Thomas Cook

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport in the other place. The Statement is as follows:

“Mr Speaker, I would like to make a Statement about the steps the Government have been taking to support those affected by the collapse of Thomas Cook, in particular the 150,000 passengers left abroad without a flight back and also the 9,000 people here who have lost their jobs in the UK.

This is a very sad situation. All parties considered options as to how this company could avoid being put into administration. Ultimately, however, Thomas Cook and its directors took the decision themselves to place it into insolvency proceedings, and it ceased trading at 2 am on Monday 23 September. I recognise that this is a very distressing situation for all involved, and I would like to assure Members that the Government are committed to supporting those affected, including by providing repatriation flights free of charge for all those people.

We have been contingency planning for some time to prepare for this scenario, under Operation Matterhorn. The Government and the Civil Aviation Authority have run similar operations in the past and have been working hard to minimise disruption for passengers and to try to assist Thomas Cook’s staff. Even with our preparations and previous experience with Monarch, the task before us represents the largest peacetime repatriation ever undertaken in the UK. Some disruption and delay are inevitable, and we ask for understanding, particularly for Thomas Cook’s staff, many of whom are still working alongside the Government to help ensure the safe return of customers.

For example, the situation in Cuba has been reported in the media. The aircraft left this morning, and all passengers from Cuba scheduled to come home today are on that flight.

Normally, the CAA’s responsibility for bringing back passengers would extend only to customers who are covered by the ATOL scheme. However, there would have been insufficient capacity worldwide in the aviation market for non-ATOL customers to book tickets independently and bring themselves home. Some passengers would have had to wait for a week or more and others would have suffered financial hardship while they waited for an available flight. This would have created further economic problems, with people unable to return to work or be reunited with their families. With tens of thousands of passengers abroad with no easy means of returning to the UK, I instructed the CAA to ensure all those currently abroad were able to return, ATOL or non-ATOL.

Due to the size, complexity and geographical scope of the Thomas Cook business, it has not been possible to replicate its exact airline and schedule. In the case of Monarch’s collapse in 2017, the CAA was able to source enough aircraft of the right size and type to closely match the airline’s own operation. Thomas Cook was a much bigger airline, however, and also provided a global network of package holidays. As a result, this operation is much more challenging. Some passengers will be travelling home on commercial flights where other airlines have available seats. I am sure that the whole House would like to thank all the airlines and ground staff who have offered assistance to Thomas Cook passengers in this difficult situation.

I would like to update the House with the latest information and give honourable and right honourable Members a sense of the scale of the operation that has been going on. We have put in place arrangements to bring back more than 150,000 people to the UK across 50 different locations. This requires more than 1,000 flights by CAA-chartered aircraft over a two-week period. Passengers will be able to complete their full holidays, so they should not be leaving early and should be able to return on the day they were intending to.

So far, in the first two days of the operation, nearly 30,000 passengers were returned to the UK on more than 130 dedicated CAA flights, with a further 16,500 passengers whom we hope to repatriate today on something like 70 flights—I checked before I came into the House. So far, 95% of people have been repatriated on their original date of departure. We have not been able to bring everyone back from the airport they went to because of the different sizes and shapes of the aircraft available. In the first two days, we provided onward coach travel to over 2,300 passengers and arranged an additional flight from Gatwick to Glasgow to relocate passengers who had flown back to the wrong airport. The CAA has reached out to over 3,000 hotels to issue letters of guarantee to ensure that British holidaymakers can remain in their hotels. That has been followed up with calls and contact from FCO officials.

There are over 50 overseas airports involved— around the Mediterranean, in north Africa and in North America—and 11 UK airports engaged in this programme. There have been over 100,000 calls to our customer service centres and over 2 million unique visitors to the CAA’s dedicated website. There were close to 7 million page views on the first day alone. In total, 10 government departments and agencies have been involved, including the DfT, FCO, BEIS and DWP in London, and our extensive diplomatic and consular network in the affected countries worldwide.

I have been hugely impressed as the programme has rolled out in the last few days. The response from Thomas Cook passengers has generally been positive, with many praising the CAA, local staff and government officials, even though there has been considerable disruption. For example, people have not been able to use advance check-in, as they are used to doing, instead having to queue—therefore causing the queues as seen on television screens. Despite these robust plans and their success so far, this is a distressing situation for all concerned. One of my top priorities remains helping those passengers abroad to get back to the UK and to do so safely.

In addition to supporting passengers, we have been working across government to ensure the 9,000 former Thomas Cook employees in the UK and those overseas receive the support that they need. The decision by the Thomas Cook Group’s board has been deeply upsetting for employees, who are losing their jobs. DWP’s Jobcentre Plus rapid response service is in place, helping workers to get back into employment. The Jobcentre Plus rapid response managers across the UK are ready to engage with the liquidators to start that vital work. There are special arrangements for UK employees who are owed redundancy and notice pay by their insolvent employer. The redundancy payment service in the Insolvency Service can pay statutory amounts owed to the former employees from the National Insurance Fund.

My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is establishing a cross-government task force to address the impact on employees and local communities. This will help to overcome barriers to attending training, securing a job or self-employment, such as providing childcare costs, tools, work clothes and travel costs.

My colleagues and I have also been in contact with those Members whose constituencies will have been hardest hit by those job losses and given assurances that we will work with the industry to offer what support we can. In fact, all honourable Members’ constituencies have been affected in some way, even from working in a shop location.

My colleague the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has also written to the Financial Reporting Council to ensure that it prioritises, as a matter of urgency, an investigation into both the causes of the company’s failure and the conduct of its directors and its auditors.

I am also aware of the duty of this Government to the taxpayer. While affected passengers have been told that they will not have to pay to be flown back to the UK, we have entered into discussion with several third parties with a view to recovering some of the costs of this large operation. Around 60% of passengers have ATOL protection and the CAA’s Air Travel Trust fund will contribute proportionately to the cost of the repatriation as well as refunding future ATOL bookings. We will also look to recoup some of the costs from the relevant credit and debit card providers and travel insurers, and we will look to recover costs from other travel providers through which passengers may have booked their Thomas Cook holiday. We are also in discussion with the official receiver to understand what costs can be recouped through the company’s assets. The final cost of Monarch back in 2017 was about £50 million, including ATOL contributions. The repatriation effort for Thomas Cook is now known to be about twice the size and is more complicated, for the reasons explained.

It has also been suggested in the press that the Government could have avoided the collapse with a bailout of up to £250 million for the company and its shareholders. Given the perilous state of the business—including, as reported, a £1.5 billion half-year loss in May, followed by a further profit warning in November—that was simply not the case, with no guarantee that such an injection would have secured the future of the company. In effect, our concern is that we would have put in £250 million and would have been throwing good money after bad. And then we would have had to pay the repatriation costs anyway. It is clear that in the last few years the company ran into several problems, trying to expand through investing in the high street while the market moved online.

The loss of an iconic British brand, which was 178 years old and one of the world’s oldest travel companies, is an extremely sad moment. However, this should not be seen as a reflection on the general health of the UK aviation industry, which continues to thrive. Passenger numbers are up, and more people are travelling more. The truth is that the way people book their holidays has changed an enormous amount, but it did not change as much within the company. None of that should detract from the distress experienced by those businesses reliant on Thomas Cook passengers and also Thomas Cook employees, who, as I have already said, have worked above and beyond in recent days, during this distressing situation.

We have never had the collapse of an airline or holiday company on this scale before, but we have responded swiftly and decisively. Right now, our efforts are rightly focused on getting passengers home and looking after employees, but we also need to understand whether any individuals have failed in their duties of stewardship within the company. Our efforts will then turn towards working through the reforms necessary to ensure that passengers do not find themselves in this situation again. We need to look at the options, not just ATOL, but also whether it is possible for airlines to be able to wind down in an orderly manner. They need to be able to look after their customers and we need to ensure that their planes can keep flying, so that we do not need to set up a shadow airline for whatever period of time. That is where we will focus our efforts in the weeks and months ahead. In order to do that, we will need primary legislation in a new Session of Parliament.

In what has been a challenging time, I put on record my appreciation for the work of all of those involved in this effort, and in particular Richard Moriarty, CEO of the CAA. His team, and my officials at the Department for Transport, have done an extraordinary job so far. I am also grateful for the support o others, including the Mayor of Manchester, who has acknowledged the Government’s repatriation efforts and their work with other agencies to help get those affected home. This has been an unprecedented response to an unprecedented situation, and I am grateful to all parties who have stepped in to support these efforts. I commend this Statement to the House”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that long but very useful Statement, and for the letter that was sent out to Members. I echo the thanks to the staff of airlines, customer services, ground crew and so on, who have done so much to restore some order to what could have been a catastrophic situation. Those thanks must especially go to the employees of Thomas Cook, many of whom are showing a degree of compassion and humanity towards their customers that is sadly lacking in the attitude of the directors.

Given what we know already about the state of Thomas Cook, can the Minister say more about how the Government are going to, and I quote from the Statement,

“seek to understand the failings of stewardship”?

I will not repeat the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, but these questions of governance and of the failings of governance are key, both to prevent this happening again and in protecting consumers in this sector and others.

