Railways: High-speed Rail

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am pleased to say that opposition to the scheme is waning in the light of the work done by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and her predecessor, and I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, might have done a little bit of work on the side as well. We must not forget that the duty of MPs is to represent their constituents.

The noble Lord asked about the important question of connectivity between HS2 and HS1. The North London line, to which he referred, will support at least three trains per hour in each direction while also maintaining the current service levels. Some gauge clearance will be necessary to accommodate the wider and taller HS2 trains on the North London line. We are confident that this can be achieved with minimal impacts on the local community and rail services.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Statement and, more importantly, the commitment to go ahead with the project. Does the Minister agree that if we are going to spend this amount of public money in these difficult times, it is very important that the public should have a general sense that this is a good thing; and that rather than the argument being entirely hijacked by questions of shaving minutes off journey times between London and Birmingham, we need to keep referring to the line in the context of a very important scheme to link the whole country together and then on to Europe? I am sure the Minister would agree that had Brunel started the Great Western line by saying that he was building the Maidenhead link, nobody would have been very inspired.

[Earl Attlee]

I agree with my noble friend. It is a capacity problem that we are trying to address. If we do not do something, we will run out of capacity on the west coast main line.

Transport: London and the Regions

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for securing this evening’s short debate. Many noble Lords will know that I live in Suffolk. It is not far away; Ipswich is about an hour and 10 minutes from London Liverpool Street, and Norwich, at the far end of the mainline, is two hours away. It is only 120 miles, but it takes as long as it does to get to Brussels. Nevertheless, many people in the east of England commute into London to work, and many have organised their lives around having a good and reliable rail service between East Anglia and London.

Until 2004 we were certainly well served, with Anglia Railways running intercity services and First Great Eastern running commuter services. From Ipswich into London, the competition between the two meant that our service continued to improve. In 2004, the franchise was merged and won by National Express, which called the new service One. It was an inauspicious start. Passengers on the platform would hear an announcement for the seven 20 one train. Was it the train operated by One at 7.20, was it the only train going at 7.20, or was it a train going at 21 minutes past seven? Nobody knew; there was utter confusion and within just a few months there was a huge rebranding exercise. Sadly, things did not get any better.

Passenger satisfaction with the service is the second lowest in the UK at 79 per cent. I am not surprised that the figure is so low, because I have observed a steady decline in basics such as cleanliness, the presentation of the trains and the catering service. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that this particular part of the rich south-east does not get good rolling stock; it is very old, and when we get new train sets they are always hand-me-downs from other operators. The only redeeming feature is the cheerfulness and helpfulness of the staff who have to put up with all this and offer a good service.

The performance on the line stands at about 90 per cent, which is obviously a major concern for both passengers and the operator. The line is dogged by basic infrastructure problems such as track circuit failures, broken rails, faulty points and signal failures. When you add to those the usual problems such as weather, trespass, fatalities on the line and, most recently, cable theft, it makes travelling on the line highly unpredictable. For lengthy hold-ups, of course, we have the great Delay Repay system but, unlike all other train operators, National Express does not offer an automatic refund to its season ticket holders, who have to claim it. For the rest of the passengers, if they claim compensation, it comes in the form of vouchers, which can be used only in a ticket office. With fewer stations having staffed offices and passengers having to use machines and the internet, the compensation vouchers are useless. It is no wonder that passengers are fed up.

We were all pleased when National Express lost the franchise and we look forward to the new franchisee, Abellio, starting up on 5 February. It has the franchise for 25 months, until the results of the franchise review can be implemented. It is a good company, and most of us are pleased that it is taking over. The new 15-year franchise terms that come in after that are very welcome and will provide a much greater incentive for investment in the franchise.

I know that the DfT has announced that the new franchise will bring significant improvements to the cleanliness of the trains, passenger information, parking, cycling and public transport connections. However, unless there is serious investment in the infrastructure, Abellio and East Anglia commuters will face an uphill struggle. I wonder if the noble Earl can say anything about any work that Network Rail plans to improve the track and signalling on our line.

The contract for the new franchise was due to be signed today, and I guess it has already happened. So it was with some concern that I read an article in Modern Railways which suggested that Abellio are in discussions with the ROSCO, Angel Trains, to reduce the amount of rolling stock on the line. It is talking about reducing the capacity by 4,000 peak-hour seats. Can the noble Earl confirm whether this is correct? If so, how was the decision made and what assessment was made of current passenger numbers, future growth and the safety and comfort of passengers? In addition, I would be interested to hear whether the decision was made before or after the franchise was awarded to Abellio. If it was before, were the other two bidders in the process allowed to rebid on the basis of this reduced fleet?

