Rail Freight
Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Taxation, as my noble friend well knows, is a matter for His Majesty’s Treasury, so I will not comment further on that. Access charges paid by freight for utilising the network do not currently cover the full fixed cost of operations, maintenance and renewal required. The capping arrangements which will be in place until March 2029 will save freight operators an estimated £33 million over this five-year control period. There are already schemes to discount access charges for new traffic, such as the mode shift revenue support scheme and Network Rail’s access charge discount policy. In the future, GBR will have greater flexibility to offer discounted charges.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, as part of the Government’s work, will they assess the role that lorry trailers on rail between key points in the UK and Europe could play in increasing rail freight and reducing the wear and tear on our major highways from heavy axle weights?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness may know that, actually, that is not a new scheme. In respect of rail freight to Europe, the Government clearly have an interest in promoting it. The Channel Tunnel has plenty of spare capacity, as does HS1. In respect of carrying lorries by rail in the UK, that has been tried before. I think it is up to the private sector freight market to develop its own flows, but the Government are there to help with access and access charges in order to get that traffic on the railway.
Transport Act 2000 (Air Traffic Services) (Prescribed Terms) Regulations 2025
Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, in the new spirit in the House of declarations of interests, I declare mine at the outset. I do so as a private pilot, a former director of Newcastle airport and the author of an investigation into lower airspace, which was brought about at the request of the then Transport Secretary Sir Grant Shapps. It was primarily to do with lower airspace, but it highlighted a number of things.
I will not speak for long, but I want to ask the Minister a few questions. I welcome very much what is being proposed, but I wonder to what extent it can be delivered. It is extremely complicated because it deals with a very complicated situation in relation not only to lower airspace but to upper airspace, the whole area of control zones around airports and the historic position of airports themselves as sponsors of changes to airspace. This has always been an area of great concern, particularly to general aviation, which is rather more random in its representation. Unlike the airports—which have their own clear bodies to represent them and the institution—airlines and others, general aviation is a bit more haphazard and therefore in need of protection, if I may put it that way, from government.
These proposed changes have enormous implications for those involved in general aviation—and business aviation too—first, by removing individual effort and the sponsors that exist currently, particularly the airports themselves. I hope that there will be sufficient objectivity in the decisions that are taken to maintain GA’s position in any redesign mechanism. There have been concerns over the years that, because of the sponsorship by airports and their own determination to hold on to airspace and control zones for their own commercial benefit as well as—they claim—for safety and security, we have seen a diminution in parts of the country of the convenience and ability of general aviation to operate.
The south-east of England is a classic case. I am lucky in that I fly mostly in the north and in Scotland, where we do not have control zones for much of the territory. This makes it a much freer situation for GA, and that is very helpful. I note that there is to be an initial stage—if you like—of these processes, which will concentrate on the London area. I hope, therefore, that the views and feelings of GA will be fully taken into account in the redesign that might take place.
Secondly, it seems to me, and one of the criticisms has been, that, “What we have, we hold”, appeared to be the attitude of a lot of those who sponsored airspace controls. Very rarely do people seem to want to give up anything. Changes in technology, which are referred to in the Explanatory Memorandum and have been dramatic over the last few years, seem to suggest that some airports currently have airspace controls that are unnecessary and could be yielded up for use by general aviation, certainly in terms of routing and so on. I would like to know whether there will be sufficient protection for them.
Thirdly, on the question of airports, the initial stages of proposals from the airports produced a rather mixed outcome. Some airports appeared to be quick off the mark and willing to take part in a modernisation proposal; others seemed more reluctant. Therefore, I wonder to what extent these proposals will be able to go ahead in a way that produces something comprehensive, rather than, as we currently have, a bit of a mishmash of circumstances. It is awfully important that all these elements are brought together—and with the support of the various people who have been involved so far in sponsoring and directing these events. Will the Minister comment further on that?
Finally, on the timescale, we have been doing this for quite a long time. This measure is welcome but we were making progress way back before we had the Covid situation. Unfortunately, things seem to have become rather slow. That is inevitable, I suppose, but I would like to see some kind of clear timescale so that we can bring matters to a head and finalise a comprehensive scheme to which all parties are signed up.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
In many ways, it is quite extraordinary that no single organisation in the UK is currently responsible for creating a modern and integrated airspace design. As we have heard, across the country, airspace change proposals are sponsored by individual bodies—usually airports or air navigation service providers—and, in more congested areas, such as London, there are multiple overlapping ACPs, each with a separate sponsor.
Aviation law is governed by an international system of rules set by the International Civil Aviation Organization. In many ICAO contracting states there is one entity, usually a public body, responsible for airspace planning and design; that same body is also responsible for air traffic services and air navigation. This clearly makes it much easier to deliver airspace change that benefits the whole state’s airspace than is currently possible in the UK.
We therefore welcome this SI, which changes licensing rules to allow a single new UK airspace design service to be created and to oversee both airspace modernisation and changes to use of airspace. We welcome steps to better co-ordinate a disjointed system of managing airspace but, of course, we will hold the Government to account to ensure that modernisation works for all our communities and for our environment. It is important to bring airspace into the 21st century, to deliver flight paths that cut emissions and to ensure that journeys are quicker, quieter and cleaner. However, with any changes there will be winners and losers. The Government must recognise this and work with communities as airspace is modernised—not least in congested areas, such as London.
