Integrated Rail Plan: Northern Powerhouse Area

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased that we can have a quick debate about the integrated rail plan this afternoon. My question relates to the capacity and regional capability contained in the plan, particularly for the east-west areas of the north and the Midlands.

I am grateful to the Minister for arranging a Zoom call this morning with Andrew Stephenson MP, the Minister for HS2. We had a useful discussion. I now realise that the IRP appears to be a cut-down version of HS2, with some welcome electrification on the Midland main line and the trans-Pennine route, but which appears not to deal with the capacity issues and the priorities for east-west connectivity, particularly for Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull.

Therefore, it did not really surprise me when I received a copy of the letter sent from the chair of Transport for the North to the Secretary of State, dated 26 November. It starts:

“I am writing on behalf of the Transport for the North Board to express our collective disappointment and dismay at the inadequacy of the Integrated Rail Plan; the plan as proposed is unacceptable to the North.”


That is a fairly strong statement from a regional authority. One of the issues it goes into is that the plan fails to deal with infrastructure constraints, particularly around Leeds and Manchester, saying that

“the plan is the wrong solution for the whole of the North and does not deliver the long-term transformation required to level up the North’s economy”.

I shall not go on, as it is a very long letter, but it also mentions that Bradford is left out, despite being the seventh largest local authority area in England by population.

I share Transport for the North’s vision to improve the network and make it as good as the network we have in the south-east around London. One can compare against the routes through the capital, Thameslink and Crossrail, once it opens, which serve dozens of routes on each side for seamless journeys. I would give the time of all those journeys, but I do not think we know them. That is what is particularly missing in terms of capacity across the Pennines and east-west services, including from Birmingham to Derby and Nottingham. In particular, there is a lack of not just through services but local services, connecting many of the smaller towns on the way. I do not know whether that matters to the Government, but it should.

I have one particular concern about Manchester, where the plan is to expand the existing planned HS2 station, so that all trains coming on the line reverse before going across the Pennines to Leeds. On page 65, the report justifies having terminus stations by saying that there are many in Europe, for example in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Zürich, Milan and Rome. It fails to say that all those stations were built probably over 100 years ago, when tunnels were less easy to build. It is also wrong, because the German Government and the German railway company are actually building a through tunnel underneath Stuttgart station. What the Government are proposing is old-fashioned—so be it.

As I said, I welcome the electrification of the Midland main line and the trans-Pennine route. That is a good idea but I point out that a small piece of the HS2 line now planned between Derby and Birmingham is, I think, costed at £11 billion when it would have cost just £2.5 billion to electrify the existing line. The biggest missing issue is that there is nothing in the report about improving the many secondary lines and services in the regions. It is good that Leeds is promised a metro service but I wonder how many decades that will take to come. It is a very good idea, if and when it happens.

On the costs, £96 billion is quoted in the document; it appears that the Government are including HS2 and Network Rail costs in this. It is my calculation that HS2 phases 1 and 2a are going to cost £83 billion to complete. While that has come from whistleblowers and my own estimation, it leaves just £9 billion for the rest of the project, which I hope is wrong. I have to question how much money matters to the Treasury. Many noble Lords will have read an article in the Guardian—I think it was on Monday this week—which said that the Department for Transport was requiring all train operators to prepare plans to cut costs by at least 10%. That is quite critical at this time, when nobody really knows what the forecast of future passengers might be. Has it asked HS2 to do the same? That might be a good thing. With all this, there seems to be very little money left for upgrades, electrification and capacity enhancement because it is all going on HS2.

The other interesting thing is: who will be building and developing all these things? In a series of Written Answers that I received this week, it seems that: Network Rail will be told to upgrade existing lines with help from HS2 to get trains into Leeds; HS2 is going to be building phase 2A and bits in the West Midlands; and there may be a new line for Northern Powerhouse Rail—we are not quite sure where, but I think it stops somewhere at the summit of the Pennines. Where does Great British Railways come into this? Apparently, it has no responsibility for HS2, as I had it from another Written Question some time ago.

Who has the best track record? Network Rail has a very good one on electrification now. It has just completed the Werrington dive-under on the Doncaster line, which is a really good piece of work, if not so cost-effective—

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

If my noble friend will forgive me, does he think that its record on Great Western electrification is creditable to Network Rail? The costs are running at about four times the projection and it is taking three times as long as it was supposed to.

High Speed 2 (Economic Affairs Committee Report)

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, this is 330 miles-worth of line. If it could all be put in place in one phase, that would be great. However, setting up a project of that size all in one phase would carry huge risks. Again, I hesitate to keep pointing this out to the House, but all of this has been considered: whether there should be one phase of HS2 with 330 miles of line or whether it should be divided.

I want to make a final point—

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Adonis]

My noble friend will be speaking in a few minutes, so he can make his point in his own speech.

The Mayor of the West Midlands is a Conservative, and a man who I hold in high regard as a former managing director of John Lewis. He has a very strong sense of the economic imperatives driving his great county. He has written to your Lordships, and these are the concluding words of his letter:

“So far the promise of the new high-speed rail link alone has had a transformational impact on the Midlands. Inward investment is increasing, evidenced by the 43% increase in the number of jobs created in 2017/18. On top of this, HS2 has the potential to add £14 billion to the West Midlands economy and support 100,000 jobs in the region. No other planned infrastructure project can come close to that, and if the government is serious about ‘levelling up’ the UK’s regions then HS2 is the place to start.”