This line is an essential part of the infrastructure of the east of England. It plays a hugely important role in the economic prosperity of our region and desperately needs long-term investment, both on the part of the rail operator and of Network Rail. In the short term, of course, it will be highly visible in next year’s Olympics.

Localism Bill

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Lords Chamber

That is all I ask. I know the Minister well enough to know that when she says this she means it. All I am asking is, please, put it clearly on the face of the Bill; and if there is a better way that the principle can be enshrined clearly in the legislation, I would be more than happy to be so guided and withdraw this amendment and what it entails. I ask the Minister to give this House a clear undertaking that this fundamental promise of fairness, not merely to local authorities but to everyone in this country, will be clearly enshrined.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, like many other noble Lords I share the concerns expressed about these provisions. I want to start by asking the Government to give us an absolute assurance that they are confident that legally an EU fine levied on a member state can then be passed on to a local authority. I am not entirely sure that that is the case and would appreciate being given some comfort that it is true. My personal preference would be to see these clauses deleted, because I am not sure that the Government entirely realise what a can of worms they are opening. The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, talked about where it is clear who is to blame, but EU fines would be levied only for a huge infraction—for example, in connection with air quality. It is almost inconceivable that it would be easy to point a finger and say that a particular person or organisation was responsible.

In fact, a large number of organisations would be responsible. Seeing the noble Lord, Lord Berkley, reminds me of the situation within the rail industry, where there are hundreds of people employed to do nothing but allocate blame. Every time a train is late, they go into a little huddle and work out whether it was the fault of Network Rail or the operator. When I am stuck on a train, I do not much care. This Bill is supposed to connect people with local politicians. We could have a situation where legal arguments drag on for years and cost millions of pounds while arbitrators try to sort out exactly who is responsible for the air quality of London. In that case, who will pay the fine? The public will look with bemusement while this goes on and they will rightly ask, “Why on earth did you not spend that money trying to deal with air quality rather than have this huge legal battle?”. I hope that the Government will think carefully about exactly what they are trying to do here.

Finally, it is a great pity that the whole dialogue and ethos of fining goes against everything we should be trying to do in terms of relationships between central and local government. It should be about looking at the best ways of resolving problems, not about allocating blame in this way and certainly not about allocating fines.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, a number of us mentioned this matter at Second Reading. One of the longest lists of noble Lords spoke in that debate and addressed the problem of these EU fines. I do not want to repeat what has already been said, but the most important factor we are dealing with is that the Secretary of State is an interested party, whether he or she likes it or not. Therefore, it cannot rest with the Secretary of State to decide how to deal with this EU fine if it emerges. It has never happened yet, but it may one day. It was my noble friend Lord Teverson, I think, who said the Secretary of State was not just judge and jury, but prosecutor and executioner. That puts it extremely well.

I have put my name to the amendments moved and spoken to most eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, and to the longer amendment tabled by my noble friend Lady Gardner. Both recognise, first, that there can be no allocation until there is responsibility, and, secondly, that it cannot be the Minister who does that; there has to be a process of arbitration. We are in the middle of a negotiation outside this House between local authorities, led to some extent by the Greater London Authority and the London boroughs and the department. What we hope to hear from my noble friend on the Front Bench is exactly what is happening there; what stage have these negotiations reached? Are we in the process of getting some sort of reasonable settlement? Clearly in Committee like this we do not take a final decision when we are, as the Romans said, “in medias res”. We are in the middle of the affair, so we need to know what the Government have in mind and what negotiations have been going on, where they have got to and when they expect to reach a reasonable conclusion.

I share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, that the solution is not to delete the whole part of the Bill. I heard what my noble friend Lord Tope said on this, but the fact is, bluntly, if there is a serious infraction of a European directive, whether on air quality, water quality or whatever else, is it to fall solely upon taxpayers in general, even if it is perfectly possible to point the finger at the individual authority? At Second Reading, I quoted the example of a directive on waste and the position if a particular local authority was consistently failing to comply. Is it really being seriously suggested that the general body of taxpayers should contribute to the fine?

Of course, the purpose of all these things, as my noble friend Lady Scott said, is to encourage authorities and everybody else to comply with the regulations. That is what is intended but, as I asked in my Second Reading speech, as regards the problem of Heathrow, who is responsible for the air pollution? Noble Lords will have seen reports in the press today of the increase in stacking over Heathrow in the four stacking areas, which is materially adding to air pollution in London. They said it is because Heathrow has been forbidden to expand. I and I think most noble Lords actually support that. Successive Governments and parties have taken that decision, but who is going to pay if it leads to an EU fine? It seems unfair that the whole body of taxpayers should pay.