I can understand why the Government were reluctant to go in with a classic bailout, but I wonder whether they ought to have thought more about whether it was possible to fund Thomas Cook for a few weeks, specifically to bring back those customers who were already abroad. Might that not have been more efficient than having to scrape around for aircraft wherever we could get them? I would like to know more about that.

I understand that CAA guarantees to hoteliers apply only to those passengers who have ATOL protection. There are 40% who do not have that protection, and we are hearing all sorts of stories about people being locked out of accommodation. Not everyone has the financial resilience to simply pay a bill on demand to a hotel, especially as they have already paid once for a holiday, so I would like to hear more about the 40% who are not covered.

The Minister may be aware that the vultures are already gathering, and there are stories emerging of scams where people purporting to be from Thomas Cook are offering refunds to get people’s bank details. Will she urgently consider a social media campaign to highlight the dangers of this and setting out exactly what people should do if they have been affected?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank both the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for their thoughtful questions and comments about this difficult situation.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about the various reviews that the Government will make sure are undertaken as a matter of great urgency. He also mentioned the accounting methods and the comments from EY. Thomas Cook of course uses IFRS, the standard accounting rules. Those are used in 125 countries and have been adopted by the EU. Some people will push those to the absolute limit, and maybe Thomas Cook did, but we cannot say for sure. Once we have got to the stage where the repatriation has finished successfully and everyone is home, we certainly will look into all sorts of things, including its application of the various accounting rules. The official receiver will review all payments made to the board and creditors in the lead-up to the date when the board declared the company insolvent. The official receiver is able to recall payments if it feels that they were not made in the right course of business.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, mentioned governance, which is really important as well. I hope that when these reviews have been finished, we will take away a number of lessons from them. The travel industry has always operated in the way it does. The issue now is that some of these organisations are very large, and when the worst happens it has a very significant consequence. Therefore, we as a Government need to think about the long-term future for aviation and travel organisations when they become insolvent.

This brings me on to the second major area commented on by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser: the airline insolvency review, which we asked Peter Bucks to undertake after Monarch. He submitted his report to the department in May this year. It is a long report; I am sure the noble Lord has read it. It has many different proposals—it was one of my responsibilities as the former Aviation Minister to go through it and see how we were going to take these various things forward. None of the things in it is easy, simple or without risk. There was a possible levy on passenger tickets but, as noble Lords will know from the repatriation today, simply having the money is only one thing—one has to have the aircraft.

That was the second thing that might be suggested: some sort of special administrative regime for an organisation. Again, that is quite complicated. I think we have one for energy companies and one for universities, but they are very difficult to put in place and require primary legislation. We are looking at that as a matter of urgency. The noble Lord also suggested looking at financial instruments. Again, we have been looking into that, at how they might either help or hinder—they might speed up a company’s demise.

I believe the German Government have been able to provide a bridging loan. I understand that Condor is in a different financial situation from the Thomas Cook Group as a whole, and maybe it is viable in the longer term. I very much hope that it is. However, we received a request from Thomas Cook for government support. I do not recall the date of the letter—it was possibly Friday. I will have to write to the noble Lord with all the details on what we received at what point and the reasons we decided to decline. I suppose one of the most obvious reasons was that Thomas Cook has until very recently been losing about £250 million a month, so it was not entirely clear to us that £250 million would be a good and viable long-term solution for a company which was clearly being weighed down by an incredible amount of debt.

The final cost of the repatriation is not known at this moment. I mentioned that it was £50 million for Monarch; this is at least twice the size and much more complicated. It is a fast-moving situation, but of course we are striving to keep costs to a minimum and are in open discussions with a number of third parties with which we will look to reach an agreement over future financial support.

With regard to the industry taking advantage, I agree with the noble Lord that this is very disappointing indeed. We do not expect anybody to take advantage in a difficult situation. On the flip side, I am very pleased by the support that we are being given by certain airlines—for example, BA and Virgin, which have both been offering rescue fares to people in places where we do not have repatriation flights.

Obviously, we have done a significant amount of contingency planning. We knew what our plan was for the hotels, but until the event actually happened we could not put that plan into place. The letters went out to 3,000 hotels; imagine you are a hotel far away and you get a strange letter from the British Government saying, “It’s okay, we’ll pay the hotel bill”. It just took a while for the message to get through. We used our diplomats and consular staff to get out there and talk to the hotels. We also went straight in at ministerial level, saying to Tourism Ministers, “Please can you speak to the hotels to make sure that people are not thrown out of them?”

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, also talked about what we called when doing contingency planning “keep the fleet flying”, which would of course seem obvious to anyone—they are planes, why can we not get them up in the sky? We really tried to look into that, but we need the legislation for that to continue, because operating an airline is not as simple as having a pilot and putting a plane in the sky. Unfortunately, one needs many indemnities and certificates, but we hope to be able to put something in place which would allow the fleet to continue to fly so that, should this ever happen again, that would be the most obvious way of sorting it out.

Those passengers not guaranteed by ATOL may well have other routes that they can use if they pay by credit or debit card or through travel insurance. If there is one other thing that has come out of this, it is that many people go on holiday nowadays and do not think about travel insurance or what might happen if the travel company goes into liquidation. People might want to think differently how they protect themselves when they go abroad.

I was appalled to see the scams too, people saying on social media that they are getting telephone calls from people saying that they can get their money back. We are working on it and the CAA will be putting out some stuff—it might already have gone out—making sure people are aware that there are scams out there. The good thing is that social media is doing its own thing. People who are not connected are already saying, “Beware, there are some very dodgy people out there”.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Is my noble friend saying that, at a time when the Government are making every effort to get home people who are stranded and scrabbling around to find any airlines that will help, and while we see pictures of all the Thomas Cook planes sitting idle on airfields, whose crews presumably are unemployed, there is no way in which some extra arrangement could be made on a temporary basis to give some employment to the crews and use the planes that are there to bring those people home?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I assure my noble friend that those very same questions went through my mind as I was going through the contingency planning for all the options that we had for this eventuality. Insolvency law in this country does not allow that; the number of indemnities that would be required is enormous. We will be looking as a matter of urgency at whether we can put something in place.

One point that is a slight mitigation here is that most of the Thomas Cook aircraft are leased, and therefore they automatically go back to the leasing company. One would not be dealing with Thomas Cook at that point but with however many tens of leasing companies in order to operate the planes owned by those companies.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, in response to the part of my noble friend Lord Rosser’s question about the cost to the UK taxpayer of this business going into administration, the Minister answered with reference only to the repatriation costs. I might say, and I will support this in a moment, that she grossly underestimates them by just doubling the Monarch costs.

What is the cost to the UK taxpayer of all the implications of the administration of this business, including the cost to public funds? ATOL is a public fund put together by the accumulation of levies on holidaymakers and travellers, as are the CAA’s funds that are being used here. Only yesterday there was an estimate in the Financial Times of the cost to the ATOL fund alone of £600 million. It is there in detail, explaining that because of the EU directive the fund will have to pay back to the people who have booked holidays in advance the cost of those holidays that they are not now going to get, and it will take it months to do it.

How much tax does Thomas Cook owe the Government in air passenger duty, VAT and other taxation that it has collected? How much will all these thousands of people who are going to be made redundant cost the Government in benefits, retraining and support? What are the implications for the pension funds? Surely the Ministers who made this decision not to give £250 million to Thomas Cook in the short term had an estimate of these figures before them. What was that estimate? How much was this going to cost the Government if they went down the road that they went down, with the inevitable result that this business went into administration?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, I fear that the noble Lord is making the wrong comparison there. On the £250 million, we made the assessment that, even had we been able to provide the guarantee of funds that was requested, the company did not have a viable future. It was severely in debt and losing a significant amount of money. We would have been in the same situation in the future but £250 million poorer. Also, it is not the Government’s usual position to prop up private companies that have got themselves into trouble.

When it comes to the total costs of the failure—there are many, and we understand that—some are clearer than others at this time. On repatriation, for example, I did not just double the Monarch cost—I said that this repatriation is twice the size of Monarch’s, but it is also more complicated. However, we are mitigating that by having conversations with a third party. We learned from the Monarch case that some people do not behave in the way you would expect: in that case, a significant portion of people chose not to be repatriated using the Government. They found other ways of getting home—we do not know how, but they did not arrive for their flights.

Estimating the costs is extremely difficult. It is up to us to keep the costs as low as possible, but ATOL customers who have future bookings can claim from ATOL—that fund is underwritten by the Government. Again, we cannot be absolutely clear about the cost because it will depend on how many people end up claiming, but every person who applies to ATOL to get a refund for their booking will receive it—and that is right.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my entry in the register. The Times today has two very interesting headlines. The first one says that,

“the company had hung its staff ‘out to dry’”,

but the second one, on the same page, says:

“High flying Thomas Cook chiefs will enjoy a soft landing”.


Yet again, boards of directors appear to be completely above the lifestyle of the workers who are making the money that they benefit from. Of more worry to the day-to-day employees is a quote from the Insolvency Service. It said that those,

“who lost their jobs would not be paid by the failed company for their last three weeks of work”.

These are people who have mortgages to pay, food to put on the table for their children and are due their wages next Monday. Can I ask that the Government look seriously at a way of providing some short-term financial support so that this wages bill can be paid? It is absolutely outrageous that millions and millions of pounds are pocketed by directors at a time when people are not being given even the money to pay their mortgage and buy their children’s food.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank my noble friend, who makes an extremely important point. I may be mistaken, but I did understand that BALPA wanted the Government to give Thomas Cook the £250 million, which, in my mind, would just be propping up a failing board, which, clearly, he does not have an awful lot of respect for.

