EV Strategy: (ECC Committee Report)

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Parminter and the members of the committee on an excellent and comprehensive report. This has been an important debate because it is about our future: the future of our planet and our health. As the report says, transport is our highest-emitting sector, with passenger cars responsible for the majority of those emissions, so it is a pity that we have had to wait nearly 10 months since the report was published to have it debated in the House.

Although the consensus represented in the report has not substantially changed, there have been some significant fluctuations within the industry and in sales levels, as several noble Lords pointed out. The automotive industry has certainly experienced increasing frustration that the ZEV mandate, which I regard as the stick, has not been matched by sufficient carrots to encourage the take-up of EVs by private individuals, companies and the public sector. Sales have, frankly, flagged. The SMMT has pointed out that, since the previous Government’s change of policy, which I will refer to later, private new car demand has declined by almost a fifth. This is despite the visible proof that EVs are lovely cars—I know because I have my second one, so I declare what I regard as a keen interest. They are quiet, clean and smooth, and they have wonderful acceleration. Once you have had one, it is difficult to go back. Diesel and petrol cars are noisy, clunky and very smelly—even the modern ones.

So why the problems with EV sales? Many noble Lords have tackled these issues. Fundamental is the lack of consumer confidence. The committee emphasised that the Government need to do much more to stimulate and encourage consumer confidence. There have been serious and mounting problems. The previous Government, following the Uxbridge by-election, decided that they were not just the motorist’s friend but the unreformed motorist’s friend, scorning lower speed limits and traffic calming measures as well as championing the old internal combustion engine. Hence we had the change of date from 2030 to 2035 for the end of internal combustion engine sales. That fundamentally undermined the ZEV mandate, as the two dates no longer matched and the buyers felt no sense of urgency.

Alongside this, there was a sustained media campaign. My noble friend Lady Parminter referred to it as a blatant campaign, and I agree with her. It was largely but not exclusively in the right-wing press, and there were degrees of misinformation and anti-EV stories that built up on a weekly basis. To give one example, the Luton Airport fire in the multi-storey car park was initially and wrongly reported to have taken place in an electric vehicle but actually took place in a diesel vehicle. That misreporting got repeated on a regular basis. As noble Lords have said, EVs are not more likely to catch fire, and are actually rather less likely to catch fire, than internal combustion vehicles.

There has been a knock-on impact on insurance premiums, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, referred to fairy stories being peddled about battery life. I sold a seven year-old BMW, a very early EV, and there had been no discernible deterioration in the battery and its range in those years, over hundreds of thousands of miles travelled. What should have happened in response to all this misinformation was a formal and co-ordinated campaign, led by the previous Government along with the auto industry and the fire and health authorities, to rebut misinformation, lead with positive stories and provide a database of reliable information for potential buyers. We needed government leadership. Will we get that leadership now? Will we get that co-ordinated campaign? It is very much a case of better late than never.

We also need the Government to lead by example with the transformation of the government car fleet. The committee made recommendations on that, and the original government response to those recommendations simply noted them. We need a totally EV or hydrogen government car fleet in the very near future—by the end of 2025. I would give the noble Lord that length of time for that transformation. It should be possible by then.

Of course, this is about very much more than just supportive government rhetoric. Previously the Government took their foot off the pedal—I am sorry about the pun, but one finds it very difficult to talk about transport without analogies—far too soon on financial incentives to encourage the uptake of EVs. Those vehicles are still noticeably more expensive to buy than internal combustion engine vehicles. It is important to emphasise, however, that they are very cheap to run. They are not just cheap to refuel, they are also cheap in terms of the amount of maintenance they need. They are a very good investment in that respect.

The SMMT points out that our neighbours and competitors across the world largely have incentive schemes. France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Canada, Australia and many US states have incentive schemes. Norway has more EVs now than internal combustion vehicles. It has worked the incentive schemes brilliantly. I therefore very much hope that, in the Budget on 30 October, we will see a new approach. If we do not see some changes from the Government, EVs will remain the preserve of the better-off and that is not socially acceptable.

We do not just need purchasing incentives; we need grants, because the cost of EV charge point installation is considerable. We need to avoid EVs being classed as luxury vehicles in terms of vehicle excise duty. Very importantly, we also need to reduce VAT on public charging points. Otherwise, those with drives will always have an inbuilt advantage over the 40% of our population who have no access to vehicle charging facilities—the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, made this point. So I urge the Government to be bold on this. The amounts of money involved are relatively small at a UK level.

My noble friend Lady Parminter referred to “black holes” in the availability of charge points. The report goes into detail on this, and motorway service stations have been talked of by other noble Lords. The committee report refers to other problems, but I want to go further. Many decades ago, a previous Government regulated the way we buy petrol and diesel. The nozzle shape is different; it is impossible to get confused between a petrol and a diesel nozzle. The display of prices is regulated, so they are calculated in a way that enables customers to compare them from one location to another, and they are visible and so on. There are a huge number of associated safety regulations. A roof is almost always a feature of a filling station—you are protected from the sun and from the rain. But EV owners appear not to be entitled to this. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, made reference to that.

The method of plugging in varies from one type of car to another and from one provider of EV services to another. There is no roof, so you cannot see the screen very often, or you are standing there in the pouring rain. The charge point is very often in the back corner of a large car park, where you feel vulnerable after dark. You very often do not know how much you are going to pay until after you have used the facility, and it is also difficult to know how you can pay. Very often, you have to charge up a card with £5 or £10, using a provider that you know you will never use again, so you will never get your money back in a future charging. Why is it that we cannot have a standardised system, so that people feel reassured? It is not just range anxiety, it is being able to charge up—it is charging anxiety when you get there.

It is time that the industry woke up to the brave new world and provided the very best facilities. The people at Shell are my heroes because they are beginning to do just that. It is essential, for example, that everyone can pay by credit card. The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, did not think we should have subsidies, but I say that subsidies are a well-worn path for new industries—we smooth out their birth pangs—and I urge the Government to look not just at reinstating targeted subsidies but at simple, inexpensive, practical measures, such as standardised signage on motorways to show where you can charge your car. The report covers other key issues such as grid connections, the need to change the planning approach and so on, but those are things that will have to come, whatever happens about electric vehicles.

Finally, we have a new Government and, I hope, a new attitude and a new determination to stimulate this important industry. It will bring jobs, better health and a greater hope for the future of our planet. I hope that the Government will match any measures with reinstating the 2030 date for ending sales of internal combustion cars.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Thursday 8th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I will intervene very briefly, as I did at earlier stages of the Bill, having taken good note of the comments made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd.

I press on the Government the question of the definition of reserved powers. This goes broader than this amendment and may be something that needs to be looked at in another context, in its own right. Under those circumstances, I accept the lead that has been given by the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, and I hope the Government keep the issue alive in their mind.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for moving this amendment. I too will be brief. It is important to restate the principles involved here. The Bill is one of a series from this Government that trespass boldly—I would say foolishly—on devolution. The United Kingdom Internal Market Act, the Procurement Bill and the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill do so distinctly, but this Bill takes it to another level. The overwhelming majority of the list of services for which it seeks to set minimum standards and take control are devolved services, and the noble and learned Lord spoke about this. Add to this the Government’s habit of ignoring the need for legislative consent Motions and we are well on the way to a constitutional crisis, which this Government seem openly to invite.

