Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Willis of Summertown (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Randall, very much. I will speak on the marine amendments in this group—Amendment 10 in my name and Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Lord. I also support the other amendments in this group.

Amendment 10 is really very simple: it would stop licensing in our marine protected areas. As I stated at Second Reading, these areas have been designated for protection and enhancement in order to conserve the critical species, habitats and ecosystems that they contain. Their protection is critical for many reasons, not least because we have signed up to this in both UK and international law. We now have 377 marine protected areas, which account for 38% of our seas.

In order to be included in the 2030 target—to protect 30% of our oceans by 2030—the Government’s own suggested criteria are that these MPAs need to have long-term protection and/or management in place that works against adverse pressures on biodiversity objectives. However, the interpretation of what constitutes adverse pressure on these MPAs is where there is the most disagreement, even between government departments, a point that is highly relevant to this Bill. Currently, there is nothing in the licensing process to prevent the North Sea Transition Authority from offering up licences in marine protected areas. Indeed, licences are currently being granted in marine protected areas: in the most recent licensing round, 22% of the licences granted were in such areas.

Is oil drilling in an MPA a problem? Well, it makes a huge difference. As I mentioned at Second Reading, the evidence suggests that it can have a large and irreversible impact. However, when asked about this, the Government have said, in various responses to the Parliamentary Questions looking at the impact, that the OPL Bill will not affect the UK’s ability to reach the targets for ensuring that marine protected areas are in a good or recovering state and that the licences will only ever have been awarded once the environmental regulator is satisfied that the activities would not negatively impact protected areas. This was reiterated by the Minister at Second Reading, when he stated:

“We already have a robust regulatory framework in place to ensure that marine protected areas are effectively protected. Licences will be awarded only after ensuring that the environmental regulator OPRED is satisfied that activities will not have negative effects on those important protected areas”.—[Official Report, 26/3/24; col. 657.]


However, that overstates the case. The more I have looked into the processes for assessment of the environmental impact of oil drilling on MPAs, the more convinced I have become that we simply do not have in place a system that is fit for purpose, certainly not to protect these marine protected areas.

This is because the process and the responsibility for environmental regulation currently sits with OPRED, which is part of DESNZ and is advised by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, but there is a very complicated and convoluted process and path by which the expert advice from the JNCC reaches the Minister. First, as a statutory consultee, the JNCC’s advice must be considered when OPRED produces an environmental assessment, but OPRED is under no duty to follow the JNCC’s advice, which is also not published. Then, in an instance where OPRED advises the Secretary of State not to issue a licence, the Secretary of State can disregard it if they believe that there is an overriding public interest.

A secondary problem is that the assessments do not consider cumulative impacts in a robust way. For example, OPRED will look at a pipeline and say, “Well, a pipeline in the grand area of an MPA is a tiny footprint”, but of course it is not just the pipeline that we are looking at. The cumulative effects of all the different things going on will have, and has been shown to have, a significant impact on the MPA.

The third and final problem is that OPRED assessments often have a tendency to assume that, if there is no scientific evidence, there is no problem, instead of adopting the precautionary principle. In fact, irrespective of what the environmental assessments from the JNCC say, OPRED and the Secretary of State can decide to grant licences to MPAs anyway. Looking at the evidence base, we can see that that is exactly what is happening. For example, in the past three years, the JNCC has objected to 54 development applications in MPAs from the oil and gas industry, yet not a single one of those applications has been turned down. In fact, I did a trawl over the past 17 years—since 2007, when the first MPAs came into place—and could not find a single licence that had been turned down on an environmental basis. That would suggest that the environmental assessment system in this case is not working.

What I find most concerning is that the JNCC has expressed its concerns. For example, in a letter to DESNZ on the recent 33rd oil and gas licensing round, the JNCC wrote a strong letter stating that it was unable to agree with the conclusions that the projects would have no adverse impact on site integrity. The committee strongly advised that no new oil and gas infrastructures should be located anywhere within an MPA. It also pointed out that the Government’s approach to licensing oil and gas activities was inconsistent with the approach taken with other industries—for example, wind farms. Those three statements are extremely concerning. Our Joint Nature Conservancy Committee is making strong statements about these issues and yet, somewhere along the line, this is not being taken into account. Remember that no licences have been turned down, as far as I can see, based on environmental impact.