I agree with him. HS2 is the place to start, so let us not pull the whole thing up by the roots again and end up doubling or trebling the cost.

Queen’s Speech

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I wish the noble Baroness good luck in those five years.

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chairman of the HS2 review. I will talk about railways and HS2, if I may, in the short time available. I welcome the references in the Queen’s Speech to prioritising investment in infrastructure and giving

“communities more control over how investment is spent so that they can decide what is best for them.”

Ministers have supported that since then. In her opening speech, the Minister made it very clear. She said that you need investment so that people can get to work on time. That is very simple but it is absolutely the core of the whole matter.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to the regions, particularly in transport. This is the first time we have seen that for decades, and it i is pretty good. It needs doing because TransPennine Express has cancelled 40% of its services this month, or during some part of this month. Northern Rail is apparently about to be stripped of its franchises. How can you hold down a job if 40% of your trains on the days on which you want to go to work are cancelled? Who is to blame? It is easy to blame people. The rail operator blames a lack of trains but 400 electric coaches are sitting in sidings funded by the Department for Transport because electrification was cancelled. Those 400 coaches could be operating today. That does not include Crossrail, which is a separate subject for another day. We have got to get our act together. This is about Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and the north-east. As we know, the result is not good.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Griffiths for his positive comments about my HS2 report. I will not go into great detail today as there is not enough time—I will do it another time—but we need to consider how to deal with the poor economic performance in the north and parts of the Midlands and the effect that HS2 may or may not have. Therefore, what are the most important improvements to the rail network in those areas and is HS2 the best way of achieving them? We consulted widely within the review team but we have now got to a cost of £100 billion. HS2 does good things around Crewe and Manchester and Leeds and Sheffield, but is it the right answer further south?

This goes back to the fundamentals of the businesses in those areas. From talking to a lot of people, it is my perception that it is managing directors, and us politicians, who want to get to London more quickly, but the people who work in those businesses want to commute, and they probably commute daily whereas we do it perhaps weekly, or whatever. That is where the money needs to be spent. The Government could commit £50 billion over 20 years really to improve those services. So, Ministers have to answer this question: if HS2 needs £100 billion and regional rail services need £50 billion—if they have £150 billion, then fine, do the lot—which do they prioritise?

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend referred to localism and local decision-making but the Mayor of the West Midlands, the Mayor of Greater Manchester and the leader of Leeds City Council are strongly in favour of HS2 continuing. They prioritise it very highly. Does that not weigh with my noble friend?

[Lord Berkeley]

I am aware of those prioritisations. They want both. I have talked to them. However, when I asked them, “Do you want HS2 to get to London quicker or do you want better commuter services?”, they said, after a lot of thinking, that commuter services came first.

[Lord Adonis]

I do not accept that that is correct. If my noble friend asks the Mayor of the West Midlands, he will not find him prioritising other services over HS2.

[Lord Berkeley]

I will conclude. I am grateful to the Economic Affairs Committee, under the great chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for its excellent report. I hope that Ministers will read it, if they have not done so already, and I hope that we will have a debate on it. I hope that we will have another opportunity to debate this issue. It really is a question of money: do we have £150 billion or £75 billion? That is the decision for Ministers to make. I will be grateful if, when he winds up, the Minister can give me some idea of when that decision might be made.

Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration and Renewal) Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Berkeley

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I fully support the amendment, although I would go one step further. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, has rightly identified the planning problems that could occur with Richmond House. I suspect that there will be equal problems with the design of the temporary Chamber for our friends down the other end—the colour of the carpet, the comfort of the Benches and so on. However, the same problems will occur when we start thinking about what this place will look like when we come back. We have been speaking about it all evening but I am referring to the kind of facilities that we want, how much it will cost and what changes there will be. No doubt that will cause delays as well, if only because the Treasury will say that the costs are too high or something like that.

I agree with the noble and learned Lord’s amendment. There should be very regular reports—maybe every six months—on the timescale of the decant and, subsequently, on the refurbishment of this place. But, if he considers bringing it back on Report, he should add something about cost. We are not very good at maintaining costs for things; he knows my views on Crossrail and HS2. Whoever is to blame, we are very good at hiding the real costs or results of programmes for several years then suddenly shocking Parliament and the public. Crossrail was on time and on budget until this time last year; now it is several years late and we do not yet know what the budget is going to be as we have not been told. People must have known about these things, as relating to HS2, several years before the problem occurred.

I hope that we will not have the same problem here. We need to be honest and transparent and set an example with respect to the changes that we have made. I hope the Minister can give us some kind of commitment that such honesty and transparency, and regular updates, will be features of rebuilding this place. It will be very difficult; there will be many changes and probably cost-overruns, which is not surprising when you are working in a building like this, but let us at least know what is going on, in good time.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I will be brief: the situation is worse than that described by my noble friend Lord Berkeley, if I can deepen his gloom. With HS2 and Crossrail, with which I was deeply familiar, by the time we came to publishing legislation we knew what the project was going to be. The project was defined; indeed, at the second stage of the HS2 Bill, which had just been agreed by the House of Commons, we knew within a few metres what the line and specification of works would be and so on. We have a defined project—it has just proved much more expensive and problematic to deliver than was conceived. The problem we face with the parliamentary rebuilding work is that we are setting up the sponsor body before we have a defined project.

