Monday 24th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, despite the passion shown by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, I am afraid that I am still not convinced by the renewed arguments for removing this clause. No one denies that existing locally owned bus companies are by and large a success story—I said as much in Committee. They have a great track record of securing awards and a very high satisfaction rate among their passengers. I can see nothing in this Bill that would change that and I wish those municipal bus companies every success as they continue to deliver for their customers.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked: “What is wrong?” The only reason why a local authority would wish to set up its own bus company now would be to put it in prime position to win a franchise contract, a contract that its parent company, the local authority, was awarding. That would make something of a mockery of that franchise competition. Why would another bus operator go to all the expense, in both time and monetary terms, of submitting a bid for the franchise knowing that it was up against another company that was owned by the awarding authority? It would be a done deal from the start, so other operators in that area might as well shut up shop straightaway. I therefore disagree with the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that Clause 21 is not consistent with the objectives of the Bill. It is necessary to make the Bill work properly. Of course, a local authority company would also have to invest resources in submitting a bid, but those resources would come from the local authority, so the body awarding the franchise would have paid for its own company to bid. That does not seem right.

I have a final point which I believe is very important: there is nothing new in this clause. All it does is extend the bar on establishing a bus company to types of local authority that did not exist when the Transport Act 1985 was passed; for example, unitary authorities. The UK bus market has coped very well for the past 30 years without district councils being able to set up their own bus companies, so why the outcry now? I think that I have answered my own question: a combined authority or unitary authority, having secured the necessary powers, would want to establish its own bus company now only to gain a foothold in the franchise process and wipe out the competition. That is not an acceptable way of proceeding. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will vigorously resist the amendment and support Clause 21.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I rise to support the amendment and to rebut utterly what the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has just said. I think he has a rather narrow view of the sort of situation that can arise. I spoke only today to a Green Party councillor from Cannock Chase in Staffordshire who told me that several private bus companies have dropped their less profitable routes, so communities are now stranded. People who do not have cars have no option for travelling apart from begging lifts from neighbours who do.

[Earl Attlee]

Is it not open to local authorities to subsidise the route in question?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

Why not run them more efficiently in the first place? Public ownership can be very cost effective and much more so because it caters to the needs of the people that it represents. People are saying to councils, “This is what we want”, and private bus companies often do not give it to them.

Limiting the power of local authorities to help their communities, as the noble Earl suggests, is a very undemocratic thing to do—perhaps that is not surprising in an undemocratic House. Clause 21 spoils what is a laudable and well-intentioned Bill. I beg the Minister to ignore what he has heard from behind him and to listen to this side of the House. It is a case of representing people and giving them fuller lives, which private bus companies, because they are in it entirely for profit, just do not see. I beg the Minister to accept the amendment.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with those who have spoken in support of the removal of Clause 21 from the Bill. The Bill is 83 pages long and the relevant paragraph is two lines long. It says simply, in a clause headed “Bus companies: limitation of powers of authorities in England”:

“A relevant authority may not, in exercise of any of its powers, form a company for the purpose of providing a local service”.

The Minister needs to explain to the House—I agree with my noble friend Lady Randerson that he did not do so satisfactorily in Committee—why this clause needs to be in the Bill, what its purpose is and what problem it seeks to solve or prevent. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, gave us one reason. He forecast wholesale competition through the franchising route from local authorities; I remind the House of my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. He was good enough to say that local authorities run bus services extremely well in the limited number of cases where that occurs.

I hope the Minister might explain what the problem actually is that the Government are trying to solve, because five years ago, the Localism Act 2011 increased the powers given to councils alongside their general power of competence, and they have a right to undertake new duties and introduce new policies that are not excluded by existing legislation. Of course, that explains why these two lines are in the Bill; otherwise, councils would have the power to form those companies to provide a local service.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

112: Before Clause 22, insert the following new Clause—
“Bus safety
(1) An operator of a local service may not participate in any scheme, and an authority or authorities may not approve the participation of an operator as part of any scheme, unless the operator has given a written undertaking to the applicable authority or authorities that—(a) it has subscribed to the Confidential Incident Reporting and Analysis System (“CIRAS”), and that it has made all possible efforts to ensure that all staff of the operator have been made aware of their right to use CIRAS as a confidential reporting channel in respect of any safety concerns,(b) it will collect and monitor bus casualty data in a manner to be prescribed by the applicable authority or authorities from time to time, and(c) it will make its bus casualty data available to the applicable authority or authorities by way of a report on at least a monthly basis.(2) The authority or authorities must publish on their own website, every quarter, the bus casualty data that they have collected from operators.”