Even now, the Government do not seem to have decided how to develop and impose minimum service levels. Back in March, the Constitution Committee expressed surprise at this in its report, and it is significant that we are still at this point in June. It is nonsense to imagine that the Government can impose minimum service levels, in effect from a distance, on a service for which they have no responsibility at any level, and, in the case of Welsh-medium education, for which they do not even understand the language in which the rules and standards are written.

As it stands, the Bill is unworkable and damaging. The noble and learned Lord’s original amendment, which was agreed by the House, sought to limit the scope of the Bill. The elegance of the new amendment is that it would allow the devolved Administrations to give agreement in the normal way.

In the different political climate of the past, in devolution as it used to be practised and operate, there would be discussions, co-operation, compromises and ultimately agreement between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations. There would be legislative consent Motions agreed before we agreed legislation here. The norms have gone and that is a serious problem for our future democracy.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 15th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 73 and 74, to which I added my name. I will preface my remarks with a brief comment about the attempts by the Government Front Bench to curtail people’s right to ask questions of other Members during speeches this afternoon. That is most unfortunate and particularly ironic in a debate that is pivoting on the issue of the powers of Parliament to scrutinise legislation. I hope that the Government Front Bench will think again about that line of action.

I welcome the Government’s concessions in the Bill, but I still want to remark on the length of time it took them to wake up to the inevitable—the realisation that the Bill was impossible to implement and requires fundamental change. I am deeply grateful to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, for taking that message from this House to the Government. At the same time, having woken up to the need for change, the Government have now given us an impossible timescale in which to consider the 600 pieces of legislation they have identified—we have 48 hours from now. This remains a very flawed Bill, therefore, and represents a major accumulation of power in the hands of the Executive. That is power seized from both this Parliament and, despite important government concessions, the devolved Administrations.

The amendments to which I have added my name are of the most minor nature. Indeed, in Committee the Minister gave us cause to hope that the Government might look positively on such a change. They are minor—an extension from 10 to 15 days for the committees to look at this legislation—but they are nevertheless important because, without that minor change, the sifting of legislation will present a major hurdle.

The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred to the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee in his speech on the first group of amendments. That report was called Losing Control?. I am delighted to now be a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee under the able chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who is in his place. These minor amendments ask simply for Parliament to be given time to do its job. The Government have accepted that their initial Bill was impractical in its timescale. They now need to accept the lessons of that and, even at this point, to accept this minor change.

This Government have broken new boundaries by producing increasingly skeletal Bills and relying heavily on secondary legislation to flesh out the real meaning of their legislation. SIs are not immune to error. The Home Office recently accumulated a record of having to withdraw one in five of its SIs and remake them. That is not a record of perfect legislation. The Government need to accept that they make mistakes.

We have government by SI now, but the rules and procedures for scrutiny of SIs are locked in the past when primary legislation was much more detailed. If we are to be forced to work this way, procedures must change or there will be major legislative errors. I support the amendments put forward by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and so ably explained by the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, as a good, practical way of dealing with the new approach to legislation.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to offer a brief comment on Amendment 76 in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. Like many Members of your Lordships’ House, I find the way in which we deal with the increasing amount of secondary legislation fundamentally unsatisfactory. I pay tribute to the work done by my noble friends Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts and Lord Blencathra and their respective committees last year, and to the important debate held in your Lordships’ House.

We should move towards re-examining how we handle secondary legislation going forward. However, I do not think that the right way forward is to produce one amendment in one Bill and try to say that it answers the problem. I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, because of his tremendous experience in the other place. But let us not pretend it is easy to find a good solution that will work with both Houses and produce the right degree of additional scrutiny without completely holding up the Government’s secondary legislation programme.

We should take time—I hope the Government will find time—to work between both Houses to find good, practical solutions going forward, but we should not legislate in haste in this Bill. We have secondary legislation procedures that have served us pretty well for a long time. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, referred to needing to deal with flaws in secondary legislation. They can already be dealt with; they do not need any special apparatus to do so. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to the procedure whereby statutory instruments are withdrawn when flaws are pointed out. That is a part of our existing procedure, and it works perfectly well. Let us not pretend it is so broken that we have to invent a special procedure for the Bill.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 26th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to both Amendment 6 and Amendment 7— Amendment 7 being the more important. I am grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Randerson and Lady Finlay of Llandaff, and the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, for supporting these amendments. I have tabled these amendments because this Bill, in its application to Scotland and Wales, is impractical, undemocratic and will make the services there worse. Let me briefly explain each of those points.

First, on impracticality, the main services—that is health, education and ambulance services—are all devolved. It simply is not practical for the Secretary of State for Health or the Secretary of State for Education, as advised by their departments in England, to deal with the position in Wales and Scotland. They do not deal at all with health and education in Wales or Scotland. They are run differently, on a basis of very different legislation to that in England. Let me explain why by reference to Wales.

As to health, under Welsh legislation it is the Welsh Ministers who give direction to the employers—the local health boards and trusts—about their functions. It is Welsh Ministers who have a role in setting pay and conditions in accordance with Welsh regulations and directions and the priorities of the Welsh Ministers.

As to ambulance services, these are run in Wales under the direction of a joint committee of health board chief executives, which has commissioned the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust to run the services for the whole of Wales. Those same health board chief executives are appointed by Welsh Ministers, who are of course accountable to the Senedd. How can an English Minister set minimum service levels for Wales and interfere in this structure when the Minister and the department have no basis whatsoever for doing so, no interest in the policy, no interest in the priorities and do not really understand either the demographics or geography of Wales.

As to education, in Wales it is the local authorities that, with the governors, employ the staff. There are substantial differences in structure: there are no academies in Wales; funding, unlike in England, is not hypothecated; and minimum qualifications for teachers are different. Pay and conditions are set by the Welsh Government for the needs of the curriculum in Wales which, quite apart from bilingualism, is different to that in England. How can a Minister who knows all about education in England, yet has not been able to work out a policy for minimum service levels, set minimum service levels for education in Wales, about which the Minister knows absolutely nothing?

Overall, the position of the employers who have to decide whether to give a work notice in Wales and Scotland will be different to that in England. I have already set out the difficulties in dealing with Amendment 3. They will have to take into account different public law duties under different legislation, and the views of the Governments of Wales and Scotland, who have the power to give directions. Again, one can see a wonderful field day for lawyers.

Secondly, in my view, it is wholly wrong and contrary to basic democratic and constitutional principles for this to apply in Wales and Scotland. The responsibility for dealing with these services is not that of the UK Government but the Welsh and Scottish Governments under the legislation applicable in those nations. The Governments there were elected to run these services and are wholly responsible and accountable to the electorate for them. The English Government—the UK Government—are not accountable. It is therefore wrong in principle to undermine that accountability and democratic choice.