We must also ensure that airspace modernisation reflects the needs of our communities, recognising the impact that noise and air pollution can have on people and on nature. I think in particular of residents in Richmond and other west London boroughs who suffer greatly because of flights relating to Heathrow and are fearful of any changes. I ask the Minister: how do the Government plan to ensure that the new UK airspace design service works openly and transparently with communities that are impacted by aviation, genuinely engages and consults, and is a trusted, independent voice in this area, because there is a lot of suspicion in many communities? Also, will this new organisation be subject to freedom of information legislation?
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My final question, before I was interrupted by the Division Bell, was: what is the timescale for the development of this new service and its first project tackling the complex London airspace?
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, in general we welcome this statutory instrument. We welcome the prospect of a more rational organisation of airspace—who could do otherwise? However, there are considerable problems and the Minister needs probing on some of them. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Foster of Oxton, who is not in her place because she is detained on a train that has been diverted and which has delayed her. She would have been here; as noble Lords will know, during her many years in the European Parliament, she worked on all the Single European Sky legislation. She has supplied me with some questions, and some of my speech has been helped by her: I want to acknowledge that, because that has been very useful.
The first question has to go to cost. How much extra will the airlines have to pay, over and above their current payments for air traffic control services? They are going to be recharged for this. Is it going to be a smooth sum, or will it be lumpy and go up and down as costs are incurred? The Minister says it will be small and that, indeed, they may save money in the long term, once it is all done. However, there are so many things that the Government say are going to be small and will save you money in the long term, but they never do. So can he be more precise than simply saying “small” and give us a better clue of how much it will be, perhaps as a percentage of what they currently pay?
Another question has to do with the timescale for achieving this; here, I refer to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. It looks as though it will take years, not simply because of complexity—we grant that the work will be complex—but also, if one looks at page 5 of the Explanatory Notes that accompany the statutory instrument and the number of stages that have to be gone through to achieve a CAA decision on airspace change, it could take many years to do the work. Can the noble Lord give an estimate of how long it might be before, even for the London area, we see these changes brought into effect?
Returning to the charges for a moment, will foreign carriers that enter UK airspace be asked to pay towards this? If so, how will they be charged? Then there is the big question of how these changes are going to be integrated with neighbouring airspace and air traffic control arrangements, particularly the Single European Sky arrangements. Do they need to be, perhaps because they are en route? It might be that they are wholly within domestic airspace and that integration is therefore not needed, but some words from the Minister on that when he comes to reply would be helpful.
There is another question, about skills. I do not doubt for a moment that many of the people involved in airspace planning in the UK are very skilful, but UK Research and Innovation’s Future Flight Challenge said:
“The skills and knowledge needed for the airspace designers for any ACPs associated with enabling new airspace users will likely be different to the airport based changes”
to which we are accustomed. Where are the skills going to come from? Can we be guaranteed that we will have the right skills and the right people in place to do this work in a timely fashion?
Next, I want to build on some remarks made by my noble friend Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, who referred to general aviation and smaller airports—he did not refer to smaller airports explicitly, but I shall. With this new all-singing, all-dancing, powerful body that will set these new rules for flights, it will be very easy to ignore the particular needs of smaller airports. I note that, in the consultation so far, there have been some very worried remarks from airports such as Biggin Hill and Farnborough about how their interests are going to be looked after as this work proceeds. Again, some consolation from the Minister would be very helpful.
Finally, I come to the public. Any change in flight paths can have a devastating effect on communities that live under those flight paths, particularly if they are close to an airport. The question of public engagement by NERL as it proceeds with this work is going to be crucial to its successful implementation. I would like to hear the noble Lord say that that there will be a plan from the outset for transparent public engagement on the proposed changes, and the possible changes, so that communities, local authorities and their representatives can be fully engaged. He may say that this could make it difficult to get the work done, but my view is that we have a choice: either we tackle this problem early on and hope to deal with it as we proceed, or we proceed in relative silence, with a lack of transparency, and run into a massive problem at the end, a problem that might, in various locations, be so powerful that it results in making the changes politically unimplementable. I would like to hear about the public engagement strategy, because of the powerful effect that these changes might have on local communities; otherwise, if the Government can pull this off, it will take many years and it will improve things, but there is a great danger, in my view, of it all going horribly wrong somewhere along the line.
Road and Rail Projects
Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, in the light of that last vote on the Bill, I will have to be very careful about what I say to ensure that it does not offend staff.
It must be tough being the Secretary of State for Transport, because every time the Government are in difficulty with their Back-Benchers she is sent out to make another announcement about some great, distant spending plans. Of course, all the rail announcements made in this Statement were in fact announced by the previous Government. Before the Minister says, “Where was the money?”—and when he does say that, it displays a certain frailty of constitutional grasp—the fact is that, had the previous Government been re-elected, there would have been a spending review, just as this Government have had a spending review, and the schemes that this Government have announced would be in that spending review. That was the pledge; that is how our constitution works.