This process does not seem to be working and will result, and is resulting, in damage to the MPAs, which the Government have heralded. I join them in that, given that we now have marine protected areas in the oceans around the UK. Therefore, the onus is on the Government to show how increased licensing in the MPAs, as part of this OPL Bill, will not cause harm and to publish the evidence base that supports this. They also need to outline in detail exactly how these harms, once they are caused, will be mitigated while still meeting our 2030, now 2040, targets, which we and Defra are very much holding everyone’s feet to the fire on. If the Government cannot do this, the solution surely must be to put this amendment into the Bill.

I also want briefly to turn to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, to which I have happily added my name. We need both these amendments. Without a proper seabed plan and a land use strategy for the sea—I wish that the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, were here—MPAs will not live up to their name. We know that we require multiple resources from the oceans around us. However, we need to be able to plan those in tandem, rather than in a somewhat random approach, where one thing is trumping the other—and trumping it sometimes through financial gain without properly considering the other requirements. Until we have a spatial prioritisation plan in place, we should not be granting any licences. We need to know what we want to take from where and how we ensure that the best use is made of the precious resource that we have around us. Until the Government come up with this spatial plan, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Randall, mentioned, they promised a while ago, we should not go forward with any of these licensing rounds.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support in particular Amendments 9 and 10, so ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis. I have quite a lot of experience of marine protected areas in the south-west and the Isles of Scilly. I recall having a useful discussion with the Environment Agency, English Nature and others about how one applies an MPA to a group of islands and whether one would be allowed to run any type of ship across them. The answer was, “Not really”. I said, “Well, who is going to enforce these regulations?” The answer was the Navy. That was even more interesting, because I asked, “Who is the most likely culprit?” They said that the most likely culprits around Scilly were people in kayaks. If one is trying to merge our latest aircraft carrier with people in kayaks, there is work to be done.

Cement Industry: Carbon Dioxide

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank the Liberal Democrats for agreeing with something I have said, for a change; that is a welcome departure from normal practice. I agree with the noble Lord, and as I said, this is a difficult sector to decarbonise. We are working with it and having regular meetings. There are 10 cement plants in the UK, only one of which is situated in an existing cluster. Of course, we are considering expressions of interest from additional clusters at the moment. I would not want to predict that process. Whatever happens, CCUS will clearly be a key technology for many cement plants. We have funded a number of feasibility projects with existing suppliers and will continue to work with them.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, what are the Government doing to encourage alternative building methods that do not need cement, or need much smaller volumes of cement? That would help with the carbon issue quite dramatically.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a good point. We are exploring the role that demand-side policies could play in creating demand for low-carbon cement, or indeed less demand for cement. We recently concluded a consultation which sought feedback on proposals for low-carbon standards, and we will continue to pursue that.

Geothermal Heat and Power

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and I am grateful for the opportunity that the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, has provided for this debate.

My civil engineering days are decades past but I did a lot of rock drilling in my youth. Technology has moved on, but even in those days it was quite simple and straightforward. Of course, the geology varied. Looking at the application to the production of energy that we are talking about today, it has one thing in common: there is a plentiful supply of drills, drilling and expertise—there is plenty of water underground. It could eventually be cheap, and of course it is safe; it is nothing like fracking, which people get worried about. It is all to do with water. I appreciate that the capital cost to start with is high, as other noble Lords have said, and some of the drills may be noisy, but on the other hand, you do not need much space, the technology is well proven, and as we move forward and get a plentiful supply, the costs will come down.

The other interesting thing that many people forget is that the temperature of the water that comes out can vary dramatically. I think that at Eden, which the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, mentioned, it is 85 degrees centigrade, which is pretty hot—plenty hot enough—but even lower temperatures not so far down are hot enough for many purposes. I live in Cornwall and in the Isles of Scilly and I have been to see this project in Eden. The drill was, frankly, enormous, very impressive and fast, and it is now working. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, mentioned Redruth; the first one was in fact in Penzance. Noble Lords may know that there is a rather interesting open-air swimming pool next to the sea, part of which is heated with geothermal water, and there is a queue of people to go to it. There is not as much water as there might have been because they are experimenting with air-drive and water-drive drills, but it works, people like it, and it is available.

We spend a lot of time in your Lordships’ House talking about storage—hydroelectric is one solution, and underground gas storage another—but this stuff does not need storage. You just switch it on and off; it is a pump. There are an awful lot of benefits here. The fact that it can provide 40% of the UK’s energy consumption means that we really need to take this more seriously. It can be used in many parts of the country. Cornwall is probably the best, because the water is hottest, but it is worth looking at many other places and—as I think the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said—doing a proper mapping of this country from a geological point of view.