This is underlined by the refusal yesterday of the Senedd to give legislative consent. His Majesty’s Government will argue that the refusal is irrelevant, as it is not a matter for the Senedd or the Scottish Parliament because the Bill concerns a reserved matter, industrial relations. With the utmost respect to government lawyers, that is nonsense: the Bill is not about industrial relations but about devolved services. As has been explained, there is a fundamental failure to understand what the Bill is about. Secondly, the Senedd is the body democratically accountable for services, not the UK Government. Therefore, unless amended, this will be another piece of legislation where the Sewel convention is ignored. I have spoken of this before, but it is now being ignored at the heart of devolution, in services that have been run in Wales and Scotland for a very long time.

Thirdly, it will make matters worse for the people of Wales and Scotland by undermining the ability of the Welsh and Scottish Governments to manage their own relations with their staff and employees. The management of those relationships is different from, and has generally been more successful than, that of the Government responsible for England. Applying the Bill to Wales and Scotland is effectively taking away power from those who have responsibility for the management of the relationship, for the negotiations and for the setting of pay and conditions. It will undermine their ability to do this successfully. It is simply an arrogation of powers in matters over which the Government in England have no responsibility. Power without responsibility is a recipe for disaster for the people of Wales and Scotland, for which the Government, in respect of these services, have no responsibility at all.

In summary, the UK Government, which are under the law responsible only for health, ambulances and education in England, should not be interfering in areas for which they have no responsibility in Scotland and Wales. It is impractical, wrong in principle and makes no sense. The real problem is that this is yet another attempt to undermine devolution and give strength to those who wish to see the union weakened.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, the noble and learned Lord has spoken very powerfully and comprehensively on this, and I am delighted to offer my support on both these amendments, which reflect how badly written this Bill is. It reflects a Government in a temper tantrum in the face of a period of determined and effective trade union action. I can hear government Ministers stamping their feet in a fit of rage and the result is this badly drafted Bill.

The report of the Select Committee on the Constitution condemns the Bill for being “skeletal” and declares that the concept of minimum services levels is insufficiently specified. This problem is particularly acute in relation to the devolved Administrations, because it is surely up to them to decide what minimum service levels should apply in their own countries in their own circumstances.

I will give two very concrete examples. First, in relation to health services, ambulance response times might quite reasonably be very differently specified in Wales and Scotland because in the Highlands of Scotland and rural mid-Wales the distances travelled are massive. Secondly, if you look at Welsh-medium education, dare I say it, it is unlikely that a UK Minister would even understand the minimum service levels they would have to specify. It is totally inappropriate that it should be in their hands.

At the heart of these amendments is the fact that most of the services specified are, of course, devolved and have a close impact on devolved services at the very least. Education, health, fire and rescue and most transport services are in the hands of the devolved Administrations, which are democratically accountable for the running of those services, yet the UK Government want to intervene in that relationship. That intervention will inevitably sour employer-employee relationships and inevitably mean worse services for the people of the countries concerned.

It will create a seriously muddy situation. Minimum service levels should be down to the democratically responsible Governments concerned, and in these services that is the devolved Governments. The muddy waters will be even more troubled by the information referred to earlier in Amendment 3 from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, that in practice employers will have to issue work notices in order to avoid being sued.

So, we have employers in devolved Administrations working to the devolved Governments which are going to have to act in response to UK Government actions. This is not practical, so for all these reasons I believe the Government need to draw a halt to their many steady and determined attempts to undermine devolution, and this Bill needs to apply only to England.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I support both these amendments, speaking, if I may, from a Scottish point of view. I endorse entirely what has been said by my noble and learned friend Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd and by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson.

I would like to come back to the point about legislative consent, because I very much regret the fact that the Government have not sought that from the devolved legislatures. It is pretty obvious that it would have been withheld, but the fact that they never did that itself tells one a great deal about the Government’s attitude to devolution.

The fact is that almost all the services that we are concerned with—health, education and so on—are devolved. It follows that industrial relations in relation to these services are in the devolved area. We see this in Scotland day after day. Discussions about pay and conditions for nurses, junior doctors, ambulance workers and so on are dealt with in Scotland by the Scottish Government because they are dealing with devolved areas. Therefore, industrial relations in relation to these services really are within the devolved area and should have nothing to do with Ministers in Whitehall. There is a basic misconception about the approach the Government have taken in the Bill in relation to these devolved areas. Without elaborating on the other points that have been made, it is because of that very basic misconception that has misguided the Government from the start that I support these two amendments.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Randerson]

14: The Schedule, page 3, line 31, at end insert—
“(5) Regulations made under this section in relation to strikes affecting services in an area for which an elected mayor is responsible may not be made without the consent of the elected mayor for that area.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would require the consent of the relevant elected mayor before minimum service levels could be set in relation to an area for which an elected mayor was responsible.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in the group starting with Amendment 14 in the name of my noble friend Lord Fox. This group is all about devolution. The Government have hyped up their commitment to devolution in England, so Amendment 14 is in line with the proposals in the levelling-up Bill and in Bills on the powers of existing mayoral authorities. In England, an increasing number of those have great powers over transport—for example, bus franchises—so it is logical that elected mayors should be consulted by the Government before they intervene with minimum service levels.

I move on to Amendments 19 and 49 in my name, which refer to the much stronger devolution that has existed in Wales and Scotland and, we hope, will be returned in Northern Ireland in due course. Amendment 19 refers to Part 1 of the Schedule, which relates to minimum service level regulations that may be applied by UK Government Ministers to the list of services specified in the Bill. The key point is that most of these services—health, fire and rescue, education and most of transport—are devolved. Only the decommissioning of nuclear installations, management of radioactive waste and so on, and border security are reserved matters falling to the UK Government. Once again, we have this Government riding roughshod over the core business of devolution. Even border security could be argued to be a very legitimate interest to the devolved Administrations. For example, the Welsh Government owns and runs Cardiff Airport, and that would clearly be directly affected if there were a dispute with border security staff. Similarly, the safe and efficient operation of the several very important and significant Welsh ports is of direct concern to the Welsh Government. In practice, you could not impose a minimum service level without consultation and close co-operation.

I need to point out here that the Welsh Government have a much more positive relationship with public sector trade unions than that between the UK Government and trade unions in England. Although they have not totally avoided strike action in Wales recently, it has certainly been much less intense and acrimonious. The Welsh Government have adopted more of a social partnership approach, and we have seen none of the provocative rhetoric that we have seen in England.

Amendment 19 is very modest: it simply asks for an obligation for proper consultation with Welsh and Scottish Ministers before regulations are made. It reflects similar provisions in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. It specifies that a senior Minister of the Crown should undertake this consultation because we have lately had repeated evidence that this Government have failed to interact at the appropriate level with Ministers in the devolved Administrations, whom they seem, on occasion, to regard as insignificant juniors. Very recently, in the debate on the retained EU law Bill, we were repeatedly referred to officials as the appropriate level for such links. If the UK Government decide to intervene to specify minimum service levels for devolved services, that is a political decision, and the very least that they should do is ensure that Ministers take the lead in that political process.

