Roads: Congestion

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I thank my noble friend for her Question. She makes an important point. She is right to highlight local road congestion and its impact on the economy and productivity. I will discuss her suggestion with my honourable friend Jesse Norman, the Roads Minister, but I will give her a few related facts.

As I said, we are investing record amounts in England’s roads. Of the £23 billion that I mentioned, which we are set to spend between 2015 and 2021, £15 billion will be dedicated to the upgrade of our strategic roads and motorways and major A roads, and the rest is to improve our local roads. The spring 2017 Budget announced that the National Productivity Investment Fund will allocate £690 million for local authorities in England for local transport networks from 2018-19 onwards. Some £490 million of that is available for the financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20 and will be allocated through a competition, which has already been launched, for which we have received 145 bids so far. We will announce the winning bids later this year.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister commit to giving the same proportion of investment to the railways to reduce congestion and improve reliability?

[Lord Callanan]

As the noble Lord is aware, we are undertaking the largest programme of investment in railways since the Victorian era, so I am proud of our record of improving the railways. Of course, there is always more to be done, but we are having a pretty good stab at it so far.

Transport: Remote Island Communities in England

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

To move that this House takes note of the transport needs of remote island communities in England.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to debate the transport needs of remote island communities in England, and it is my first opportunity to debate with the new Minister, whom I of course welcome.

There are not many remote islands in England. I was advised by the clerks that I could not mention the Isles of Scilly by name, but we have a few other islands in England, which the House of Lords Library has included in its very helpful briefing, including the Isle of Wight, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, Lundy and the Farne Islands. I hope that I have not forgotten any inhabited islands but we shall see.

I question whether the Isle of Wight really is remote. It has several competing ferry services, so it is nothing like as remote as the Isles of Scilly. However, it has transport problems, which were ably challenged by the previous MP, Andrew Turner, and are now being taken forward by the new MP, Bob Seely. Bob Seely has also taken the initiative of forming an all-party group for islands. I have joined it and am pleased that Derek Thomas, the MP for St Ives—and Scilly—has, too. I hope that many noble Lords, as well as Members of the House of Commons, will join it. Derek continues to work hard to improve the transport services to and from Scilly. I shall concentrate my remarks on Scilly, which I think is pretty unique within England.

First, I declare an interest. My wife is a councillor on the Council of the Isles of Scilly. She is also the co-ordinator of FRIST—Friends of Isles of Scilly Transport. She has lived on the islands for 40 years. FRIST’s campaign slogan is to create,

“reliable, affordable, all year round lifeline transport links with the mainland”.

My links with the Scillies go back to 1707, when an ancestor of mine was with Admiral of the Fleet Sir Cloudesley Shovell, whose fleet got wrecked off the Isles of Scilly on the Outer Gilstone Rock, with the loss of about 2,000 lives. It was a very big disaster. My director ancestor—a future Earl of Berkeley—was in the ship behind that went on to the same rock but got washed off, otherwise I would not be here today. I am very pleased to be here today.

If you ask any islander what is the biggest challenge they face on Scilly, their answer is transport to and from the mainland. It is vital for the economy and for the islanders’ welfare and social fabric. The cost of living there is much higher. To take one example, building materials cost 40% more on the main island, St Mary’s, and 60% more on the four inhabited “off islands”.

I will briefly explain the present transport services. We have the “Scillonian” ferry service, which is celebrating its 40th birthday this summer. I am not sure that “celebrate” is the right word but we can debate that. It operates six or seven days a week from Penzance to St Mary’s, from March to November, but there are no passenger sea services in winter. There is a freight ship that operates two or three times a week, and a fixed-wing air service from Land’s End, Newquay and, in the summer, Exeter to St Mary’s. All the above are operated by one company, the Isles of Scilly Steamship Group. There was a helicopter service until 2012, when it closed. A new service is planned with a new heliport in Penzance, but the planning permission for that has been challenged by a judicial review by the steamship company. The company denies that it is a monopoly, saying that it is just a sole operator, which is an interesting definition of the words. It says that anyone else can start a service. But woe betide anyone who tries—they will get a judicial review thrown at them, on the most spurious grounds, in my view.

Turning to the costs, the single fare on the “Scillonian” is £55 and by air from Land’s End it is £80. That means that for a family of four—two adults and two children over the age of two—the cost would be well over £500 return, and you would have got only to the mainland, not to the end of Cornwall.

One of the biggest problems is reliability. The “Scillonian” gets cancelled very occasionally—it is very reliable—but flights are frequently cancelled due to the weather. In winter, 49% of the flying hours from Land’s End are disrupted. This a very high figure and there is no ferry on which people can go instead. It can mean that islanders are cut off for several days, usually due to fog or low cloud.

People suffer badly as a result of having only these unreliable flights in winter. People travelling for health appointments on the mainland can get stressed by the uncertainty. We were recently contacted by a woman patient who was unable to fly on that day because of fog who said that this was the eighth appointment that she had had to miss. Another patient attending hospital on the mainland for a scan was informed by the hospital, “If there is one more instance where you do not turn up you will not get a scan”. That is painful and horrible for people. The worry is that these instances are typical rather than exceptional. It is especially serious for people who are on a course of chemotherapy. If you want to go to a meeting you have to leave a day or two early, as do people booked on holidays, to make sure that you get to the mainland, because there is no through ticketing or code sharing.

Conversely, in summer the air service and ships are often full up—at this time I have friends who cannot get across for several days—and so the islands desperately need more capacity in the summer and an affordable and reliable winter service, preferably by ship. The helicopter will help when it starts but it will not be sufficient.

The freight situation is bad—I have a great interest in freight, although there is no rail freight to Scilly—because the steamship company appears to charge according to the whim of the staff or directives from the management. There is no transparency over the charges or even a written price list. It charges extra or delays shipping and customers can have their goods lost or damaged, as anyone who is brave enough to challenge the company frequently finds out. I have many examples of this but, sadly, I do not feel able to name names because there is a real fear among the people and companies involved that they will be added to the black list.

I will give one or two examples without names. One customer said that there is a considerable variation in freight charges, made worse by the lack of transparency. He said that eight boxes weighing 80 kilograms came in at £15.82, whereas another seven boxes from the same consignment, with the same weight of 80 kilograms, came in at £18.35. Surely there must be a price list. A second customer has strong evidence of predatory pricing, which gives an unfair advantage to the local subsidiaries of the steamship company. I suspect the CMA will want to investigate that. It should.

A third resident, a businessperson, surveyed 50 logistics companies which regularly deliver to Penzance for the islands. It is a long story but, frankly, the whole service is a disgrace, a shambles. You do not know when the freight is going to arrive or how much it is going to cost, and sometimes the company turns away deliveries at Penzance for the most spurious reasons, including slight damage to a pallet. That is crazy. He points out that the quay staff are wonderful but that communication with management does not seem to exist. His conclusion is that freight issues are stifling investment in the islands. He says that change must come to this unacceptable situation. I entirely agree.