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

My Lords, this amendment is about bus safety. I would like to think that it is so sensible that it will be accepted. Statistics released by the Department for Transport show that 5,381 collisions of buses and coaches were recorded last year, of which 64 resulted in fatalities and 638 in serious injuries. This amendment would help to address this worrying safety record by requiring all bus operators to subscribe to CIRAS, the Confidential Incident Reporting and Analysis System, and for bus operators and their contracting local authorities to collect and publish casualty data for public scrutiny every quarter.

CIRAS is standard across the rail industry and began in 1996, when a team from Strathclyde University was asked to introduce a confidential reporting system for UK rail company ScotRail. It allows employees to report any health, safety, security and environmental concerns they might have. All employee information is kept confidential. Introducing CIRAS to the bus network would give employees an extra way of reporting any concerns, complementing the proven methods that are already in place for reporting and investigating incidents. Under huge pressure from one campaigner who was a victim of a bus crash, Tom Kearney, and with a little help from Green Party elected people, Transport for London adopted this policy on 31 July last year and subsequently incorporated it into its bus safety plan, published on 1 February this year. Due to the bus safety reporting practices we won in London, the Department for Transport has confirmed to us that we know the names of the bus operators involved in only 14 of those 64 fatal bus collisions; that is 22%.

According to a report published by CIRAS in July, since going live in January 2016, safety reports from TfL bus employees constituted 25% of all safety reports during the first half of the year. Since TfL bus operators are fewer than 2% of CIRAS members nationwide, that is a key indicator of the desire for bus sector employees to be proactive in reporting their operational safety concerns. It also means that the DfT has no idea which operators were involved in well over 5,000 bus collisions and 50 deaths last year. TfL knows every single one in over 27,000.

Operators in London carry more than half the passenger journeys in England and, including their services outside London, account for more than 80% of the market. Those operators already subscribe to the CIRAS scheme and will not incur any further cost as a result of the amendment. The cost to other operators of subscribing will be negligible: between £300 and £25,000 per annum depending on turnover and representing no more than 0.03% of their turnover. The amendment would also require operators to collect bus casualty data and provide it to the applicable authority. It would require those authorities to publish quarterly casualty data on their websites.

I am sure noble Lords know this already, but a death on the roads comes to nearly £2 million when the entire cost to public services is taken into account. Money could be saved massively, not only for the NHS, but also for councils and others who have to provide social services to bereaved families. Since 2014, Transport for London has provided more transparency for the public on both the extent of the problems and the very varied safety records of different operators. There is also a slightly concerning fact that this amendment could represent the only language in the Bill that addresses the operational safety performance of the bus services covered by this landmark legislation.

As has already been proven in the air, maritime and rail industries, public reporting and scrutiny of operator safety performance and access to confidential and independent incident reporting can do much to catalyse the formation of a self-reinforcing safety culture within companies. I believe that the amendment represents a proportionate measure to improve bus safety, learning from the progress made in the rail industry and in the bus market in London. I hope that the Government will support the amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much support this amendment. My noble friend has set out very clearly why it is necessary. It is useful to reflect on the continuing difference in the way road and rail accidents and injuries are considered. I recall a few years ago when the Government were forming Highways England—I think that is the name of it now—several of us tabling an amendment which stated that the Office of Rail and Road, as it became, should be responsible for road safety. It was soundly rejected by the Government because it would have shown up just how unsafe the roads were, are and probably will be in the future.

I think my noble friend said that were 64 fatal bus collisions; I cannot remember whether it was last year or in a year. That compares with none on the railways, or maybe one in some years. Yet nobody even seems to think the subject worth collecting statistics on. She mentioned £2 million for every fatality, which is a figure that has long been used in the transport industry, be it in rail or road. It usually means that if the cause of the fatality can be identified and avoided from happening again for less than £2 million, you would spend the money on it, and if it was more than that you might not. If the value is the same, one’s only conclusion can be that the Government think that the value of a bus passenger’s life is less than the value of a rail passenger’s life when they die in a bus accident. This is a very dangerous situation to get into. We are not going to have an Office of Rail and Road looking after road safety tonight, but this amendment is a very good start to a debate that will probably go on for many years. I fully support it.