Quite apart from the need to respect devolution, there is considerable scope for confusion if the UK Government decide to define what they regard as an MSL without close liaison with the devolved Administrations. Let us take health as an example: waiting times for treatment are defined differently in Wales and England, as are ambulance response times, so one size definitely does not fit all. The very simple Amendment 49 takes a much more radical approach. By leaving out “Wales and Scotland”, it would limit the extent of the Bill to England. That would reflect the points that I made previously: most of the public services specified are devolved, and even those which are not have a close interaction with devolved services.

During the pandemic, for instance, we became acutely aware of the differences in organisation and ethos between the UK Government’s approach and that taken, for instance, in Wales, but which I also observed in Scotland. There are plenty of stresses in the delivery of Welsh public services. I do not defend the current standard of some of those. They are under acute stress. If this comes to a head in the form of strikes, it is unlikely that dictation from the outside by the UK Government will help the situation.

Finally, I remind noble Lords that the UK Government are just the Government for England when we talk about strikes in schools or in the NHS, for instance, and other services specified in the Bill.

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 49. All the points arise in relation to it, so I do not think it necessary to go into the other amendments. I will make six points.

First, I do not believe that it is contested that a number of the services covered by the Bill are effectively within the control of the Governments of the nations of Scotland and Wales, and that is reflected everywhere in the consultation that has so far been made. However, when you take that, you have to consider whether you can disentangle services during periods of strikes from services elsewhere. On our previous day in Committee, the noble Lords, Lord Kakkar and Lord Patel, eloquently put why it is quite impossible to disentangle them. What I simply do not understand at the moment is why, if you have a minimum standard on a strike day, that is not the minimum standard across all these areas on every other day. How can the public be expected to think that in strikes there is a minimum standard? There is not.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I do not accept the noble Lord’s points at all, but I will continue my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Collins. Of course, we would rather have a negotiated agreement on minimum service levels, but the Government resist these amendments. I hope that I have been able to reassure noble Lords—I feel I have not entirely—on “may” versus “must” and the compulsion, the statutory discretion or the statutory duty. With those comments, I ask the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I thank the Minister and all who took part in this useful debate. We started with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, who pinpointed the persistent erosion of devolution. He called the Bill “Henry VIII on stilts”, and the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, called it “Gis a power”—I think both phrases will stick in our memories. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said that of course the devolved Administrations will be consulted, but the problem is that, persistently, they have not been consulted at the right levels and the right point in time. There has been a thin façade of last-minute, low-level consultation, and this has not worked—it is not consultation in the proper sense of that word. The Minister did not reassure me when she said that it was complete nonsense that elected mayors should need to give consent—that shows a lack of understanding of the concept of proper consultation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bryan, gave us a useful long list of recent Bills that have undermined devolution—I will copy it out when I read Hansard so that I remember each one. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, took the points further by raising the fear that UK Ministers would use powers in the Bill for political ends. The truth is that this is a heavily political issue and, in England, the wrong sort of political interference has created problems in industrial relations that have not existed in Scotland and Wales to the same extent, because industrial relations have been handled with more sensitivity there. I have no doubt that the UK Government have their own reasons for wishing to sharpen relations with the unions, but that is nevertheless a political issue.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

Amendment 21 seems to be just common sense. Surely it is appropriate that if a work notice is to be issued, it is issued only when all the options to avert a strike have been exhausted. As we keep hearing today, work notices bring serious consequences with them. As the Bill stands, it could lead to an individual employee losing their job. Beyond that, if trade unions do not take “reasonable steps” to comply with the work notices, they could face significant financial damages and the strike could be classified as illegal. If that happens, all the workers taking part in that strike risk losing their livelihoods.

Therefore, it is not clear what these “reasonable steps” are. The Joint Committee on Human Rights is not clear either, saying that

“the provision requiring trade unions to take ‘reasonable steps’ may fall foul of the requirements of Article 11”.

What assurances can the Minister give us that whole swathes of workers will not lose their livelihoods through this? Work notices should never be used lightly, especially in their current form. Amendment 21 provides some safeguards to ensure that this does not happen.

We can see from recent weeks and months, as other noble Lords have said, that trade unions want dialogue. They want to discuss matters of concern. They want to find mutually agreed solutions, which are the only solutions that actually work in practice. But if the Government adopt a more heavy-handed approach to strike action in those sectors where they have what elsewhere might be called coercive control, or if employees feel pressed to do so under fear of civil action, as we have heard today, this risks further division and delays agreement. If we allow work notices to be issued when other avenues to settle a dispute have not been fully explored, perhaps for political reasons of the day, that will, in my view and in the view of many others, extend and escalate disruption.

In its present form, the Bill will not reduce the short-term destruction caused by strikes; rather, it will lead to longer and more damaging strikes. That is not in what the Minister referred to earlier today as my parishioners’ best interests. It is not in anybody’s best interests.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Allan referred earlier, in relation to Amendment 15, to the key issue of human rights. The amendments in this group look at other aspects of this concept. Amendment 23 in my name seeks to examine the practicalities of an employer specifying a minimum service level. Other speakers have referred to the problems associated with this. It is going to be an invidious process. Let us look at how this will work.

The Secretary of State grandly specifies a minimum service level, then washes his or her hands of the practicalities and the personnel implications of it, because employers will have the job of implementing it. The Government will say that it is voluntary, as the Minister said earlier today, but at the same time, she made it clear that employers will be under some level of pressure from the Government to implement minimum service levels. This simple Amendment 23 makes it clear that employers need to specify only the number of employees in each role rather than by name in their work notice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I was responding to the point I was asked about, and I made the point that, under the Bill, it is clear that an employer must not have regard to whether a worker is or is not a member of a union when issuing the work notice. I was outlining procedures that they could then follow if that was the case. Ultimately, they could challenge it in court, and that would be a matter for the courts.

I was going to go back to the point from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, but I see that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, wants to intervene.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

In order to reassure me on the issue of names becoming public, the Minister said that names would not be made public and—I assume this is what he meant—would remain private between the employer and the employee. I just want to tease out how this will actually work. Apart from the fact that the person concerned would turn up at work on that day and so it would no longer be private, how would trade unions and other workers be able to challenge any of this legally? How would they challenge the overall balance of the decision-making of the employer and the fairness in the way in which all this has been carried out, particularly if someone were to end up losing their job as a result of the whole process? How would there be any legal assurance about this if the whole thing is cloaked in mystery?

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not aware of the details, but I am not sure that it would be appropriate to comment at this point.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

Is the Minister able to answer a brief question in relation to the role of school governors? They actually employ the staff—that is engage the staff. Do the Government not have concerns that these volunteers could be deterred from taking part in what is already a demanding, onerous and very skilled job by problems such as having to identify those members of staff who are needed for a minimum service level, added to their already onerous responsibilities?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I have already been repetitively clear that the Government would much prefer to see voluntary arrangements in this area. Again, having been a governor of a school, as many of your Lordships probably have, it is not about picking one single thing that is going to make it more or less stressful. We need to be very clear that the role of governors is incredibly important. We appreciate them enormously and offer them the support that they need to do their role.