There is a very good reason for that: we are literally starting from scratch and trying to decide the best way forward, and this probably is the best way forward. I have views on whether we should consider other options —we will come to that in a while—but we are currently at such an early stage of the work that we do not have the faintest clue what the costs will be. We do not have a project description; all we have is a few back-of-the-envelope, broad objectives, a very old costing on the basis of them and a few timelines plucked out of a hat. We also have the potential for massive controversy, which we can already see, about the nature of the decant, where we will go, what we will come back to and so on.

What the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, is proposing—that there should be best estimates for the timeline at the point at which the strategy is published—is perfectly sensible. There is also another reason why it should be done: it is my view that we are at such an early stage of planning, and the issues involved in the restoration and renewal of the Houses of Parliament are so great—because of the wider context referred to earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, of big questions about the future of our parliamentary democracy—that I do not believe it is sensible to be closing down significant options at this stage; we are at such a preliminary stage in devising what the project will be. I am sorry to keep making this point but, since we will be returning to it in September, I am very anxious to keep it open: we should include the question of where the decant should be—there is very good reason to propose that it should not be somewhere immediately adjacent to the Houses of Parliament but could be in another part of the United Kingdom—and where the ultimate Parliament will be.

I agree with what the noble and learned Lord said. On the basis of my knowledge of big infrastructure projects and the stage we are at currently, it is very plausible that there could be three or four years’ delay before the decant starts. If the decant does not start until 2028, we will not move back here until between 2038 and 2040. To put some context on this, phase 2 of HS2 is currently scheduled to open in 2032. So, relatively speaking, it is going to take much longer to complete the restoration and renewal of Parliament than to build a 330-mile high-speed line, which is the biggest single infrastructure project in the world outside the Republic of China. Keeping a few options open at this stage is sensible in terms of planning. We should take advantage of the situation at the moment to think a bit more broadly about where we intend our parliamentary democracy to go over the 100 to 150 years ahead, and in doing so demonstrate the same vision that our Victorian forebears showed when they designed these Houses of Parliament to be the centre of an imperial legislature in the 1840s.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis]

In many ways, it is actually much easier to do it if you are building on a greenfield site next to a major transport interchange such as Birmingham International, where the National Exhibition Centre is. That would be much simpler than the hugely complex, difficult and historic estate here. I wrestled with exactly the same argument on the question of whether we should upgrade a 200-year-old railway line to provide additional rail capacity between our major cities or build a completely new line. Often, building completely new is a good thing.

This is a debate that will run for the next few years, and we have done a good job of planting the idea. I strongly encourage my friends and colleagues who are mayors of the major cities and city regions in the Midlands and the north to advance this idea further. I am sorry to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, but I suspect that he has not heard the last of this, by any means. Whatever decision is taken in this Bill, we will return to this, because it is a fundamental issue about the governance of the United Kingdom, alongside what will be a £5 billion, £10 billion or £15 billion investment—who knows what the final figure will be?—in the future of Parliament. I do not think that we will be able to keep these big strategic issues off the agenda.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on this amendment because it has started a debate which I have supported for a long time. Maybe she should have gone one step further. We are talking about a report on the temporary relocation of Parliament outside London, but if you are going to build a new temporary Parliament, be it in Richmond House or outside London, there is a cost attached, and I suspect that the cost would be not very different either way. The work in Richmond House will not be prefab but extremely glossy, expensive and difficult, as it so often is with building in a capital city. And we can forget for the moment what will be done in the QEII—although I suspect it will be lovely. There is actually an argument for building something somewhere outside London, as my noble friend Lord Adonis said, and staying there.

This place has to be refurbished because, as many noble Lords have said, it is in a bad state, but it could be used for educational purposes and conferences. That is what they do in Hungary: they built a parliament in Budapest—almost mirrored on this place—and the architect got a second prize for doing it. Hungary now has a parliament with a single chamber and the other half, which I have been to, is used as a conference and education centre. It is a lovely building and it works really well. If we really wanted to maintain a link with this place, we could still use it for the State Opening of Parliament and then go and do our work somewhere else. There are a lot of options.

Air Passenger Rights and Air Travel Organisers’ Licensing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Berkeley

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to my noble friend. Does he agree that the prudent thing for the Government to do would be to advise people to think very carefully before booking any flight that leaves after 29 March?

[Lord Adonis]

On the government website, GOV.UK, it does say that. What a message for the state to send out to the people of this country. What advice is that? Does it mean that you should think very carefully and go about your normal business, or think very carefully and not go about it? This is so unacceptable a way for Her Majesty’s Government to proceed that it beggars belief that we could even be having these debates and conversations.

I make no apology for this, because it is a crucial matter. I want to say a few words about consultation. These are huge issues—just those we have been debating in the past 58 minutes, and there are many others—so it is reasonable to expect that the Government would properly consult the companies, the wider industry and the consumer and passenger groups affected. Yet, again, no such consultation has taken place. Indeed, I have noticed—because I am now a connoisseur of the consultation processes that have been gone through on these statutory instruments—that, whereas most of the early statutory instruments had a heading that said, “Consultation” and then usually said something like, “No formal consultations have been undertaken”, that heading has mysteriously been omitted from more recent statutory instruments, I think for the reason that it is somewhat embarrassing for the Government to publish the fact that no formal consultations have taken place. If he is looking for new plotlines, the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, would keep his readers entertained for years on end with the plots and stories that one could write about no deal.