This is a way forward for many of our energy needs. I would just like to reflect on the fact that many communities in this country say, “Let’s have a series of windmills to give us electricity for the community”, or “Let’s have a solar farm and get cheap electricity”. You could just as easily have one or two of these geothermal wells to give you hot water, and that is all you need to keep your homes warm and to get a hot bath or shower. Before noble Lords say, “That’s not very much”, that is 40% of our energy requirements. I hope the Minister will find a way forward so that we can all benefit from this.

Drax Biomass Power Station

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

Again, the noble Baroness is jumping to conclusions before the investigation has proceeded. Based on the evidence reviewed to date, Ofgem has not established any non-compliance with the scheme. But the investigation is continuing and I would caution noble Lords to wait for the outcome from the independent regulator.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, transporting this woodchip from a forest somewhere in North America by truck or train, loading it on to a container ship, taking it to the Mersey, taking it across the Pennines in another train and then discharging it into Drax—how can that possibly be green?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

It is because the sustainability criteria say that the biomass has to come from sustainable sources. Most of it is by-product from normal sustainable commercial forests.

Climate: Behaviour Change (Environment and Climate Change Committee Report)

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I had the pleasure of joining the Environment and Climate Change Committee after its work on the report on behaviour change was completed. However, I have read the report and absolutely concur with its findings, very ably articulated today by our excellent chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter.

The report makes it clear that behaviour change is one part of the necessary toolbox to achieve our net- zero target by 2050. Government policies and fiscal incentives can go only so far. There has been a lot of talk of hectoring and compulsion, of the danger of pushing through policies against the wishes of the people, but there is huge public support for actions to tackle climate change. As the ONS report makes clear, 64% of adults say they are worried about the impact of climate change, and 59% feel that this and the environment are among the top issues concerning voters today. People want to do the right thing. What they lack is a clear road map to make the necessary changes in their lives in the most cost-effective way.

Leadership and direction need to come from the top, but when did Rishi Sunak last make a meaningful contribution on the need to tackle climate change? He is remembered mostly for turning up late and leaving early at COP 27.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Using helicopters.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

And using helicopters. He is increasingly pandering to the anti-green faction on his own Back Benches, who put fossil fuels before green energy.

This lack of government leadership and awareness of the scale of the challenge was reflected in the response to the committee’s report. It is, by any measure, disappointing. It refers to a plethora of policies and strategies which we know are not being enacted effectively. This failing is clearly demonstrated in our report in relation, for example, to the delays in the boiler upgrade scheme, which we will debate at a later date.

The government response to the committee also fails to grasp the need for greater co-ordination and leadership across departments to provide the public with a clear narrative about the road to change. Yet when Grant Shapps recently gave evidence to our committee, it became clear that net-zero policies were still not a priority for some of his colleagues.

The government response to the committee also failed to recognise the huge benefits in delivering behaviour change in partnership with civil society, local government and business groups. This is particularly important given that the BEIS public attitudes tracker shows that the UK Government are now one of the least trusted sources of accurate information about climate change, so working with other, more trusted partners is key.

On key policy areas, such as aviation and food production, there was a marked reluctance to intervene, yet we know that individuals will have to make difficult choices in these areas if we are to have any hope of reaching our targets.

Since our report was published, Chris Skidmore MP has published his impressive net zero review, which examined how the UK could better meet its net-zero targets in a changing world. He identifies that huge economic opportunities of clean technology could be taken if we moved quickly and acted decisively. But his report echoes the themes of our report. He emphasises that the Government need to ramp up engagement with the public by publishing a public engagement strategy this year, and he proposes the creation of a carbon calculator to provide consumers with better information to make informed decisions on their carbon footprint.

As the evidence for a proper behaviour change strategy stacks up, I hope that the Minister will feel able to give a more positive welcome to our report’s recommendations in his response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to take part in this debate and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on her chairing of this committee and the content of its inquiry. It is a novel and important subject, which really emphasises the importance of lifestyle and personal involvement.

Reading it through, I think the government response is rather sad, really. The Government seem to agree with everything the reports says, but say that they are doing it already and lots of money is being spent—that is about it. I do not think that is quite true. I am sad that there is not more discussion about the fuel duty and train fares debate. Obviously, the committee talked about net-zero air services—we have heard a few comments from noble Lords about that—and of course charging points, which we deal with quite often.

We need behaviour change, however. I want to concentrate my remarks on active travel, which is recommendation 32 in the report:

“The Government must deliver on its ambition to improve active travel infrastructure and local public transport systems by providing the necessary resources and supporting local government bodies to implement projects on the ground”.