Visitor numbers are now the mainstay of the island economy because the trade in flowers and so on has reduced over time. There is general agreement that there is plenty of space for more visitors, especially in the shoulder and winter months, but in June the air service was 2,000 passengers down on last year, largely due to fog disruption. That has a serious effect on the operators of holiday accommodation. One person told me that he is losing business because of it. He said, “The current service is not fit for purpose and the islands are losing business as a result”. That is a common complaint.

Let us compare these problems with Scotland, where the Scottish Government and the local councils support island life in a number of ways. Ferries are often operated by charging passengers on a road-equivalent tariff and commercial services often run alongside the subsidised ones. But the key difference is that services are much more frequent and fares are lower than the equivalent service for the Isles of Scilly.

I could go on about this for a long time but we need to talk about solutions. After a number of years of disagreement both within the Isles of Scilly and with the mainland about what could be done, there is now a new council with a new commitment to work together to find solutions, and I certainly welcome that. Some years ago, Ministers said at a meeting with island representatives, “Come back when you can speak with a single voice”, and of course they were quite right. Now everyone is talking with the same voice—the council, the business group known as the Islands’ Partnership, Healthwatch, FRIST, the community interest company and Cornwall Council, as well as Penzance Town Council. The two councils have done really good work on the infrastructure of the quays and airports, but that is not enough because what is needed is service improvement. The quays at St Mary’s are nice but there is no passenger service in the winter. There is a nice hardened runway at Land’s End but the planes cannot fly in the frequent foggy conditions. The current services are hopeless for anyone who wants to travel with any degree of certainty, whether for business, holidays or hospital appointments. The crews and front-line staff do a great job but they are often let down not only by the weather but by the management.

I am afraid that the situation has all the hallmarks of a lazy monopoly provider which, sadly, is putting shareholders’ returns well before the needs of its customers. I think that three changes are required. The first is competition, something we often talk about in your Lordships’ House. I know that a number of people have asked the CMA to investigate whether there is an abuse of dominant position by the sole operator, and we shall see what it says. However, it would help enormously if the air services and the sea services were run by separate and independent companies. That would bring competition, would, I am sure, improve customer service, and would probably reduce fares. The second change is something known as “aid of a social character” which is allowed under EU competition law. I hope that the Government do not sneak something in to abolish it when we go through Brexit. It would give the islanders a percentage reduction on their fares. The system operates well in Scotland and it is a major benefit to the residents there. The third change is a winter subsidy passenger service contract for a ship service perhaps three times a week to provide a cost-effective service that would be much more reliable and much cheaper than fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.

Scilly needs something like this. People think that the islands are very beautiful and prosperous, but that is not the case. On 1 June last year the Daily Telegraph reported:

“Between 2014 and 2020, both Cornwall and West Wales will receive over €1,000 (£800) per person from the EU Structural and Investment Fund - similar to that received by Romania and Bulgaria”.


I know Romania well, but do we really want Cornwall and the Scillies to look like that? The present services are not fit for purpose. The new helicopter service will help, but the route needs further competition to improve reliability, reduce costs and see a step change in the freight sector, which generally thrives on competition. This is what Scotland gives its island communities in order to help them sustain their way of life and their economy. Do the UK Government not care about their own islands? They are far fewer in number but they are equally in need of support.

In conclusion, I hope that the Minister will look favourably on the requests I have made, and those from other noble Lords who are to speak in the debate, and that he will agree to meet me and colleagues from the representative bodies of the islands to take forward the discussions. I hope that he will visit the Isles of Scilly to see them for himself, and I hope also that he will not be held up by the air services. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, I shall follow what the right reverend Prelate said. I used to work in Northern Ireland, and the Giant’s Causeway is in some ways a similar tourist attraction. The National Trust does not let you approach close to the Giant’s Causeway. It has a bus service which brings you down the narrow road from the car park, which is not only a bit more remote but is out of sight. The idea of linking an island, where it can be done, with some form of park-and-ride service is a very good one. I cannot see why the people whose cars are driven over there should not pay the cost of it, but somebody needs to get on top of the problem and do something about it.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for introducing this debate. My relationship with the Isles of Scilly is tenuous. For two periods of my railway career, I was responsible for the railways in Cornwall. On one occasion, I intended to visit the Isles of Scilly, but I was unable to do so because it was foggy. It was summer. Fog does not happen only in winter. It is a perpetual hazard.

The Minister has to ask himself and his Government whether they really value the islands. It has been pointed out by several noble Lords that the Scottish Government do. I have given the example of the Giant’s Causeway. Although it is not an island, it nearly is. Other islands, such as Rathlin Island off Ireland, are valued by the Government. We should turn the Government’s attention to that issue.

In previous debates and in Questions mostly asked by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about the Scillies, the reply from the Government Benches has been that it is an open market and anybody can have a helicopter service or a shipping service if they want to enter the market. Anybody who does must like being invited to put his head into the dragon’s mouth, because they will be set upon by the incumbent.

I shall talk about making things better. I shall not talk about maritime things because I do not know anything about boats and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, will tell us more about the ships. In a couple of years’ time, the Great Western railway franchise will come up for renewal. My contacts there tell me that it regards the present sleeper service from Paddington as an act of charity, but that service is improving and it could be made better by two things. First, the Scottish sleeper services are going to be replaced, which will free for other use some of the vehicles presently employed between London and Scotland. I am not talking about a huge increase in capacity, but if the sleeper car train had six sleeping carriages, they would regularly be full, particularly if much more effort was put into promoting tourism within this country—a subject one of my noble friends refers to often. We do not promote our tourist industry.

If there were a decent, regular service, it would make a difference. I am not saying it would solve the problem because the final link has got to be made through the various ideas noble Lords have suggested, but simple things can probably be done before. The Monday morning service coming from Paddington overnight arrives at Penzance less than an hour, I think, before the Scillonian leaves.

[Lord Berkeley]

It is 10 minutes.

[Lord Bradshaw]

Thank you very much. Ten minutes—that is absolutely ridiculous. The Government can do something. I do not accept that they can brush it off and say that is a matter for Great Western. They set the terms of the franchise, and they should be active rather than passive and hands-off.

Can the Minister tell us whether the position of the Scillies will be made worse if we leave the EU—or, to use the Minister’s probable words, when we leave the EU? I prefer the first version. What effect will the decision to leave the EU have on the economy of the Scillies? Are the Government prepared to make some sort of commitment to replace any funding that the Scillies receive?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. We have learned a great deal about the problems and issues around travel and transport mainly to and from the Isles of Scilly. However, it was good to hear the right reverend Prelate talk about the challenges of getting to Holy Island, and the joys and benefits of island communities, with or without cars, once you get there.

