Isles of Scilly: Ships

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether their award of £48 million from the Levelling Up Fund to the Council of the Isles of Scilly for the purchase of new ships requires the Council to demonstrate value for money by arranging competitive tenders for the (1) procurement, (2) construction, and (3) operation, of the ships.

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

My Lords, the Council of the Isles of Scilly submitted a full application, which included an economic and a commercial case. The Department for Transport reviewed these documents through a detailed assessment process, including assessing the value-for-money of the application. The process is set out in the fund’s technical and explanatory notes. Officials from the DfT will be writing to the Council of the Isles of Scilly to set out further business-case requirements.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that response. However, she did not say whether the council would be required to go out to tender for the supply of the ships or operating the service. At the moment, the application is to give the Isles of Scilly Steamship Company—the monopoly supplier of services—a free gift of something like £48 million to operate a service, with no conditions. Does she think that is the normal way to conduct public sector financial business?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am pleased to be able to reassure the noble Lord that, of course, the current status of the bid is that it is in its very early stages. As I said, we will be writing to the sponsor setting out further requirements for the business case. By the time this comes for ministerial sign-off, we will have had not only an OBC but also an FBC, and it will be done with the five different businesses cases. That would be normal, according to the Treasury rules. It will be a very rigorous process, during which we will, of course, assess the commercial elements of the bid. The noble Lord should just follow the process carefully; the bid would appreciate his support and guidance in getting it through the government systems.

Temporary Cycle Lanes in London

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Ah, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea—that well-known hub and hive of interest in cycling. Indeed, it has about 100 miles of road in the borough, but not a metre of cycle lane. But it is the case that the Active Travel Oversight Group, to which my noble friend refers, has discussed the issue of cycle lanes in that particular council. It is also the case that TfL has thus far not provided any active travel funding from the latest settlement to that council.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister and TfL on these temporary cycle lanes. As other noble Lords have said, they are really good. Will the Minister confirm that as many of them as possible will be made permanent and that, where there are missing links, which are so important for safe cycling, she will discuss with TfL some cycle routes to link them, which are also safe and will therefore encourage cycling?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Of course, we have discussions with TfL on what the network looks like as a whole. It is, of course, the decision of the local borough, in many cases, as to whether it puts a cycle lane in place, and it must consult the local community. But I am pleased to say that the surveys that we have done to date show that twice as many people support increased cycling and walking as oppose it.

Railways: Bridge Strikes

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to reduce the risk of vehicles hitting railway bridges in order to improve rail passenger safety and reduce disruption.

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

My Lords, reducing bridge strikes involves interventions from the owners of bridges—usually Network Rail—highways authorities and the owners and operators of vehicles. Network Rail raises driver awareness and offers advice on avoiding low bridges. It has published Prevention of Bridge Strikes: A Good Practice Guide on GOV.UK.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that Answer and I commend the work that Network Rail has done, but my Question arises from an incident in Plymouth, on bank holiday Monday, which closed the west of England line for three days and affected tens of thousands of passengers, when a Tesco lorry hit a bridge. According to Network Rail, 43% of drivers do not know the height of their lorries. That is pretty frightening. According to Network Rail again, there are something like five bridge bashes every day, and clearly there will be occasions when there could be very serious accidents. Will the Minister, in addition to supporting Network Rail’s work, encourage it to claim all the costs from every bridge bash, including the cost of delays to trains, the cost of rebuilding and of course the cost of the delays to passengers? At the moment, it is costing the taxpayer £23 million a year, which seems rather a lot of money.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not wholly sure where the noble Lord got the figure of £23 million a year, but I would point out that costs are not necessarily met by the taxpayer; it depends on the circumstances. If liability rests with a vehicle driver, the costs will be recovered through insurance, and Network Rail has been successful in recovering large amounts for both infrastructure repair and compensation in the past.

Railways: East Coast Main Line

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]]

As my noble friend will know, there will be some service changes. She has outlined what they are, as have many other noble Lords. Other areas will see an increase in services. I reiterate that there is an opportunity to respond to the consultation. I know that my colleague in the department is pressing Network Rail, the train operating companies and our officials very hard to make sure we can retain as much regional connectivity as possible.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, following the remarks of my noble friend Lord Rosser, is the Minister aware of the comment from Transport for the North in Rail magazine, which states that the east coast mainline revisions mean that the north-east is losing trains to Leeds, Manchester and Edinburgh in favour of trains to London, and that this does not reflect the levelling-up agenda? Does she agree it is important to focus on the local and regional services, where the demand is greatest?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con) [V]]

Unfortunately, I did not see that comment, as I do not read Rail magazine; potentially, I should. We have to reach a balance here. We cannot focus on only one type of travel. What we and LNER have tried to do is get the right balance to ensure we are meeting customer demand and providing value for money for the taxpayer.