--- Later in debate ---

Given the importance of road safety, and based on the fact that this issue has come to us at this time during the passage of the Bill, at this juncture I would be happy to consider a specific reference to confidential reporting systems in the guidance that will accompany the Bill. I assure the noble Baroness and your Lordships’ House that I fully understand the importance of ensuring that bus travel is safe for all, but I do not feel the amendment as currently drafted would necessarily achieve its desired outcome. I anticipate working with the noble Baroness on this matter as the Bill progresses, perhaps in another place.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I want to be comforted by what the Minister is saying, but I am curious about whether I could bring this back at Third Reading. I feel very strongly about this issue. We know about only 20% and it seems logical to roll this out for the other 80%. I just cannot see the problem. What about my bringing it back at Third Reading?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I have indicated to the noble Baroness the timelines behind this. Let us not forget that the Bill is going through its first iteration, as it was introduced in the Lords. Looking at this from where I am standing, I think that it would be better to allow full consideration of this issue by allowing it to be considered in the other place. If that is so, then as we move this legislation through it may be something to consider in the other place as well. What I am trying to say is that, as this is an amendment from the noble Baroness, it is not for me to instruct or direct her as to what she wishes to do at the next stage of the Bill.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I am grateful to the Minister for his reply and his promise not to try to direct or instruct me. That could prove difficult in any case, but I am always interested to see how people try.

I thank the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Kennedy, for supporting the amendment. It is very logical, when this system is already in place in London and is working so well there. I congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, on his comments on near misses. Of course there is no such thing as a near miss; what it is is a near hit. Quite honestly, we are very lucky that those near hits are not real hits; many of them are a matter of pure chance. If he had talked to the campaigner Tom Kearney, who has talked to me about the impact his being in a coma for two months had on his family and how much worse it would have been if he had died—as so many people have already died—he might feel a bit differently about it.

I would be happy to supply any more information to the Minister that he felt he needed. Personally, I feel that a lot of the bus companies in London that are using the system could use it outside London but choose not to. That is a bit of an indicator that this has to be in legislation and compulsory. If we are trying to understand companies’ safety records then we have to have the data, and what is lacking in the Bill is an instruction for companies to submit safety data.

For me, this issue is about whistleblowing. It is noble and honourable for employees to alert their companies secretly to the problems that they see. It is difficult for them to do so openly but much easier when they have confidentiality. This would be a natural extension of what happened in London so, very sadly, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 112 withdrawn.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

I hope that the noble Baroness will not forget to inform the House that groundwater, in aquifers, is very close to the ground—that is why it is called that—while the fracking occurs between one mile and a mile and a half deep, and that what she is saying therefore has no merit whatever.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. Fracking of course risks earth tremors and earthquakes and therefore water could be polluted very easily, so I would argue that his comments have no merit.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

Could the noble Baroness point me to any scientific research that supports what she is saying?

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

It is very close at hand if the noble Lord would like to look at it. I can give him any number of sources; I do not have them to hand at the moment but I would be delighted to give them to him afterwards. I am sure that Friends of the Earth and so on would be very pleased to send him a briefing on all this, as they have gone into it extensively.

[Lord Turnbull (CB)]

I remind the noble Baroness of what was said in the Committee on Economic Affairs:

“On the evidence we have heard, there should be no risk that seismic activity caused by hydraulic fracturing would be of sufficient magnitude to constitute any risk to people and property”.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, who was then chair of the Environment Agency, reported to that Economic Affairs Committee that,

“groundwater contamination is the biggest environmental risk in the Act”.

The Labour spokesperson in the other place said that it was all or nothing: if the Government did not accept the amendment, including banning fracking near aquifers, the Labour Party would oppose fracking altogether. I look forward to that party reaffirming its opposition today. People might assume that as this is an unelected House, nobody watches what goes on here, but people do watch and they care out there. Fracking is a very controversial issue; people have already voiced their concerns and will continue to do so. A government U-turn on this is unforgiveable.

The second issue is that of trespass. I think there is a later amendment that deals with this, but it does not go far enough.

Groundwater contamination is one of the key environmental public health risks from fracking and is a huge risk to the well-being of the population. In some parts of the UK, more than 70% of public drinking water comes from groundwater. As for the Government promising to redefine groundwater source areas, that is a secondary legislation issue. The original idea from the Labour amendment was, however, that this should be in the Bill; it should be primary legislation, not secondary.

A leaked letter from the Chancellor had instructions to pull out all the stops to make for an easier life for fracking companies. This is probably not surprising when our Prime Minister has said that we are going “all out for shale”. I can accept that that side of the House is very gung-ho on fracking but I hope for something better on this side. The original Amendment 21 would also give us an opportunity to vote against the issue of trespass within this Bill.

Despite assertions that shale gas is a fantastic new source of energy, it is time for us to consider whether and by how much it would have a lower carbon footprint. It probably would not, if CO₂ and methane are included.