Part of this Statement is not about announcing new rail schemes but about cancelling road schemes. We are not going to get the widening of the A12 or the A47 scheme from Wansford to Sutton. They are gone for the foreseeable future. However, I will turn back to the rail schemes, as my few remaining remarks will be about them.
We find ourselves in the extraordinary position of being asked to celebrate rail expansion when the Government have still failed to lay the Great British Railways Bill before Parliament. Great British Railways, optimistically suggested for late 2026 at the earliest, now appears increasingly likely to slip to 2027 or beyond, with the legislation yet to appear before either House of Parliament. Perhaps the Government have finally realised that centralising control of our railways is not the simple solution that they once claimed it would be. The complexities of their grand nationalisation project appear to have caught them rather off guard.
So my first question to the Minister is: where is the Bill? Where is Great British Railways? More pertinently, where is shadow Great British Railways—which already has a remunerated chair—in these announcements? The relevance of that is that, under the Government’s scheme and their plans for rail, proposals such as this—the expansion of the rail network—are meant to be proposed, worked up and delivered by Great British Railways, subject to government funding, not the other way round. We are not even sure that all these schemes will necessarily be carried out, because what guarantee is there that they will be a priority for Great British Railways when that body comes into existence? Is it, in fact, merely a puppet for the department after all, as we suspect might be the case?
When we were debating the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill, which began the process of nationalising the train operating companies, I warned that the Government were moving not from one state to another but from one state to a huge transition period. That is what we are in at the moment: a transition period where we have no idea who is in charge of the railways and no real accountability. It is a governance mess. The Department for Transport continues its iron grip on the rail operators, which it now owns through subsidiary companies, with civil servants in effect running train services while the promised arm’s-length body remains a distant aspiration. This raises fundamental questions about whether their calls for rail growth are genuine or merely a smokescreen for increased state control.
The Government’s actions speak louder than their words. The Office of Rail and Road, under instruction from the Secretary of State, has already rejected eight open access operator contracts, despite compelling evidence that competition drives service improvements and passenger growth. That ideological opposition to open access operations flies in the face of economic evidence and passenger benefits. Consider the transformative impact of operators such as Grand Central and Hull Trains, which have brought direct services to previously underserved communities in Sunderland, Scarborough, Bradford and Hull. These are not abstract policy successes but tangible improvements to people’s lives, connecting communities that had previously lacked such direct rail links.
Independent research by Arup and Frontier Economics provides unequivocal evidence of competition’s benefits. On corridors with open access competition, service frequency rose by up to 60% and total passenger numbers increased by approximately 40%. Those are not marginal gains; they represent the kind of transformational improvements the Government claim to seek through their infrastructure spending. Yet instead of embracing this proven model for growth, they actively suppress it.
If this Government were truly committed to rail growth, they would be encouraging, not stifling, the competition that demonstrably delivers increased services and passenger numbers. The fact that they do the opposite suggests that their rail policy is driven more by ideology than economic efficiencies.
The delays to Great British Railways reveal a Government who perhaps underestimated the complexity of their grand nationalisation project. What was once promised as a streamlined solution now appears mired in the very bureaucratic inefficiencies they claimed to oppose. The latest date we have for the Great British Railways Bill to appear is the autumn. Will the Minister confirm that date or will he have to say, as is now widely believed in the industry, that he will not make that deadline and that the Bill will be coming much closer to Christmas at the earliest?
This House has a duty to scrutinise not just the Government’s spending commitments but the coherence of their overall transport strategy. We cannot properly fulfil that duty when key legislation remains unpublished and when policy appears to contradict evidence. The Government must explain why they continue to reject open access applications when the evidence so clearly demonstrates their value. They must clarify when Parliament will finally see the Great British Railways Bill and they must reconcile their rhetoric about rail growth with their actions that constrain it. Until then, I fear we are being asked to applaud announcements while the fundamental questions about rail policy direction remain unanswered. The British public deserve better than this policy vacuum masquerading as progress.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, I will focus on the Statement and the rail and road projects contained within it and, perhaps, those not within it. Across the country, communities have been let down by a transport system that is creaking, crying out for investment and improvement, and was neglected by the last Conservative Government. Constant announcements and reannouncements of transport projects were made, with what appeared to be fictional budgets that never materialised, while our roads and railways deteriorated. The public have been let down.
A safe and reliable transport system is vital for economic growth, and therefore this capital investment is welcome news for the communities that will benefit. In particular, I welcome the Midlands rail hub, the east coast main line being upgraded with digital signalling, new stations at Wellington in Somerset and at Cullompton in Devon, the east-west railway line to Cambridge, and over £2 billion for Transport for London to continue with the purchase of new Piccadilly, Bakerloo and Docklands Light Railway trains. We await the detail of Northern Powerhouse Rail—the Statement says “soon”, whatever that might mean.
It would be helpful, given the hopes raised in the past, for the Government to provide details of the timescale and how the money will be spent to deliver the projects outlined in the Statement. The Statement also confirms that many other schemes will now need to be reviewed. These are projects that are paused or effectively scrapped. I am particularly concerned about the pause to the electrification of the Midland main line from London to Sheffield. Given the removal of the High Speed 2 leg to Sheffield, it feels as if Labour is letting down Sheffield and South Yorkshire by once again cutting major investment in its railway, leaving Sheffield as the largest city in Britain without an electrified railway. When can we see this important project back on track?