There has to be some reasonable, fair, proportionate solution and it is my understanding that that is what the discussions are trying to find. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench is going to be able to help us. I am sure I am not the only one who received a paper from the Greater London Authority with a document saying “possible policy statement text” with a summary and a number of key principles. It says:

“The use of these provisions must be fair, reasonable and proportionate. There will be an Independent Review Panel. There will be no surprises, and authorities will have opportunities to make representations. Decisions must be evidence-based and transparent”.

It goes on:

“Authorities will not be held responsible for breaches that were not within their power to avert and will only be fined if they have demonstrably caused or contributed to the fine and can afford to pay”.

I find it rather a difficult document to absorb but it sets out a substantial flow chart, which I am sure other noble Lords have seen, that shows the number of stages—opportunities for appeal, occasions when notice must be given and so on—whereby an authority might become liable. We need to know more about this. However, I am inclined to agree with those who say that it is not sufficient simply to send it all away. We must recognise that if there is a fine, there must be some mechanism for dealing with the matter.

I refer briefly to Amendment 117A in my name, which was suggested to me by one of the big water authorities. These are now private undertakings and have expressed concerns as to whether Clause 36 applies to them. It is a question of whether a water authority that was found, for instance, to have breached the urban waste water treatment directive—possibly as a result of the discharge of sewage into the Thames—would be liable to having a fine imposed on it. I understand that the Government are quite sympathetic to this and that it is not the intention that private undertakings should bear any part of this. Part of the reason for this, which was explained to me by the water companies, is that they are already subject to stringent regulatory controls by the Government. If they comply with those controls, they should be within the law. If they fail to comply, it is open to the regulators to take proceedings against them to make them comply.

Thames Water, for example, has long been concerned about the amount of sewage that can periodically overflow and run into the Thames, with discharges the whole way along. As a result, Thames Water is now planning—work is well under way—to establish a long sewage pipeline under the Thames, for most of its length, which will eventually discharge into the sewage treatment plant at Beckton. This is a huge project, which involves lengthy tunnelling and must avoid all the other tunnels that pass under the Thames. Thames Water is doing what it feels is justified. Therefore, it feels it would be a monstrous infraction to have to pay an EU fine because of a breach of the water directive. I hope my noble friend will be able to give me some comfort on that.

Localism Bill

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I did not give notice of my intention to ask a question about Clause 4, but I have listened to the discussion on the previous group of amendments with some interest. Clause 4(1) gives me a certain amount of anxiety. The provision describes,

“power on a local authority to do things for a commercial purpose only if they are things which the authority may, in exercise of the general power, do otherwise than for a commercial purpose”.

Does that really just mean that if it is illegal to do it otherwise, they may not do it for a commercial purpose, or is there some inwardness here which perhaps I have not appreciated? It sounds almost tautologous. If a local authority cannot do something, presumably it cannot do it whether for a commercial purpose or otherwise, in which case why put it in the Bill? If there are differences or some distinction is being drawn here, I would be most grateful if my noble friend could explain it to me.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I want to join this brief exchange because I am developing an increasing sense of Alice in Wonderland. It feels as though we are operating in two worlds: the old world in which local authorities were only allowed to do things that were in statute, and the new world in which they are free to do anything unless they are barred. It is beginning to feel, in the context of this debate and future debates, that there is a real problem about being caught in the middle where local authorities will be stopped from doing a lot of the things that previous legislation allowed them to do. I am sorry, but I find it difficult to express the point, but I am sure that noble Lords are beginning to get a sense of what I mean. The question of how significant the general power really is, if local authorities are continually hampered by previous legislation, will become very important. It is an issue to which we will keep coming back.

People Trafficking

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord makes an important point. The issue is coming to fruition and when we see the final text we will determine whether we will opt in.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

Is the noble Earl aware that when a specialist unit was set up at Heathrow it found that, of 1,800 unaccompanied children, half were under 11 and one-third were deemed to be at risk in some way? Have the Government given any consideration of whether the age at which children can travel unaccompanied is appropriately set?

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. I am quite confident that we have considered carefully the matter of the age of the child. However, where the child is obviously younger or more vulnerable more attention will be paid by the UKBA officials.