--- Later in debate ---

I turn now to minimum standards. I have forgotten the name of the rail operator in the north-west that constantly uses a clause in its service contract to cancel trains the night before, so that people who are planning to go to work the next day will not know that they do not have a train to go to work. I would be grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, if she could shout out its name from a sedentary position.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

The TransPennine Express.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The TransPennine Express uses that clause, and that is why the public can see through this legislation. This is not about maintaining minimum service levels; this comes back to the basic, fundamental idea that this is an attack on organised labour and its ability to protect its workers. It is the thin end of the wedge, as it were: we started off with transport minimum service levels and then the Government thought, “It is very difficult to define how that will work, so let’s not do that, because we will be forced to define what a minimum service level is in the rail industry and we will have to account to Parliament for that. So let’s go the whole hog: let’s get a skeleton Bill which simply gives us the powers to set minimum service levels across a whole range of services and occupations.” They say that they are focused on public services, but of course most transport services are well outside the public sector and have been for a long time, including aviation.

How do the Government envisage minimum service levels in aviation? Do we have half a pilot? Do we have half the safety staff in a plane? Do we have half the number of planes? I suppose that most unions would go for that last option in terms of a dispute in the airline industry. It is a nonsense, and it highlights that there is a target in the Bill: it is not necessarily the taxi driver, the aviation industry or any of the other things which could be brought into its scope; it is rail passenger transport. We do not even get a mention of freight transport and other things such as that.

I suspect that, as we lead up to the election, the Bill will form part of the Government’s narrative that they are on the side of the public and passengers and that, according to them, Labour supports strikes and unions. No, the Bill is not about that; that is a false narrative. The narrative is: who defends public services and who supports the commitment of the people who serve us? It is Labour who will support the people and public services. This Government have undermined them, and that is why we have these strikes. I beg to move.

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[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, the Committee may remember that, back in 2022, the TUC commissioned legal opinion from Michael Ford KC on the train operating contracts because there was concern about the role of the Government in obstructing a settlement to disputes. Looking at those contracts, his opinion was that the Transport Secretary has

“very extensive powers over what can be agreed between rail operators and unions, and very significant contractual power to direct how industrial disputes are handled. Rail operators are not free to agree terms and conditions without the involvement of the Transport Secretary.”

Before discussing matters, they have to get a mandate from the Transport Secretary, and so on. If you add to that the issue of minimum service levels, and the very real concerns expressed about undue pressure being brought to bear on employers to make use of the powers that the Government propose to take for the Secretary of State, you can see why there is concern. When you look at the power to direct disputes, minimum service levels and so on, apparently the only thing the Government are not willing to do is renationalise the railway system.

It would be wrong to assume that, even in that context, rail employers and unions have conversations, and certainly I am aware that train operating companies are not keen on this legislation. They have real concerns about what it would mean for health and safety on the railways; you could run 20% of services, but you have 100% of passengers wanting to get on. It is not as simple as some might believe.

I really wanted to ask the question: who is asking for this? It does not appear to be the employers. Who wants this to happen? Is it really passengers if it involves a detrimental impact on health and safety? People are already worried about the cuts to maintenance jobs. I do not believe passengers want an unsafe railway; I believe they want constructive industrial relations that can lead to a good-quality rail service. That is what passengers want, and I am afraid the Bill flies in the face of that.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I share the disappointment of the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, is not here, but I recall that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, was Transport Minister back in the day, and I am absolutely sure he has perfect recall of those times and will give us very full answers.

In my Second Reading speech, I emphasised the fundamental differences between life and death services, such as fire and rescue and health services, and their contrast with transport services, which are of course economically important but are not life and death. Fundamentally, there is a whole range of transport services that can be substituted one for the other. If I wanted to go from Aberdeen to London, I could take the train, I could go by long-distance bus, I could fly, I could drive myself in a car, or, if I wanted the luxury route, I could take a ship and have a cruise. There is only one way to put out a fire, but there are lots of ways of travelling. Another key difference between the services we have been discussing earlier and transport services is that fire services, health services and education services are funded from our taxes and provided free of charge, whereas the profit motive is alive and well in transport services. Although I acknowledge that some transport services are subsidised, we still pay for the vast majority.

Amendment 9 from the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, is particularly useful in featuring aviation, which is, as he pointed out, overwhelmingly in the private sector, unsubsidised and not appropriate for this Bill. Amendment 10 is also very helpful because it features the complexity of transport services. I have a very specific example as a question for the Government seeking clarification on exactly what they mean by the term “transport”. For example, will they be setting minimum service levels for local bus services? If so, will those minimum service levels be for just those routes that are deemed socially necessary and are therefore subsidised by public money, or will they also include those local routes which are run by the same bus company but are run commercially and not subsidised by public money? The company that provides the services and some local councillors will know the difference, but I reckon there are very few bus passengers who will know the difference. It is that kind of detailed question that the Government need to be able to answer in order to clarify what they mean by “minimum service level”.

Even Amendment 10 would simplify the situation. At Second Reading, I used the example of cleaners going on strike on the railways. The Government are concerned about rail drivers but, if the cleaners go on strike, the toilets do not get cleaned so the trains cannot be run. I am interested in what level of detail the Government intend to specify in their minimum service levels.

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With that, I do not think that there were any other questions that I have not already answered in previous groupings. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Collins, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I understand why the Minister is not going to answer the question about local bus services and the bits that are and are not subsidised within one service, and I realise why he cannot give me a full answer now, but will there be a letter from the Government on that issue?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am happy to give the noble Baroness a letter, but I am not sure there is much doubt about it. Legislation is not dependent on whether the service is subsidised. Some rail services are heavily subsidised, and some are not. It is about providing the level of service to the public. There is no compulsion on employers to use a minimum service level if it has been set in their particular sector. It is probably quite unlikely that we would want to set minimum service levels in local bus services, but that is a decision for the Secretary of State if Parliament chooses to grant him the power.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Given the likely volume of the draft regulations to be scrutinised, together with their likely importance, it seems right that there should be an additional five sitting days in which the committee and outside bodies can make their views known to the House of Commons sifting committee and your Lordships’ House. That is the reason for these two simple amendments to change “10” to “15” in the two places where “10” appears in the Bill. If the Government do not intend to try to marginalise further Parliament’s involvement in the Bill, I can see no reason why they cannot accept this very small and important amendment. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for his excellent introduction. As very much a new girl on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee now being very ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I put my name to this amendment because I am convinced by his arguments for this basically very modest and very practical pair of amendments. The arguments are based on experience, as the noble Lord has explained. Earlier today, the Minister indicated that it is the Government’s intention that a substantial number of pieces of legislation will be revoked and reformed and that we are not looking at a situation where there would be some exceptions to carry over.

Given the very tight time constraints—the Minister made it quite clear in an earlier letter to us that even he thought it was ambitious—we can confidently expect that the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee will face something of an avalanche of legislation towards the end of the year. For it to get its thorough job done properly, there needs to be this simple expansion of time available from 10 to 15 days; otherwise, the danger is that the committee will have to act in a way that is precautionary and might well make more comments necessary than if it were given a little longer to consider it. I urge the Minister to take this into account and to accept this amendment at a later stage of the Bill.

[Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)]

My Lords, in January I had the privilege of being appointed chair of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. In that capacity I support these amendments in the name of my noble friend and predecessor Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts—a very difficult act to follow, as he has just demonstrated once again. I greatly welcome the participation of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who has already brought a ray of sunshine to the committee in dealing with some difficult and challenging problems.

Supported by our team of brilliant and highly experienced advisers, the committee reports week in, week out on secondary legislation laid before Parliament, covering every conceivable aspect of policy, directing your Lordships’ attention to the most notable instruments and providing valuable information in support of subsequent debates on those instruments.

As we have heard, under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 the committee was charged with an additional function—the scrutiny of what are called proposed negative instruments laid under a new sifting mechanism. The committee had 10 days to report on these proposed instruments and, to its immense credit and that of its staff, it rose to the considerable challenge of meeting that demanding deadline under the leadership of my noble friend.

As we know from the committee’s recent report on the Bill, however, this was not an easy matter. As the report warned,

“depending on the day of the week on which a proposed negative has been laid, meeting that 10-day deadline could be challenging.”

This Bill makes similar provision for a sifting mechanism. It will apply to the exercise of powers under Clauses 12, 13 and 15. As with the 2018 Act, the Bill does not name the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee as the committee to be charged with this sifting function. That is, of course, a matter for the House.

I know your Lordships will understand that in making the following points I do not mean any discourtesy or to pre-empt any decision of the House. Under the sifting mechanism in the Bill, the reporting period is again 10 days. If that period represented a challenge under the 2018 Act, which involved regulations with the limited purpose of dealing with deficiencies in retained EU law, how much greater will be the potential challenge where regulations under Clause 15, for example, may make “alternative provision” for secondary retained EU law? Such regulations may well require the sifting committee to probe further into the new policy underlying the alternative provision—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, I understand, and reiterated by my noble friend a few moments ago.

That in turn may include the committee having to solicit further information from departments and consider submissions from outside bodies before it can come to an informed and considered view. I realise that my noble friend the Minister may well be worried that, in giving any concession here, he might open the door for a read-across into other departments, but this is a very special case and I want to make it clear that there is no read-across here.

The capacity of the SLSC to meet a 10-day deadline has been amply demonstrated. The committee would not expect the full 15 days for every proposed negative instrument—far from it. What is being asked for in Amendments 139 and 140 is an extension of the deadline in recognition of the fact that the Bill has the potential for generating more complex and far-reaching policy changes, through instruments subject to the sifting mechanism, than the 2018 Act has. From time to time, there will also be occasions when the longer period is needed if the House is to receive the full benefit of the opportunity for more effective parliamentary scrutiny that the sifting mechanism provides.

I very much hope that my noble friend the Minister and his colleagues will accept the force of the argument and take these considerations seriously. At the end of the day, we all want Parliament better to do its job in the public interest, so I support my noble friend.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will share the deep concerns of Green parties around these islands about the issues that we have been discussing. Like Members from all corners of your Lordships’ House, Green parties would like to see the Bill thrown out altogether, although the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, of a pause and a chance to think and understand is, at least, a positive alternative that we should consider. We have heard lots of metaphors—the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, gave us one. I am imagining the fudge, which you have unwisely packed in your suitcase when flying back from a hot place, dripping out all over everything and making a mess everywhere. That is possibly a useful metaphor for where the Bill has put us.

I put on the record a highly unusual and important joint letter written to the Financial Times on 28 November by the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution from the Scottish Government and the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution from the Welsh Government. A small part of it said:

“This bill allows UK ministers to take decisions in policy areas that are devolved to the Welsh senedd and the Scottish parliament and to do so without consultation or the need for their consent.”


That is essentially what we have been talking about.

There has been an implicit point in our debate that has not been made explicitly. I will draw particularly on the work of Dr Viviane Gravey from Queen’s University Belfast, who points out that the laws have been transposed into the nations of these islands in different ways, so we have huge diversity. That means that the devolved nations cannot help each other out. A natural situation would be that, with the issues of resources that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, raised, ideally, people would help each other out and work co-operatively. In most cases, that will not work in this situation because each nation is different.

I will briefly highlight some of the ways in which the nations are different. On Wales, we have not discussed this much but there is a huge impact on the well-being of future generations Act, which has to be considered in the context of the Bill mentioning no increase in “regulatory burden”. That and the well-being of future generations Act are profoundly contradictory, and I do not see any way of resolving that contradiction.

Many people with vastly more knowledge than I—including the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and others—have commented on Northern Ireland. I saw some telling figures. Until autumn, when the caretaker Ministers ceased to hold office, the Department for Infrastructure had identified 500 rules and regulations and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development had identified 600 rules and regulations—experts describe that as the tip of the iceberg. Given all of the issues that Northern Ireland needs to deal with, dumping that on it as well is simply unacceptable. That is why, in the context of this group, Amendment 29 from the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and others at least takes us to the core of the issues that we need to address.

On Scotland, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, covered a great deal of this, but I will mention some conclusions from the Scottish Human Rights Commission, which said that this would create incredible legal uncertainty about human rights and the ability to deliver them, and it would make it difficult to enforce those rights if the Bill goes through in its current form.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, made an important point about the tone and direction of travel here. The Windsor agreement is a significant reset in our approach to our relationship with Brussels. The tone and approach have changed in a positive manner. I suggest that we need to see a similar change in tone and approach at Westminster, where, under previous Prime Ministers, we saw an extremely aggressive and unco-operative approach towards the nations of these islands. We need a different tone and approach in this not very united kingdom. Dealing with the Bill—stopping it, pausing it or at least implementing something like Amendment 29—is absolutely essential.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I will refer specifically to Amendment 29, in the names of my noble friend Lady Humphreys and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. The Welsh Government and the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee of the Senedd have both examined the Bill closely and they did not like what they saw. They agree with each other that the Senedd’s consent is required for all clauses and schedules, with the exception of Clause 18. However, given the background of a lack of consultation and dialogue, to which several noble Lords referred, we are not likely to get that consent.

The problem is that the Bill does not just infringe on devolved powers—it tramples all over them. The Welsh Government have called it a “power grab”. The injury to devolution throughout the Bill is compounded by the lack of preparation and background information provided by the Government. These issues have been well rehearsed here—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to them in detail. The Welsh Government and the Senedd committee agree that, for a start, Clause 2 needs to be amended to grant Welsh Ministers similar powers to those granted to UK Ministers to extend the sunset date in relation to devolved matters.

On sunsetting, June 2026—the fallback date—is of maximum practical inconvenience to the devolved Administrations because it coincides with elections. There are two possibilities for how the date was plucked out of the air: one is that it was chosen deliberately to make life difficult for the devolved Administrations, and the other—I agree that this is probably more likely—is that it is an example of the sort of poor, substandard legislation that you write when you do not consult the people affected. It would have been so easy to choose a different date.