I am also deeply concerned that stage 5 of the resilience programme in Dawlish has not been funded. It would take only one large storm to close the railway to the south-west once again. Monitoring is not enough, and I hope the Minister, as the former chair of Network Rail, will assure the House about the future of this project. Then there is the busiest interchange station in the entire country, without step-free access to platforms or accessible facilities for passengers. Its platforms and corridors are far too narrow for a station with around 6 million entries and exits a year. Planning permission has been granted and it is ready to start construction next year, but the project has been put on hold. What am I talking about? Peckham Rye in south-east London. This is such a busy and important interchange. When can we expect funding for this vital project?
Finally, away from the specific projects that I have outlined, can the Minister give a firm assurance that the Government have learned from the overruns of High Speed 2 and Crossrail, and that all these projects will be delivered on time, on budget and using technology such as digital twins, where appropriate, to ensure value for money for the taxpayer?
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said so much about other things. He did not have much to say about the list of funded schemes, so I am concluding that, by and large, he is happy with what he has read in the Secretary of State’s Statement in the other place. He makes a lot of noise about the fact that they would have been in some spending review had his Government been re-elected. They were not. Before that, however, they had published documents with endless numbers of schemes that were, frankly, never likely to be funded. There were promises everywhere but funding nowhere. The best example of that is the notorious Network North document. Incidentally, it included Tavistock and a number of other places not in the north of England at all, but the characteristic of all the entries in that document was that none of them was ever funded.
He does not have to listen to me about this, although it is a pleasure to speak to the House now. My predecessor, Huw Merriman, was in front of the Transport Select Committee a few days ago and said:
“A lot of promises were made to MPs and others as to the ambition, but it did not match the amount that was actually being set down. By the time I came into post I ended up with a list that was much longer than could be funded”.
That is true: around the country, all sorts of communities were promised transport schemes by the previous Government that were never likely to be funded and were not funded. Somebody has to sort that out and announce a programme that will bring long-term economic prosperity around Britain, get schemes built and stop a lot of money being spent on endless scheme development without the schemes being delivered. This is such a list, and this list will be delivered. The funding is in place through the spending review to do it, even though there is less than we would like because of the lamentable state of the economy at the time this Government took over.
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has a lot to say pejoratively about the Government’s rail reform and he continues to ask where the Bill is, but he knows perfectly well that progress can be made without the Bill. Indeed, the purpose of the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 was to start the process of bringing passenger operations back into public ownership. The consequence is that we already have two parts of the railway controlled by one person, both the infrastructure and operations. That will allow better reliability, increased revenue and reduced costs. Things are happening today that were not going to happen under the previous regime, and which will produce a better railway. That is important.
The noble Lord says that civil servants are running train services. Actually, I note that Steve White at Southeastern Railway and Lawrence Bowman at South Western Railway are good railway people. They are not civil servants; they are public servants, and they intend to run those businesses for the benefit of the travelling public and the British economy.
The noble Lord talked a bit about open access. What he failed to say about the applications that the Office of Rail and Road recently rejected is that it did not reject them on any competitive grounds; it simply rejected them, most recently, because of a lack of capacity in the railway system. Those train services could not run, and if they had then they would have disturbed further—or, rather, reduced—the reliability of the system.
One point about the list of schemes—lamentably, he did not go into it in detail, but I could—is that many of those schemes will help the railway to run by improving its capacity, such as the digital signalling on the southern end of the east coast main line, which the noble Baroness referred to. The list is starting to look at improving railway capacity and reliability, which was not a feature of many of the Network North schemes—even though they were not funded—but is a feature of these schemes. This is part of the Government’s intention for a long-term investment strategy, and the schemes announced by the Secretary of State last week are an important part of that. I absolutely contend that the Government are on track to deliver what the economy needs in terms of local transport, particularly in the Midlands and the north; to deliver on road schemes without having a horrifically long list of schemes that were encouraged but never likely to be funded; and to start to do things on the railway that will make a real difference.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, was much more focused on the announcement itself, for which I am sure both I and the House are grateful. She enumerated a number of the schemes in the announcement; I am pleased that she welcomes those, as the rest of us will. There will be an announcement on Northern Powerhouse Rail shortly. I will not define “shortly” today; it needs to be worked out with the combined authority mayors in the north of England, which is the reason for some delay. On the road schemes, details of the timescales will emerge as road investment scheme 3 is put together and announced in the early part of next year. On the railway, we will now move forward with the schemes that have been announced.
The noble Baroness is of course right that there are well-known projects and schemes that have not made this list, particularly railway schemes, principally because the other thing that the Government did, as the Chancellor announced as part of the spending review, was to fund HS2 to continue to be delivered alongside the wholesale revision of its governance and management, which will make spending that money more successful.
That does not mean that everything that one would have wanted to have been done is capable of being done for the moment. In particular, the noble Baroness referred to the electrification of the Midland main line, which has got to Syston, near Leicester, but will not go forward, at least in this spending review programme. What will go forward, however, are the bi-mode trains that take advantage of the wires, where they are up, as well as the improvement of the power supply and resilience of the existing wiring south of Bedford, which is quite old. Sheffield, Derby, Nottingham, Leicester and other major places on the Midland main line will see a betterment of service due to the introduction of the new trains in the autumn. I think we all want to regard future electrification as a deferral rather than an abandonment.