Airports: Heathrow

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the department has no plans for a new airport in the Thames estuary or in any other part of Medway or Kent. We want to get the most out of existing airport infrastructure in the south-east, which is why we have established the South East Airports Taskforce.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

Will consideration of more effective use of the airports include a look at the provision of take-off and landing slots, which currently owes a lot to history and very little to common economic imperatives?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, a future airspace strategy is being undertaken, which includes proposals to enable aircraft to fly in more environmentally efficient ways. For example, the introduction of new onboard and ground-based systems will allow pilots to fly more direct routes and therefore reduce fuel burn and enable aircraft to arrive punctually at the approach to Heathrow, which will provide controllers with much better opportunities to guide aircraft into Heathrow without first placing them in a stack.

Airports: Heathrow

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I look forward to answering a Question about NATS in due course.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that a bad situation last year was made infinitely worse by the seeming inability of the airport operator and the airlines to give passengers adequate information that was not contradictory? Have the Government looked at the matter and at who should be giving information?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right; we touched on this last week as well. There are two reviews. One was commissioned by BAA. The other will come from the South East Airports taskforce. No doubt both reviews will consider that very important point and come back with suggestions on how we can avoid the problems in future.

Marine Navigation Aids Bill [HL]

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Friday 21st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will recognise the tenacity and commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, to this important issue. I am sure that he will understand that for the reasons expressed by the noble Earl it is difficult to have a debate today in anything other than general terms on the important question of the UK system of providing aids to navigation.

However, it is useful to have such a debate at this time. It is also refreshing to have a debate on shipping in your Lordships’ House because it is a topic that we seldom cover, which is interesting when we consider how important the shipping industry is to this country’s economy and to our maritime heritage. I believe that it is timely to revisit the question of light dues. We are the only country in the world to have a user-based scheme for the funding of light dues. While that is not in itself a reason to change the system, it should at least give us the opportunity for pause for thought and to reflect on why we are the only country left which does it in this way.

Clearly, money is the essential driver, as it so often is. The budget shortfall within the General Lighthouse Authorities can be dealt with only in the way that any organisation deals with budget shortfalls; that is, you increase your income, you cut your costs or you do both. The original proposal to increase the budget at a time when all other departments were slashing theirs was ill advised. I am very glad that the Government have stepped in and have given some firm guidance that this is not acceptable.

I very much agree with the point made by the noble Earl that having a stop-start approach to light dues where they are frozen for many years and then increased very fast is not a sensible way to treat the shipping industry, which now has far more options available to them. As we have heard, a large number of companies are simply deciding to go to Rotterdam or to Antwerp and to use feeder ships to try to ship. This is having a serious effect on the maritime industry generally and has the effect of making the budget crisis within the GLAs even worse because they are trying to bring more money in and actually are bringing in less. They then get into a vicious circle from which it is difficult to escape.

The Government need to reconsider the principle of whether a 41p per tonne levy on ships in UK waters is still an appropriate way forward, given that it is described as a user tax, when there is no mechanism for measuring whether these ships are using the lights at all. With modern navigation and so on, things have moved on. The Chamber of Shipping is adamant that this is a tax on trade. We need some clarity of thinking as to whether that is what it is.

The budgetary problems will be eased by the recent announcement of the agreement with the Irish Government that they should take on responsibility for their own lights. I congratulate the Minister, Mr Penning, on achieving what previous Governments said was impossible. Therefore, either Mr Penning has been very persuasive or we have a lot of extra leverage after having written some large cheques to the Irish Government lately. Whichever way it is, we certainly seem to have made progress that has eluded us before.

I understand that the subsidy to the Irish Lights this year is around £12 million, which will come as a significant benefit to the budget. Will the Minister say whether this saving will in part or in whole be reflected in reduced fees to the ship operators or will simply disappear into the lighthouse funds to help to deal with the pension deficit?

The issue of operating costs is important. I know that the Government are working with all sectors of the transport industry to look at why UK costs are much higher than overseas comparators. They are doing that for rail, roads and so on. I suspect that this is as much of a problem with marine navigational aids as with any other sector. As we have heard, an article in the Lloyd’s List of 23 August 2010 by the former chief executive of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has highlighted how Australia transformed its lighthouse system during the 1980s, improved service quality and reduced costs. I know that a lot of other countries are looking at the Australian model and I hope that our Government are too.

On 14 January, the Government in Hong Kong announced that they will reduce fees for a range of maritime services, including lights, by about 20 per cent. Clearly, there is a wealth of international experience on which to draw. That is appropriate because shipping has well established international organisations, including the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea in this area.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has done the shipping industry a service by bringing this forward today, although I hope that he will accept the difficulties of scrutinising a Bill that has disappeared before our eyes. Nevertheless, I thank him.