Paragraph 64 of the Government’s response says:

“Government is investing more than ever before in walking and cycling”.


The National Audit Office has published, today, a report on active travel. The NAO says that the Government will miss all their targets for 2025 after years of stop-start funding. The report also reveals that there are new cuts of 20% year on year in revenue funding for active travel in 2023-24. This is the kind of money spent, for example, on Bikeability, which is training for school- children so that they can cycle more safely.

This comes on top of a three-quarter cut for dedicated capital spending, announced in March. It is good that the NAO supports active travel, but it says that there needs to be long-term ring-fenced funding to address its requirements. It goes on to say that those investments, which are quite small in transport terms, represent very high value for money—4.3:1—and contribute to many good targets in different departments. The sad thing is that it says that the Government will miss at least three of their four targets on active travel by 2025. These are increasing annual cycling stages and annual walking; increasing the percentage of children aged five to 10 walking to school; and increasing the percentage of journeys of under five miles in towns and cities that are walked, wheeled or cycled.

I could go on citing that NAO report for a long time and I hope noble Lords will read it—it has come out today. A statement in paragraph 64 of the response says:

“Government is investing more than ever before in walking and cycling”.


I am sure they can arrange for some figures to demonstrate that that is true, but it certainly is not enough and we need to be very careful and support the NAO and press the Government for some responses on this issue.

Energy Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th April 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

138A: After Clause 264, insert the following new Clause—
“Renewable liquid fuels for low-carbon heatingWithin six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must introduce proposals to bring into force a Renewable Liquid Heating Fuel Obligation, setting annual obligations on fuel suppliers to ensure the supply of recognised low-carbon renewable liquid fuels for domestic and commercial heating.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Government to introduce a Renewable Liquid Heating Fuel Obligation (RLHFO) for home and commercial building heating purposes, which would create a scheme that mirrors the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations Order 2007. This would offer the option to off-gas-grid properties to switch to renewable liquid fuels, as another choice available to decarbonise their heating.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Noble Lords will be pleased to know that Amendment 138A in my name is a probing amendment, and I certainly do not intend to divide the House. This issue, which has come to me from a number of people in the south-west, is about the need for parity in the government incentives for heating homes that are off the gas mains. This would require a scheme that mirrors the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations Order 2007.

I get the impression that the government policy on this is that everyone who is off the gas grid should be able to install a heat pump. When I am not in Scilly, I live in a little village in the middle of Cornwall, where lots of my friends use fuel oil for heating because there is no way that you can put a heat pump in some of these houses. Heat pumps are very good, but, in terms of fairness, about 1.7 million homes—perhaps occupied by 4 million people—are off the gas grid. They all want to decarbonise quicker, but how will they do so? The Government’s statistics show that 20% of off-grid homes are not suitable for heat pumps—again, we quite understand that. There is also the cost of installing them, of about £22,000, which is quite expensive for some people.

I am interested in a recent survey by the Future Ready Fuel campaign, which showed that 90% of people living off the gas grid are concerned about the Government’s current heating proposals, which are treating them unfairly. They would rather a greater choice of low-carbon heating solutions. The amendment asks the Government to investigate this further.

Before I speak about that, and the obvious need for consumer choice in this, it is probably worth explaining what the material—hydrotreated vegetable oil, or HVO—actually is. The easiest way of doing so is to say that it is used vegetable cooking oil, animal fat residue and tall oil—whatever that is—which is a by-product of the manufacture of wood pulp. Most of the time, when we hear about used cooking oil, it is because people have tipped it down the drains and eventually blocked them; it is very nasty for the drainage companies to solve this and take it away.

What surprises me is that the industry data has forecast that, by 2030, the feedstock availability, which is the important resource, is more than enough to meet the transport and non-transport needs, including home heating. The Department for Transport is very keen to use this to get more environmentally friendly airplanes in the sky—we might all have views about that. Production of HVO in the United States is already 10 billion litres and is expected to increase to 22 billion litres by 2025; ditto in Europe, where it is expected to double in the next two years from 5.5 billion litres to 11 billion litres.

This is not suggesting that this is the only low-carbon solution for people who need to heat their homes and who cannot use the existing systems, but it is an important issue for debate. You are telling people that they need to reduce their carbon usage and that the best way is air source or ground source heating, but there is an alternative. I suggest that the Government need to look at this and see whether there is a compelling case to look again at the tariffs. The Minister may say that the Government are doing this already; in which case, I shall say, “Well, that is lovely, but when is the report going to be published?” If they are not, I gently suggest that they should look at it, and I will be happy to facilitate a meeting between Ministers and the group of manufacturers concerned to see how we could take it forward. I beg to move.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not detain the House. I declare an interest as living in an off-gas-grid property. I am sure that the Minister knows what I will ask him.