It is top of mind to make sure that the employees are treated as well as possible. The Insolvency Service is preparing to pay statutory redundancy to employees. I will look further into exactly what payments will be made and when, and I will include payments that are due to pensions. I will provide as much information as I possibly can and I will put a copy of my letter in the Library to clarify what the Government and the Insolvency Service can do to support employees in the short term. In the longer term, as I have already said, the Jobcentre Plus rapid response service is there, waiting and able to help employees. I have been really heartened by so many companies, such as British Airways and Heathrow Airport, sharing their jobs’ pages on Twitter and saying, “Look, Thomas Cook staff, we respect you. You are good workers. We’ve got jobs, please apply to us”.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Will the Government, in due course, produce a full report which they will lay before Parliament, setting out the causes of this disaster, the tremendous rescue operation that is under way, and the full costs for which the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, has asked?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My noble friend makes a very important point. All this information will be available in due course.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, the reason why the 150,000 Thomas Cook customers are able to be repatriated at no expense to themselves is largely because of the EU package travel directive that was agreed in 2015. Will she give us an assurance that, if the United Kingdom does leave the European Union, the protection given by that directive will continue?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I believe that that directive has been brought across and is in our law.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, obviously our first concern is both for the staff of Thomas Cook and for the holidaymakers who found themselves in this impossible situation. Across the globe, however, there are hoteliers and others who have provided services for which they have not been paid. If the UK has a reputation for allowing this situation, I suspect that other travel firms will find in the future that they are asked for guarantees and other kinds of prepayments that will make holidays far more expensive for everybody else in this country. Does she have an idea of how the people who are owed money for services that they have provided under Thomas Cook arrangements are going to be repaid in these circumstances?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

As the noble Baroness will know, these are, in pretty much all instances, private companies making private arrangements. The travel market is global, so if one is in a hotel in Italy, there will be people there from travel companies from all over the world. It is the case, therefore, that those private arrangements will continue, and as with all private arrangements between two private organisations, an assessment should be made on the long-term financial viability of the person to whom one is providing credit.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

That the Bill now be read a second time.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, HS2 is a major infrastructure programme that has had substantial parliamentary support from both Houses over its development to date. The Bill before your Lordships’ House relates to phase 2a of HS2, which would extend the line from the West Midlands to Crewe. Before I move on to the substance of the Bill, I want to draw attention to the Oakervee review and the recent advice received from Allan Cook, the chairman of HS2 Ltd. Noble Lords will be aware that the Government have asked Douglas Oakervee, supported by a panel with a wide range of views, to review HS2. Noble Lords will also be aware of the Statement laid last week by the Transport Secretary regarding advice recently received from Allan Cook. The Oakervee review will assemble and test all the existing evidence, including the recent advice from Allan Cook to allow the Government to make properly informed decisions on the future of the project.

The Transport Secretary made it clear when launching the review that the review itself should not unnecessarily delay HS2. This means continuing with preparatory work, including the enabling work for phase 1, and progressing the legislation for phase 2a. It is important to mention the review and the chairman’s advice, but giving the Bill a Second Reading does not affect the conduct of the review or prejudge its outcome. Indeed, I wish to make it clear that the Bill seeks permissive powers, to be able to construct phase 2a. It does not require the railway to be built.

The focus of this Bill process is addressing the concerns of people whose homes and businesses are impacted by the route. The petitioners seek resolution of their issues and certainty about what will happen. By giving the Bill a Second Reading and allowing the Select Committee to do its work, we can enable petitioners to be heard and their concerns considered.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell the House when the report of the review will be published?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention, but perhaps I may pick up all the issues surrounding the review later. If he includes that question in his speech, I will cover it in my speech at the end of the debate, when we discuss all those issues.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister also say whether part of the evidence that the review takes will include an assessment of how much has been spent already on this vital link for the West Midlands? Then we could get a clearer idea, in the light of the suggestion by some that the scheme should be scrapped—which, as well as being disastrous for the West Midlands, would be a colossal waste of money.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I shall indeed cover that in my closing remarks.

It is nearly 200 years since permission was given for the building of what is now the west coast main line. Those railway pioneers made history. The railways allowed goods to travel more quickly to where people wanted them, and allowed people to travel too, for work and leisure. All this truly unlocked the Industrial Revolution, and by connecting people and goods it made the United Kingdom into an economic powerhouse.

Much has changed in nearly 200 years, but I want to focus on the things that remain the same—the things that the railways can still do: the need for railway capacity to take people and freight where they should go; the need for connectivity between places, to make travel easier; and the potential for economic growth through transport investment.

Turning to capacity, the vast bulk of our rail network was built more than 100 years ago. Demand has increased substantially since the 1990s, and the west coast main line is effectively full. Inevitably, this has implications for the reliability and performance of our network, affecting both passengers and freight. I do not want to underestimate those implications. Disruption to freight delivery can be unseen, but the disruption to people’s lives caused by late or cancelled trains regularly makes the press. The resulting huge frustration can mean that people choose not to trust trains for freight or travel, and those choices can mean more lorries and cars on our roads, with higher carbon emissions.

Capacity on, and in turn the resilience of, our railways is essential. The Government continue to invest in our existing infrastructure, but to really increase capacity and network reliability requires completely new capacity. Eking ever more out of our already full network comes with extensive disruption, leading to daily frustration with the impact on lives and businesses. Those rail users may not come back to the railways. If it proceeds, HS2 could be the best solution to capacity problems, providing much-needed space on the congested west coast main line, leading to more passengers and more freight trains on the existing network.

That brings me to connectivity. HS2 could connect many of the UK’s largest cities, and passengers would not have to travel on it to feel the benefit. Estimates indicate that about 100 towns and cities across the country could benefit from HS2 through the improved connectivity that a new railway could provide. That is not just rail connectivity; it is connectivity of people to other people, to jobs, and to businesses and their customers and suppliers. This section of HS2 could join Birmingham and London to Crewe, bringing greater connectivity to the north-west and Scotland.

That leads me to my third point: investment in transport infrastructure is not just about the infrastructure itself. Investment in transport infrastructure drives economic growth. It supports productivity by enhancing the transport networks on which businesses and individuals rely, and provides thousands of jobs and training opportunities in the supply chain. Earlier this year the Government announced that HS2 was already supporting more than 9,000 jobs and that 2,000 businesses had delivered goods and services for HS2. It has been offering up exciting opportunities for young people, with over 320 apprenticeships created so far. It is enabling young people to gain the skills to build our future infrastructure. Those skills are transferable, from building railways to other construction and other economic sectors, meaning that HS2 could give the UK more skills to compete globally, generate long-term employment opportunities and become the driving force behind Northern Powerhouse Rail.

I turn to the Bill itself. Phase 2a of HS2 is approximately 36 miles of track. It will extend HS2 from the end of phase 1 at Fradley near Lichfield and onwards towards Crewe. At the northern end it will connect to the west coast main line, allowing HS2 services to join that main line and call at Crewe station. The Bill gives outline planning permission for the railway and allows for compulsory purchase powers. It affects homes, businesses and land along the way, so it is rightly subject to extensive scrutiny. A Select Committee especially convened to scrutinise the Bill in the other place received over 300 individual petitions. During that scrutiny, the Transport Secretary offered 1,000 assurances to people who are directly and especially affected.

If the Bill receives its Second Reading today, it will pass to another specially convened Select Committee of your Lordships’ House that will look again at the detail of the Bill and make sure that it meets the high standards that we expect. The committee will have the power to amend the Bill as well as to require other changes to this part of the scheme not yet covered in the Bill. Since First Reading in July, the Bill has received 35 petitions for the Select Committee to consider, and HS2 is engaging with those petitioners to try to address their needs.

Stepping back from the individual impacts, wider community and environmental impacts are also raised by the Bill. I reassure noble Lords that I understand these wider concerns but I also remind them that it is not possible to build a railway without having some impact on the wider community. We must strike the right balance between delivering and operating a railway and being sensitive to its surroundings. I believe that the Government have struck that balance.

HS2 has undertaken detailed environmental assessments to ensure adequate mitigation of the railway’s impacts. These 36 miles of track have been considered through 17,000 pages of environmental statement—that is over 470 pages of assessment for every mile of track. Many thousands of consultation responses to the assessment were independently assessed and summarised in a report to Parliament. For example, an ecologically survey at Colwich looked for great crested newts. The field survey confirmed the newts’ presence and, to compensate for any possible losses, approximately 7.4 hectares of grassland, including eight ponds, has been proposed to provide suitable replacement refuge and foraging habitat. These assessments are not the end of our consideration of the environmental effects and impacts on communities. The Government have continued to listen to communities, environmental groups, statutory bodies and other stakeholders to try to reduce the impacts where we can.

Other changes to the scheme include the lowering of the Kings Bromley and River Trent viaducts in Staffordshire to reduce landscape impacts and the relocation of the southern portal of the Whitmore Heath tunnel, removing the need to realign a road and reducing the loss of ancient woodland. There are additional earthworks to further screen the maintenance base near Stone and to provide additional noise mitigation, such as the noise bund at Woodhouse Farm. There are assurances to protect water voles in Cheshire and to provide bird protectors along the power supplies to protect important bird species. These are just a few examples.

