Rural Bus Services

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I certainly agree with the noble Lord that buses can be a lifeline in rural areas. The Bus Services Act, which I mentioned earlier, provides extra powers for local authorities to work with bus operators to improve the bus services in rural areas. We are also encouraging local authorities to deliver better rural services through efforts such as our Total Transport pilot schemes, which have explored ways of commissioning publicly funded transport so that services and funding are able to go further.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that one issue that has a perverse result is concessionary fares in rural bus areas? People travel out of towns into rural areas and the concessionary fares camouflage much of the subsidy that goes to rural bus fares. We support concessionary fares but, when they were set up, the local councils were not given the funding to run the level of service that has come into effect.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as I said, we fully support the concessionary fare programme and we want to continue the £1 billion a year we spend through local authorities to guarantee that service. It certainly supports bus services and that is something we want to carry on with.

Railways: East Coast Main Line

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, of course there were some errors in the granting of this franchise, and the suggestion concerning passenger numbers was indeed incorrect. We have learned some lessons and introduced new measures to deter overbidding, and have improved our financial modelling and stress testing. With this added testing, the department can forecast bids which are likely to default and exclude them in the future. On fares, the Secretary of State for Transport has underlined our aspiration to move from RPI to CPI but we must manage this transition properly and take into account staff costs, which are a third of operating costs.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Will the Minister join me in congratulating the east coast operator on taking brand new trains into service in 2019? These are built locally to a very high specification, and will reduce the journey time to London considerably.

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I certainly join my noble friend in congratulating east coast on this, which again will not be affected by the decision on who is to run the franchise. As my noble friend has said, the Azuma trains are due to start being introduced on the east coast network from the end of this year, and I am sure that passengers will enjoy the benefits.

Railways: Fares

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Baroness mentions the freezing of fuel duty, which is obviously widely welcomed by motorists, following the Budget. I am afraid that we cannot freeze rail fares because by doing so, we would have to decrease investment in our railways, which is sorely needed.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Can the Minister explain why, exceptionally, rail fare increases are tied to RPI, when every other cost of living increase is tied to CPI?

Railways: Northern England

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I can see that that position has widespread support. First, I thank the noble Lord for his interest and considerable advocacy on this subject. We also pay tribute to the work of the Skipton-East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership—that well-known group—in raising the profile on the case for reopening this line. Local partners share a desire to improve connectivity across the Pennines. Their recent connectivity report suggested that there may be economic benefits in doing so, and they will be actively involved in the Transport for the North corridor study to consider potential solutions. Through growth deals, we have provided the north of England with almost £3.5 billion of local growth funding, which is supporting local authorities and LEPs to deliver more than 150 local transport schemes.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will be aware of the North York Moors railway line, of which I have the privilege to be honorary president. The fact that the line was able to access the national rail line to Whitby has opened up tourism, and the number of people visiting the railway has risen phenomenally. Will my noble friend share this with his ministerial colleagues to look favourably on Heritage Lottery Fund grant applications for such lines in the future?

[Lord Callanan]

I am sure there is considerable benefit to the North Yorkshire communities in the reopening and additional service provision on these lines, and I am happy to support my noble friend’s assertion.

Great Western Main Line: Electrification

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I thought I was pretty clear, but obviously not clear enough for the noble Baroness. I said that some parts of the electrification have been deferred to Control Period 6, as she is aware. The Government will review the spending on that to ensure the electrification on all remaining parts that have been deferred is in the interests of customers. The Cardiff to Swansea route that the noble Baroness specifically mentioned will be subject to the next control period—CP6.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, the electrification of the east coast main line route was completed in 1990. We are expecting a massive investment by Virgin Trains East Coast by 2020. At the moment, the line frequently fails. Does the noble Lord have a timetable and an idea of the investment that is required, and when Network Rail might carry out the investment required to ensure that the investment that Virgin Trains is making will be worth it?

Aviation: International Trade

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

We as a Government are relying on what the people of this country decided. We promised that there would be a referendum. The British people voted and it is now our job, as a responsible Government, to respect the will of the people, as both Houses should do, and make sure that that decision is implemented.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Can my noble friend estimate the time that it will take to negotiate bilateral aviation agreements with third countries when we leave the European Union, and of the cost to UK airlines of re-establishing themselves elsewhere in the European Union as well as having a base in this country?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I do not think that we should be alarmed about this. As I have already said, it is part and parcel of the discussions that we are having with not just European but international partners. I have already met directly airline and airport operators here in the UK and with airline operators outside the UK. All are very keen to see a seamless transition to ensure that the rights that British airlines enjoy today, and those that international airlines using UK airports enjoy, continue without any kind of interruption.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lilley]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will excuse me, but I want to make a little progress.

