Transport for London: Financial Settlement

Lord Bates Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right that the Government did commission that report. It extends to many hundreds of pages, and contains a huge amount of commercial information which we would not want to see in the public domain, as it would not be beneficial to the future of TfL. But the report did give us a firm understanding of where TfL is at the current time. It should be remembered that, even before the pandemic, TfL had a deficit in 2018-19 of £494 million. Combined with that KPMG report and the financial sustainability plan that we have received from TfL, we are in a much better place to help the Mayor of London get TfL back on its feet, and the Government are ready to support that.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the time allowed for this Question has now elapsed.

Covid-19: Airline Sector

Lord Bates Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

I am not able to comment on any particular conversations we may or may not be having with individual companies. However, I can confirm that the Government stand ready to support individual companies seeking bespoke support if they have exhausted all other measures, either from the Government or through private sources—for example, their shareholders. It remains the case that such support might come with the sort of conditions that the noble Lord mentioned. However, I would not want to prejudge that and, as I have said, any ongoing discussions about support would be subject to all sorts of terms.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid that the time allowed for this question has now elapsed. We move now to the fourth Oral Question.

Flybe

Lord Bates Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord is right. Virgin is a minority shareholder in Flybe, with a 30% stake. My understanding is the same as his—that Flybe was due to be rebranded as Virgin Connect. I think that overnight, the shareholders reached an agreement that there was no long-term future for Flybe as it stood, so they decided to pull the plug and make it insolvent. From now on, therefore, the winding-up process will be in the hands of the insolvency practitioner, using the usual well-established processes of insolvency. On the other point, I am sorry to hear that the noble Lord’s tickets to Bergerac may not be valid, but I am sure that he will receive compensation somehow.

[Lord Bates (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for this timely Statement and for the detail and comfort that she can offer at this time. Can she underline some important information for passengers using Teesside International Airport, who may be concerned about this? The Tees Valley mayor, Ben Houchen, has done a tremendous job in getting that airport up and going. Flybe is a franchise partner of Eastern Airways, but Eastern Airways is independent. It operates its own aircraft and has its own crew, and it is completely unaffected by this announcement. Mayor Ben Houchen put out this statement today:

“Eastern is completely independent of Flybe and as a result passengers using Teesside Airport will not experience any disruption as a result of the anticipated devastating news for Flybe. I want to stress that flights will continue as normal and can continue to be booked through Eastern’s own booking system.”


Will my noble friend underline that important message?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My noble friend is absolutely right. We cannot be clear enough that this affects only Flybe, and that at many airports, Flybe makes up only a small number of the flights. At Teesside, I believe that Flybe passengers account for only 14% of passengers, so that airport remains very much open for business, and there are some excellent airlines operating out of it. Passengers should therefore continue to fly with confidence. For example, at Leeds Bradford, Flybe accounts for just 5% of passengers. Again, passengers should feel confident in booking with other airlines out of Leeds Bradford—and, indeed, many other regional airports.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Bates Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Bates (Con)]

Normally the convention is that when a noble Lord wants to speak to a particular clause stand part, that should be tabled and on the Order Paper in advance, so that the department can prepare and others can speak if they wish. That was the reason for the confusion at that point.

Government: Cars

Lord Bates Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My noble friend makes an important point. I do not even use public transport to get to the Department of Transport. I walk; it takes me 10 minutes exactly. The important thing is that we have reduced the size of the ministerial car fleet from about 200 to 92.

[Lord Bates]

Will not my noble friend consider increasing the number of cars available to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, so that it can travel widely communicating the news that we have had the fastest growth in GDP, by 1%, over the past quarter and that employment is at a record level in this country?

[Earl Attlee]

My noble friend is ingenious as well. Government cars are issued to Ministers when they are needed.

Britain’s Industrial Base

Lord Bates Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who has great expertise in these areas, and his contribution was typically thoughtful and thought-provoking. As he was recounting the painful experience of awarding the Hitachi trains order, I could not help recalling that while he was Secretary of State he desperately wanted to make that order announcement before the last general election. However other forces were at play and therefore it was with enormous pleasure that this coalition Government actually made that announcement following the election, demonstrating their commitment to the trains and the industrial base.

Telling stories is a very powerful way of communicating essential truths, because in the north-east—which I know best—before the last election we suffered the body blow of mass redundancies announced at Nissan, the Hitachi order and then the closure of the TCP blast furnace on Teeside. That was the final blow for the process industry struggling in that part of the world. Since the election we have seen Nissan announcing new investment, taking on workers and expanding. We have seen the Hitachi order and even seen the blast furnace reopen. At a CBI dinner last week in Gateshead, someone reminded me that eight major process industries—there is a cluster around Teeside and they are often interdependent—had gone out of business and into receivership before 2010. Of those eight, four had now come out of receivership and were employing more people than they were before.