All noble Lords who spoke about the Isles of Scilly said that there is effectively a failure of the present market, given that the service is pretty awful and is getting worse, and expressed concerns about the future of the islands unless something is done about that. I am not going to go on for too long about individual contributions but it was interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, talk about the need for a replacement ship. For the last five years, we have heard that the steamship company was going to replace the “Scillonian III”. Two or three years ago, that ship managed to sail for a whole summer without a valid safety certificate because nobody had picked that up. It was not discovered until November of that year, when it was too late to do anything. There is no evidence that that company has the finance, or possibly the ability, to buy and operate a new ship. It says that it has but it has been saying that for five years. Perhaps the “Scillonian” will limp on for another five years and we shall all enjoy going on it. However, there will probably be more constraints with regard to the number of passengers and it still will not operate in the winter.

It is interesting that the Minister’s response basically was that everything was all right and a commercial service is operating. However, we have to reflect on what would happen if that one ship, which is fairly unique, as the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said, no longer operated. I hope that there are no accidents but it could just break down. I think that it has broken down a couple of times this year and there was no service. What would happen to the islanders in that case? The flights could take a few people and the new freight ship, if and when it is operational, could take a few more, but the island economy would be absolutely devastated, especially in the summer. There may be no definition of a lifeline service but perhaps we should think about what is reasonable in that regard.

The one thing that the Minister did not address was why Scotland is different. Commercial services operate to Islay, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, mentioned, but there is also a lifeline service. If the Scottish Government look after their islands in that way, why do not the English Government—as I call them—do likewise for the islands for which they have responsibility? We in Britain think that we are an island nation and it is all wonderful. However, it appears that the smaller islands can go hang, although, if they survive, that is quite nice. I hope that we never experience what happened to a little island off the west coast of Ireland, which was permanently evacuated by the Irish Government about 100 years ago as they could not provide a ferry service across a comparatively short stretch of water to give somebody who had just died a decent burial. We have to do better than this. We must all reflect on today’s debate, and I hope that the Minister will be prepared to have a meeting or two when we come back in the autumn to see how we can take this further.

Motion agreed.

Aviation

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Once the strategy is published, will the Minister quote the costs to the public purse of the surface access? My understanding is that those costs for the expansion at Heathrow will be even higher than the cost of the first phase of HS2. Would it not be better to expand our regional airports and to do less in the south-east?

[Lord Callanan]

The costs of the surface access to support the new development at Heathrow, if indeed it proceeds, will be borne by Heathrow Airport itself. Of course we also remain committed to expanding regional airports, a subject dear to my heart, and we will set out our approach in the aviation strategy White Paper that I mentioned earlier.

HS2 and CH2M

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 5th April 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I acknowledge that my noble friend has not been the biggest fan of this project. As I am sure noble Lords will acknowledge, this underwent full scrutiny during the passage of the Bill in both the House of Commons and in particular in your Lordships’ House. My noble friend referred to transparency. I am sure that he will acknowledge that many elements of the business contracts awarded are of a confidential nature and that it would be totally inappropriate to require that they were all fully transparent.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, why have the Government allowed this potential conflict of interest to fester for so many months? The two senior civil servants in the department left last week. I still have not had an answer to evidence that I submitted to the noble Lord and other Ministers that the cost of phase 1 will be about double what the Government say it is. Are the Government, HS2 and the Minister’s officials really committed to getting the governance right, the costs right and the programme right, or is this the start of rats leaving a sinking ship, which I hope it is not?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

To continue with transport analogies, HS2 remains on track, so there are no sinking ships. The noble Lord referred to two senior civil servants within the DfT. One is the Permanent Secretary, who has a new role at the Home Office; I am sure that the noble Lord will appreciate that there is a long recruitment process. The other was the director-general of HS2, who is taking up a post at Oxford University. We wish them both well in their new roles.

Shipping: Safety

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the international safety regulations and procedures laid down in the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea to ensure the safe evacuation of ships carrying more than 5,000 passengers and crew.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, assessments of the safety regime for shipping are undertaken by the International Maritime Organization’s Maritime Safety Committee. The particular issue of large passenger ship evacuation was the subject of significant additional work following the loss of the “Costa Concordia”, and regulations relating to passenger safety drills were subsequently adopted internationally.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but if something happens to a cruise ship of, say, 10,000 people—passengers and crew—in the middle of the Atlantic, Antarctic or the Arctic, where ships go more these days, and there is a need for an evacuation even if the ship remains upright, and people are able to get into life rafts without panicking, what happens then? He did not answer the Question about whether there had been any full-scale trials of such a scenario. Will he urge the IMO to get on and do a trial such as this to see what happens? My fear is that there will be wholesale panic.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I am sure I speak for everyone in your Lordships’ House when I say that we hope that such an occasion does not occur. Importantly, to get to the crux of what the noble Lord is asking, the UK has been not just working very closely with the IMO—the organisation that leads activities in this field—but showing leadership to improve the importance of safety. SOLAS chapter 3 in particular makes provision for passenger vessels to undertake drills on a weekly basis—and, following the “Costa Concordia” accident, passengers must undertake safety drills to familiarise themselves directly with evacuation procedures to address the sort of scenario the noble Lord illustrates.

Great Western Main Line: Electrification

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I agree with my noble friend. As I am sure she is aware, Wales will benefit to the tune of £2 billion from rail modernisation. For her information, together with the Welsh Government we have allocated a further £125 million to update the initiative around the Valley Lines.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that this project started off at £800 million and has now gone up to over £2 billion, £3 billion or maybe £4 billion, and that the same team responsible for the pricing has been pricing phase 1 of HS2? As he will know—I put it to him at the Committee stage of the HS2 Bill—those costs will now be, in my estimation, £54 billion and not £24 billion. Is it not about time that we got a grip on costs?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

We had several meetings away from this Chamber about the costs of HS2. As the noble Lord is fully aware, the experts who are working on the modelling and pricing of HS2 are meeting notable experts whom he himself put forward, and it will be interesting to await the outcome of that meeting.

Cycling: Women

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2017 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to encourage more women to cycle.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, with the permission of the House I beg leave to move the Question standing in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. He has been delayed returning from the Scilly Isles. Some people will do anything to avoid the Brexit debate.

Brexit: Transport

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 6th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for securing this debate because there are interesting and important issues that we have to discuss. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, mentioned the leadership of the UK on emissions. He may or may not be right, but when it comes to the production of emissions, which is the dirty air that we breathe in our major cities, the European Union has launched infraction proceedings against the British Government because we have not cleaned up the air that we should have under European regulations. There are two sides to this. On so many environmental things, I do not believe that our Governments—of whichever party—would have done as much as they have or should without pressure from European legislation.

I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. I am also on the board of United Kingdom Trade and Investment in Europe, which is a small group of companies and people in Brussels whose aim is to facilitate the knowledge of what UK organisations need to work in the European Union generally. Now, of course, they are also trying to get a feel for what the position of the European institutions might be when it comes to negotiations. The first comment from there—which I quote often as I am sure it is right—is that the White Paper, which many noble Lords have discussed this evening, will be seen in Brussels and many other national capitals as the UK Government picking and choosing from a menu and wanting to retain access to the single market while gaining more control over migration. I am sure Angela Merkel will remain unwavering, as she has said on many occasions that Europe’s four freedoms are inseparable.