The noble Baroness referred to phase 5 of the scheme at Dawlish in Devon on the resilience of the Great Western main line. Phases 1 to 4 were principally about repairing the sea wall and the damage created 10 years ago by an exceptional storm, whereas phase 5 is looking at the stability of the cliffs behind the railway, which indeed should be the subject of future work. The remediation, and indeed the speed of movement, of those cliffs is worth monitoring now, whereas the work that has been done up to now has been on the basic resilience of the sea wall in order to keep the railway running.
The noble Baroness is right about Peckham Rye; it is the largest interchange station, but the scheme is, at least at present, unaffordable. Although, again, I would expect that to form part of a longer-term enhancement pipeline. It is regrettable that there are things across the railway that everybody would have wanted to see, but there is simply not enough money for them.
The noble Baroness is right about the lessons from recent projects. We have talked in this Chamber about HS2 and the need for new management, governance and a focus on understanding what is being delivered at the time the money is spent. The Government, frankly, should be commended for their commitment to continue HS2, which will produce large-scale economic benefit in the Midlands while that process takes place. Not everything is bad in the railway project firmament. Indeed, the trans-Pennine upgrade and east-west rail are so far on time and on budget. Learning from those is as important as learning from HS2, which, sadly, is neither.
Finally, the noble Baroness referred to digital twins. My noble friend Lord Vallance has a lot to say about digital twins for the whole of the Oxford to Cambridge arc, of which east-west rail will form part. Its use in project management is only in the foothills but it needs to be increased. I agree with her on that, too.
European Union Entry/Exit System
Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Baroness Pidgeon
To ask His Majesty’s Government what measures they are taking to prevent the introduction of the European Union’s Entry/Exit System causing transport congestion and disruption to freight.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, the European Union’s Entry/Exit System, EES, is now expected to be introduced in October 2025, with checks taking place on UK soil at the juxtaposed controls at the Port of Dover, Eurotunnel and Eurostar. The Government continue to work closely with the authorities at those three places and the French authorities to ensure that EES is implemented successfully. In respect of freight, over 80% of HGV journeys from Britain to the EU are undertaken by foreign-registered vehicles. EU hauliers will not be required to complete EES checks.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
I thank the Minister for his Answer, but, given the significant risk to UK exports, particularly “just in time” produce, what work are the Government doing with the French authorities and the European Commission to ensure that pre-registration systems are in place ahead of implementation to alleviate congestion and support smoother freight flows?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Of course, the primary aim of government has to be to ensure that the necessary infrastructure is in place at juxtaposed portals ahead of the implementation of the system. The EES is an EU-wide system. Although the EU has expressed a desire to explore pre-registration and we continue to work with European colleagues to encourage the development and adoption of an app, it is still in the early stages and will not be available at the start of implementation. However, even if there were an app, passengers would still need to attend a kiosk, booth or tablet to enrol biometrics, but of course the app would reduce the time taken for individuals to undertake full EES checks at the border, so it would be very desirable. We are urging them as hard as we can.
HS2 Reset
Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the history of the HS2 project is not a happy one. It was initially proposed in its current form by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and endorsed by Gordon Brown in the wake of the global financial crisis, then taken up enthusiastically by the coalition Government, in which all major decisions were made by a quad that included Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander, and, indeed, in which the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, sadly not in her place, was a Minister, as was Norman Baker. It was then taken forward further by the Conservative Government following 2015. Failure often has many parents, and there is no doubt that HS2 has been a mess. The letter from Mark Wild and the report from James Stewart leave us in no doubt of that at all.
I thank the Minister for the Statement. I welcome the appointment of Mike Brown as chairman of HS2 and the appointment last year by the Conservatives of Mark Wild as chief executive. Both are people with whom I have worked in the past, as has the Minister.
My first question to the Minister is whether there has been equally significant change in senior personnel at the Department for Transport. I ask that because the James Stewart report leaves one in no doubt that the Department for Transport failed sufficiently to distinguish its various roles in this project, including as sponsor, as funder, as policymaker and as shareholder.
This brings me to questions of governance model. The settled orthodoxy in recent years has been that, for government-supported projects to succeed, there must be a clear structural division between a sponsor body and a delivery body. On paper this is logical. The sponsor sets the strategic direction and prevents outside parties changing the objectives by gold-plating and adding further requirements as time goes by. It holds the delivery body to account, and the delivery body focuses on the execution.
In the case of HS2, this model has not functioned as intended: it has broken down. Rather than providing a framework for responsibility and efficient delivery, it has resulted in a culture of what might be called “deferral”. The dominance of the Department for Transport—well known anecdotally by those familiar with the project—over the board of HS2 has resulted, as James Stewart identifies in his report, in the board not carrying out its functions but deferring important questions it should have taken to the department. As a result, decisions were delayed, accountability was blurred, and independence of delivery was undermined.