There is a lacuna in government communications or policy about the off-gas-grid regulations. These were consulted on extensively but so far, unless I have missed it, they have not resulted in an emanation in government policy. We are in a situation where, if you are one of the folk in an off-gas-grid residence, you do not know what to do. Under the system that was consulted on, it was proposed that, after 2026, if your oil boiler broke down you could not replace it with another oil boiler; as yet, we do not know whether that date is still in currency or not. It would be good if the Minister could tell us exactly what the current policy of the Government is and, if it is to change from something that was consulted on, when we would get an announcement.

The alternative, if they do not adopt the proposition from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is that people need to get themselves an air source or ground source heat pump, but that is not a feasible proposition if you are trying to replace your recently defunct oil-filled boiler that has broken down between Christmas and New Year, when you have the grandchildren or your elderly great-granny in residence. Frankly, from the work done by the Environment and Climate Change Select Committee of this House on the boiler upgrade scheme, it was clear that getting an air source or ground source heat pump not only was an expensive proposition but would take some time. For the most part, it would take a number of weeks, and often a number of months, rather than having a nice man from British Gas or the local oil company coming round to give you a replacement on Boxing Day.

Apart from that, there is a debate to be had about the efficacy of air and ground source pumps in some houses, though I must admit that I probably come from the school that says that, providing you get a big enough one, you can heat almost anything—but that then raises major questions about ongoing energy costs.

Although I welcome the Minister’s statement earlier today about the extension of the boiler upgrade scheme term, it is a real pity that it was a complete failure in terms of numbers in the last financial year, and that most of the money that had been allocated had to be sent back to the Treasury. That is a great regret. My question—which my noble friend Lord Berkeley has given me the opportunity to ask yet again—is when we will get some clarity on the off-gas-grid regulations and what that clarity, if I have missed it, might be.

--- Later in debate ---

However, I assure all noble Lords that the Government recognise the challenges in decarbonising certain buildings off the gas grid. We are committed to ensuring that the transition to clean heat will be fair and affordable for properties off the gas grid. We will continue to work with industry stakeholders, including members of the renewable liquid fuel industry, to build further evidence that will allow us to evaluate the most feasible and cost-effective means of decarbonising those properties. For those reasons, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for her reply; I will read it with great interest. I think what she was really saying is that further work needs to be done, but the problem is that the zero carbon target date is still there. Perhaps she would not mind if, having digested what she has said and talked to some of my colleagues, we could come back to her and see whether it would be appropriate to have a meeting. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 138A withdrawn.

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Monks (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Balfe. He followed me as president of BALPA and has done a good job, as I know from all my ex-colleagues in that union. I have long experience of disputes in the transport sector, particularly in railways. In fact, if any noble Lord has a spare half hour and wants to go through the history of flexible rostering and train drivers, I am your man. I may not sell many tickets for that particular gig, I fear, but this is the sector that it is really all about. If the Bill hits the statute book and is used, it is in this sector that the trouble will really start, because it is very strongly unionised, with workers who are no strangers to industrial action. Whether culturally or practically, they have taken it over all their history. It is part of their way of life, and the first person who issues a work notice to them will really be lighting a fire with petrol, because it is incendiary and the cocktail of the dispute will be explosive.

Let us just follow through for a moment what would happen. A work notice is issued. The workers will act collectively, not individually, and refuse it. Individuals might then be selected—this is all provided for under this wonderful Bill—and those individuals will have a choice to make: whether to go along with the work notice or to turn around and say, “We are sticking with the democratically made decision to strike, and with the union”. Then what happens? What is the response likely to be? Will the employer persist and maybe fire some of them? We will get a situation where there are two disputes: the original dispute and the dispute about reinstatement of the workers concerned. This is nowhere near where we should be going as a country, and nowhere near finding a way to improve industrial relations and get people working co-operatively and in a spirit of mutual trust and support.