When it comes to transport, the White Paper helpfully shows on page 53 that 40% of our exports are to the European Union. It is as well to remember that this is not just a one-way export, because over the last 40 years with the single market, freight has gone backwards and forwards many times in the course of its manufacture or distribution. As other noble Lords have said, it generally moves without too much obstruction and it has become extremely efficient in the way that it has been done.

I find it surprising that the White Paper does not mention rail, maritime or ports. It mentions air and road, and the problems might be much the same, but perhaps the solutions are not. If we think that one of the important issues is for our freight operators to be able to operate across Europe, we need to recall that it was only 25 years ago that cabotage was abolished, which was particularly enforced in France and prevented our own hauliers bringing back loads from France to the UK. That was abolished as part of the negotiations on the Channel Tunnel, on which I worked, and is not something we want to go back to.

Turning briefly to railway legislation, as noble Lords have said, it is very important, if we are to use railway traffic across Europe from here, which I hope we will continue to do, that the standards of the legislation are Europe-wide. I recall about five years ago, a manufacturer of some excellent railway wagons in this country wanted the wagons to be able to operate in France. Because they had to be approved by the French standards agency, many things were found wrong with them and they never went there. If they had been manufactured in France, I am convinced there would have been no problem at all. One of the successes of the European work in the last few years has been the creation of the European Railway Agency, which now has the ability to approve rolling stock on a Europe-wide basis. That is incredibly useful for our manufacturers and I hope it will continue.

As other noble Lords have said, the biggest problem will come on the frontiers themselves. I understood from a colleague today that, if there were a 24-hour traffic jam at Dover, it would stretch up the M20, the M2 and the A2, and round the M25 as far as Stansted airport. This is the importance that we must attach to getting the traffic through Dover on time and as freely as possible. The noble Baroness mentioned 390 million filings a year, and she is absolutely right, but how is this to be done? I am told that the French customs authorities already employ three times the number of staff that we do. We get delays. The incredible thing is that the number of units of freight going through Dover has increased by 32% in four years. Depending on what happens to our trade generally with the rest of the European Union, that might not matter very much; it may not go on. The free flow of the documentation—it all seems to go through Dover at the moment, apart from what goes through the Channel Tunnel—is vital for our future trading and prosperity.

The biggest problem—which is not identified in the White Paper, although other noble Lords may have referred to it—is the uncertainty. Companies, operators, exporters, importers and forwarders want to know what is happening, when it will happen and how much it will affect their business. Do they have to change their manufacture or distribution from the UK to France or somewhere else? All the big sheds that have been built around this country for distribution might have to go back; perhaps there will be more in France. I hope the Government will tell us very quickly what is going to go on, what is happening and when, for the sake of our industry.

Southern Rail

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to nationalise the Southern railway franchise.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, there are no plans to strip Govia Thameslink Railway of its franchise. The speculation in the media is just that: speculation. DfT of course continues to monitor the operational and contractual performance of all franchises.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but there was a lot of press speculation last week that Ministers were considering taking direct control of rail franchises, including Southern rail. I cite the Guardian:

“Options ranging from splitting off Southern from Govia … to a complete ‘managed exit’ to take direct control of the entire franchise”.


It might be odd that none of that came from anywhere near government. I am pleased that the Minister is saying that there is no plan to nationalise, because on the same day the Secretary of State repeated that there is no better alternative to GTR—I hope that noble Lords would agree with that. Of course, three years ago, the Government got rid of the nationalised east coast main line franchise, because Sir Patrick McLoughlin, the then Secretary of State, said:

“I do not believe that it would be in the public interest for us to have a nationalised train operating company”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/6/13; col 449.]


I hope that in his response the Minister can clarify what the Government’s policy is.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord has perhaps answered his own question. He cited two sources: one was the Guardian, and the other was my right honourable friend, the then Secretary of State. I would rely on the response of my right honourable friend.

High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendments 1 and 6 are also in my name. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has set out the reasons behind them very clearly, but there is a continuing worry about what is proposed at Euston. I think this is the eighth attempt by HS2 to come up with a scheme. If you produce something eight times, you begin to wonder what the problem is. The latest scheme is going to cause 19 years of construction or rebuilding of the station itself. That is a very long time for any project—very much longer than London Bridge, and that is not a great success—and there are ways of doing it much more cheaply. It would work to do it more quickly and within the Euston width —many people have heard us speak about that before—but my worst worry is about the cost, and I shall speak on that more generally in a minute.

In one of his helpful responses in Committee, the Minister said that lots of cost estimates had been done for both Euston and the whole scheme. The fact remains that the last one that was published—Additional Provision 3, issued about 18 months ago in September 2015 by Simon Kirby, the then chief executive of HS2—said that the total cost of the additional provisions was £66 million and that the cost of compensation was £97.8 million. Only a few months later Professor McNaughton, who was the man leading on HS2, told me and several colleagues that the compensation cost was actually going to be £1 billion at Euston. I cannot see how anyone can be happy with something that is out by a factor of 10. I think that there are still civil engineering problems there and, as one noble Lord asked about in Committee, that there are still plans to redesign the portal; we hope that it will be an improvement. It would be nice if noble Lords were told about this. There are quite a few residents I know in Camden who know about this, but none of us has been told, in spite of quite a lot of asking.

Euston may well be the right location, and we can debate the best way into Euston. In France and Germany, when a high-speed service has been built over the years, the last few miles into the city centre have generally been on the classic tracks because of the cost and disruption of knocking down enormous numbers of properties. Why we should be different, I do not know—we can ask ourselves the question. The reason for this amendment is to try to squeeze out of the Government their plans for Euston. If they do not have any, let us see if we can have an interim station that would really work at Old Oak Common, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said.

Amendment 6 is grouped with this amendment. I will not repeat what I said in Committee, because it is clearly on the record. We organised costings with Michael Bing, a quantity surveyor who has written the textbook of costings for Network Rail; that is two years old now, so I hope that it will implement it soon, because there are problems with costs on the classic network. He concluded that the cost of HS2 at Euston, with the tunnel as far as Old Oak Common, was £8.25 billion. That did not fit well, in my mind, with the total committed expenditure limits from the Government for the whole of phase 1 of £24 billion, because it is about one-third of it for eight kilometres out of 200. So I asked the same gentlemen, using the same methodology and rates, to cost the whole of phase 1, and it came out at about £54 billion, which is actually double the Government’s estimate they published in a Written Answer to me on 21 December.