What is happening on consultation is that the Government are now simply omitting to describe the consultation. What we get instead—we have it on this statutory instrument—is simply a heading saying, “Consultation outcome”, which is intended to elide the lack of consultation with the outcome of a lack of consultation. Of course, your Lordships are not fooled by such elision. What is entered under the heading “Consultation outcome” exhibits the fact that there has been no consultation. Paragraph 10.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum to this statutory instrument, “Consultation outcome”, says:

“Department for Transport Ministers and officials have regular engagement with the aviation industry, travel industry and consumer representatives”.


It would be pretty astonishing if that were not the case, though with the current Secretary of State perhaps it does need to be explained that he has some engagement with members of the human race. It goes on:

“Through specific meetings and workshops on EU Exit, and at long-established stakeholder forums, a number of issues related to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU have been addressed”.


Well, what are the meetings, who are the people who have been at these long-established stakeholder forums, and what are the issues relating to the UK’s withdrawal from the EU that have been addressed? What did the stakeholders say and what is the Government’s response? These are all basic questions about public consultation in the Cabinet Office rules on conducting public consultation.

As I look around the House, about a quarter of us have been Ministers of one kind or another and have gone through these as a matter of form. As a Minister, I was once reprimanded by the Cabinet Office for allowing only a 10-week rather than a 12-week consultation. In the case of all these regulations, there has been no consultation whatever. We are expected to legislate for extreme situations, and to understand the impact on the industries concerned and on consumer groups, on the basis that no public consultation has taken place, with no description of the private consultation that has taken place and with no response from the Government to the points raised in that private consultation.

[Lord Berkeley]

Is my noble friend aware that the next SI we are due to discuss has word for word the same text on consultation as that which he has outlined?

[Lord Adonis]

It is clearly a cut-and-paste exercise—that is what is going on with most of these regulations. I hope that the statutory instrument committees are drawing attention to this. To be frank, in my view this alone is a reason for your Lordships declining to agree the regulations.

Duchy of Cornwall Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Berkeley

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 26th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest: I live with my wife in the Isles of Scilly; she has lived there for over 40 years. I have been following royal transport costs for many years and make no secret of my opinion that some of the Royal Family’s transport costs have been justified and are seen to be frugal, but some are excessive, including a charter flight to Saudi Arabia for a funeral.

The point of the Duchy of Cornwall is clearly to provide an income for the heir to the throne. We can dispute how much is needed and whether the confused and non-transparent operation of the Duchy is justified to achieve this. As the Duchy has been telling us for many years, it is a private estate and private estates often provide income for their owners in a transparent and non-discriminatory manner. I note that this Bill requires the consent of both the Queen and the Duke of Cornwall. I question why the Duke of Cornwall: is there not a conflict of interest? I do not think we will get that far, but it is an interesting question to debate.

I think this is the fourth time I have put down this or a similar Bill. This is simpler than previous ones and seeks to concentrate on what I think are the most important issues to be addressed. I argue that because the Duchy now firmly says that it is in the private sector, it should be treated as such. I am also very grateful to Dr John Kirkhope, an eminent scholar and notary public who has spent years examining the Duchy issues and helped with the Bill and what I am going to say.

The trouble is, the Duchy sometimes chooses to be treated as a private estate and sometimes as a Crown body, which receives privileges and is largely unaccountable and silent on many issues. It is wrong that the Duchy should be able to choose its own status based on what is apparently the most financially advantageous option. It should be one or the other—and it has chosen the private option. My Bill is designed to put that option into effect, making it a private estate with no special privileges. I emphasise that the Bill is not about the Duke of Cornwall per se, apart from the first clause. I should also tell the House that a year or two ago, when I previously put forward a Bill, I had a meeting with Duchy officials. We went through all the clauses in that Bill, which was very similar to the Bill today, and, at the end, I asked if they agreed with what I had said and they replied “Yes, largely”. Then when I asked if they would say so in public they said, “No”. I wrote to them again before today asking if they would like to discuss this Bill and I did not get a reply. So there we are. We ought to compare what the Duchy of Cornwall does with what the Duchy of Lancaster and the Crown estates do, which are much more transparent and open.

Clause 1 is on the succession to the title “Duke of Cornwall”. We have debated this in the past and I could go on about it for a long time. The key thing is that it should be open to women as well as men; I am not quite sure whether they would be called the Duchess of Cornwall, but it does not matter that much. The point is that they should have the same privileges and rights as the Duke of Cornwall. After all, the Duke of Lancaster is always the sovereign, regardless of gender, so why should that not apply to the Duke of Cornwall? We can debate that, and I am sure that when the Minister replies he will go back to the royal charter of 1842, although it probably goes back to long before that. But I will not get into that now, because there are many important things that I need to put to the House.

Probably the most important issue is Crown immunity, which is addressed in Clause 2. To illustrate the lack of transparency, a friend of mine who has been trying to buy his house in the Isles of Scilly under the right to buy, and other colleagues, put in 64 freedom of information requests about the Duchy and the Crown immunity issue. I will give only one example. In August 2011, they asked the Ministry of Justice:

“Please provide any papers which explain the basis on which the Duchy of Cornwall enjoys Crown Immunity”.


At least the ministry answered it, but its answer was: “We do not hold any material which you request”. So how can they do it?