Merchant Shipping (Cargo Ship) (Bilge Alarm) Regulations 2021

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

That this House regrets that the Merchant Shipping (Cargo Ship) (Bilge Alarm) Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/592), introduced as a result of the accident involving the ‘Abigail H’ at the port of Heysham in November 2008, have taken over 11 years to be introduced; further regrets that this delay has put at risk the safety of crews of 425 ships of a similar type on the UK Ship Register; and notes that nine similar incidents to those at Heysham had been reported to the Marine and Coastguard Agency since 1996.

Relevant document: 4th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interest as honorary president of the UK Maritime Pilots Association. I thank the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for drawing our attention to these regulations.

In moving this Motion, I want to make it quite clear that, of course, I support the Merchant Shipping (Cargo Ship) (Bilge Alarm) Regulations 2021. I shall explain why, but my concern—my regret—is that it has taken over 11 years to introduce these regulations and that the incident was not just a one-off. I believe it is a question of the safety of over 400 ships of a similar type on the UK Ship Register, and nine similar incidents to that which happened at Heysham—which I shall come on to—were reported to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in the last 25 years. My concern, which I shall explain, is about the delay.

I am sure that noble Lords will have read the excellent Marine Accident Investigation Branch report into this incident from 2009. They will know that four people were asleep on board this dredger, which was tied up to a quay, and that four of the crewmen were suddenly thrown out of their bunk because water had come in and made the vessel unstable. It was a merciful relief that the vessel heeled and tipped towards the quay, which stopped it going further, rather than heeling out the other side, rolling into the deep water and maybe causing loss of life. This is a really serious issue. As the MAIB report said:

“It is unlikely that the mooring lines would have restrained Abigail H if it had rolled away from the quay, and the crew were extremely fortunate to escape without injury.”


As I said, this was not a one-off: it affects over 400 ships around the coast. I have lived for many years in Cornwall next to a small shipyard that builds and repairs fishing boats and other small boats. I have seen their condition: some of them are very good when they come in and some are not so good; some of them are dredgers and some do other small works. It is quite normal for the crews to sleep on board these ships when they are in the water because it obviously saves on their accommodation costs and they can keep an eye on the ship. It is therefore really important that they feel comfortable. They do not want to have water round their toes or for the ship to tip over. The MAIB recommendation is that vessels of more than 24 metres in length and 500 gross tonnes should be fitted with bilge alarms. I have seen ships sink in the port of Fowey just because stopcocks were not closed properly, which is not a good thing to happen.

Why do people sleep on ships? Apart from the safety reasons, and saving money on accommodation onshore, it is also often because they are in tidal work. They cannot go ashore that easily and it is perfectly reasonable for this to happen. The MAIB report was quite clear that it thought the “Abigail H” was in good condition, but noble Lords may know that it is quite difficult to find the source of a leak in such a small ship. If you have to replace the fittings which you think may be wrong, you probably have to take it to a dry dock. That costs money, and many shipowners probably say that they cannot afford it.

I went on to look at what a bilge alarm is. Going on the web and googling “bilge alarm” shows that they are available for £100. I find it incredible that we have been waiting 13 years for some legislation requiring such ships to fit bilge alarms which will cost only £100, plus the fitting costs if you do not do it yourself.

This could have affected over 400 ships with two, three or four people on board and there have been nine similar incidents in the last 25 years. The industry must have been aware of this but, clearly, some of the owners did not think it a very good idea. It is therefore good to have the regulations to install these alarms. My concern is that it has still taken 13 years, and people who operate these ships often think “It’s not going to happen to me”. I have seen that, and it is the way life is.

The other concern is that many people are beginning to feel that the Department for Transport puts maritime issues low on its list of priorities. It runs the railways in minute detail; it gets very involved in air and airports, rightly; it is getting involved in net-zero carbon for many elements of transport but not so much, I think, for UK- registered vessels. I am not sure it has really given seafarers the support they needed during the Covid pandemic.

The Environment Bill, which is going through your Lordships’ House at the moment, says that it covers inshore and offshore regions, but I am not sure how seriously the Government are taking the needs of ships and ferries when it comes to maritime conservation zones, et cetera. I am worried about the minimal budget that the MCA has to do these essential safety and inspection works. I am sure that if this had been an air incident, it would have happened a lot more quickly than in 13 years.

This is a story of a £100 bilge water alarm not being installed. Ministers may say that the crews of the 425 vessels did not die, so there was no hurry. But this is the basic philosophy of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the subject of safety regulations, which noble Lords are all familiar with. The whole safety culture is based on what the Act says about compliance, to ensure that this never happens. If it costs only £100 for the piece of equipment, why has it taken 13 years?