I am very grateful to the Minister: we had a meeting on this last week and agreed to look at it further. However, my worry is that the original costings that we produced have never been challenged by government. You would think that the Government would have come to me or my colleagues to say, “You’ve got it wrong. You are using the wrong assumptions and the wrong design”, or whatever. Well, we could not use the wrong design—it was their design that we were using—but nobody has come back to me to say that we got it wrong. That rather leads me to believe that we probably got it quite right—or nearly right. The consequence of that is that the £54 billion we have calculated for phase 1 is actually the total expenditure limit that the Government have announced for the whole project, including phases 2 and 3. As the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said, we do not want to stop at Birmingham. It is the sections north of Birmingham that are, in my view, more in need of improvement—at Manchester, Crewe, Leeds and beyond—than the southern sections are in the first phase.

It is very important that we get a handle on the costs. It is right that we should be talking about this at Report because it is surely up to us as parliamentarians to challenge the Government so that they know what the costs are before they start work. It is very easy on a project to start work and, then, after a few years, to scratch your stubble and say, “Oh dear! I got it wrong”, and go back for more money. It is quite possible to get the costings right. Noble Lords may have heard somebody from Crossrail on the “Today” programme this morning talking about its success. It really is a success: it is on time, I believe, and it is certainly on budget. So it is possible to do it. My argument, and my plea to the Minister, is: can we not get the same discipline attached to HS2, before it is too late?

[Lord Brabazon of Tara (Con)]

My Lords, I have one question. Perhaps it is for my noble friend the Minister or perhaps it is for the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. My understanding was that if Old Oak Common were to be used as the terminus for this railway, even in the interim, a completely different design would be required for Old Oak Common than is currently in the Bill. It would therefore require the Bill to be re-hybridised, and would put an almost endless delay on the whole thing.

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I will leave the main burden of speaking to Amendment 5 to my noble friend Lord Berkeley, but Members of your Lordships’ House might wish to be made aware that this amendment was first raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, in Committee, who may wish to contribute on this point. Rather than going through any of these issues, as they are not specific to the point I am making, I will make a slightly different point. In projects of this type, issues will arise during the process of planning and design of the final stages when other good ideas, which are not in the main Bill, come up. There may be flexibility in the framing of the Bill—an ability to make changes. However, on the sort of proposal that has been made by the Wendover community, which has been rather badly treated by the railway as regards how it has been routed, if it was possible for that community to come up with a good idea, even at this late stage, what is the process by which it might be considered? If, for example, it showed that demonstrable savings or huge environmental benefits would result, are there flexibilities in the process going forward? I am not talking about mistakes made or in any sense going back—I want to interrogate the question of what happens now. Can the Minister reassure us that there would be an opportunity for such schemes to be given proper evaluation and discussion at the appropriate stage? I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, since we appear to be merging the two groups together, I will speak briefly to Amendment 5, which is about Wendover. I do not want to rehearse what we have already spoken about this afternoon or elsewhere. However, I have a question for the Minister. Now that we are moving towards Royal Assent—this may come up in discussions about any changes that may happen at Euston to keep the trains running, which is in a later amendment—to what extent is the successful contractor able to come up with his own ideas for either doing some of the work more cheaply or with less environmental impact? Wendover tunnel comes to mind, because I am advised that building a tunnel in place of the open cut and viaduct is cheaper—and of course it has a much reduced environmental impact. Provided that he does it within the limits of deviation and all the other limits on the drawings, presumably it is up to the contractor to propose it to HS2—which presumably will accept it if all those conditions are met.

Alternatively, is there another way to do this? I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response, because tunnels are cheaper—somewhat surprisingly, but we discussed it in Committee—and would obviously have a reduced environmental impact. If it is within the limits of deviation and the other limits on the legislation, it would be good if the contractor just chose to do that—in which case there would be benefits all round.

[Baroness Pidding (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 3, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. Before speaking, I draw noble Lords’ attention to the declaration of interests that I made in Committee.

I am aware that this issue was raised in Committee, but I fear that we did not get the fulsome response that we hoped for from the Minister. I would hope that all Governments, particularly a Conservative Government, would be interested in value for money. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, we are told what the total cost of the railway is—although it seems to change every time I see a figure, and few believe that it will stop there. But surely this is only half the issue. The environmental impact of this line, particularly over the Chilterns AONB, has not been costed, and the Government have been strangely reluctant to provide figures or the methodology used. Can the Minster let us have this information? At this stage a full explanation is imperative.

If the people of this country are going to get behind this project, surely we ought to be transparent about the figures that have been used to decide that 8.7 kilometres of additional tunnelling, which would preserve the AONB, is “too expensive” because the benefits to the environment are insufficient to outweigh the additional cost of tunnelling. If the figures stack up—I have no idea whether they do—we will at least have been transparent in the process. Surely the public, who will have to pay for this project in so many ways—and of whom relatively few will see any actual benefit—are entitled to a proper cost-benefit analysis before our countryside is destroyed.

If we destroy the AONB—and it will be destroyed—without making a proper cost-benefit analysis of what we are doing, we will not be forgiven. Indeed, not having such a cost-benefit analysis would be regarded as pure vandalism. I urge the Minister and the Government just to do what is requested in this sensible amendment.

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[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I will speak also to the amendments tabled in my name. Amendment 7 seeks to ensure that traffic regulation orders—or TROs—which are a mechanism for local highway authorities to make temporary or permanent restrictions on the use of highways, do not frustrate the construction of the railway. These orders can be used to stop up roads, by restricting them to one-way operation or restricting them so that they cannot be used by lorries. A local authority could, therefore, put a lorry ban on a road that is needed to reach an HS2 phase 1 construction site or point.

Before I go any further, it is important to say that this amendment replaces the one put forward by the Government in Grand Committee, where several noble Lords on all sides of the House, including Members of your Lordships’ Select Committee, expressed a number of concerns. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, expressed concern at the lack of consultation with the local authorities. I withdrew the amendment at that time, and I agree that the lack of consultation was regrettable and is not the way that amendments should be developed or presented; for that, I apologise. However, I am happy to confirm that, even while the Grand Committee was taking place, my officials were having constructive discussions with local authorities, and these amendments are the result of those discussions.

We believe that the amendments address the substantive concerns that local authorities were expressing. This new clause and schedule will ensure that the local highway authorities consult the Secretary of State for Transport before making any orders that affect either specific roads identified for use by HS2 or other roads related to HS2 construction works, avoiding the risk that TROs could inadvertently cause problems for the construction of HS2. It also allows the Secretary of State, if required, to make TROs himself, and to prohibit or revoke TROs that unnecessarily hinder the delivery of the railway.

We have accepted that, as previously formulated, the relevant roads to which the provisions would have applied were too broad. The revisions we have made to the amendment include enabling the Secretary of State to specify particular roads that the provisions will not apply to and removing the specific issue of the,

“1 kilometre from the act limits”,

boundary for relevant roads. We have also revised the amendment to allow the Secretary of State to specify types of traffic regulation orders that we will not be concerned about, which will provide further clarity to local authorities. Furthermore, we have introduced into the provisions a sunset clause relating to the consultation requirement. This means that the Secretary of State will need to make a Statement when consultation is no longer required in a local highway authority area due to the phase 1 construction having been completed in that area. The circumstances in which the Secretary of State may use these powers has been tightened, so the Secretary of State must consider that the use of the powers is necessary for the timely, efficient and cost-effective construction of HS2 and is reasonable in the circumstances.