There are other examples in various Acts of Parliament which need to be considered. One is the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009. It states that the provisions of the relevant part of the Act “bind the Crown”, which includes the Duchy of Cornwall, and that:

“No contravention by the Crown of any provision of this Part is to make the Crown criminally liable”.


The Data Protection Act gives the same information, and Section 14 of the Nuclear Explosions (Prohibition and Inspections) Act 1998, the Transport Act 2000, the Licensing Act 2003, the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004—I have nearly finished—and the Planning Act 2008 all contain the same exemptions.

Most people would find it odd that if the Duchy of Cornwall caused a nuclear explosion—which is highly unlikely—it would not be subject to criminal sanctions. Surely, it is a pretty remarkable state of affairs that an estate that asserts it is private is given exemptions from criminal sanctions under numerous Acts of Parliament, should it act in breach. I can go on about Crown immunity but I will not, because I would like to move on to tax.

We have debated in your Lordships’ House many times the issue of tax and the Duchy of Cornwall. The Duchy pays tax on a voluntary basis, but no other estate that I know of in this country does so. I do not know how many other noble Lords pay tax voluntarily—we would probably all like to—but the fact remains that the Duchy should be assessed and treated in the same way as any other estate or private individual.

Clause 4 addresses exemptions under the Leasehold Reform Act. As noble Lords will know, there is a consultation out on this at the moment. I have a friend who has been trying for many years to buy a property in St Mary’s on the Isles of Scilly, and he has completely failed. He has responded to the consultation and I hope he will be successful. This goes back to the issue that the Duchy of Cornwall is not bound by the Leasehold Reform Act because it has an exemption. You can understand the need for an exemption for London’s Royal Parks and other national parks and buildings, but some not very special houses on the Isles of Scilly—I am sure my friend would agree with that assessment—have this exemption and my friend is not allowed to buy his house. Whatever we think of the Leasehold Reform Act, the fact remains that everybody should be treated the same, but in this case they are not.

I think the Duchy will like Clause 5, as it would enable it to purchase land in the UK outside England. Why is there a restriction? I am told that it is a hangover from Victorian times, because of very different land and inheritance laws in Scotland at the time. Apparently, Balmoral was purchased in the name of Prince Albert because, despite the fact that Victoria was Queen, as a female she could not own land in Scotland. I am sure that many noble Lords will know more about this than I do, but that is what I am told. After the death of Prince Albert, the Crown Private Estates Act 1873 was passed to rectify the situation.

Clause 6, on the Stannaries Act, is a bit of a Cornish situation; not many people know about Cornwall’s stannaries. It is time to remove this Act because under it, the Duchy can appoint anyone to be a Duchy solicitor or barrister; they do not have to be legally qualified. That seems unnecessary. The Law Commission recommended that this provision be repealed, and I am told that the Crown lawyers, Farrer & Co, objected. They would, wouldn’t they? They would probably lose revenue if the cases ever came forward. That is another classic conflict of interest, but it is time to move that one on. The same applies to the Solicitors Act 1974.

The issue of the Treasury Solicitor is a serious one. The Duchy is a private estate. Which other private estate gets free legal advice of unlimited quantity—and, presumably, quite good quality—from the Government’s lawyers? I know several people who have had disputes with the Duchy. There was a case concerning the Helford river, which I think we have discussed before. A friend of mine won his case against the Duchy, probably because the Duchy’s representative said, “We believe we are above the law”, or something like that; but of course, when the Treasury Solicitor got involved he lost on appeal, which is no great surprise.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My noble friend referred earlier to the tax position of the Duchy of Cornwall and the fact that it pays tax on a voluntary basis. My understanding is that the revenue surplus of the Duchy of Cornwall has increased by 50% in the last seven years and that its property asset base has increased from £630 million in 2011 to £940 million in 2018, which is a huge increase. Does my noble friend have the figures for what the increase in the voluntary tax paid by the Duchy of Cornwall has been in that seven years? I cannot find them. Has there been a 50% increase in the tax paid by the Duchy of Cornwall to the Treasury over that period? If my noble friend does not have the figures, it may be that the Minister, who is in full command of all the figures to do with the Duchy of Cornwall, could tell us.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am most grateful to my noble friend for that question. He will not be surprised that I do not have the answer to it. Of course, we are not talking only about income tax—it is about capital gains tax and everything else as well. We can do an FoI on it, but I suspect that it will take a long time, and that is part of the lack of transparency. I very much doubt that similar estates are subject to the same exemptions, so it is a very good question.

I think it is time that the apparent right to Crown immunity for this private estate, with the privileges that it seems to enjoy without any clear basis, came to an end, and my noble friend’s question is very germane to that. The Duchy asserts, as it is entitled to do, that it is a private estate, yet to avoid a suite of laws and because it would not be seemly for the Duchy to be seen in court, it has been granted taxation privileges and property rights and—a procedure that continues today, I think to the detriment of other taxpayers and also to some of the residents—has no parliamentary approval or judicial oversight. It is also free from criminal sanctions should it break the law—something that I think is just crazy.

Let us be quite clear: this is not the Duke but the Duchy of Cornwall. The Duke of Cornwall is completely different. Various Acts of Parliament relating to tax and many other matters in relation to this private estate have been “suspended”, as it has been called. I recall that the last time I managed to question the Chief Whip, he kindly said—I think it was before the Third Reading of a Bill—that the Queen and the Duke of Cornwall had kindly put their interests at the disposal of Parliament. When I asked why, it took about six weeks to get an answer. That was not the Chief Whip’s fault; the answer probably came from the palace, but it was completely meaningless. Therefore, we really need to bring all this into the 20th century and put the situation on to a clear and transparent footing.