With two disputes instead of one, the Government need to be very careful and think carefully about employment law. The party opposite has enacted a lot of employment law since the 1980s. Some of it, I have to say, has been well targeted and has hit the mark, and some of it has had counterproductive effects. Even the election of general secretaries of unions has had a counterproductive effect in quite a lot of unions, with the more radical candidate usually winning. A piece of legislation such as this—an obvious candidate to be counterproductive, as well as wasting a lot of time and expense in all this procedure we are going through at the moment—seems to be about a Government taking a step against the unions that is too far. The Government should pause, think again and put it in the waste-paper basket of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to speak briefly to support what all noble Lords have spoken about so far. I am honorary president of the UK Maritime Pilots’ Association, which is exactly the same, with not quite so many members, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, has with his airline pilots. We have the same issue of safety. In piloting an aeroplane, you are going rather faster than a ship, and if a ship gets into trouble, it cannot stop, or stop quite as quickly, as we all know. It is a dangerous job, and the pilotage training lasts several years. You start off with small ships and then they get bigger, and the scale of your local knowledge has to be quite dramatic. In most ports, big ships are now not allowed in without a pilot, for very good reason.

The same comments apply to the railways and railway safety. Noble Lords will have seen the accident in Greece last week—a head-on collision caused by some failure of regulation. We do not have that any more. We have an Office of Rail Regulation and various other bodies that make really sure that whatever operation we do is safe. I cannot see how Ministers, or the owners who will control many of the train operators, will be able to say, “Well, you do that. It is not your decision as to whether it’s safe or not; it is our decision”. I do not think a Minister will ever want to say that they have given an instruction that might be seen to be unsafe, because they will probably be for the high jump if it goes wrong. But many of the issues on the railways exist because the safety rules have built up over the years. Driver training used to take two years; it is a little quicker now but not much, and that is for a reason. You are not allowed to use a mobile phone when you are driving for a very good reason, because you lose your concentration. I cannot see how it can really work when Ministers are effectively giving instructions about someone going to drive the train and being responsible for the safety—closing the doors, making sure everybody is all right, and making sure the track is all right, which is really important.

I support my noble friends Lord Monks and Lord Collins, and the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, in saying “Think again”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am not an expert in the rail industry but my understanding is that most of the train operating companies are owned by the taxpayer now through various takeovers, so in my view the Secretary of State has a duty to run the rail services. Taxpayers are very generous in the support they provide to the rail industry, and trade unions sometimes do not appreciate how much it is subsidised. In my view the Secretary of State has a right to intervene on behalf of the travelling public and the taxpayer. The legal position—the noble Lord, Lord Collins, might think it is a mantra—is that there is no legal obligation in the Bill on employers to utilise a minimum service level if one has been set in their area.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

The Minister’s answers have been interesting but they have concentrated about 90% on the railways, apart from a little dabble into the bus sector with the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson.

Do we take it that Ministers are not really interested in the issues listed in Amendment 10:

“aviation services, airline services, airport services … car delivery services, road haulage services, parcel delivery services”—

even trams—and

“rail engineering ferry and waterway services”?

Are the Government not concerned about them? Are they not even going to try to come up with minimum service arrangements for them? Is it just really about the railway? I think that is what the Minister is saying.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am sorry if the noble Lord is disappointed. I answered the questions that were asked of me and most of them were about rail services. That is what we have issued the consultation on, which is why I was answering the questions. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, asked me about bus services so I answered that question. I do not know how the noble Lord computes that we are somehow uninterested in other sectors. This legislation will specify transport services as an appropriate power for the Secretary of State to designate minimum service levels for, but the only one that we have issued on transport services at the moment is on passenger rail. That does not mean we are not interested in other transport services.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 23rd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s comments about the timetable. I have heard from people in the Department for Transport that, if they had to comply with these requirements and the sunset date, they would have to stop all other work in the department for the rest of the year. That would include the long-awaited transport Bill—which not many noble Lords are awaiting with glee.

There is another issue, which I think it is good to raise now: the question of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. My understanding is that we signed up to the European equivalent, CSM RA, which basically provides the opportunity for checking whether whatever project or design is proposed is safe. It is based on the ALARP principle, which we have had here for many years. Our Office of Rail and Road has been trying for a long time to interpret how to link the ALARP principle, which is ours, with the European one in a way that enables people who have to go through this process to feel satisfied that whatever they are doing is as safe as is reasonably practicable. This is just one of many examples in the railway sector. It would be nice to have a list, as my noble friend has said. There is much more to say on this, but on a system such as the railways, which is very safety conscious, it is important that we get this safety issue right.

[Lord Howard of Rising (Con)]

Would the Minister agree that, as the United Kingdom has one of the best employment records in the entire world, which was never dependent upon the EU, these amendments are utterly pointless and could probably do more harm than good?