A number of fears have been raised about water supplies, the first of which is the fear of well failure. We have drilled 2,000 onshore wells in this country and, as far as I know, not one of them has resulted in contaminated water supplies. If that has happened, it has not resulted in any ill health to anybody.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

This is one of the myths that my right hon. Friend has fallen into. We have only fracked at shallow depth for natural gas. The only time we have fracked at depth for shale gas was in Fylde, which is why the question of the independent regulation of this industry hangs in the balance this evening.

[Mr Lilley]

I am sorry but my hon. Friend misheard me. I said that we have drilled 2,000 onshore wells—I was not talking about fracking wells. As for the risks of escape of gas, it does not matter whether it is fracked or not. We have drilled 2,000 such wells, only 200 of which have been fracked, and they tend to be shallow and small pressure. I will move on to the issue of fracking, but if people are worried about methane or liquids permeating to the surface, that is an issue about well casing. We have very adequate and strong controls on that, and, as far as I know, there is not a single case among those 2,000 wells where a problem has resulted.

The second issue is whether fracking—the use of high pressures, at depth, as my hon. Friend says—will lead to those fractures reaching up to the water table. The useful report produced by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, which is studiously ignored by those who wish to raise fears and concerns, makes it absolutely clear that that is extremely unlikely. For fractures to permeate requires immense energy and for them to remain open proppants have to be put in; sand is injected to try to keep them open. The idea that they will be able to be kept open for several hundred if not thousands of feet, extending up to the aquifer, is almost laughable. Even this well-measured report states:

“Sufficiently high upward pressures would be required during the fracturing process and then sustained afterwards over the long term once the fracturing process had ceased. It is very difficult to conceive of how this might occur given the UK’s shale gas hydrogeological environments.”

Even if that did occur, an upward flow of fluids would not result unless

“the permeability of the fractures”

was

“similar to that of the overlying aquifer for any significant quantity of fluid to flow. In reality, the permeability of the aquifer is likely to be several orders of magnitude greater than the permeability of the fractures. Upward flow of fluids from the zone of shale gas extraction to overlying aquifers via fractures in the intervening strata is highly unlikely.”

That is an understatement.

Concerns have also been raised about the process resulting in excessive abstraction of water—too much water being used—putting our water supplies under threat. The report states that the amount of water

“needed to operate a hydraulically fractured shale gas well for a decade may be equivalent to the amount needed to water a golf course for a month”.

It states that

“the amount lost to leaks in United Utilities’ region in north west England every hour”

exceeds the water required by one shale gas well for a decade, so there is no danger of excessive water abstraction and use as a result of this process.

Then we hear the frequent assertion, “We just can’t take the risk. This is a new, untried, untested process. We don’t know what dangers could result.” In fact, 2.5 million wells have been fracked worldwide and not a single person has been injured or harmed as a result of contaminated water. Not a single building has been damaged by the resultant seismic events that are so small that they would probably be less than if we dropped one of the Dispatch Boxes on the floor.

We are dealing with a well-tried and tested procedure worldwide. In this country, we have drilled 2,000 wells well below the aquifer and had no problems of contamination. We know from very respected bodies such as the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society that the risks are negligible, certainly if we continue with the sort of processes and environmental protection that they say already exist, although they do recommend that they could be strengthened in certain ways.

I urge the House not to be frightened by those who are trying to scare us into failing to exploit a resource that is potentially of immense value to this country and, not least, to those areas where shale is most prolific.

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I support the Government and very much hope that the House will throw out these unnecessary and unwelcome amendments.

[Miss McIntosh]

This has been a good debate on the amendments. I pay tribute to the Minister for steering a difficult piece of legislation through the House. My hon. Friend the Minister has not had the advantage of the years in opposition which show that the detail should appear on the face of the Bill. The House will unite around the fact that we present a hostage to fortune by allowing some of the detail that will no longer be on the face of the Bill, which was achieved through consensus around an Opposition motion on Report which united the House on specific aspects—

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

One of the details I am particularly concerned about is coal bed methane, which is exploited at depths of 150 to 400 metres—unlike high-volume hydraulic fracturing, which is done below 1,000 metres—and which is not defined in the Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree that there should be a prohibition on all gas exploitation at depths of less than 1,000 metres?

[Miss McIntosh]

I am sure the Minister will respond.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) put his finger on the issue before the House today. I would not stand in the way of fracking in Thirsk, Malton or Filey, which is a deeply rural constituency dependent on farming and tourism in precisely the area for which, I am told, the licence application is to be submitted in March, before the regulations have come before the House. There are too many unknowns in the regulatory regime. My question to the Minister—I have tabled a question in this connection—is which independent regulator will enforce the controls, the traffic light system which the Prime Minister refers to, stopping seismic activity above 0.5%? This is the big difference between drilling in every other aspect and causing an earthquake below ground, making the earth move, possibly never to return to where it had been before.