I shall be interested to hear what the Minister says. I will not divide the House against this regulation, which is very welcome, but I think it is right to draw the attention of the House to such unacceptable delays in requiring a small but essential piece of safety equipment, in the hope that, if this Motion is accepted, it may incentivise the Government to allow more resources for essential safety issues. Even though they are not as high-profile as air and rail, they still affect people. I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response, but I may wish to seek the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate and of course to the Minister for her response. It has been a very interesting debate—I was really surprised and enthused by some of the comments. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, talked about the voiceless seafarer and admitted that he had not been in the bilges; going into the bilges is not a thing you would want to do unless you really had to. Both he and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, talked about the crews and the fact that they need looking after. Many of us thought that they were probably suffering, particularly during Covid.

My noble friend Lord Rooker asked six really excellent questions. I have to say that I do not think the Minister answered many of them, but I am sure she will be writing to him and we will all see copies. However, the delays are still there. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, also talked about the delays and mentioned the word “disproportionate”. I think there are many, including in the Department for Transport, who think that this is not that serious: they are small regulations and do not matter very much. I hope I am not right.

My noble friend Lord Rosser also asked a number of questions, including another version of whether this is being done just for administrative convenience. The Minister was interesting in her response, because she said that the guidance on these issues had been published in 2010 and I think she liked to believe that most of the ships involved in this category would have already fitted bilge alarms. If that is the case, and she has not presented any evidence for or against it, why have the Government brought these regulations at all? It has taken 10 years, but if the guidance has forced or encouraged all the shipowners involved to install bilge alarms, why do we need regulations?

My gut feeling is that for ships like this—I have seen quite a few of them—for whatever reason the shipowners do not like doing things they do not have to do. One can understand it. I may have got the price of a bilge alarm of £100 wrong, compared with the Government’s estimate of £2,500—you could probably spend £500,000 on one if you wanted to. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, suggested that there should be online alerts to the MCA, which probably would cost about that, but the point is that, in terms of the cost to the operators, it is not great.

I go back to my noble friend Lord Rooker’s comments about when he was involved in creating the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, and the ALARP principle—as low as reasonably practicable. I would suggest that installing a bilge alarm, whether for £100 or £2,500, it is certainly something that could be done to comply with the ALARP principle, on which on all our safety regulations, as my noble friend said, have been based.

I am afraid we did not really get an answer from the Minister on why there were so many delays to the legislation. There were lots of them—some caused by Brexit, some international and some domestic. I know of one situation, drawn to my attention by a Cornwall council that wanted to create a new harbour authority there to look after all the little harbours that nobody else owns. It is not big job but it is very important. It has been waiting several years for this to go through, so that it can do things with the harbour to help the local economy.

I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have added to the discussion of these regulations. We need to put more pressure on the Department for Transport and the Government to provide resources—to give the MCA resources—so that we have no more of this. It may affect only a few people. Do they matter much? I believe they all matter, but there is a view that they are just tramp steamers going around the coast and nobody sees them much, compared with an airline or anything else. We have to change the attitude. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, but I would like to test the opinion of the House on this Motion.

Road Vehicle Carbon Dioxide Emission Performance Standards (Cars and Vans) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2021

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing this draft SI. She tried valiantly to make it intelligible, and she did better than the text of the SI itself, which is, probably of necessity, pretty opaque.

I have been looking at some of the issues in the Explanatory Memorandum and, in particular, paragraphs 6.1 and 6.2. I find it surprising that the amendments, being necessary, were thought of only on 18 December 2020, which was two weeks, including Christmas, before Brexit day. This may not be as important as the measures on importing fresh meat, and everything else, which are still being discussed between the UK and the EU in respect of Northern Ireland, but it does seem to have been completely forgotten. The Minister tried very hard in her explanation to rescue what is probably just about impossible to rescue.

I have one or two questions on the Explanatory Memorandum itself. First, on paragraph 7.5, we noted that no EU or UK regulations apply to Northern Ireland between now and 1 August, I think the Minister said. Does that mean that manufacturers who had been on the ball could have introduced the dirtiest possible emissions in cars, vans and other vehicles during the six to seven months when there have been no regulations, and nobody could do anything about it? Presumably, for that reason, nobody has been fined or even caught.

The Minister mentioned “pooling”, which is mentioned in paragraph 7.10 of the Explanatory Memorandum. It is easy to say that that is a good thing, because overall it will balance out the more polluting with the less polluting vehicles. However, I recall the failure of Volkswagen. The subsequent court cases are still ongoing, because it was alleged to have fiddled the figures on emissions—and one or two other manufacturers are, I suspect, saying, “There but for the grace of God go we”. This seems to be a way out for manufacturers to get away with anything they want. I hope that I am wrong and that the Minister will tell me if I am wrong, because it seems very odd.