The Senedd committee’s report reflects concerns already expressed about deficiencies in the dashboard and emphasises the need for it

“to identify how each piece of retained EU law falls across reserved and devolved competencies.”

Without doubt, it is essential that, when Welsh and Scottish REUL is added to the dashboard, it is clearly identified. So when will this happen? Can it be confirmed that this will happen? If it does not happen, that means that this truly is a Government just for England. It is essential that Wales and Scotland legislation is identified.

The committee’s report also emphasised the pressure of time, both on legislatures and the Governments in Scotland and Wales. It is essential that all REUL that the Government do not intend to save or reform is identified by the end of September and laid before all the legislatures of the UK.

Amendment 49, in my name and that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is designed to probe these issues. The Welsh Government have made no secret of the pressure they are under—other noble Lords have referred to that—and the Minister acknowledged in her response to me last week that there was an issue of resources. The simple time pressure is compounded by the lack of coherent information from the Government. It is more difficult to get on and do what you are supposed to be doing if you do not know what that is. What will the Government’s policy be in relation to any failure by a devolved Administration to update their chosen items of REUL and obliterate as required references to EU law? They might choose not to do it, or they might just not have the time to do it. Does that mean that the UK Government will take over the role of the devolved Administrations and take things out of their hands if by mistake or due to lack of resources they cannot get round to it?

As I understand it, the devolved Administrations are also required to search for REUL made by Secretaries of State prior to devolution, which seems tantamount to having to do the job of the UK Government for them. Have I got that right? Can it be clarified, please?

As many noble Lords have said, the state of the dashboard is central to the pressures that I have referred to. The latest count of Welsh REUL on the dashboard is apparently in the teens. I am assured that when they have counted it all it will be in the many hundreds, and the Government have not yet been able to take account of that situation. What estimate do the Government have of how many hundreds of pieces of REUL both Scotland and Wales will have? It will be different numbers, obviously, because law has developed differently, and they have different powers. I noted in an earlier debate that the Government have failed to clarify when or even if we will get a final list, when or even if we will be told what legislation is to be dropped entirely, and when or even if we will be given a definitive list of legislation to be amended. All this is essential not just to us here doing our work but to both the Scottish and Welsh legislatures, and I hope that it will in time be relevant and important to the Northern Ireland Assembly as well when it is up and running.

On Northern Ireland, I do not want to repeat the vital questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and my noble friend Lady Ludford, but I emphasise the importance of them. In the past 36 hours or so, I have been trying to get my head around the implications for this Bill of the Windsor Framework by working through a couple of examples—not quite at the level of detail with which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, did so, but in my own humble way. I think that the Windsor Framework probably requires substantial rewriting of this Bill; it certainly requires substantial reinterpretation—I understand that because it is such a skeletal Bill it might be possible to bend it to the new circumstances, but we need a new interpretation. Please can we at the very least have a major ministerial Statement on the impact of Windsor Framework on REUL which has an impact on the Stormont brake? The three are intertwined. We need more than a letter; we need the opportunity to ask questions and to understand how it will work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

We will bear that in mind, but I cannot give specific criteria: we want to retain the ability to exclude specific pieces of legislation, as I have said, within a specific category.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I think I have taken enough interventions and I would like to make progress, please.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I just make the point that, by definition, to be included in a common framework, the legislation concerned has been extensively examined by all the Governments concerned in the last couple of years. Therefore, it will not be subject to the sorts of anomalies that the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, referred to in our last debate.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

I take the noble Baroness’s point.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 28th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Randerson]

7: Clause 1, page 1, line 4, at beginning insert “Except for the Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts by Children in Front Seats) Regulations 1993 (S.I. 1993/31),”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment excludes the Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts by Children in Front Seats) Regulations 1993 from the sunset in Clause 1. The Regulations protect children from serious injury or death in vehicle accidents.

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[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, this group includes four pieces of transport-related retained EU law, simply to illustrate how fundamental it is to our own protection, both physically and as consumers, with compensation and assistance when things go wrong.

There are many regulations from our 40 years of EU membership that I could have chosen because they have reduced death and injury on our roads. In Amendment 7, I focus on the 1993 regulations on the wearing of seat belts in the front seat of cars by children. These regulations were a consolidation of earlier ones that, in 1983 and 1989, had gradually enforced seat-belt wearing for children.

There are also detailed EU-derived regulations on child car seats, specifying designs by height and weight. Children are not just small adults: they are proportioned differently, their bones are not fully formed, their skeletal structure does not protect their internal organs in the same way, and their necks and heads need greater support. Child car seats reduce the chances of a child’s death in an accident by nearly half, in comparison with them wearing a regular adult seat belt.

I hope that the Minister will clarify that the Government have absolutely no intention of reducing car safety standards for children, but this example illustrates that one person’s deregulation is another’s lifesaver. These regulations have been developed over many years. It is 40 years since the introduction of compulsory seat belts, but it was recently possible for our Prime Minister to be so unaware of their importance in saving lives that he was happy to record a video sitting in a moving car without one. Even today, around a quarter of car occupants killed in road accidents are not wearing seat belts. In the case of young men, it is a third of deaths.

Noble Lords cannot take for granted that our Government will want just to maintain existing regulations. We also need to look at the need to upgrade them. The Bill incorporates a fundamental principle that there should be no increase in regulatory burdens. That is clearly at odds with higher safety standards on seat belts and child seats. We received a letter in the last few minutes from the Minister that states quite clearly that the Government’s definition of “no additional regulatory burdens” means that one can upgrade one aspect of a regulation but, overall, within an SI, there can be no increase in administrative burden. As technology moves on, that will be jolly difficult with something such as seat-belt wearing.

Amendment 24 refers to the Road Vehicles (Approval) Regulations 2020. These ensure that new cars, buses and goods vehicles comply with high standards of safety and environmental protection. If these regulations were to be revoked on 31 December, those vehicles would not be able to be registered from 1 January next year, thus stifling the development of new vehicle design and greater efficiency.

The recently published GB type approval scheme would be revoked before its mandatory application date of 1 February next year, wasting two years of government/industry collaboration. The key point here is that the subsequent lack of environmental and safety regulations would immediately strike at the competitiveness of UK vehicle manufacturers and retailers. New entrants to the market would not be required to meet current high standards, and there would be no requirement for further improvement. Will the new GB type approval scheme be considered a new regulatory burden and, hence, revoked before it even starts?

Furthermore, there is now a package of 50 new measures planned for adoption in the EU this summer. To compete internationally, our auto manufacturing industry needs to keep up with the best. Before Brexit, the UK would have adopted that package as a matter of course. What plans do the Government have to mirror those standards in UK law? Everyone using our roads deserves the safest possible vehicle with the lowest possible emissions, and that is what these new EU regulations are about.

Amendments 8 and 9 are a sample of the various regulations that set out consumer law on air travel and holidays, including airlines’ liability requirements in the event of accidents, loss or damage to baggage, and disabled passengers’ rights to assistance. Amendment 8 deals with compensation for cancelled or delayed flights. The importance of these rights was underscored last summer as aviation struggled to recover from the pandemic. Regulation EC 261/2004 establishes common rules on compensation and assistance for passengers. Clearly, common rules are important in an international industry.