I would also like to raise with my hon. Friend the Minister the matter of ground water contamination. How can Third Energy hope to remove by pipes the waste water at a depth of less than 2 metres underground? How can it possibly hope to submit a plan for a licence application by the end of March without having a traffic movement plan or a waste disposal plan?

I leave the House and the Minister with the thought that in the present economic climate, given the fall in the price of oil, we can allow ourselves the luxury of making sure that the regulatory regime is independent and fit for purpose and that no fracking will take place until the regime has been tried and tested.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I had not intended to speak tonight but, having heard the debate, feel that I must contribute. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) made the important point that some of the people who are against fracking are patently against it for environmental reasons; I do not associate myself with those people, and neither does he. However, I think that many people in this country have genuine concerns about fracking. In my constituency, where there are a number of test sites, I find that many people are very reasonable, in that they would be open to the option of fracking as long as they felt that the regime was strict enough and that there were enough environmental protections in place.

What concerns me about tonight’s debate is the restricted time, our inability to vote on all the amendments, and what has happened between the Lords and the Commons with regard to what I thought we agreed in the Commons a week or so ago. It leads many people to conclude that the Government are in league with the extraction companies or that there is something to hide. I do not believe that is the case at all, but given our concerns, I think there is a very strong argument indeed for pausing and thinking again about this issue, particularly given what has happened to oil prices internationally. That is why I and other Members on both sides of the House recently voted in favour of a moratorium.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

Let me add to my earlier comments that we have agreed an outright ban on fracking in national parks, sites of special scientific interest and areas of outstanding natural beauty. I hope that will reassure the right hon. Gentleman about the liability potential for any of the areas that I know he is particularly keen to protect.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I know that my hon. Friend will shortly respond to some of the amendments tabled in my name, but will she complete the sentence? Is she saying that there will be an outright ban on any fracking in national parks? Have the Government removed the words “except in exceptional circumstances”?

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is right. That is exactly what we have done. We have now put in place an outright ban and will effectively remove those words.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss McIntosh]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Is there, then, an amendment to that effect?

[Mr Speaker]

No amendment is required to prove that there is no amendment. That makes me think that the hon. Lady has been reading Heidegger—“the nothing noths”. There is no manuscript amendment, and consideration of this matter should not be clouded by thoughts of a manuscript amendment. I have been given no indication that there will be a manuscript amendment. It would be extraordinary, to put it mildly, for a manuscript amendment to be proposed or put forward for consideration by me or by professional advisers when the debate has already started. Things need to be dealt with in an orderly manner.

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[Amber Rudd]

I do not think the hon. Lady quite heard my comments. If somebody in another Department has prepared something, a junior member perhaps, and it was not appropriate for them to have done so, which is a comment I have fairly made, I do not think it is appropriate for it to be released. It could mislead the public. It is because I am so concerned about the public that we have taken this view.

[Miss McIntosh]

I think my hon. Friend would wish to put a message out to rural communities today that we take their concerns very seriously indeed. We must be seen to listen, in the House this afternoon, to their concerns. It is unfortunate that the report will not be in the public domain. My hon. Friend answered one point on my amendment relating to blight. Does she also accept that in the event a house could not be sold, there may be an option for the fracking company to compulsoily purchase that property?

[Amber Rudd]

Of course, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government take very seriously the security, the safety and the right of good abode of everybody in the rural community, and we will keep that constantly in our minds as we move forward.

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[Mr Yeo]

No, I will not support that. A moratorium would not serve Britain’s national interests.

Far from attacking the Government for rushing on this issue, our concern is that they have been going rather slowly. We could speed up the process of encouraging fracking, so that we can establish whether it is indeed a valuable natural resource whose exploitation would be generally for the benefit of consumers and the environment.

[Miss McIntosh]

Does my hon. Friend accept that it is arguably safer to take a cautious approach before proceeding with any fracking licences?

[Mr Yeo]

We should proceed as fast as possible, consistent with environmental safeguards, which the Government recognise to be essential.

Let me deal with this rather curious idea that allowing fracking somehow increases greenhouse gas emissions. It does nothing of the sort. It is common ground between supporters and opponents of fracking that the UK will use a lot of gas in the next 15 to 20 years. Since 2000, we have become extremely dependent on imported gas. By the mid-2020s, perhaps three quarters of our gas will come from abroad, and we will be competing in the Qatar LNG market, for example, with the likes of China and other Asian giants. So, allowing fracking will enable us to replace imports with domestic supplies, which will improve energy security—a very important aim of energy policy. Further, it will actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions because, as David MacKay reported in September 2013, the net greenhouse gas emissions from LNG are higher than those from shale gas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Miller]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister, and ask him to clarify that matter in the Bill.