Additional changes include a duty that will mean that any temporary traffic regulation order that the Secretary of State asks a local highway authority to make is for only a reasonable period of time, with reference to the length of the relevant construction works. The amendment also requires the Secretary of State to produce guidance on how these powers will operate. In addition to these revisions, we have agreed to provide specific undertakings that these powers will not be used to affect any existing busways, cycleways or the London Safer Lorry Scheme. Clearly, we hope that there will be little or no need to rely on these powers, as the regular meetings established with local highway authorities will be used to consult, agree and monitor local traffic management plans. However, these powers are needed to ensure that if these arrangements fail, HS2 can be delivered in an efficient manner.

Given the impact that traffic regulation orders could have on the construction of HS2, it is prudent for us to take these powers, and the changes that we have made will now provide the local authorities with the clarification and additional protections they sought in relation to these provisions. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has tabled several amendments regarding this amendment that are listed further down the Marshalled List. I will be happy to address the issues raised in those once the noble Lord has had an opportunity to speak to them. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I will speak to the remaining amendments in this group, starting with Amendment 14. First, I should express my gratitude to the Minister for the way he took on some of the comments and criticisms in Committee. I am aware of a number of meetings that have taken place between his officials and representatives of some of the local authorities up the route—from Transport for London to the West Midlands and some in between—and I think there has been a lot of progress.

The problem for these authorities is that this kind of detailed legislation should have been in the Bill before it even started its passage through either House, so that the local authorities could have prepared petitions if they did not like it and had a detailed discussion in either or both of the Select Committees. It is quite difficult and time-consuming to try to resolve these issues on Report. I received a number of comments from local authorities, some from TfL in particular, which are quite important. They would be much happier if all these issues could be resolved before Third Reading and would be happy with the undertakings that I believe the Minister said he would offer—although I have not seen them, so I cannot comment on them. As a matter of principle, I hope that the Government will not do this again—rush something as complicated as this at the very last stage. I am sure they had a very good reason for it, but perhaps we will learn from the next stages of phase 2—phases 2A and 2B—and anything else that happens, such as Crossrail 2. As the Minister said, there is a need to ensure that what is required on the traffic side to build HS2 is not compromised. However, it also needs to be balanced by the needs of local people getting to work, driving up the motorway or using local train services, and that is what these regulations are designed to do. There are a few other things that probably need doing.

The Minister invited me to speak to these amendments. I will do so in four small groups, as quickly as I can. Then I hope he will be able to say what he can do and whether he agrees with them or not. Amendments 14, 15 and 16 involve a duty to consult, the power to direct and vary TROs, and so on. We are getting down to the definition of what is called a “relevant road”—at which some noble Lords might start glazing over and wonder what we are talking about, but it is quite important. HS2 has already sought approval, in Schedule 17, for many roads. In respect of Transport for London, it sought approval in respect of the entire GLA road network, which covers all the red routes in London. That seems a little excessive because there are an awful lot of red routes in London, and not many of them are near Euston or the roads in. I am sure it will not need to use these roads, but the burden of consultation on the local authorities is quite severe. This amendment is intended to reduce the need for consultation once HS2 has decided where it wants to run its tracks and other transport. It will not restrict the use of these roads to other traffic by having these requirements on all the red routes through London. I understand that the department has offered an undertaking to TfL, but I hope that this could apply in a similar way across the country, from the West Midlands downwards and to all the local authorities in between.

Harking back to the last debate about tunnels, we forget that nearly all the tunnels are in the southern half of the route—we can debate the reasons for that. But the line goes through a lot of urban areas in the northern half of the route and to some extent the transport problems may be even worse there than in the south. I hope the Minister will consider this amendment as a way of restricting the amount of consultation required. Consultation is obviously a good thing, but there is a limit to how much a local authority can cope with consultation on these TROs. They have to do many other bits of consultation at the same time. The amendment is therefore intended to give local authorities much greater certainty and avoid an excessive, disproportionate and unjustifiable burden on them.

When he introduced this group of amendments, I think the Minister hinted about Amendment 17. There is already a need for the Secretary of State, when he makes, varies or revokes a TRO, to consult with a traffic authority. The purpose is currently limited to ensuring public safety, reducing public convenience and taking into account the requirement to which the traffic authority is subject. But there is nothing that says account should be taken of the environmental effects. That should be added, because some of the plans—which may or may not be necessary—could have a significant, adverse environmental effect if there is too much construction traffic. I know there has been a very full environmental study of the whole route, but when we are getting into the detail, people will worry locally about where the traffic is going. If the environmental effects are not allowed to be considered, that would cause problems locally.

Amendment 18 relates to deadlines for the release of guidance. The proposed new schedule includes an obligation on the Secretary of State to prepare a guidance statement under paragraph 13, having consulted traffic authorities in respect of a traffic authority’s duty to consult under paragraph 1(2) and how the Secretary of State proposes to exercise his powers in respect of making, varying or revoking TROs under the schedule. This requirement is a welcome step. It ensures that the traffic authorities have the opportunity to be consulted, give their opinion and so forth. But what is missing is a deadline within which this guidance should be offered.

I have received strong pressure from some traffic authorities, saying that they need the guidance statement to be produced within three months of Royal Assent. As I said, they often have to process hundreds of these TROs a year. It is a big workload. They do not complain because it is the right way of doing things, but it would be good to have the guidance at an early stage so that they can take it forward in a structured way. I understand that the department has offered, in the form of an undertaking to a number of traffic authorities, an obligation to produce the guidance within three months. If the department is happy to offer that deadline, it raises the question of why that cannot be included in the Bill. Maybe I am too late with that, but it is a pity it was not included in the Bill.

I have nearly finished. Amendment 20 is confined to London roads. It comes from the fact that the road structure in London is different from the rest of the country. The duty to maintain a public highway falls on a number of different public bodies. The Secretary of State is of course the highway authority for motorways and trunk roads. Outside London, the county council, metropolitan council or unitary council has responsibility for the roads in the relevant area, except for motorways and trunk roads. But in London it is slightly different. TfL is the highway authority for Greater London Authority roads and then each London borough is the highway authority for all other roads in its area. Generally, the highway authority is also the traffic authority for the road. Traffic authorities have the power to manage traffic and can make TROs.

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[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, again I thank the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for their contributions, and for making time to meet me and my officials to discuss this issue. As I said in introducing the amendments in my name, I have made full acknowledgement, both in Committee and earlier this afternoon, about the way the amendments were originally presented. We learn from some of the issues that arise both from the legislative process and from the scale of a project such as this. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, there are occasions when challenges arise and we try to deal with them. Equally, with infrastructure projects—not just HS2 but other projects coming forward—it is important to learn from experience, as we have from Crossrail. We have been putting in place much of what we have learned from the Crossrail experience, which has been positive, in our discussions.