More than half the route is in a tunnel or cutting. The route avoids direct impacts to any grade 1 or 2* listed buildings, to scheduled monuments, to registered battlefields and to registered parks and gardens. The route does not affect any Natura 2000 sites or sites of special scientific interest, or cross any areas of outstanding natural beauty, and HS2 has been designed to withstand a “one in 1,000 years” flooding event. I know there are people who want to see more: longer tunnels, deeper cuttings, taller noise barriers and so on. I understand that. However, our duty to protect the environment must be balanced with our duty to the taxpayer. The work to date has done that and balances these responsibilities appropriately.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that those who demand longer tunnels and deeper cuttings are usually the ones who then complain about the extra costs there involved?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord raises an interesting point. HS2 is intended to be greater than the sum of its parts. It is designed to provide much-needed capacity on our rail network, allowing freight and passengers more reliable services. It could reconnect our country, pumping much-needed investment into the Midlands and the north. HS2 is about potential: to create opportunities for growth, support a brighter future for the UK, improve and rebalance our economy and improve connectivity across the UK. It remains important to get these decisions right, so we look forward to hearing Douglas Oakervee’s recommendations. In the meantime, I hope the Bill is allowed to proceed today. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this wide-ranging debate. I am heartened by the amount of support that this project still has across the Chamber. I recognise that I will never be able to make my noble friend Lord Framlingham happy on this one. I will work on the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and might get there in the end—we are going to keep trying, because it is a very important project.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, made some particularly important points about these large critical infrastructure projects and the difficulties this country faces in the way that we are set up and do our budgeting, scheduling and timetabling. Certainly, over the longer term some changes will probably happen in those areas. It is the same in rail as in roads, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, who spoke about roads being vital. As Roads Minister I completely agree with him. The Government are committing vast sums of money to improvements in both roads and rail, which are absolutely essential. The next RIS2 will have £25.3 billion to spend. On rail, we are spending £48 billion in the next control period, which is significantly more than we have spent on our railways for a very long time.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that this has pretty much always been about capacity—it just happens to be called High Speed 2. If I could have one wish in my life, it would be to change the name of this project. Calling it High Speed 2 has caused so many problems. It is a high-speed railway, I completely get that, but it is about capacity. Although it might be possible to slow down the railway, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, suggested, that would cut capacity. However, that is one of things that the Oakervee review will look at.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, stated that this project was transformative and mentioned many other times when Members both in the other place and in this House, from the Government and beyond, talked about its transformative nature. It is very difficult to disagree, but “transformative” can mean many different things. We must be absolutely clear—this is what Oakervee will do—that the benefits and costs are appropriate for this project. That is the reason for the review.

[Lord Rosser]

Can I take it then, in the light of that comment, that the Government are not prepared to rule out this project being cancelled?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The Prime Minister has been very clear that nothing has been taken off the table. Imagine if the numbers came out as £100 billion to build it with benefits of only £50 billion. The noble Lord might have a slight problem with saying yes to a project with numbers like that. We know that things are under review, but we have also seen the report from Allan Cook—

[Lord Rosser]

I would agree, if we were faced with figures such as those which appeared to completely change the situation, but I imagine that if we reached that stage there would be an immediate inquiry into how the original figures were ever produced.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

That may well be the case, but we are now talking about hypotheticals, so I suggest that we wait until the review has finished and look at its conclusions in the context of the report from Allan Cook. The Government will make a decision at that time.

I turn to the comment of the noble Lord, Lord Birt, about why we do not have a long-term railway strategy. That is exactly what we are doing at the moment with the Williams rail review, which is looking at the status of the rail network and the service operators to see whether and how we can improve the system for the future.

I turn to some of the more specific points raised by noble Lords. There was a bit of discussion around investment in the north and how important it is; that was brought up by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. It is of course absolutely critical, as the Government recognise. Northern Powerhouse Rail could be transformative for the north, but probably not in isolation. It needs to be part of a larger project, which is why the Government are supporting Transport for the North to develop the options for Northern Powerhouse Rail. We committed £60 million at the spending review in 2015 and £37 million in 2018, which is on top of the £300 million we have committed to make sure that HS2 infrastructure accommodates a future Northern Powerhouse Rail and Midlands services. Therefore it is part of a bigger project, and other developments are certainly being included.

On the Oakervee review and accountability, I have already mentioned that costs, timescales and benefits will all be tied up in the review. The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, spoke about accountability and HS2. I refer him to a comment made by my colleague the Transport Secretary, who was very clear that he wanted us to be as transparent as possible. That includes on costs and schedule, which is why we published the Cook report. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, raised that as well. Therefore, there will be more transparency and accountability. We are not minded to introduce quarterly reporting on HS2 at the moment, as it already provides reports to Parliament, as required by the framework document, and we believe that that level is proportionate and sufficient. Of course, noble Lords may request debates on HS2 at any time.

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, claimed that it was a bit left hand/right hand, given my opening remarks and the fact that we are having a review. However, I do not see it like that. The process for HS2 is positive, and the review we are having is a sensible reconsideration of the facts. A sensible reconsideration should never be confused for a lack of support.

A number of noble Lords mentioned whether work should continue during the Oakervee review. Certainly, the Prime Minister was very clear that the fact that we are having a review should not unnecessarily delay the progress of HS2. That would be wrong, and it would mean that costs would rise. That is why limited enabling works are being undertaken by HS2, and why your Lordships are being asked to consider phase—

[Lord Framlingham]

Will the Minister at least acknowledge that the felling of trees and the damaging of ancient woodland when the matter is still under discussion would be a serious thing to do?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I will come on to the issue of ancient woodland in due course and will look into the amount of work going on. I will certainly write to my noble friend if I can get some more information in that regard.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

Perhaps I can help the Minister with that. I would be delighted to send her the list of woodland that is about to be demolished over the next six weeks.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I suspect that I may already have that list, but I would be delighted to receive it again.

My noble friend Lord Framlingham made what I think noble Lords will agree was an expected contribution, mentioning costs and value for money; indeed, that is what the Oakervee review will consider. He spoke about whistleblowers, as of course did the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer. We are clear that any whistleblowers are covered in the UK by the whistleblowing legislation, and absolutely nothing should stop them coming forward. The Oakervee review will of course look at all available evidence when assessing the scheme.

[Baroness Kramer]

Would the Minister be willing to meet on one occasion to take up that issue of whistleblowers?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I would be delighted to meet the noble Baroness when diaries allow.

My noble friend Lord Framlingham mentioned fraud. I would like to be clear that neither the Serious Fraud Office nor the police has contacted HS2 regarding any investigation, nor made any request for information in that regard.

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, asked whether HS2 was competent. The Oakervee review will of course look at how we have arrived at the place we have, and at whether HS2 as it stands is able to deliver the project. We would not want to prejudge that outcome, but we have been working closely with the new chairman to ensure that HS2 has the right skills at this important stage to take the project forward.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned salaries, expressing surprise at the number of people who are paid quite high salaries within HS2. I do not know that I agree with her on this one. These are very technical positions, which need quite a lot of skill and experience, and I have not yet been able to see any benchmarks which would mean that they are not reasonable salaries to pay to these highly skilled technicians and engineers.

The noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, raised the important issue of connectivity. I said in my opening remarks that HS2 will be able to connect the major cities of the UK, but also described how the hub-and-spoke system then goes out to more than 100 cities and towns, which will be able to benefit. It is probably slightly early days now to think about those towns, because we need to get closer to the date of completion and services. However, I agree with him that whoever is in government at that time—I very much hope that it will be the Conservatives—will work with local authorities to make sure that we have an integrated transport system so that the buses connect with the trains, and all those things happen that we all would like to see.

The issue of Old Oak Common was raised a couple of times. We published a response to the Economic Affairs Committee report in July 2019, which mentioned stopping at Old Oak Common. There are few benefits, because stopping there means that you cannot transfer on to other transport systems, but the Oakervee review will of course look at that issue.

[Lord Greaves]

On the basic point about connectivity, will the Minister confirm that, when 2b is built, the trains will indeed run through to Preston, Carlisle and Glasgow?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am unable to confirm that just at this moment, purely because I do not know, not because that decision has gone one way or the other. My apologies.

Oakervee is looking at the costs and benefits and, as the noble Lord mentioned, the costs have increased—the envelope was originally £55.7 billion, and Allan Cook now estimates that that is between £72 billion and £78 billion.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked about similar projects in other nations. It is difficult to compare us to someone else. We have very different countryside, and various stakeholders have very different needs. That point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Snape. If we were to keep absolutely everybody happy on the environmental side of things, we would never build anything ever again. Clearly, that is not a feasible option, and therefore we must have a balance. While Oakervee will look at this, given our landscape and our need to mitigate against justified environmental concerns that have been raised, the cost of these things becomes quite high. I mentioned at the outset that there is a significant amount of tunnelling and cutting; some of that is down to the landscape that the line is going through, but also environmental concerns there. In later debates I will give examples of where we have literally moved the route to go around a tree. Those are the sorts of things that, with respect, may not necessarily happen in other countries. On the flip side, knowing France fairly well as I do, much of the country does not look like Staffordshire, so there are differences.