Noble Lords ask me: what next? That is a fair question because I am sure that this Bill will not find its way on to the statute book in this Parliament. However, the Duke of Cornwall could decide to do much of what it seeks to do on a voluntary basis. I hope that he will read today’s debate and perhaps consider what he and his successors can do in the short term to put this matter on to a more transparent footing. I beg to move.

High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Berkeley

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 12th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, this is my last amendment in this section and it is to do with timetabling. Again, we had this experience with Crossrail and the great western route. We were pressing for a long time, saying, “You’re adding extra trains on to the great western. Where will all the freight trains and the intercities go, as you’re not building any more tracks?”. I said they had to produce a timetable. The first timetable produced for the great western between Reading and London was wonderful but it had only Crossrail trains on it. They said, “That’s the timetable” and I said, “What about the other trains?”. They said, “Oh, we haven’t put them on”. I said, “If you’re running a railway, you’ve got to put every train on the timetable. Don’t be silly, go away and do it again”. After about a couple of years, they came back and said. “Here it is”.

I gave their timetable to my experts and said, “Is the freight capacity that the Government have committed to on the timetable?”. They said, “Well, you’ve got 22 freight trains a day on it and you asked for 26”. I said, “Where are the others?”. They said, “Crossrail says they are on the timetable”. They were, but for a different line that went across the great western route on a bridge, so it was completely irrelevant. I got pretty angry then and said, “Can they go the other way?”. They said, “We haven’t checked that but it’s on the timetable”. They were adamant that they had to get priority for the Crossrail trains to Reading on the slow lines. They really wanted all the other trains to go on the fast lines. I got as far as telling some Members of Parliament in Cardiff and Bristol that they were going to have one train an hour and not two, because Crossrail was going to take all the paths. Eventually, the infrastructure manager was told by the Government to do a comprehensive timetable, which is Network Rail’s job. That is what should happen.

Here, we have HS2 and the west coast main line. As I said on Tuesday, you have six tracks at Handsacre junction going into three for a bit, so there may be a traffic jam of trains. It is reasonable to have a draft timetable produced either by HS2 or Network Rail, or hopefully by both, to demonstrate how many of the trains that everybody wants to run can actually run up there. I argued against Handsacre on Tuesday but if it happens, we have to have a timetable because otherwise something will go wrong. It should be up to the regulator to decide which trains have priority and who can run them.

This is very much a probing amendment. The Minister may say that it is happening already, although I would slightly challenge that. If it is not, perhaps he could say a few words to the relevant people to make sure that it does happen quite quickly and that there is good consultation with all the operators. I beg to move.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, unless I mistook what was going on, I have a feeling that the Minister has already replied to this amendment. I feel that the reply he gave to Amendment 22 was in fact a reply to Amendment 24A, hence the reference to freight paths and to keeping arrangements flexible in advance and not making commitments this far out. It may be that he has more to add on these issues.

I would make just two points. It is not clear to me why my noble friend thinks that publishing a draft timetable nine years before the line opens is a good idea. This would build up a whole set of debates, expectations and controversies long before the likely pattern of demand and usage is clear. Was there some particular reason why he was so keen that this work should be done so far in advance of the opening of HS2?

The second point that the Minister replied to earlier was about freight use, but of course it is not envisaged that there will be any freight paths on HS2. Perhaps my noble friend will say why he thinks there should be, because the released capacity on the west coast main line will provide very significant additional freight opportunities, and of course freight trains do not run at the speeds achieved by passenger trains, so they would significantly disrupt the operation of the high-speed service if they operated during the day. Moreover, as the Minister also said earlier, I understand that the custom and practice on most high-speed lines is that maintenance work will be done overnight and it is therefore essential that the lines can be closed for that purpose. So I was not quite sure about some of the points made by my noble friend—why he wants either to set these in stone now, or in the case of freight, to build up expectations that there would be freight services on this line, which is quite unlikely to be the case.

High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Berkeley

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Lords & Report stage: House of Lords
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley]

Maybe I can help. My noble friend at some stage probably came down the Channel Tunnel while we were building it. We had boring machines boring the tunnels, but there were two caverns for crossovers, which were mined using something called the new Austrian tunnelling method, which involves more or less what the noble Viscount said. It is a big digger on tracks with a revolving arm and cutters that stick out. Something then gets the spoil that goes underneath it, then you spray concrete with reinforcing mesh on it and put in in situ or precast concrete later. It is supposed to be a lot cheaper; you do not need a boring machine. My colleagues have looked at the costs and they reckon that there is about £750 million to save. It is a very good scheme.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords—

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Berkeley

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 48ZC, 48ZD and 48AA. These amendments repeat amendments that I moved in Committee. They would exclude quarrying and open-cast mining from the definition of business and commercial developments; require regulations to limit the definition of business and commercial projects in order to exclude areas of special historical or environmental importance from the type of applications that could be permitted to bypass the local authority; require the Secretary of State to publish the reasons for his decision to assume authority to decide the outcome of an application, including the reasons for which he considers the application to be nationally significant; and request that the local plan will have primacy where there is no existing national policy statement of relevance.