At the same time, the department itself did not fully separate its own strategic oversight role as sponsor from its various operational entanglements. There was no clear split within the department between those who were supposed to hold the project to account and those who were working with it in other regards. We are therefore left with very serious questions that go way beyond HS2. They affect, for example, the restoration and renewal project of the Palace of Westminster. Something we relied on as a dependable structure—which appeared to prove itself largely in the case of Crossrail, for example—has broken down. My second question to the Minister, then, is, what thinking are the Government giving to a new model that is going to work well for future projects, or are we now steering blind?
My final point relates to Euston station. Euston is, strictly speaking, no longer part of HS2 Ltd’s responsibilities, as I understand it. It was a decision of the last Government to put it into a separate company, but I am not aware of the existence of that separate company; perhaps it exists on paper. I am not aware of the board of that company, or the chairman of that company. I am not aware of what that company is actually doing, because, while the Government have committed to taking the tunnels forward from Old Oak Common to Euston station, there is as yet no plan for the delivery of platforms at Euston station, which would allow passengers to make use of those tunnels.
I am not speaking for my party now, so much as for myself, when I say that I have always felt that a terminal-station solution for Euston was somewhat old-fashioned. We should perhaps take as an example Thameslink at St Pancras, which simply has two platforms underneath the station, and the trains come in and they go through. Perhaps we should be thinking now—it would cost money, but then, the plan for Euston station is going to cost a great deal of money—about alternative solutions that might take the lines through to a depot to the east of London. Can the Minister say something about the plans for Euston and how open the department now is to alternative solutions?
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, in the late 2000s there was an absolute cross-party ambition in the UK to build a high-speed railway connecting London and the north of England, and ultimately Scotland, and increasing the capacity of our railway was at the core of that ambition. The Liberal Democrats—and I am speaking on behalf of my Benches today—have always supported this. It is not about a nice-to-have, fast, shiny new railway line which we all love, but helping to alleviate the pressure and capacity restrictions on the existing rail network, and supporting growth.
This Statement, the James Stewart review, which is to be commended, and the associated papers set out a damning story of Conservative mismanagement. What should have been a fantastic example of investment, connecting our great cities of Leeds and Manchester with London while boosting economic growth, has in reality been a Treasury spending spree wasting billions of pounds of public money and causing years of delay, based on a political whim of the day. It is a textbook example of how not to build modern infrastructure, and the Conservative Party should be ashamed of their mismanagement.
The Conservative Government focused on a schedule before sufficient design work had taken place—a recipe for disaster that we have seen play out—and constantly changed the scope and requirements of the project. Reading the Statement about HS2 brought back many memories about what happened with Crossrail. There was no real oversight, and there were confused lines of accountability. Key people were not listening to those who were reporting that the build was not on time, and they chose to water down those warnings up the line. There was constant pressure to change the scope, an obsession with an opening date above all else, and a lack of capacity in the Department for Transport to oversee major infrastructure projects.
This reset for High Speed 2 is therefore absolutely welcome. To date, the project has failed to follow international best practice in building major projects. We on these Benches stress how much we welcome the new leadership of Mark Wild, as chief executive of High Speed 2, and his forensic work in unpicking what happened and getting the programme back on track, to a realistic timescale and budget. He took over Crossrail when it was on its knees and turned it around, motivating the team to deliver the Elizabeth Line, which is such a pleasure to use and is one of the busiest train lines in the country. I know he can do the same with High Speed 2.
The project has again shone a light on poor procurement and poor contract management within the Department for Transport. What actions will the Government take to address insufficient capability within the Department for Transport, particularly in commercial and delivery expertise, and client work on major infrastructure projects on this scale? What will the Government do to build trust with local communities and wider stakeholders in this new HS2 project? What changes will the Government make to the governance structure and financing of High Speed 2 to ensure that costs and schedule estimates are reliable? As always, we want to gain wider learnings from this. As I called for after Crossrail—in fact, I briefed a previous chief executive of High Speed 2 and Ministers about the issues we had found during the Crossrail delays—we want to build more transport infrastructure to help our regional economies grow. To do this, however, we need a structure to deliver it on time and on budget.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, I start by emphasising the benefits of a new railway to the Midlands and the north of England. Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness referred to the capacity of the West Coast Main Line, and it is not in contention that new capacity needs to be built. Connectivity drives growth, jobs and housing, and the skyline of Birmingham is testimony to Birmingham’s expectations of a faster link to London. Indeed, the Government have put significant money into connectivity for the sports quarter, which, clearly, would not be being proposed were it not for HS2 serving Birmingham in the future. The development opportunities at Old Oak Common are already being realised, as will those at Euston. The benefits of greater connectivity are there to see and are really important for our country and its economic future.
We can also do some big projects. The trans-Pennine route upgrade is a £14 billion project to an existing railway and is on time and budget. But it is true, as both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness said, that HS2 has gone badly wrong, and it falls to this Government to sort it out, because we cannot carry on like this. Currently, we can predict neither when it will open nor how much it will cost. That is a pretty terrible position to be in and it has to be said the consequences are as a result of actions taken by previous Governments.
I welcome the fact that both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness welcomed the appointment of Mark Wild as chief executive and Mike Brown as chair of HS2. I have every confidence that both those people will begin to put this right and fundamentally restructure the company and the approach to the project through a very detailed review of where it is now—because, unless you know where it is now, you will not be able to find out where it is going in the future.