[Lord Teverson]

I thank the noble Baroness for going through those details, but they sound like a list of excuses, if you like. I understand all of that, but the rest of Europe is not blasé about these issues. As we know, the French public can be equally awkward. While I hear the noble Baroness, I find it difficult to understand the differences in culture.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I would be happy to return to this issue outside the Chamber where perhaps we could have a better and more detailed conversation. I was also going to say that we should meet when the review has been published so that we can talk about the more detailed costs and benefits assessment. That conversation is probably too lengthy to have in the Chamber today.

I turn now to a few of the environmental matters which have been raised, because of course they are very important. I think that it was the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who referred to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, saying that he admired her “hippy way” of bringing things up. I thought, “No, that is not the case at all, because these issues are important”. We had a good conversation when we met, and I hope that both noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Young, along with other noble Lords will accept an invitation to a briefing by the HS2 environment team. Perhaps we can then get to the root of the issues of concern because this is a huge area. I believe that HS2 has a great deal of information on it and I hope that the team will be able to put at least some of the fears of noble Lords at rest, although I am probably resigned to the fact that the noble Baroness will not change her view.

I want to refer to the point raised by the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow. He asked whether having a railway line causes an area to become not beautiful any more. Having visited the area that phase 2a of HS2 will go through, I agree with him that it is lovely and a great part of the country which already has the west coast main line and a motorway running through it. However, it is still beautiful. I think that there are many positives. On the habitat side, again we can raise those issues with the environment director and talk about them further.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I just want to clarify that I did not say that the noble Baroness was a hippy; rather, I said that she was pithy. In other words, she put her points of view across very succinctly.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

Goodness, okay. I offer my sincere apologies to the noble Baroness and perhaps Hansard will go back and scrap all of that.

I shall carry on about the environmental statements, which are of course very important. I can assure the noble Baroness that they are of a high quality. However, I shall turn now to ancient woodlands because I sense that this is an issue that we may return to a number of times. I agree that ancient woodlands are very important, but there is some context here. We have some 52,000 ancient woodland sites in the UK, and of those 52,000, some 62 will be affected by HS2. It is the case that we can do things to mitigate the impact on ancient woodland. I was quite surprised to learn that not only do we have a planting regime in place, which we will learn from and improve on—and we can quiz the HS2 environment director on it—but we also propose to move the actual soil to a new place.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

The evidence for the preservation of ancient woodlands simply does not exist; it is a myth, and I do not think that we should be misleading the House in this way. While I am on my feet, I should say that I have met endlessly with the HS2 environment team. Although there may be a large number of fragments of ancient woodland so that this looks like a comparatively small number, the reality is that most of those fragments have been very bisected and diminished by development, and we are continuing on that merry way to the point where shortly we will have little ancient woodland worthy of the name.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. I suspect that we are not going to wholly agree on this matter, but if I can do anything at all to bring us closer together, I shall be pleased to do so. I believe that earlier the noble Baroness mentioned Whitmore Wood, which I have also had the pleasure of seeing. The Select Committee in the other place did consider whether the project should tunnel under the woodland, but it decided that that did not represent value for money. An assurance was given to reduce the impact on the ancient woodland by 0.5 of a hectare. However, the Select Committee of your Lordships’ House may look at this issue again.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, can the noble Baroness answer the question put to her on precisely when the review will be published?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I cannot do that with great precision. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned that the original length of the review was six weeks. We should take that period in the context of a couple of months or a month. It is not six weeks on the dot, from day one to the end, although it may well be. The point is that the panel has had to be set up and appointed and the terms of reference were published on 21 August. Given that, I will stick to the autumn of 2019. As noble Lords will be aware, it is a bit chilly outside now, so autumn is coming. However, I probably cannot go much further than that. As I say, the review will be published shortly or in due course. No doubt noble Lords will soon ask me about this again in Oral Questions. However, it is under way and it is a short review.

I want to cover briefly the issue of tenant compensation, which I realise is important to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. There will certainly be an opportunity to discuss it further before we reach the next stage of the process. Due to the route of the proposed scheme, phase 2a affects mostly rural residents, many of whom are tenants of their properties or land. Most types of tenants who will be impacted by the scheme are already provided for under existing compensation law, but where they are not, the Government are able to use their flexible non-statutory arrangements to provide support. That is probably not sufficient detail for the noble Lord, and I agree that we will take the issue further forward.

I want to comment briefly on a comment made by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, about British Steel. I understand the concerns of the noble Baroness, but none the less the Crown Commercial Service steel procurement policy requires bidders to outline their steel supply plans and will award all steel contracts through open competition.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

Perhaps we may have a straightforward answer to the request that there should be a moratorium on felling in ancient woodland sites until the report is available.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am not able to provide that certainty at this moment, but I will undertake to establish exactly what enabling works or felling will take place, whether that is of ancient woodland or otherwise, within the period that we anticipate the review will take to be carried out. I will write to the noble Lord and place a copy of the letter in the Library of the House.

This is the start of the proceedings on this Bill. I look forward to many further discussions both within the Chamber and without the Chamber. For now, I beg to move.

Bill read a second time and committed to a Select Committee.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands– Crewe) Bill

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Carry-over motion & Carry-over motion: House of Lords
Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

That if a bill in the same terms as those in which the High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill stood when it was brought to this House in this session is brought to this House from the House of Commons in the next session—

(a) the proceedings on the bill in the next session shall be pro forma in regard to every stage through which the bill has passed in this session;

(b) any petition deposited against the bill in this session shall be taken to be deposited against the bill in the next session; and

(c) the Standing Orders of the House applicable to the bill, so far as complied with or dispensed with in this session, shall be deemed to have been complied with or (as the case may be) dispensed with in the next session.

Motion agreed.

Maritime Security

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mountevans (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and draw attention to my maritime interests recorded in the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government are taking immediate steps to protect UK interests in our own and international waters by advancing a one-off payment of £9 million to the NMIC and JMOCC, which were recently brought together under a single director as a joint maritime security centre. These additional moneys will be used to develop maritime domain awareness and operational co-ordination capacity. A bid for longer-term assured funding will be submitted under next year’s spending review.

[Lord Mountevans]

I thank the Minister for her response. Little did I imagine when I put my name down in the ballot that there would be such a positive response 30 or 40 days later. I congratulate the noble Baroness on the excellent news. The maritime industry takes security extremely importantly and these two organisations do vital work in this important area. I am delighted that there is more money available. Would I be right in assuming that that is for one year? If that is the case, can she assure me that her department will press to put this funding on a longer-term secure footing?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I assure the noble Lord that the funding is currently for one year, but the department recognises the critical work that these two organisations do, and it will be pressing very hard for a longer-term commitment in future.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that positive response about the funding. We have been trying to do that for a long time. The Minister will know that the previous Labour Government set up the NMIC, so I am delighted it is going down the right track. However, we have a dearth of assets among all the departments, including the Navy, which is responsible for our offshore tapestry—our territorial seas and protection of the coast—so it is essential that those few assets are properly co-ordinated. Can the Minister assure me that the man now in charge of this centre has the authority to take command and control of assets belonging to different departments to respond to a specific emergency?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

It is always a pleasure to receive a question from the noble Lord. Indeed, the man now in charge is in your Lordships’ House today. It was, of course, the current Government who set up JMOCC, which works very closely with the NMIC. The noble Lord is quite right that maritime assets are spread over a number of organisations: Border Force, the Royal Navy and the coastguard. Co-ordination of these assets is incredibly important. JMOCC was set up in October 2017, so it is not even two years old. It has a lot of capability to deal with live incidents and make sure that maritime assets are in the right place. One of the things this £9 million will do is provide extra capacity so that a planning team can be built to make sure we have optimum deployment of all vessels where we need them.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

Would the Minister perhaps address the part of the Question related to the Persian Gulf, which she managed to pass over in total silence in her original reply? Would she not agree that probably the best way to strengthen maritime security in the Persian Gulf is to work with our other European allies to get a dialogue going about how to preserve the nuclear agreement with Iran and how to avoid tensions, which risk spiralling out of control?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

There is quite a lot in the noble Lord’s question and I will endeavour to cover as much of it as possible. I did not mean to gloss over it. The situation in the Strait of Hormuz is incredibly important. The NMIC has been giving valuable support, which I have witnessed myself, by monitoring vessels in the Persian Gulf, not only tracking Red Ensign vessels in transit, which of course is very important, but looking at vessels of interest to see what they might be doing. We are working very closely with our international partners. We are part of the international maritime security construct. We have committed to a frigate or destroyer for that construct, a Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker and, of course, staff in the command structure and below that. We are working with our international partners. It is absolutely important that Iran does not develop a nuclear capability. Our actions with our partners are part of that.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the second part of the Question relates to fisheries. Could the Minister tell us what assessment has been made of our capabilities to ensure that UK territorial waters will be sufficiently secure in the light of a possible Brexit? The £9 million will not go very far towards that, so is additional funding being put into insuring our fisheries?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am not entirely sure on what evidence the noble Baroness suggests that £9 million is not sufficient. It is the case that as Brexit happens and we leave the European Union we will look at our EEZ. We will be responsible for all vessels in our EEZ and it is likely that we will have to take a closer watch of what is going on within our coastal waters. It is right that we have fewer assets to deploy. However, and this is very important, there are now far better technologies available to maintain our watch over our coastal waters. There is a working group, led by the new director of the joint maritime security centre, looking at the threats and risks following Brexit. It will make sure that we have vessels deployed appropriately.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Following the question from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, are not events in the Persian Gulf, with £30,000 Iranian speedboats buzzing around our ships, rather an excellent example of applying the constant call of the noble Lord, Lord West, for more frigates and for more flexibility in our naval dispositions, as well as of the dangers, as in the past, of the great leaders of naval strategy deciding to put all of our cash into vast aircraft carriers, which might have their uses but are not much good in this kind of situation?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

Our maritime assets, particularly our frigates, are under review. We are looking at how we may want to strengthen that in future if we can. However, in the Strait of Hormuz we already have HMS “Montrose” in operation, and HMS “Duncan” will replace it. HMS “Kent” will maintain a presence and HMS “Defender” is also available. Not all these will be working within the international maritime security construct, but we are able to respond.