I tell these stories because I think that they are quite important in demonstrating that I cannot in any sense see that this Government have an industrial policy of default rather than design. It may not be the design that others would actually choose, but it is certainly a design. It says that we want to make the United Kingdom the most competitive economy in the world for setting up and running a business. That is the stated aim. It is backed up with policies of reducing the corporation tax to its most competitive level, reducing barriers and regulation on employment and actually providing incentives for people to employ, such as setting up enterprise zones, creating an enterprise culture and getting rid of other regulations. Noble Lords may not agree with that but, none the less, it is certainly a policy and is having some effect. As my noble friend, who I welcome again to his position, reminded us yesterday, we saw the fastest rate ever of new business start-ups in the UK last year, with 1 million new private sector jobs being added to the economy since the election. This is all evidence of something that is happening: the creation of an enterprise economy. These businesses may not be the great oaks but they are the small acorns from which the great oaks will come in the future—of that I have no doubt.

Looking at these stories, does that mean to say that we have got everything right? Far from it; we have a very long way to go. I bring another thought from the north-east, of the Alcan plant at Lynemouth, where 515 skilled jobs went just last year—a decision which was a body blow for that part of Northumberland. They went because of EU directives on carbon pricing, which are seeing the price that people have to pay per tonne for carbon in the energy-intensive industries that are key to industrial output and manufacturing go up from £7 per tonne to £16 per tonne next April. Then in 2020 they will rise to £30 per tonne. That kind of decision, which has been taken at a European level, is causing plants such as Alcan’s to be closed. Where does that industry go? Of course, some people sneer and imagine that it has probably gone on in the direction of Kazakhstan or China, or somewhere like that. No; it went to Canada, where they are building a plant that will put the emissions into the same atmosphere.

We need to get to grips with this whole area. Of course, we need to tackle the environment and there are massive numbers of jobs to be gained through green energy. However, we need to be sensible about how things are applied lest we undermine the means that we seek. In this respect, my noble friend Lord Marland has a particular role to play, not only as a businessman but—this is a critical element—in coming to his current brief within BIS from the Department for Energy and Climate Change. These are different pictures and there are different stories that we can tell, but they suggest that we are perhaps beginning to move in the right direction. Industrial output was up by 2.9% in June, its fastest rise for 25 years, while manufacturing output rose by 3.3% in June, its fastest rise for 10 years. To be sure, it does not mean that summer has arrived but it does perhaps mean that spring has started.

Railways: High Speed 2

Lord Bates Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, in my short contribution I shall try to agree with my noble friend Lord Astor and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, about the benefits of HS2. I speak from the perspective of the north-east of England. In doing so, I declare an interest as a weekly traveller on the east coast main line to Newcastle. The journey of three hours and six minutes is the most pleasurable part of my week and probably the most productive. The idea of people cutting it short does not exactly fill me with joy. If they wanted to extend it, I would probably be quite happy and even more productive in that time. However, I accept that I am unusual in that.

My question is: what will the way in which HS2 has been phased do for disparities between the north and south? The south-east has benefited enormously from significant infrastructure investment, starting with the Channel Tunnel, which received £11 billion in current money. Then there was HS1 and the Olympics, which brought £10 billion into the south-east. There is talk of a potential third runway at Heathrow. Crossrail received around £15 billion. Significant infrastructure investment is taking place in the south-east. If HS2 is added to it in its current proposed phasing, it will simply draw more and more business to the south-east of England and cause overheating so that Birmingham becomes simply part of the commuter belt for Greater London. That holds some dangers.

I propose that we solve the problem by starting the high-speed rail network in the north and working south. There are some strategic benefits to so doing. As a northerner, I am also slightly suspicious of 20-year infrastructure contracts. Ten years in, when the first bit has been built as far as Birmingham, will we find that the money has run out? High Speed 2 Ltd will say, “We’re terribly sorry”, and we will not see it completed. If people think that is a bit far fetched, we live with the unmotorised part of the A1 to this day. Starting in the north and moving to Birmingham would allow people time to see how Crossrail is working out, sort out what they will do with Heathrow Airport and assess whether it is needed.

Railways: Investment

Lord Bates Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the decision on the Intercity Express Programme will be followed very closely in the north-east of England? The Agility consortium, particularly Hitachi trains, is looking to invest £660 million in a plant at Newton Aycliffe in the north-east, which is of course the home of the railway’s first steam engine and the location of the first railway line between Darlington and Stockton. While recognising that there is a great need to ensure that major capital investment programmes are well researched and offer full value for money, I urge my noble friend to bring that decision forward as quickly as possible. It is crucial for the north-east economy and for manufacturing; it would also be a tremendous boost to the north-east at a time when it is seeing lots of public spending restraint in other areas. Will he focus particularly on the point in his Statement on the revised bid put forward by Hitachi and the Agility consortium? I think that I heard him say that it had been resubmitted and was now lower than the other option. At times of fiscal constraint, that might be a clincher.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am grateful for my noble friend’s contribution on the importance of the IEP to the north-east. That was no doubt very high up in the mind of the previous Administration, quite rightly. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State is fully aware of all these factors and the importance of, as my noble friend put it, a boost to the north-east. My noble friend talked about a lower cost bid. That is welcome as well, but it is important that we select the correct technical solution to the problem of having a bi-mode capability.