It must be the case that the criticisms of the governance model are justified. Indeed, James Stewart’s report sets out a whole a whole raft of recommendations that the Government have fully accepted. My own department clearly shoulders some culpability. The noble Lord asked what has happened in the department and, although I do not think it is not right to delve into senior personnel, he will, of course, note that a new Permanent Secretary is about to be appointed, the previous incumbent having retired.
We need a new model, but one in which the chair and board of HS2 take a far greater responsibility for the things they should be responsible for. The noble Baroness referred to Crossrail, where it was quite clear that the chair and board were not acting in the interests of the company. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that I regard him as the best board member of Crossrail during his time as a non-executive director, because he diligently looked at the progress of the project. Indeed, the then chair of the project complained furiously, to me and others, about the noble Lord’s diligence in inspecting the real state of the project. That was as it should be and it is a shame that HS2’s boards do not seem to have done the same. It is right to have a new chair, and I have no doubt that in due course we will have a new or different board as well.
I will not go through the Stewart report. It contains a raft of recommendations, as I said, all of which the Government have accepted. It is also quite clear that, if you are going to put out big construction contracts, you should have a sponsor capability that is capable of understanding what the contractors are doing as they do it and of measuring how much is done and how much it has cost as it is happening. Mark Wild has found that HS2 itself is fundamentally unable to achieve that in its present state and will therefore change it.
What is in front of us in Mark Wild’s letter to the Secretary of State and the Stewart report is extraordinarily unhappy. Clearly, a number of really bad decisions have been taken. I helped Doug Oakervee with his review in 2020, and his strong recommendation was that the then construction contracts should not have been left in their current form because they had insufficient detail and there was insufficient design and encouragement to the contractors to perform properly and to budget. We can see the result of that here.
I will not go through the Secretary of State’s Statement in detail—because it is already in the public domain—nor the letter or the report. To answer the noble Lord’s question about Euston station, it is clear that Euston station is no longer to be delivered as part of HS2. That cannot be a great surprise because, as the Secretary of State remarked in the other place, faced with a first design that cost a huge amount more than the budget, when HS2 looked at it again, it came back with a design that cost even more—and that is without the air-conditioned platforms that were originally part of the design and were an eye-wateringly unnecessarily feature, since they do not exist even in railways in Saudi Arabia, where you would probably think they might like that sort of thing.
So, it is right for Euston to be dealt with separately. The reason the noble Lord is not aware of a separate company is that the Government have not yet got to that stage. It has taken a long and painful process to get to a stage at which all the parties involved in Euston now agree with the spatial plan, including the developer Lendlease and its new partner, the Crown Estate. The Government are now considering how best to procure that station, which includes an HS2 station and the concourse of the Network Rail station as a combined station, which it always should have been but, certainly when I started chairing the partnership board at Euston, was not. In fact, the original intention was to have two platforms numbered “1” because the HS2 people thought they were building a new railway in a separate station. How stupid was that?
So, we are progressing with Euston as a separate project to be delivered by a separate organisation. There will be more to say in short order, both here and in the other place, but the noble Lord has not missed anything. The state in which even that part of the project was left, after the peremptory cancellation of phase 2a and the statement by the previous Prime Minister that Euston should be built with no public funding, was one where it needed serious work to come to a conclusion. But I do not agree with the noble Lord that we should somehow further alter the design of Euston. We should get on with a plan that works in order to open this railway at the earliest possible time that Mark Wild can predict, at a cost he can predict, and with a delivery plan that will work.
Self-driving Vehicles: Disabled Passengers
Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness is entirely right. One of the really good prospects here is the provision of public services to people in rural areas where buses, with the best will in the world and despite the Government’s ground-breaking bus legislation, will not serve every need of the community because of the sparse population. That community is also getting older and many people there cannot drive, so there is a real opportunity here for autonomous vehicles fulfilling the need for public services in a way that conventional buses and taxis really cannot.
I go back to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which is that we have to design in—as far as we can—facilities for disabled people among this. But we also, as the noble Lord opposite said, have to get going with this, because it is such an exciting future.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, as well as the area of accessibility, what work have the Government carried out to determine liability in collisions involving self-drive vehicles as part of this pilot, given that human error will be removed from the equation?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right: safety has to be the first priority here. There has been a great deal of work worldwide on this. Clearly, the primary consideration for the adoption of autonomous vehicles is safety, so that people are not endangered by new technology but assisted by it. I will write to her about the precise steps that the Government have taken in the UK on this, but it is of course being addressed on a worldwide basis.