HS2: Cost

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to reports that the cost of the High Speed 2 rail project will not be delivered within its current budget, what steps they are taking to ensure that the costs of that project remain within its budget.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, we do not comment on speculation. However, we will publish an updated business case by the end of 2019 based on the latest assessment of costs and schedule. We are clear that the project has a funding envelope set in 2015, and HS2 Ltd is in ongoing discussions with its suppliers.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister. It is hardly speculation: in a letter, the new chair of HS2 says that the capital cost is likely to exceed £86 billion, not the £54 billion that the Minister spoke of. This has been confirmed by up to a dozen senior HS2 staff, who are tweeting—some of them have been sacked for their sins—that this figure is correct. This has been going on for three years. It is inconceivable that Ministers did not know about it, even before the HS2 phase 1 Bill received Royal Assent. I suggest that the Ministers have misled Parliament by not giving this new, higher figure that they have known about for three or four years.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, the new chairman of HS2 has been in place for just over six months. He is undertaking a review of the costs and providing ongoing advice to government. This advice is not news; it is ongoing. We are working with him as he looks at all his supply chains to encourage him to ensure that the costs are appropriate. Various cost control actions are being undertaken at the moment regarding value engineering and challenging standards, and it is only right that they be given the opportunity to succeed. They also involve optimising commercial models with partnerships and challenging the requirements of the system.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

Given the general awareness now of the scandalous nature of this £100 billion vanity project, may I urge the Minister to, in turn, urge the new Prime Minister and the Secretary of State—whoever that may be—to scrap this scheme and spend the money saved on sensible railway projects, particularly in the north of England?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, HS2 has benefits of £92 billion overall; it would be a mistake to scrap it. Also, if that money were suddenly to become available, it would not necessarily be immediately transferrable to the north. My noble friend may be referring to northern powerhouse rail, which is a very important railway project, but it is not an either/or situation. We can have HS2 and we can have northern powerhouse rail; indeed, for both of them to work, they both need to be built.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister is very firm in her assurances, and I would like to think that we can be convinced that HS2 will be built. However, the new Prime Minister has cast serious doubt on it and the Minister has referred to HS2 being subject to review. I therefore ask her to explain why £9 million has been given as compensation to Heathrow Airport in preparation for HS2, despite this ongoing review. Can she confirm the press reports that the £9 million will be paid even if HS2 does not go ahead?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

Work continues on HS2 and that £9 million was part of that work. To date, HS2 has spent £7.4 billion. The review I referred to was done by the current chairman of HS2; it may be that there is a separate, second external review. I welcome the new Prime Minister’s reported focus on infrastructure. Infrastructure is critically important to our country and very complex, and sometimes it represents a large and slow-moving target for criticism. It is essential that we get infrastructure right and that it is fit for purpose.

[Lord Clarke of Hampstead (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the disillusionment of most of the public with politicians is only bolstered by this nonsense of putting up billions of pounds for projects when some of their families have to sell their homes for care? Can she please suggest that when people make these cost proposals, they stick to them or lose their job?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord makes a very important point—many of our infrastructure projects have suffered from this in recent years, under not just this Government but previous Governments. Recently, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority did a report on lessons from transport for the sponsorship of major projects. When we try to cost and schedule projects that may take 15 years to build, we have to schedule into them some sort of flexibility to ensure that people do not misunderstand exactly how much they are going to cost.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, given that the previous chairman of HS2 said in his evidence to the Economic Affairs Committee inquiry that no one knew what the costs of HS2 would be, and that his successor has now said that there will be a considerable increase in the cost, can my noble friend guarantee that, should the section from London to Birmingham overrun its costs, the proposals for the north of England will remain ring-fenced and that the additional routes in the north will not be cancelled because of the overrun on stage 1?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

As I have already tried to explain, the costs are still under review and being finalised. I am certainly not able to give the assurance that my noble friend is after as to the routes in the north because complex rail developments such as these are interrelated and the true benefits—the true value for money for the taxpayer—is achieved only when they are built as one system.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, is there not a problem with the way we keep the cost of these projects under review? We had the same difficulty with Crossrail and, as I understand it, people have been raising questions from within the HS2 project since as far back as 2015, complaining about how it has been managed financially. Many of them have left and been required to sign nondisclosure agreements. Why are they being required to sign those agreements, and why can we not find a way for people who raise legitimate complaints about the direction in which projects are going to have their say, so that we can hear it?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord is correct that a number of people who have left have signed settlements with HS2; these are settlements in the normal course of business, on people taking voluntary redundancy or otherwise. However, we do listen to people when they have concerns, financial or otherwise, about any of our infrastructure projects. I go back to what I said at the outset: that is why we need to give the new chairman of HS2 the time and space to do the work we have asked him to do. We will report later on this year.

Road Safety

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jordan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to include road safety targets for England as part of their road safety statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, there is no robust academic evidence to indicate that the setting of targets would contribute to progress in road casualty reduction. As announced in the road safety statement published last Friday, the department will be conducting research into the efficacy of targets. However, local authorities, the police and other bodies are free to set their own targets, should they wish.

[Lord Jordan (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a deputy president of RoSPA. I thank the Minister for her reply and welcome the Department for Transport’s road safety statement released last week. However, it is extremely disappointing that in an otherwise positive and constructive policy the Government failed to commit to safety targets for England. There were over 170,000 road traffic casualties in the UK in 2017, 1,793 of them fatal. Our road safety improvement trend stagnates, while the best in Europe—countries such as Norway, Ireland and even our own Scotland—all use targets and are seeing continuing improvement. Do not the Government agree that the case for the implementation of targets for England has already been comprehensively made?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The Government do not agree that the case has comprehensively been made. However, as I have already stated, we will be conducting research into this area and will consider the results. I thank the noble Lord for his welcome of the road safety statement. It is fine work and will see us through the next two years, with numerous action plans for our four key user groups.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Government’s decision to take another look at the proposal for graduated driving licences, which was dropped some time ago, is welcome, as is the proposal for eyesight tests for more senior drivers? Both are welcome and are likely to lead to an improvement in road safety.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My noble friend has mentioned two of our key user groups for the road safety statement, the first being young road users. We will look at and research both a graduated learner scheme, which is the period up to when people pass their test, and then graduated driver licensing, which will consider driving at night and whether young users can carry passengers. We are also looking at eye tests, which would be free for older road users.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, part of the remit of the Air Accidents Investigation Branch is to improve air safety by making use of lessons learned from air accident investigations. There are similar remits for bodies that deal with marine and rail accidents. Given the need to reduce road accidents, it seems odd that we have no national road accidents investigation branch. Given that many other countries do, can the Minister explain why we do not?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. Indeed, it was my pleasure to visit the AAIB last Friday and it truly is a world leader in air accident investigation. Turning to road accident investigation, there are many things that the Government are doing. For example, we have committed £480,000 to road collision investigation work which is being undertaken by the RAC Foundation. This will look at the causation of accidents, which has changed significantly in recent years, and it will provide insights on investigations but also interventions.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, we have an Office of Rail and Road and it is responsible for rail safety. Seven passengers died on the railways last year, compared with 1,770 people who died on the roads, as my noble friend has said. Is it not time that the Government extended the remit of the ORR to cover road safety?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The Government are not minded to do that at the current time. We believe that the current system is working well. There have been improvements in road safety. The UK is the second best in the EU in terms of road safety. We have done well. Fatalities have fallen by 39% in 10 years, but I recognise that there is more to be done and that is why we have done this road safety statement.

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

What commitment are the Government giving to lowering the drink-driving limit, particularly when drugs are also involved, given that alcohol is thought to be involved in one in eight road deaths?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Baroness will be aware that in Scotland they recently reduced the limits for drink-driving and a review by the University of Glasgow showed that there was no evidence that reducing that limit had contributed to a reduction in road deaths. However, the Government are aware that some people, for example, are repeat drink-driving offenders and we have now put in place the facility where such people have to medically prove that they are not alcohol-dependent before they get their licence back.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

I am sure my noble friend is aware that a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease has to be notified by law to the DVLA. When the DVLA receives that information, it then makes medical inquiries. Is my noble friend aware that that would give only a medical opinion? It would not necessarily give any indication as to how safe that person is on the road and it is very difficult for relatives and friends to have input into that consideration.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am very interested in what my noble friend has to say and if she has any more information on certain cases I would be happy to look at it. I know that the DVLA looks at its policies, processes and procedures with regard to licence renewal, and it is up to the applicant to make sure that they notify the DVLA if they have a medical condition or if their eyesight has deteriorated.