I will speak to the specific amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and I will address some of the issues raised by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord on issues around existing provisions and assurances. First, I put on record my thanks to the noble Lord for his specific help with the further development of the Government’s amendment on TROs. As I noted earlier, I totally understand the sentiment and I acknowledge the contributions made in this regard.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about ongoing discussions. My understanding is that there are ongoing discussions but that they are mainly with TfL. Indeed, the latest meeting took place only a few hours ago—and, as I told the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, outside the Chamber this afternoon, these discussions are going forward in a positive way, in terms of understanding and taking account of the concerns of, in this case, TfL. I will check, but my understanding—as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser—is that the discussions are only with TfL and that the concerns of other local authorities have been addressed. If that is not the case I will confirm it to the noble Lord, as he suggested.

[Lord Berkeley]

We are all rushing to get the latest information, but I understand from my meeting with TfL and others yesterday that most of the issues under discussion cover the whole route, except for my last amendment, which was specific to TfL—but I may be wrong.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I will address those points specifically as I come to each amendment.

Amendment 14 affects only TfL and no other traffic authority. My officials have now shared a draft undertaking with TfL which addresses this issue and indeed goes further than what was raised. The amendment agrees a number of London boroughs in which the Secretary of State will issue the notice that this consultation requirement will not apply. Given that this issue, in terms of the undertaking, is already addressed in a legal contract, there is no need to include this proposal in legislation.

Similarly, Amendments 18, 19 and 20 are included in the same undertaking, which deals specifically with the concerns in a manner that will also avoid any issues with the potential rehybridisation of the Bill at this late stage—which I fully acknowledge is not the intention of the noble Lord.

Amendments 15 and 16 relate to roads on which the secretary of State can exercise his powers to make TROs, and seek to limit these to roads in relation to which a local authority must consult the Secretary of State. In this case I can assure the noble Lord that, as I said in my opening remarks, the powers of the Secretary of State to direct can be exercised only in the limited circumstances where it is necessary for HS2 and deemed reasonable. If it is necessary for the timely, efficient and cost-effective construction of HS2, and reasonable, the Secretary of State will be able to make the TRO.

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[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, to concur with what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, said, we did discuss this at great length in the committee. A target of 28% target has been set; it is certainly not a maximum, as I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, knows. Most of the points that she made are valid, except for the comparison. We are not comparing like with like. In Crossrail, for example, although a significant amount of spoil was shifted using the river, it had to get to the river first. That was part of the problem. This is an unrealistic target, which does not mean to say that we should not be ensuring that the contractors make every effort to take the maximum amount by rail. They have an incentive to do so but there are limitations—for instance, as to how much you can take out of Euston by rail and the times at which it can be done. All that was discussed.

Although it appears reasonable to set this kind of target, I concur with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, that it is not the right way to go about it. There should be—the Secretary of State will ensure that there will be—very significant pressure on the contractors to take the maximum amount off the road, for all the reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said. I look forward to hearing what further assurances the Minister can give.

Camden may not have got everything, but it received 100 assurances, which were legal requirements, given by the promotor during the course of its own negotiations, and further additions that we made as the result of our hearings.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. I think I have some good news. I pay tribute the Select Committee’s work on this. I know that it tried very hard and quizzed lots of people as to how it could be done. As is so often the case, when it gets to the stage of involving contractors, sometimes contractors have good ideas. I was talking to some of them and their specialists last week. One of the key ideas is if you bore tunnels from Old Oak Common to Euston and you complete at least one at any early stage, you can take the spoil out through the tunnel. This is a very good idea because you can then deal with it at Old Oak Common. I am told it is possible; they are trying to work it into the programme. If it is possible, the figure for getting spoil and demolition out would probably go up to above 50%—I was told 70% or 80%—which is really good news. In other words, they have come up with some creative ideas. Maybe we were wrong to criticise HS2 in the past for not coming up with such ideas. It has given us a lot of debating time and the committee several days of discussion, but at least people have come up with a good idea. I think four contractors are tendering and I do not know whether they will all adopt this, but it demonstrates that it is possible. I hope Ministers will do all they can to encourage the contractors to be similarly creative.

There is another issue. In Committee we discussed concreting materials and other materials. The present amendment covers just concreting materials. The creative people are now saying, quite rightly, that they cannot bring cement in by train because it takes too long to unload, but that they can bring in most of the concreting aggregate by train and they can put a batching plant for mixing it somewhere on site. I am sure the committee looked at different locations for that; I have, and it is possible. As the noble Baroness said in her opening remarks, there is not a capacity problem for these trains going into Euston at night. It could easily be done.

I hope the Minister will accept these amendments as pointing the way forward to encouraging HS2 to continue to be creative like this. We do not want 1,500 trucks a day in Camden because the construction will last for 19 years—not that all those trucks will be there for 19 years, but they will still there be there for a considerable period. The basic movement out of spoil and demolition material by rail and bringing in concreting aggregate by rail would make a lot of people happy. I am convinced that the project can be done on that basis without any adverse effect on its programme or cost. If it is set up to do that, the contractors will do it well and it will work well.

[Lord Rosser]

As has been said, the amendment calls for a plan to be published for each construction site in the Euston area to show how the number of lorries delivering to or from the site could be limited to meet laid-down restrictions by the weight of materials transported by road, with the remainder being carried by rail. As has been said, this is an issue to which the Lords Select Committee, on which the three main parties and the Cross Benches were represented, gave consideration. The committee said in paragraph 411 of its report:

“We are very strongly of the opinion that as much material as possible should be moved by rail, so as to reduce road traffic congestion and air pollution. However, we are convinced by the evidence that this aim will be significantly more difficult to achieve at Euston, as compared with most of the other projects referred to by Mr Dyer and Lord Berkeley. We are satisfied that HS2 is taking this responsibility seriously, and we are hopeful that significant progress will be made as the time comes for contractors to be appointed and become involved in the detailed planning. In the meantime we see no useful purpose to be served by attempting to set fixed targets. It would be little more than plucking aspirational figures out of the air”.


We do not diverge from the position of the Select Committee. Since it is also our view as much material as possible should be moved by rail, we will not vote against the amendment if it is put to the vote. Indeed, we want to see the “significant progress” made with contractors to which the Select Committee referred in its report.

The amendment does not indicate what should happen once the plan has been published. The plan would be required to set out how the number of lorries could be limited to deliver the restrictions on movement referred to. Presumably, this would be without any detailed reference to costs or any other potential implications. Frankly, rather than the terms of the amendment, with what the Select Committee might or might not regard as its aspirational figures, surely what is required to deliver for the citizens of Camden is a firm commitment from the Government to hold HS2 to the undertaking it has given to maximise the movement of materials by rail, including in the Euston area, despite the difficulties referred to by the Select Committee, with a view to its going well beyond the guaranteed baseline for moving materials by rail of 28% of excavated soil and 17% of imported construction materials. Paragraph 117 of the promoter’s response to the Select Committee’s special report says:

“The Promoter reiterates its overarching commitment to continue to seek to maximise, as far as reasonably practicable, the amount of material that can be moved by rail, and the underlying commitments it has given the London Borough of Camden”.