I thought it important that even at this late hour we had an opportunity to debate what is quite a significant change brought about by the Bill. There is one specific issue arising from Committee that I would like to clarify with the noble Baroness. I am not sure who to address and I have got it wrong each time so far. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord are confusing us by changing between Committee and Report. They are clearly able to cover the waterfront between them.

The subject of opencast mining is extremely sensitive and controversial in the communities where it takes place. The current issue is whether this will or will not come into the definition of business and commercial development. In Committee, the noble Baroness was vague on this point. She said:

“We therefore consider that some minerals schemes could be capable of being of national significance, but again we wish to consider the consultation responses before we reach final conclusions about the forms of development”.—[Official Report, 4/2/13; col. 62.]

Is she able to say whether that further consideration has been given and what kind of mineral schemes, if any, would in the Government’s view be capable of being of national significance? This is a new issue which was left very much in the air after Committee and I hope that if she is not able to give me a reply today she will be able to write to me afterwards. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendment 48A, which is grouped with these amendments. This re-examines the situation where there are commercial and business projects with housing. I am grateful to the Minister for her letter yesterday. There is this tension between projects which include housing and which are therefore excluded and those that do not include housing. In her letter the Minister does not say what consultees felt about the moving of housing from the scope of Clause 24, only that there was comment on whether the exclusion of housing from the regime, although widely supported, would limit the number of mixed-use schemes.

This amendment would be a useful way of dealing with projects that are nationally significant commercial or business projects being considered under the Planning Act, but it would also strengthen the “town centres first” approach in the National Planning Policy Framework. Despite what the Minister said in Committee, it does not counter the Government’s line that planning for housing should remain a core responsibility of local authorities, as set out in the NPPF. They do have a role, but it would be useful to hear the Minister’s comments as to when there is a small housing element within a larger development. I look forward to what the Minister has to say in response.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for tabling these amendments, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said, we discussed and considered quite carefully in Committee. The amendments seek to limit the types of development and development sites which can and cannot be considered nationally significant under Clause 24. As noble Lords are aware, the purpose of Clause 24 is to extend the existing powers within the Planning Act to direct certain forms of proposed development into the Planning Act regime to new forms of business and commercial development if it is of national significance.

Amendments 48ZB and 48ZD would rule out proposed schemes using the regime if they were on sites of special environmental or historic importance or if they involved minerals extraction or quarrying. They would also apply to existing types of infrastructure, such as energy, transport and water, as well as to new forms of business and commercial schemes. When we debated the amendments in Committee, I explained that one effect would be that a potential scheme of national significance, which might otherwise be considered via the Planning Act route, could not be the subject of a direction if part of the site had an environmental designation or was of historic importance. We are fortunate to live in a country that enjoys the benefits of beautiful countryside, about which we heard so much earlier, and a rich and varied historic environment. Although it is unclear what site of environmental or historic importance the noble Lord has in mind, it is worth while reflecting that the National Planning Policy Framework sets out a clear planning framework for development, which might have an impact on areas with a special designation. If a scheme is of national significance and is directed into the regime, the Secretary of State will have to consider all the issues which are both important and relevant, including any impact on the historic or natural environment, before he reaches his decision. We do not believe that it is sensible to exclude from the scheme large parts of the country without proper consideration of the planning merits. That could also discourage developers bringing forward new infrastructure or other forms of development vital to the country.

The noble Lord has also sought to exclude surface mineral extraction or quarrying. Perhaps I may explain our thinking on minerals a little more, as I think that he thought that I was a bit wobbly last time. As we explained and recognised in the National Policy Planning Framework, minerals are essential to support sustainable economic growth and our quality of life. For example, without minerals, our building industry would grind to a halt. It is important that there is a sufficient supply of material to provide the infrastructure, buildings, energy and goods that we need. That is why we sought views on whether some mineral schemes could be capable of using the nationally significant infrastructure regime.

However, I would say again what I said in Committee. We are considering consultation responses and we need to take them into account before we reach a final view on whether mineral schemes should form part of the proposals at all. I remind noble Lords that the accompanying regulations, which are required to prescribe the types of development, will be subject to the affirmative procedure, so we will have an opportunity to discuss them in detail later.

The noble Lord has also spoken again to the amendment which would require the Secretary of State to give reasons when making a direction. We covered that briefly in Committee. Although I do not disagree with the noble Lord on the point of substance, the amendment is unnecessary. The Secretary of State is already required to give reasons for his decision when making a direction under Section 35(10), and that requirement is carried forward in new Section 35ZA(10) in Clause 24. That is why we do not think the amendment is necessary.

Amendment 48AA would then require the Secretary of State to make decisions on development consent orders for business and commercial developments where there is no national policy statement in place to be made in accordance with the relevant local plan. As we set out in our recent consultation document on the new business and commercial category of development, the Government do not think the case for one or more national policy statements is strong for that category of development. Again, we have been considering the responses to consultation. Only about a third of the responses that we received said they thought a national policy statement should be prepared.

I should stress that, unlike nationally significant forms of infrastructure, which are brought automatically into the regime, the clause does not make it mandatory that developers use the major infrastructure regime. They may make a request to the Secretary of State to use the Planning Act regime or they may continue to submit their planning application to the local council. It is entirely a matter for them under the circumstances.