[Lord Brookman (Lab)]

My Lords, I just wonder, looking at my noble friend’s Question, are we talking about the United Kingdom? Are we talking only about England? Are we talking about Wales? Are we talking about Scotland? Are we looking for common unity on this issue?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

Matters relating to road safety are substantially devolved. However, I have some statistics here which the noble Lord might be interested in. The number of fatalities in the UK per unit of measurement is 28. Of the four home nations it is highest in Northern Ireland, where that goes up to 37, then Scotland at 35, Wales at 33 and England at 27. I hope that there is work going on between the countries. England is currently leading the way, but I would certainly welcome some developments in other nations.

[The Earl of Erroll (CB)]

My Lords, would it not be more sensible to incorporate night driving into the learning period for driving and possibly include it in the test so that learners learn how to drive at night rather than just limit drivers after they have passed their test and are not with a trained instructor?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

We are looking at all the things we might potentially include in the graduated learner scheme. At the moment we are leaning towards minimum learning periods and elements such as that, with night driving later on. However, we are also very conscious that that might have detrimental social and economic impacts on those who have already passed their test.

Egypt: Suspension of Flights

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, the decision by British Airways to suspend flights to Cairo for seven days is an operational matter for the airline concerned. The airline has stated that this is a precautionary measure. The Government take security very seriously and remain in close contact with all UK airlines in relation to security matters that could affect their operations.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, there is undoubtedly some confusion about the situation, not least among the responses of airlines. BA and Lufthansa suspended all flights to Cairo on Saturday—although Lufthansa resumed flights on Sunday—whereas Air France and EgyptAir flights have continued normally. Meanwhile the Egyptian aviation Minister has expressed to the British ambassador his dismay at BA’s response, and the Foreign Office advice still does not warn against air travel to Cairo, although it continues to warn against travel to Sharm el-Sheikh. I realise that the Minister cannot discuss in this Chamber the details of security issues, but could she clarify exactly what the Foreign Office advice is about flights to Cairo? She will appreciate that it is holiday season and many people are anxious about this. Why is only BA responding in this way?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

This is an operational matter for BA. It has taken the measures it has as a precaution, and it is up to it to decide how it operates. I am happy to confirm to the noble Baroness the travel advice currently on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, which has not substantively changed. While it does not advise against travel to or from Cairo Airport, it reminds visitors that:

“Terrorists in Egypt likely maintain the intent and capability to target aviation. The greatest threat is on the Sinai Peninsula where Daesh operate with greater freedom, but terrorists are active in Mainland Egypt, including Cairo”.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

In the light of the Government’s answer—that it is British Airways’ own decision to do this, based, presumably, on its information and intelligence—have the Government contacted British Airways to ask what information it has that has led it to this decision?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am reluctant to go into great detail about security matters but I can assure the noble Lord that the Government remain in close contact with all UK airlines about security matters that could affect their operations. We are also in contact with our partners around the world, as appropriate.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords, is it not reasonable that the airline concerned, which has the first responsibility for the passengers it carries and the crews it employs, should be the organisation that we trust to take a sensible precautionary decision? I am sure that the noble Lords and Baronesses asking these questions from the other side of the House would have an awful lot to say if we were to lose an aircraft or any crew members or passengers because of a terrorism problem on that route.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank my noble friend for his observation; I know that he speaks with great experience. It is entirely reasonable for individual airlines to make appropriate operational decisions. In the case of British Airways, it has taken the decision that it has as a precautionary measure.

[Lord Rosser]

I do not wish to upset the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, but I do not think that I have challenged the right of British Airways to make this decision or said that it may not be an entirely sensible one. But clearly, if the Government have some idea as to why BA has made this decision, why are they not advising other airlines flying direct from Britain to Cairo to take similar action in respect of their flights?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am sure the noble Lord will understand that I cannot go into much further detail about the security information, where it might have come from and who might have had it, whether that is airlines or nation states. Suffice it to say that we maintain a good and open relationship with all UK airlines and they are able to make their own operational decisions.

[Baroness Randerson]

Will the Minister clarify whether the Government are warning people of danger in flying to Cairo or not? The information she read out from the Foreign Office website appears to be a middle way, which is what caused me to ask the Question in the first place. There is a lack of clarity. I am not questioning the Government’s decision, but it is their role to provide clarity and certainty, if necessary on a strongly precautionary basis on issues of this kind.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

In 2018, 415,000 people visited Egypt and the vast majority of those visits were absolutely trouble-free. The Government keep all travel advice on their website up to date and as I mentioned, the advice has not substantively changed. It is the Government’s duty to provide advice to their citizens, so that they can make the decision for themselves.

Buses: Rural Services

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Tuesday 16th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Randerson, and with her permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, the Bus Services Act 2017 provides a number of tools, such as enhanced partnerships and franchising powers, to facilitate local authorities working together with operators and communities to provide improved bus services in rural areas. Furthermore, our Total Transport pilot projects encourage local authorities to innovate by joining up the commissioning of publicly funded transport services.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, the reality on the ground is that rural bus services have been in decline for some years now, to the extent that there are many quite large villages which no longer have any kind of bus service at all. Have the Government made any assessment of the impact this is having on residents’ ability to access essential public services such as health and education?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

We are aware that in certain areas it is a challenge to access certain services using public transport. The Government are doing what they can to support various innovative initiatives to make sure that we improve services. The rural round table in December 2018 focused on these issues and came up with a number of opportunities whereby we can improve services, and we will be working on those opportunities and reporting back soon.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, owing to the 25% cut in local authority funding for bus services over the last four years, literally hundreds of shire bus routes have disappeared. Given that most rural households have only one car, and that car usually goes to the job, will the Minister consider setting up a group to look at the transport needs of those left behind, how they might be provided for and how we might encourage solutions? For instance, there are Wheels to Work schemes for the young, sharing services with the Post Office or the National Health Service, and community car schemes. I hope the Minister will agree that we now desperately need some new thinking in this area, and we also need some action.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I quite agree with the noble Lord that we need new thinking in this area. It is not just about money; this Government are supporting road passenger transport 12% more in real terms than the last Labour Government. It is about being innovative. The noble Lord was right to name a number of schemes, and I would be grateful to receive more information on them. Schemes that we are already looking at include demand-responsive transport, whereby people in isolated areas can, either on their smartphone or using their traditional phone, call up and get transport to services they need.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, across England as a whole the number of bus passenger journeys is falling, even though the population is increasing. Last year, the Campaign for Better Transport published a report drawing attention to the crisis in rural transport due to bus cuts and shrinking transport networks, which were leaving people unable to access jobs and creating increasingly congested roads. One of the Campaign for Better Transport’s recommendations was that there should be long-term, ring-fenced, central government funding for rural local authorities to improve, and not just maintain, public transport. Do the Government agree with that recommendation? If so, how much new, additional money do they think local authorities in rural areas alone would need per year to deliver that recommendation?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord is right that the number of trips on buses is declining, although they represent 55% of all journeys on public transport. But it is also the case that the total number of trips taken by individuals is declining, and therefore the share of trips on buses has remained around about the same. To go back to the noble Lord’s point about funding, the Government are providing ring-fenced funding where it is needed. For example, we have provided £43 million of ring-fenced funding, which is paid to operators to support less viable services within their communities. We have also provided £65 million of rural services delivery grant, because we recognise that providing services in rural areas is more difficult.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, when the concessionary fares were rolled out under a Labour Government, the uptake in rural areas was greater but the funding to cover the costs was not there? Will my noble friend revisit schemes such as the post bus services that operated successfully between villages and market towns in areas like North Yorkshire, to see whether they can be rolled out again in full?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

It is the case that local authorities have a statutory duty to provide some concessionary travel, but they also provide discretionary concessionary travel, which is important too. I am not aware of the scheme that my noble friend noted, but I will be happy if she can send me some details and we will certainly look at this. I reiterate that we are being innovative about making the best use of our assets to make sure that people in rural communities have transport.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, it says on the bus pass:

“Concessionary travel funded by HM Government with your local authority”.


Should not Her Majesty’s Government therefore be absolutely certain that they are funding travel in rural areas for rural dwellers and for people in urban areas to get to rural places?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I reiterate to the noble Lord that we are providing funding—we are supporting £2.12 billion-worth of funding. It is not just about the money; it is also about being innovative with how we spend it. It is the case that local authorities know what is best for their local communities. It is not up to national government to micromanage hyperlocal bus schedules.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, in Scotland, thanks principally to free travel for older people, who can travel anywhere throughout Scotland absolutely free, rural bus services are being maintained and indeed expanded—incidentally, this is with help from the English taxpayer. Why is such a scheme not possible also in England?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

We operate things differently in England than they do in Scotland. But I stand by what I said earlier in that funding from central government is available. Local authorities can of course also access council tax, business rates and other local income. However, at the end of the day, it is about using money more effectively, not just throwing more money at it.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that, in Switzerland, villagers in any village with more than 600 people have a statutory right to have a bus or train service at least once an hour? Should we not look at that example here?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, we operate things differently than they do in Switzerland. The Swiss may decide that that is best for their local communities, and it is up to any local authority in England to do the same if it thinks it is cost-effective for its local taxpayers.