E-scooters, E-bikes and Pedal Bikes: Legislation
Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The Government understand that position completely, and there is enforcement. Last year, the City of London Police seized 324 e-cycles for having no insurance, and the Metropolitan Police seized 1,076. Of course the issue, as my noble friend relates, is not merely illegal use of the cycles; it is the disorder and crime that goes with them. My noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint stood at this Dispatch Box a few days ago talking about the additional measures the Government are putting in place to allow easier confiscation of these bikes when they are used in the wrong way. We encourage police forces to follow the lead of the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police in understanding that the use of these things illegally leads to further crime.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, is the Minister aware of the investigative reporting by Jim Waterson at London Centric on Lime bikes, and the huge increase of broken legs and serious injuries at A&Es, known locally as “Lime leg”? What plans do the Government have to ensure that comprehensive insurance is in place for hire bike operators?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness raises a good point. I and the department have read the investigation by Jim Waterson. It is concerning that these bikes apparently seem to cause so many breaks of the lower limbs, and I will write to her about the actions that can be taken both about insurance, which hire bike schemes should have, and with the company about the design of its bikes and the damage that they seem to cause on a regular basis.
European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service
Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for tabling this debate and for his comprehensive overview of the service, the issues and the need for this service.
Before today’s Question for Short Debate and my preparation for it, I was not aware of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service known as EGNOS and the important pan-Europe service it provides as a satellite enhancement navigation system that augments global satellite systems, helping to improve accuracy. As we have heard, it can help enable planes to land in a broader range of circumstances, helping to improve services and reliability. I am sure this will not be the first time I learn something new in my spokesperson role in this place.
EGNOS is a crucial system for safety-critical manoeuvres, such as navigating ships through narrow channels or flying aircraft, particularly for regional airports. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, for clarifying that its full title is the EGNOS Safety of Life Service and for the details he has provided on its use.
Last November, when discussing an SI, my noble friend Lady Randerson requested an update on membership of EGNOS, highlighting that smaller airports such as those in Bournemouth and the Isles of Scilly, as we have heard today, are at a disadvantage because they have been unable to operate safely in poor visibility. Leaving EGNOS has been a costly decision for the aviation industry, including causing issues with training for commercial pilots.
Who knew that yet another consequence of leaving the European Union would be that the UK is no longer part of EGNOS? I have to put on record that Brexit has been an absolute disaster in every single way for our country. This is yet another service that we have removed ourselves from, pointlessly in my opinion and with implications for safety, just for a political headline.
Throughout my decades in public life, I have supported innovation where it is needed, but I also strongly support the principle that we do not need to reinvent the wheel and that partnership working is always the best way forward. This is a great example of that. Why should we not be part of this safety-critical system working with our European neighbours? Why would we look to spend money and time creating our own bespoke system at a cost, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, of at least £1 billion just to set it up? It makes no sense.
I will ask the Minister questions similar to those asked by other colleagues. Has rejoining EGNOS featured in any of the discussions about the UK’s future relationship with the EU? The past year has been an important reset moment in our relationship with the EU. I hope it is on the table and is accessible to us, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, asked. If it is not, why not? When will this be on the table? Surely, as we have heard today, this is not controversial. It is a system that we were once part of that helps to improve the accuracy of maritime and aviation navigation. Surely it is an obvious scheme to rejoin. Liberal Democrats strongly believe in scientific collaboration between the UK and the EU, on which I hope this Government would agree. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Driving Test Delays
Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, the Government’s inheritance in this matter was that, as of July 2024, there were 532,782 car practical driving tests booked. That number has gone up, as the noble Lord remarks, but the series of actions taken by this Government is far greater than any set of actions taken by the previous Government—in fact, I cannot find any actions taken by them, other than two disputes with driving examiners, which pushed down the number of tests. This Government have done several things, and the consultation I referred to previously, launched a few days ago, is about putting a stop to the exploitation of learner drivers. The previous Government could have done more, but this Government are doing it now.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, can the Minister outline whether the Government are considering using AI to better detect and block bot-driven booking abuse; for example, monitoring booking patterns and identifying suspicious activity in real time to help prevent bots monopolising test availability?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. The Government are using modern technology to do just that. As a result of some of the actions taken since the Government took office, there has been a further number of warnings, suspensions and closed accounts. That is a consequence of monitoring what is going on. However, it has to be said that the people who use the bots are always one step ahead, so the consultation launched recently is about changing some of the rules to make sure it is not worth using bots. We have to make sure that people who want to book tests themselves, and driving instructors and the businesses they run, both have the opportunity of booking tests so as to get people working and contributing to the economy.
Channel Tunnel: International Rail Strategy
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right that those statistics are disappointing. As she notes, the aspiration then was for far more than currently exists. In answer to the previous question, I said that real reductions in charges, particularly for freight on HS1 and the charging regimes for both the tunnel and HS1, will help to encourage freight traffic. I am spending a lot of my time speaking to potential Channel Tunnel users to demonstrate to them the Government’s enthusiasm for more freight through the tunnel.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, given the report’s finding that better international rail links could replace 6.5 million short-haul flights per year, will the Government commit to cross-departmental work to actively shift passengers from air to rail for short international travel? That has the potential to cut CO2 emissions by up to 680,000 tonnes annually.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right about the environmental benefits of travelling by train and of replacing short-haul air traffic. That is why we are putting in so much effort to create opportunities now for greater use of the tunnel to more destinations and by more operators. I have recently seen all but one of the potential competitors for Eurostar. The noble Baroness may know that the greatest difficulty is the availability of depot space in London. The Office of Rail and Road recently concluded an interim report, and I have asked the department to look urgently at other sites that can be used to increase depot capacity and therefore the number of passenger trains through the tunnel.