Fracking is one of those things that we can go for very hard when we do not know all the risks, but we have to understand that those risks exist. This House has a duty to people outside who know that there are risks. Some 360,000 people voiced their concerns about issues such as trespass. Many people also responded to a consultation on the risks of fracking. There is concern out there that I feel is not well represented in this House and I urge the Government to think again about this amendment.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that if Amendment 21E is agreed to, I cannot call Amendment 21G by reason of pre-emption.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the government amendments, because in effect they are in keeping with the spirit of the Commons amendments and ensure a practical application so that shale gas exploration will go ahead.

I will address as briefly as I can some of the assertions —and they were assertions—made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. She was invited to give the source of what she alleged and was unable to do so. That is really unfortunate.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

I am perfectly able to do so, but sadly not at this precise moment. I am more than happy to do so in the future.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

With due respect, I do not think that is good enough. If we are going to enter into a debate in your Lordships’ House in which assertions are made that in essence the exploration of shale gas and fracking is unsafe, it ought to be backed up now with the evidence. The noble Baroness has had the opportunity to do so.

I try to enter this debate sharing the same concerns as the noble Baroness—concern for the environment and for the benefit to the public as a whole—and I do not take any assertions from the companies that might be involved in it: I go to sources such as Durham University, which is conducting an independent assessment, I look at the House of Lords report. We keep hearing assertions about earth tremors and earthquakes, but I thought we had nailed that in the last debate. There will be continuous seismic monitoring. Operations will stop if there is a tremor of 0.5, and at 0.5, believe me, the earth would not move for anybody in this Chamber, whatever they were doing, so to allege that the Government and this House are somehow colluding with an unsafe practice is totally irresponsible.

Let us remind ourselves that we are still going to be dependent on gas. By 2025, something like 70% of it is likely to be imported. Let us remind ourselves what happens with imported gas. First, it could be fracked elsewhere, where the conditions are not likely to be quite as well protected and monitored as ours are. Then it has to be liquefied, transported and then de-liquified to be put back into its gaseous state. Are we saying that is preferable to using our own resources? I do not understand that analysis and I do not think it is borne out.

--- Later in debate ---

More broadly, we wish this to be seen as a package that is informative to the community. I therefore hope that I have been able to satisfy noble Lords and that they will support the government amendments.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

My Lords, I thank everyone who took part in the debate, even those who did not agree with me. There were valuable points of clarification from the Minister—for example, the fact that water companies will be consulted is crucial because fracking takes a huge amount of water. That is important in these days of a sometimes erratic water supply.

I said at the beginning that my main point of concern related to the groundwater source protection zones 1 to 3. The Government are not taking that issue seriously enough. Those zones were protected in the original Amendment 21 and I see no reason to remove them and include them in secondary legislation. I said that in my speech but perhaps the Minister missed it. Additionally, Labour has flip-flopped badly on this, and I cannot help but feel that it does not understand how important this issue is. If the Government are actually going to listen to the Environment Agency on many of these issues, why not listen to it on those protection zones and take it as accepted that those zones will not be fracked? I do not understand why that is so difficult.

I am also glad that fuel poverty was mentioned. This is increasingly on peoples’ agenda and more people are suffering from it. If we provided help with insulation, that would probably protect and help more people than worrying about only the cost of fuel.

This Government could take a lead from Wales and Scotland—as well as France, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and even New York state—in opposing fracking, focusing on renewables and cutting energy waste. That seems a much more profitable way forward. Personally, I am against any fracking, but I equally accept that if it is going to go ahead then the protections have to be secure and strong. That is definitely not what this Bill supplies.

Of course, our water supply is absolutely crucial to our well-being, not only from a health point of view but also for farming and agriculture. It has to be protected. Again, I do not feel this Bill takes it seriously enough. In passing the Bill we are actually letting the Secretary of State decide on protected areas. I am a politician, and many people here perhaps are politicians, but even I would not trust a politician to decide on that. The Environment Agency ought to have the loudest voice here. I would very much like to divide the House on this—obviously—because I care very much about it. However, I am equally positive that it would be a crushing vote so I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment to the Motion withdrawn.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I was not here yesterday but I listened very carefully and I was, quite honestly, very disappointed. The Bills that are coming before us offer nothing to the disadvantaged and nothing to the vulnerable. The poor and the disabled are virtually ignored, which means that these Bills will open up the rich-poor divide even more than it has been opened up already by this Government. It is a shame that this is happening, and the Government really have to deal with it. I will raise a few issues that I would like answers on and will flag them up as I come to them.