Railways: South-eastern Franchise

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the cost to the new South Eastern franchise arising from any increase in track access charges proposed by HS1 to the Office of Rail and Road.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, the periodic review process that will determine the new track access charges for HS1 from April 2020 is ongoing and is the responsibility of the independent rail regulator, the Office of Rail and Road. In line with the published draft franchise agreement, the operator of the new south-eastern franchise will be held harmless to any regulated track access charges proposed by HS1 and agreed by the ORR, following regulatory scrutiny.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer, but she will be aware that HS1 has applied for increases in track access charges of 25% for domestic south-eastern trains, of 40% for Eurostar services and of 75% for the freight that has to use that line. Will the Minister remind the ORR of its duties under the 1993 Railways Act and subsequent legislation, and I quote,

“to promote the use of the railway network in Great Britain for the carriage of passengers and goods”,

and,

“to protect the interests of users”?

I suggest to her that for the regulator to allow such increases will dramatically harm passengers in the south-east by increasing fares. Is it not better to protect the passengers, rather than to line the pockets of the pension funds, including the Korean pension fund, which now owns that piece of track?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Lord for his observations. As he well knows, this process is ongoing, so any increases are not yet confirmed. But my department expects the independent regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, to provide a robust and rigorous challenge to HS1’s proposals, as part of the review process. I am aware that this process has been going on for 18 months and is continuing.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, Eurostar operates in a multimodal travel market that includes airlines, and HS1 is already the most expensive railway in Europe by a big margin. If the Government are serious about reaching zero carbon by 2050, this is just the kind of cost that needs to be kept firmly under control. It is not acceptable for the Government to hide behind the regulator. Can the Minister give me an assurance that the Government will make it clear to the regulator that costs like this must be well controlled?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I assure the noble Baroness that the Government are making it clear to the regulator that we expect a robust and rigorous challenge. It is of course independent, but we recognise the importance of Eurostar, both for environmental reasons and for providing extra capacity on a different mode of transport. We support high-speed passenger services to Europe.

[Lord Haselhurst (Con)]

My Lords, is it not of great concern that cross-channel operators, whether of freight or passengers, would be severely affected by the proposals as they currently stand? Is it not a bit bizarre that the long-awaited new trains for the Anglia region, which will make a once-in-a-lifetime journey there, will have to be carted on freight trains, as they are not allowed to go under their own steam, incurring extra cost? Are these not reasons why my noble friend should keep a close eye on the current discussions to ensure that a fair solution is found?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I reassure my noble friend that we are keeping a very close eye. Obviously, the new trains are freight like everything else when they are being transported, but we are concerned by the proposed significant increases. As I have said, we will be looking to the ORR to provide that robust challenge.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that it was perhaps an unfortunate business for the coalition Government—which I recollect included the Liberal party—to vote to sell Britain’s first high-speed line to a foreign-based consortium? Does she agree with my noble friend that such consortia will be more concerned about their return to Canadian teachers, as well as South Korean pensioners, than the plight of passengers travelling between St Pancras International and Ashford? Whether she agrees or not, what is she going to do about it?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Lord for that comment. I do not agree—surprisingly enough—that the sale of this asset to investors, foreign or otherwise, was a bad idea. Long-term infrastructure investors can provide a useful source of capital to assets precisely like this. This is why the ORR is involved in this process: it will determine if the concession agreement is being met and the outputs that HS1 must deliver in the next control period. It will look at the asset management plan, the regulatory framework, the structure of the charges and the charges themselves.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister clarify the press reports about franchising that have appeared today, indicating that the Government may give the state-owned LNER a five-year extension of its franchise?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am afraid that the noble Lord has me stumped on that one, because I have not seen those press reports. I will certainly write to him if I can find out any more information.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, does not this debate reveal that there is still a contradiction in the Government’s own transport policy on the benefits of freight traffic being on rail? This extraordinary increase in charges from HS1 should be investigated. The Government have not answered the question from the noble Baroness on the Liberal Democrat Benches about whether this is compatible with the Government’s transport policy.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The Government absolutely support the movement of freight on rail. We were interested to read the report on freight by the National Infrastructure Commission. It is a very good study, and we will be taking forward further work in this area. I remind the noble Lord that we have invested £500 million through the strategic freight network fund and made very important investments at some of our ports and elsewhere. We also provide rail freight subsidy through the mode shift revenue support grants for national rail track of £15.6 million, which takes 800,000 lorries off the road.

Railways: Newcastle and Edinburgh

Baroness Vere of Norbiton Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beith]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with train operators about additional train services between Newcastle and Edinburgh.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, there are three possible sources of additional train services between these two stations. LNER is extending two Newcastle services to Edinburgh in September and plans one further extension in December; TransPennine Express plans to extend its Liverpool to Newcastle service to Edinburgh from December 2019, adding a further 13 services Monday to Saturday and 10 services on Sunday; and by December 2021 FirstGroup will start its open access trains, which will provide five trains per day in each direction between Edinburgh and London.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

Bearing in mind that the local stations along the line deserve a better service, will these trains be able to stop at intermediate stations or will capacity constraints mean that they have to run express from Newcastle to Edinburgh? For example, late-evening services are needed because 9 pm is a bit early to say that you have to leave an event in Edinburgh in the evening.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

Determining whether there is enough capacity for new or extended services on this or indeed any other route is a matter for Network Rail and for the Office of Rail and Road through the sale-of-access rights process. If a route is congested and needs extra investment, it would be initiated and considered through the new Rail Network Enhancements Pipeline process. The industry is developing the timetable for the east coast main line and it will look at all the bids for timetable slots, whether they are for stopping or direct services.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

Before my noble friend authorises the additional services requested by the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and no doubt well justified, can she do anything about the existing services on South Western Railway, whose services were again seriously disrupted last week?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention. I too am a traveller using South Western Railway and I was disappointed that services were interrupted last week. Obviously, we are encouraging discussions to continue. It is not good that strikes are taking place and that there are poor industrial relations on that particular line. We are doing what we can to make sure that the conversations continue.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, remaining in the north of England for a moment, the Minister will know that I have tabled a Question about the provision of services between Middlesbrough and Whitby. Despite support from the community rail partnership, Northern railway is declining to put on any extra services. Could I have an Answer to that Question quickly? Perhaps the Minister will write to me if there is a problem with it.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I will have to write to the noble Lord about services between Middlesbrough and Whitby, but I can say that LNER plans to introduce direct services between Middlesbrough and London in due course. However, I do not know about the services to Whitby.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, in addition to the congestion experienced by passengers on some fast trains from Edinburgh to Newcastle, there is a problem of congestion with luggage that impedes wheelchair users. I had to take that journey around six weeks ago and I could not get off the train at Newcastle without the help of two members of staff moving around eight suitcases. Some of the staff at LNER are brilliant at providing support, but it is intermittent. On Friday, one passenger said that another passenger had declared that the space reserved for wheelchairs was for their luggage, and no one was available to help her. Will the Government ask LNER to ensure that alternative space is available for luggage?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am aware of the issue raised by the noble Baroness, and of course it is quite wrong if wheelchair spaces are used for luggage. I will ask LNER to ensure that its staff are fully aware of that. On a more positive side, the Azuma trains which have now come into service are 15% larger than the previous trains. They have more space and proper turning circles for wheelchairs. Six Azuma trains are already in service and in total there will be 65 in use.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

Can my noble friend confirm what the Government’s attitude is because many of us were inconvenienced last week by the strikes on South Western Railway? Is it their policy that guards should be present on all trains, particularly for long-distance journeys? I have known a train to break down on a dark evening and the guard had to go and inspect the track. What will happen if there is no guard on board?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

It is the Government’s policy that trains should operate as safely as possible, and certainly it will be necessary to have a guard on board some services. However, on shorter routes it is not necessary to have a guard. Having a train driver who is also responsible for opening and closing the doors is perfectly acceptable.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness referred to more open access services coming up. I think she said that they would be operated by FirstGroup, but if I misheard her, I am sure that she will correct me. Does that mean that the Government already know that the Williams review, which is currently looking at the structure of the industry, will advocate the increased or continuing use of open access, which suggests that the noble Baroness already knows what the response of the Williams review on that point is going to be?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

We do not know what the Williams review is going to say on that or indeed any other point, but it will be a root-and-branch review of the entire system so that we can create a railway system fit for the 21st century and build up a blueprint of how our future on the railway will look. The review will look at reforms to the structure of the industry as well as to the commercial model within which it operates. Some 600 responses have been made to the call for evidence, so noble Lords will understand that it will take quite a while to go through them all. As regards the new services on the east coast main line, that was an open process conducted between 2014 and 2015. The operator has been granted track access rights from 2021 to operate those services.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend has answered a series of Written Questions from me about services from Edinburgh to London by air. Does she think it is reasonable for British Airways to charge economy-class fares of more than £600 for a return journey to Edinburgh on planes that are absolutely full—so full, in fact, that the Convenor was not able to get here today?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank my noble friend for his Questions on this issue. As I have said to him previously, air travel in this country is subject to a competitive market and certain services will necessarily cost more than others. Where there is not a sufficient service, the Government will step in and provide support, but that is obviously not the case on the Edinburgh route.