[Miss McIntosh]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the amendments standing in my name, which were tabled in a personal capacity as the constituency MP for Kirby Misperton, where Third Energy proposes to apply for a licence in six weeks. At a public meeting attended by residents of the three villages affected, Third Energy admitted that there is a minuscule risk of contamination of groundwater. I therefore urge my right hon. and hon. Friends to look extremely carefully at the contents of amendment 59.

My hon. Friend the Minister talked about the amount of monitoring that would be done three months before a licence application for drilling can be started. Is she aware of the worrying fact that at least one insurance company has stated in writing that it will not insure for public liability any landowner who allows the oil and gas industry or fracking companies on to their land? That raises the question whether during the monitoring stage and, in the long term, during the fracking stage, home owners will be able to obtain insurance.

Another point raised is about emissions after the fracking operation has finished. Third Energy seems to think that the land will revert to the landowner at completion of the fracking operations, but I believe that that is a misunderstanding. I shall be grateful if the Minister clarifies that matter.

I am delighted that my hon. Friend says that compensation for blight may indeed be possible, as proposed in my amendment 61.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am sorry that there is such a lack of time to make a serious response to the amendments still outstanding for debate this afternoon.

I wish we could press amendment 51 to a vote, because that amendment would stop the Government’s proposed change to trespass laws. Some 360,000 people signed a petition opposing that change and 99% of those who responded to the Government consultation opposed it as well. To see the Government just flinging that back in people’s faces, simply not listening to the consultation, raises big questions about what the consultation is for and undermines the credibility of the process, as does the ongoing secrecy about the DEFRA report. I am not reassured by what the Minister said about it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

Overall, local authorities do take their highway maintenance projects seriously. I point out to the hon. Gentleman that one cannot argue for localism and then argue all the time for central direction. However, I very much hope that all authorities that have been allocated the money spend it on the roads. Some other funds are available, and we will judge what local authorities have done regarding how those funds are distributed.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

2. What plans he has to provide funding for dualling of the A64.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

It is no secret that the A64 is also important to my constituency of Scarborough and Whitby. The first major investment for 38 years in the A64 east of York was announced as part of our road investment strategy last month. This addressed the notorious Hopgrove roundabout pinch point. As part of the detailed design of the scheme, the case for dualling nearby sections of the A64 will be considered.

[Miss McIntosh]

Although I am grateful for that answer, there are currently huge numbers of casualties and fatalities in the villages of Ganton, Rillington and Heslerton, which have no speed restrictions on the roads and no protections for the very vulnerable crossing them—children and the elderly. Will my hon. Friend give priority to that section of the A64, in which I know he too has a personal interest, serving as it does his own constituency?

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[Mr Speaker]

I call Huw Irranca-Davies. Not here.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

May I, too, welcome the excellent work of the Backbench Business Committee, which has chosen debates that the hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) and I have asked for on a number of reports by the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs? The strength of the Backbench Business Committee is that its time is for debating purposes, but will my right hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House consider the possibility of a debate either selected by the Backbench Business Committee or in Government time on how the House deals with the scrutiny of European Union matters? When an implementing regulation comes before the House, hon. Members should be allowed to amend as well as just debate it.

[Tom Brake]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I am sure that if a cross-party group of Members of Parliament went to the Backbench Business Committee with a proposal for a debate to examine that, the Committee would be happy to accept the request.

Rail Network (Disruption)

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr McLoughlin]

The hon. Gentleman is renowned for his rose-tinted glasses, which are now returning him to a period when there were 750 million passenger journeys a year. Last year there were 1.6 billion, and I regard that as a tremendous success. More people are using the railways in this country than have done so for many a generation. It is only the hon. Gentleman—along with, perhaps, other Members who are sitting with him on that Bench—who looks back with rose-tinted glasses to a period when everything was fine.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend explain from which budget the fines and compensation will be paid? Is it not perverse that the budget that should be paying for these very improvements is to be used to compensate the companies that have been inconvenienced? Will my right hon. Friend look very closely at the way in which the Office of Rail Regulation has operated since the changes were made, to establish whether it is fit for purpose and is holding Network Rail to account?

[Mr McLoughlin]

I think that the ORR does a good job in holding Network Rail to account, but I will of course take seriously what my hon. Friend has said about its performance. If she wants to send me further details of her complaints, I will certainly consider them.