The noble Lords, Lord Jenkin and Lord Berkeley, once again raised the very important issue of housing and how it should be considered through this planning regime. Perhaps I may say again what importance the Government lay on housing development and also why we think it should remain part of local consideration. We recognise that there are many large, mixed-use schemes that will include an element of housing. Some may have a large amount, as the noble Lord said; some may have very few houses. However, there is also a very pressing need for housing and that is why the Government set out in the National Planning Policy Framework how they expect local planning authorities to help boost the supply of housing in the local area. Each local planning authority therefore should have a clear understanding of the housing needs in its area. It should understand the scale and mix of housing it is likely to need over the local plan period and should plan for the different types of housing it will need, such as for older people and families, and affordable housing. The Government therefore see the delivery of housing by local councils as their core responsibility. We have not ignored the views that have been expressed in this House and elsewhere on whether housing should form part of the infrastructure planning regime. We did not consult specifically on whether housing should be a prescribed form of business and commercial development. It was raised by some respondents, with the majority of them supporting the Government’s position, while a few disagreed.

We recognise that, from time to time, major schemes will come forward that may indicate the need for a decision at the national level. Where there are major residential schemes, such as new settlements with larger than local impacts, the Secretary of State has indicated that we would carefully consider the use of call-in. We believe that is the right approach. We have looked further at the issue of housing but it has not changed our view that we should retain our current position as set out in the Bill. We do not therefore propose to allow development that includes housing to use the infrastructure regime. I hope that clarifies what I think is a sensible approach that will enable new forms of nationally significant development to benefit from the planning regime without it necessarily being mandatory. With those explanations, I hope that the noble Lord will be willing to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for the work that she has done and for being able to convince the Department for Transport to support this very sensible amendment. I hope that it will enable a proper, modern and efficient tolling system to be installed on the proposed new road in east London, the river crossing in east London and any other projects that come up. It is a major step forward, and I am very grateful.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I echo what my noble friend has just said. This is a very sensible amendment, and we thoroughly support it.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Lord Adonis and Lord Berkeley

Monday 4th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I will speak to the six amendments in this group standing in my name. The question before us is what projects should be considered nationally significant and therefore subject to the Planning Act 2008, as amended in this Bill, and therefore subject to a national rather than a local planning consent regime. The 2008 Act permits this change to projects of national significance in respect of infrastructure. Clause 24 extends this to business and commercial schemes.

The thrust of my amendments is that Parliament should not give the Secretary of State such wide-ranging powers without defining their extent carefully in the Bill. In the Bill, discretion as to what constitutes national significance is left almost entirely to the Secretary of State. The only substantial limitation is that regulations may not encompass projects that include residential dwellings. My amendments are all probing and I look forward to the Minister’s response to the substantial points underlying each.

Amendment 77ZJ would exclude from the new arrangements sites of special environmental or historic importance. Amendment 77AB would exclude developments that involve surface mineral extraction or quarrying. Such applications arouse especially strong local feeling, and to circumvent local planning entirely for such schemes is bound to give rise to acute concern. Amendments 77AA, 77AC and 77BA would remove the Secretary of State’s discretion to define what is meant by business or commercial and to permit the bypassing of a local authority, because Amendment 77ZA and other amendments in my name specify the definition in the Bill.

Amendment 77ZA seeks to define business and commercial projects of national significance, rather than leaving it entirely to the discretion of the Secretary of State. Under my amendments, these projects could be subject to the national process only if they are in specific areas—largely those set out in annexe A of the Government’s consultation on what should constitute nationally significant infrastructure projects in the business and commercial sphere.

That leads me to the Government’s consultation on those projects. The Government will no doubt respond to my amendment by saying that they have consulted both on categories of development and on thresholds within those categories in terms of the number of square metres that might apply in determining whether a commercial or business development application is of national significance. Last week, the Government published their analysis of the responses. However, they have not yet said how they intend to proceed. A key issue for us in this debate is to know what the Government’s response will be to the consultation that they carried out on types of development and thresholds. I will welcome the Minister’s response to the question of what the Government intend to do in respect of the types of development and thresholds set out in annexe A of the consultation. If the Minister is not able to give me a response now, I would be very grateful if he would write to noble Lords before Report. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 78 in this group, which is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding. It is yet another attempt to change the definition of what type of project could be included in the extent of the Planning Act. It relates to commercial and business developments that require consent under the national significant infrastructure regime.

The issue that I would like to raise is that of mixed-use schemes that have some housing or retail element. They should be able to take advantage of the regime for nationally significant infrastructure projects. Any retail element is excluded from the proposed list of development types set out in annexe A of the recent CLG consultation on extending the Planning Act regime. I imagine that this could always be reversed if the Government were minded to do so, but the Bill prevents any housing element being included in regulations.

I believe there is a large number of potentially significant business and commercial developments that will have some retail and certainly some housing element in them, even if it is only a caretaker. In theory, if there is just one property in a development, it cannot qualify for going down the nationally significant route. It is important for such developments to be able to include some housing element and to go for the nationally significant approach. An awful lot of time and cost could be saved if this were possible. The original prohibition of housing was well intentioned, and clearly big housing projects are not what the nationally significant definition is for, but it is a problem because if there were just one or two houses in a big development, it would be excluded.

That is what this probing amendment seeks to achieve. I hope that the Minister is willing to look at this again. Perhaps we can discuss whether there is some better wording that could be applied on Report.