Amendment 9 is on the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018, which modernise previous protections for customers buying package holidays. They broaden the scope to include so-called linked travel arrangements, reflecting the way that many of us now buy our holidays online. Package holidays transformed the international holiday market, opening it up to a much wider customer base, but its success relies on customer confidence that the company offering the package, to which you pay your money, will take responsibility for the whole set of arrangements, pass on your money to hoteliers, purchase the flights and rescue you from disaster when something goes wrong. The volcanic ash cloud of 2010 illustrated the importance of this type of arrangement. In December, Mark Tanzer of ABTA, the largest travel trade body, said that:

“The protections afforded by these regulations are essential to maintaining consumer confidence”


and that the

“sunset deadline … has the potential to destabilise the travel industry.”

I am especially looking forward to examining exactly what the Minister says in response to Amendments 8 and 9, because last year the Department for Transport consulted on plans to reduce customer rights to compensation for internal flights. Can the Minister confirm whether the department is proceeding with this plan? It will, of course, be fully in line with the principles of reducing the regulatory burden that underlie this Bill, but it would damage consumer confidence in domestic airlines.

When I last looked, there were 424 pieces of Department for Transport-related law on the dashboard to be considered by the end of this year. In a world of rapid technological change we should spend our time upgrading our legislation, not retreading the past. The Department for Transport is already puffing along behind the rest of the field, unable to keep up with world leaders.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I do not think it was entirely different. As I recall, in those days we were trying to cut red tape and regulatory burdens being imposed by Brussels. We will come to Clause 15, where I think the regulatory reference appears, in due course.

I would like to make progress, because we have lots of amendments to get through today, and return to Amendment 7, which I think the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, was sponsoring. To make a general point on motor, in reviewing our retained EU law, the Government will make decisions in the best interests of UK citizens, and the Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seat Belts by Children in Front Seats) Regulations will be no exception. I agree that this is an essential element of our law, and one that we intend to retain and to assimilate into UK statute.

The seat-belt wearing requirements are crucial to the safety of our roads; we are agreed on that. We know that even though seat-belt use is high, it still represents a disproportionately high impact on the number of deaths and serious injuries on our roads. The noble Baroness gave a figure for those who were killed not wearing seat belts which was very arresting. Therefore, this law is clearly still necessary.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

Very much to the point the Minister is making, because seat-belt legislation is 40 years old, there is a bit of a lacuna in the law—which is out of step with other similar road safety law—in that not wearing a seat belt is not something for which you get penalty points. There are strong calls to update the legislation to ensure that you get penalty points for failing to wear your seat belt. Would the noble Baroness judge that this would be considered by the Government as increasing the regulatory burden?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

Of course, we need to keep things up to date. As part of our consideration of a call for evidence on road traffic offences and their policing, we are considering testing proposals to make not using a seat belt an endorsable offence. Not everything in the world of regulation is being done in this Bill. I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness that work is continuing and is important. The UK was instrumental in the development of these regulations, and they are compatible with our policy objectives that recognise road safety as a key objective for this Government. I am trying to go through these areas and give an appropriate answer. For this reason, rest assured that we have no intention of removing—

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I am advised that the interpretive effects are not case law; I thank my noble friend on the Front Bench for that. I do not really want to cause more confusion on this important point. I will reflect on this and perhaps come back on it at the end of this debate or in a debate on a future amendment. I am clear that we have no intention of removing these safety requirements on seat belts. I will reflect on the question asked by the noble Baroness and come back on it as I do not want to cause confusion. There are two issues here: case law and interpretive effects. They are both dealt with in later amendments.

I will move on to Amendment 8. Where Ministers, including Ministers in the devolved Governments, see fit, they will have the power to preserve retained EU law from the sunset. This holds true for the regulations specified in Amendment 8 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. There is no need for a specific exemption for the regulations establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding or the cancellation or long delay of flights. If the Minister decides that preserving these provisions is in citizens’ best interests, that can be achieved by using the powers to preserve the legislation and to restate relevant retained law as appropriate, without carving it out from the Bill as a whole.

Similarly, in relation to Amendment 9, I assure the noble Baroness that the Department for Business and Trade has processes in place to review the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018 and will provide more details on this in due course.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

Can I have clarification, then, on why the Department for Transport consulted on removing or reducing the right to compensation of people flying internally if it was not a firm proposal from that department?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for raising that; I will have to take it up with the Department for Transport and get back to her.

On Amendment 24 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, the Road Vehicles (Approval) Regulations 2020 are part of the recently created GB type approval scheme. These regulations were made under Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act and therefore fall within the scope of the sunset as EU-derived subordinate legislation; they are essential to ensure that the GB type approval scheme can be enforced. The Department for Transport is committed to ensuring that our vehicle type approval scheme creates high standards of safety for vehicles and road users, is robust and will remain fit for purpose alongside future developments in road vehicles. We are developing an ambitious plan supported by evidence and engagement with our stakeholders to reform the way in which vehicles are regulated, creating an agile system that keeps pace with technological developments and innovation in a dynamic and rapidly evolving landscape.

I hope this provides some reassurance. We do recognise the importance of many of these regulations.

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[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

We have debated issues of principle, notably at Second Reading, when noble Lords made some very important points. We are going through the Bill and will get to these various points. I have been trying to focus on individual subject areas and would like to move on to the next, because my noble friend Lord Benyon has been sitting here patiently, ready to talk about the environment. We have noted the tenor of the debate and I thank noble Lords for their contributions.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I think this is a case of “follow that”. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, starting with my noble friend Lord Fox, who quoted the gem of ministerial gobbledegook about the status of the dashboard; it is an “authoritative catalogue”, not a “comprehensive list”. I have had time to look it up in a thesaurus and I do not want to disappoint the Minister but a catalogue is a “complete list of items”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, referred to the importance of consumer confidence, which I was attempting to draw attention to in the precise details I included in my amendments.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, referred to the importance of case law. I greatly regret that the Government have got themselves so far on the back foot with the Bill that there was an attempted ministerial intervention to shut down the debate and force him to draw his comments to a close. This was of course rather ironic, given that we have not been provided with a specialist Transport Minister on the Front Bench to answer on the specific transport issues that I was trying to raise. I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, in his crisis over his Conservative identity—but that is not my business.

My noble friend Lady Ludford made some important points about identifying what is actually EU law. We will come on to this later, but there are some real doubts about what law is EU law, because it has been incorporated into other aspects of our law.

I sympathise with noble Lords who suggest that the Government should give themselves a break, park the Bill for a few weeks and work out how it will work before they bring it back. I would like it to go altogether, but I am trying to take a reasonable line, from the Government’s point of view.

The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, suggested that the letter we had was a spoof. One reason why the debate has been as it has is that that letter was designed to raise far more questions than provide answers.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, also referred to the issue of confidence. I assure him, from evidence that came to the Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee, that it was pretty evident that National Archives did a word search to find the list. It is no good noble Lords shaking their heads; that is how National Archives got to the list.