I hope the Minister will address this point about how the Government intend to ensure that maximising the movement of materials by rail is delivered.

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Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

10: After Clause 43, insert the following new Clause—
“West Coast Main Line trains at Euston
The nominated undertaker must, within three months of the passing of this Act, publish plans demonstrating how, during any works supporting the construction of Phase One of High Speed 2, at least four tracks serving the West Coast Main Line trains in and out of Euston station would remain open at all times, except for the normal possession periods of Network Rail of nights, weekends and public holiday periods.”

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I promise that I will be quick. This amendment concerns the need to keep the west coast main line trains running into Euston while HS2 is constructed. When the Minister kindly met me last week, I showed him a cross-section drawing that I received some time ago from HS2 which described building what most people call a bird-cage—it is a hell of a big bird-cage; it is several train storeys high—near Park Village East. It shows how HS2 trains have grade separation, but it is all underneath three or four tracks of the west coast main line. I cannot see how you can build this bird-cage underground and keep the trains running on top. I have not had a sensible answer from anyone as to how it will be done. Perhaps the bird-cage is being redesigned; perhaps the tracks will be moved over, if that is possible; but it is important that the Minister can confirm that the west coast main line trains will keep operating during construction, because the poor old commuters and long-distance passengers will not be very pleased if it is closed for six months.

I have not received any later drawings of that cross-section. Perhaps it has changed but, under the version I had, I should think that you would have to close Euston for about a year. I hope that that is not the case, and I am sure that HS2 is coming up with alternative designs, but somehow those four tracks going into Euston must be kept operational—except for the odd weekend or night. I beg to move.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I think the noble Lord just spoke to Amendment 10. I am just checking to make sure.

[Lord Berkeley]

Amendment 9 was not moved.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Although the majority of HS2 phase 1 construction work will not affect the existing railway, possessions will be needed where works to the existing railway are necessary, such as around Euston and Old Oak Common, to build junctions or indeed to cross other lines. However, we believe that the amendment is unnecessary as the design in the Bill retains the approach tracks, and our design development of Euston is exploring further work to ensure that all six approach tracks can be retained. This will enable the existing level of service to operate in and out of Euston until the opening of HS2 phase 1 in 2016.

We have also asked HS2 Ltd to undertake further design development with the object of minimising the impacts on the travelling public, protecting the current levels of train service and minimising the impact on local communities. I assure the noble Lord that possessions needed will be booked by or through Network Rail in accordance with standard industry processes. The possessions planning process includes consultation with the wider railway industry, including operators and users, to ensure that the relevant travel information is communicated to passengers and that possessions are considered in the context of wider railway operations.

For any such possessions, Network Rail will work with the industry to agree how and when to take such possessions to allow HS2 construction works to be undertaken. We will be able to take these possessions only with the agreement of passenger and freight train operators—but they cannot unreasonably withhold access. The decision on whether possession is agreed to or not will be driven by the train operators being satisfied that the possessions are necessary and efficiently planned, and that suitable passenger mitigations are in place to minimise disruption to services—which I know is the noble Lord’s concern. I assure him that we are working collaboratively with the railway industry to develop a route-wide communications plan to prepare passengers when engineering works take place.

We have previously talked about other infrastructure projects. This will include the lessons learned from experience of the London Olympics and other significant closures—the noble Lord mentioned London Bridge. Further work is under way so that we can understand passenger circulation while Euston station—a specific concern of the noble Lord—is being constructed. There will of course be regular discussion and consultation with operators of passenger and freight services as we move forward with planning and detailed design stages of the project, but I return to my initial comments about ensuring that those tracks are retained to ensure access to Euston.

Based on the details I have given, I hope that the noble Lord will be minded to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to the Minister for that answer—and I am reasonably comforted. The procedures he outlined for taking possession, after consultation, are certainly what would be expected from a major project; they are the right way to do this and I am very glad that he outlined them. However, he did not quite say how we will get around this problem. This part of the project will involve digging a hole about 20 metres deep, and the final cross-section shows that it will be underneath two of the tracks. That is not a weekend possession. It will probably take the best part of a year—unless the plan is to move the tracks over and, presumably, pay for that to happen. So I will reflect on what the Minister said, but I will remain worried until and unless I see a new design from HS2 which solves the problem. I think that the present design is frankly insoluble without closing the west coast main line for a year—but I shall pursue this issue outside the Bill. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 10 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

Following my noble friend’s excellent description of bats, is it true that they have found a type of bat directly on the centre line of the route which had never been found before? How much does it cost to move the bats? My noble friend has asked about the cost of removing badgers so they can be culled somewhere else. Nobody is going to cull the bats, of course, but there must be a cost to moving them too.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I always say that your Lordships’ House serves as a great place of education. I praise the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Snape, introduced his amendment. As we come to the conclusion of our deliberations on Report, it is much appreciated and I commend his style. I turn to the specifics of the amendment. As many noble Lords will be aware, the environmental statement for the Bill ran to some 50,000 pages and exhaustively examined all potential impacts from the Bill scheme and provides the necessary mitigations, including, of course, for protected species.

The noble Lord, Lord Snape, mentioned specific protected species that could potentially be affected by phase 1 of HS2 and these include a number of bat species—I do not have immediately to hand information about the specific type of bat that has been found and the associated costs but I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley on that. The protections also cover otters, badgers, barn owls, not forgetting the notorious great crested newts. I am not going to claim to have seen one, but I assure the noble Lord that I will attempt to do so before Third Reading. On a more serious note, it is important that species are protected. The noble Lord mentioned the badger cull and asked for an absolute assurance. As a Minister responsible for steering the Bill through your Lordships’ House, I can assure the noble Lord and all concerned that the badgers moved for HS2 are intended to be moved only a short distance. None of them will be moved to the cull areas which the noble Lord listed. I have just had an update on the bat issue.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I will write to the noble Lord on that, if I may. Perhaps it will serve as an education for all of us. As I said, I have an update on the bats: I feel a bit like breaking news. I have been assured that there is no breed of bat on the line that has never been discovered before. However, there are a number of rare bat colonies near the line of the route and the mitigation measures that have been created include bat bridges. I expect the next question will be: do I know what a bat bridge looks like?

[Lord Berkeley]

Is the Minister aware that, about 10 years ago, his department constructed two bat bridges in Cornwall, at a place called Dobwalls bypass—which I go under most weekends. At that time, they cost £300,000 each and I asked a load of Written Questions asking how many bats used it and how many did not bother and just flew across the road. I got the number of bats that used it, but not the ones that flew across the road. Do we really need more of these bat bridges?