That also applies to paragraph 7.16 and the phrase “carve out provision”. To me, a carve-up is something that should not be done but often is done to get away with what you should not get away with. Whether carving out is any different, I do not know, but I am sure that the Minister can explain why that phrase is used and what it means. It seems to me to allow manufacturers and distributers of vehicles—cars and vans in Northern Ireland—to register whatever they like from the present period up to 1 August, which reflects pretty badly on the Government’s arrangements there. On whether it will make any difference to emissions or pollution, I look forward to hearing what the Minister says because, as the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, we are looking for much more definitive information than we have at the moment on how we get to zero carbon.

Finally, with this extraordinarily complex but no doubt necessary regulation, what is actually wrong with keeping the EU regulations, even if we change the name so that Europe does not appear in the title? It might be a lot easier.

Historical Railways Estate

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend has once again raised the issue of permitted development orders. I restate that they are used only in emergency circumstances. I would just like to remind noble Lords that a couple of decades ago, at the Clifton Hall/Black Harry tunnel in Salford, the shaft collapsed, a house was demolished and the residents were killed in their beds. This is a serious issue we are talking about here: sometimes there are emergency circumstances when permitted development orders are required. But, as I have said, in the majority of cases they are not required, and planning permission is sought and given.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, given the concerns noble Lords have raised on this Question, and the fact that the Minister said it is very important that there is local involvement, surely the answer is to require all such changes to these structures to be the subject of a full planning application.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Well, I think I have now answered that question three times, but I will give it another go. There is a full planning application except in cases where there is likely to be an emergency.

International Travel

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

As I have set out previously—I agree with my noble friend—the travel industry is having a very difficult time, but we can see a light at the end of the tunnel. We have to make sure that we act with public health as our priority. We must have a cautious approach, because we cannot risk everything that we have been able to do with the vaccine programme by importing variants of concern from overseas.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in the Financial Times yesterday, Ministers are quoted as saying that any businessman coming into this country who could offer £300 million—I think that was the figure—of investment in the country could be exempted from quarantine. Can I ask the Minister whether that would have applied to Mr Greensill and Mr Gupta, who have been saving the British steel industry for decades? How does this work, in terms of the medical reasons for doing it? Is this not a case of double standards for those that Ministers like?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Let me explain to the noble Lord exactly what is going on here. There is an exemption from the requirement to quarantine, and it applies to a very limited number of specific business activities where these cannot be undertaken remotely or by anyone other than the exempt executive and would serve to create or preserve very large numbers of UK jobs—500 plus. So, that is potentially where his number came from. This exemption has been very significantly tightened since a version of it was in force in December. The qualifying threshold has been increased tenfold, and its scope has been reduced to permit only the most critical activities.

North of England: Rapid Mass Transport System

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The absolute priority for this Government is to get it right. Endless amounts of pressure—questions such as “When will it be published?”—is probably not particularly helpful and leads to an awful lot of speculation. As I have said previously, we are taking due consideration of what stakeholders are saying and we are working very hard to come up with a robust, deliverable plan. That is exactly what this Government are going to do.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is right about the Shanghai maglev, which I have been on. It is very fast and very noisy, but the technology, and therefore the costs, are very tight, because the track has to be kept within plus or minus half a millimetre in both directions, vertical and horizontal. She is absolutely right to reject it and I hope that the Government stick to their promises.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Now we are all very jealous—I too would love to go on that maglev. The noble Lord makes an important point: it is not just about the cost of infrastructure, but of operation, because it has a very high electricity consumption and can therefore be more costly to operate. I know that the Japanese system will be using superconducting electromagnetics, which should be cheaper but, although maglev has some great applications, it is not applicable everywhere.

Great British Railway Plans

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to integrate (1) HS2, and (2) the East West Rail project, into their Great British Railway plan.

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

My Lords, HS2 Ltd and East West Rail Ltd are currently separate from Network Rail and are delivering important additions to our rail network. The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail is clear that they will retain their current roles and work closely with Great British Railways as it takes over responsibilities for integration.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification, but it seems that the statement in the Williams report that it will bring together the rail

“network under single national leadership”

is not correct. The report also states that there will be “a new focus” to deal with

“escalations in cost, gold-plating and over-specification”,

which clearly applies mainly to HS2 as the worst offender. Can the Minister explain why there are plans to remove funding from Northern Powerhouse Rail and give it to the bottomless pit of HS2?