The idea of infrastructure is always very interesting. For decades now, new power stations, energy supply projects and so on have been put in infrastructure, which means they are relatively protected from funding cuts. However, energy efficiency programmes do not come under the infrastructure tag. Why not? A good energy efficiency programme means that you do not have to build the new power stations, so why is that not infrastructure as well? I would like an answer to that.

Secondly, I assume that all infrastructure projects are assessed for their economic, social and environmental benefits. Are they prioritised according to what is the most beneficial? Many of the policies in the Queen’s Speech do not have any concept of what is good for people and good for the planet. It is obvious that future spending restrictions on capital investment in infrastructure are going to be much less than in other areas, so we really need to put in as much as we can away from funding cuts. That is absolutely crucial.

Finally, the Infrastructure Bill seems to offer assistance to big oil companies and housebuilders but not to hard-pressed householders. It builds on the tax breaks that fossil fuel companies have already been given in the hope that they will find gas and sell it cheaply to bring down bills. If that money were given to householders to insulate their homes, that would be a much more efficient use of the money and, of course, overall much better for the environment. Hoping that the big companies will do the right thing is madness; it is a forlorn hope and we have to think about better ways to protect ourselves. We really should not be spending public funds on the extraction of fossil fuels that would be better left underground. The Government have not understood the IPCC’s recent report, which says:

“There is a clear message from science: To avoid dangerous interference with the climate system, we need to move away from business as usual”.

The Infrastructure Bill also gives new freedoms to the Highways Agency for road construction and introduces planning changes to fast-track developments. With the problems that we have already with our carbon emissions, building new roads is, again, absolute madness. I just do not understand how any Government could think that this is all right.

Global agreements on climate change are wonderful —we really need them—but they come to absolutely nothing if the Governments who are actually setting the policies and spending the money do not understand what climate change means. Specifically, this fracking trespass Bill introduces a new right of corporate trespass for oil and gas companies and threatens home owners across Britain because it will allow companies to run shale gas pipelines under private land without seeking the consent of home owners. I understand that the Prime Minister said today in the other place, in response to a question from Caroline Lucas MP, that it will not be legal to frack against a property owner’s will. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that point and tell me whether the Prime Minister is speaking for the whole party.

The fracking trespass Bill would also decimate our environment and climate infrastructure. It will not only make local conditions very bad because of the pollution that it will cause and the lorry movements and so on, it will mean the development of a whole new fossil fuel industry that will make it impossible for us to keep to our climate change targets.

Thirdly, this Bill suggests that the Government have already chosen National Grid’s slow progression energy scenario but have kept quiet about it. Perhaps the Minister could let me know if that is true. In 2012 National Grid released a report, UK Future Energy Scenarios, which gave three options. The first was “Slow Progression”, which assumed that climate change targets would be abandoned. The second was “Gone Green”, which was to meet climate targets. The third was “Accelerated Growth”, which was about meeting climate targets early. This Bill suggests that the Government have chosen the slow progression and have in effect abandoned the whole concept of climate change targets.

I will now say what I really would have liked to have seen in the Government’s plans for next year. There are four things. The Government could still introduce them. Perhaps we could discuss them afterwards if the Minister would like to take them up. The first is a fossil fuels divestment Bill, which would require the withdrawal of all public funds that are indirectly or directly supporting companies or activities involving the exploration and extraction of fossil fuels, domestically and internationally, and to reinvest all such funds in zero-carbon energy generation and energy conservation measures—a much better use of the money.

The second Bill would be a fair pay Bill, which would set a company-wide pay ratio of 10:1: that is, the lowest paid worker in a company should get 1/10th of what the CEO is paid. You pay the CEO whatever you think he or she is worth but you make sure that your cleaner or your security guard is paid at least 1/10th of that. That would start to rebalance the rich-poor divide that is widening under this Government.

The third Bill would be a public ownership Bill, which would promote public ownership of public services, introduce a presumption in favour of service provision by public sector and not-for-profit entities, and put in place mechanisms to increase the accountability, transparency and public control of public services, including those operated by public companies.

The fourth Bill would be a housing Bill to prevent rent increases above inflation for existing tenants and to increase security of tenure with five-year tenancy agreements. A little of this is being done in London and it looks as though it could be extremely successful. With the problems that we already have with housing in London, it would seem logical to produce something like this.

I do not want to sound alarmist. When I talk about destroying the planet, I am not talking about really destroying the planet; I am talking about destroying the little bit of the planet that we rely on for our existence. The fact is that if we do not take climate change into account, if we continue with business as usual, we are damaging not only our future but that of our children and grandchildren.