Mopeds, Motorcycles and Powered Light Vehicle Industry

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to be able to contribute to this short debate and congratulate the noble Baroness on achieving it. We seem to spend a lot of time talking about this subject in the round at the moment. The noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, also expanded on the complexity and the different types. There is the generic type, which is probably “a wheeled vehicle”, although I am not sure about that. However, there are more and more of them; we had a very interesting debate on pedicabs last night, and some of us thought that that legislation should be extended to scooters for various reasons that I will not get into now.

The important thing is that the Government, when looking at all these different types of transport and the regulations that inevitably go with them, do so on a consistent basis. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, some of that is to do with net zero, but some of it is also to do with things such as safety, which is in the title of the debate, and sustainability. You could add things such as parking, the electric power, regulation and what these vehicles are used for. We have talked about different types of motorbike today: there are big ones and small ones, and some noble Lords will say that some of them are hated by people and others are loved. However, they may also be hauling trailers taking kids to school. They may be doing all kinds of different things. The legislation must somehow cover all that.

One issue has not come up so far, which is the question of lithium-ion battery fires. I have been studying quite a lot of them in relation to fires on ships, which are a much bigger problem because obviously the vehicles are bigger. They have a habit of setting themselves on fire. That can apply to motorbikes or whatever we are going to call them, and to electric bikes, cars and everything else. All that needs looking at because it is a terribly important safety element.

The other issue which the noble Baroness mentioned was the consultation that has been going on for these L-category vehicles. I hope that when the Minister responds he will be able to tell us when we are likely to get some answers on that because we need them. I was, frankly, surprised at the Prime Minister’s statement on the delay in phasing out petrol and diesel cars. It is interesting that the Financial Times reports today that the Office for Budget Responsibility says that the take-up of EV cars has slowed, which it appears is the result of that delay, although we know that they are expensive. Clearly, the Prime Minister does not really mind too much about where they are manufactured and how many are manufactured, but he cares about people who want to go around in 4x4s emitting a maximum amount of pollution. We need to look at all these things in the round.

I remember, probably before most noble Lords were even in this House, moving an amendment to some Bill suggesting that 4x4s were the most unsafe vehicle if you were to hit a child outside. They are very safe inside for little Johnny but if you are going to hit somebody outside, they are very unsafe. Therefore I suggested that 4x4s should be banned for one mile around schools during the school-run period. Of course, the Government did not like that. Is that surprising? We love the cars and nothing else.

It is important to take into consideration the special circumstances of the motorcycle industry—it is a very wide industry; my electric bike could well have been built within it—and for the Government to get the staging of net zero and any other regulation that goes along with it into a proper sequence. We will talk about automatic vehicles next week, and there is the same problem there. Given the whole-life effect, as the noble Baroness said, and the involvement of cars, vans, trailers and everything, there needs to be a consistent and comprehensive policy. Does the Minister agree? If so, when will the Government produce one?

Pedicabs (London) Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill. I am a cyclist, an occasional electric scooter user and of course a pedestrian, and it is certainly needed. I have been in a pedicab too. I do not know how many other noble Lords have been in pedicabs. I do not see many hands going up around the Chamber, but they are actually quite fun when they are driven safely. However, they are just one kind of personal transport that we use, and I hope will continue to use, and they must be safe, they must be reliable and they must of course not upset other road users and transport users to a great extent. We can discuss how upset people get, I am sure.

One issue that needs addressing at the start of the Bill is the definition of a pedicab. We see a lot of freight pedicabs going around these days, but they are excluded from the Bill in Clause 1(2) as long as they have only one driver and nobody is paying to sit on the pillion, if you can call it that.

We must try to make sure that this legislation applies to future trends in transport that we are seeing. Can the Minister explain why we do not yet have any legislation on electric scooters or electric bikes—on where and how you use them, where you park them and whether the batteries catch fire when you just look at them, as happens occasionally? I have a Brompton electric bike and was excluded from One Great George Street last week. I am a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, which owns that building, but was told, “You can’t bring your battery in here; you have to leave it outside”. I said, “You can leave it outside and bring it back for me”. “No, you leave it outside or carry it with you into reception.” If I went into reception with the Minister there, carrying my battery which is likely to catch fire, is it a good thing that the Minister catches fire as well? It is a crazy solution. It has been changed now, but there need to be some rules on this. Brompton has them, but others do not. I am very sorry that there is nothing in the Bill about that.

I welcome the Bill, but we must be careful that we do not allow TfL, in its present state and management— I have no worries about it, as it does very well—to avoid having pedicabs around at all, as there are similar arrangements in cities around the country which you get the feeling are making regulations to do that. I accept that they charge unsuspecting tourists, get in the way and park in the wrong places, et cetera, but in future people may well use them just for personal transport, if they feel like it. It is an option. Just as we are now quite rightly not supposed to park electric bikes in the wrong places in London, it is quite right that there should be rules not to park pedicabs in the wrong places. That is a good thing, provided that it is not a regulation dreamed up by the taxi industry to avoid competition. I am sure that noble Lords feel it is important that competition in moving around any city is fair and that there are regulations as necessary. I hope we can look at this in Committee to make sure that the Bill complies with that.

It concerns me that something is missing from the Bill. What is its objective and purpose? It is a new regulatory framework that is not very different from what we have in other cities, and the regulations do not look onerous. Some of them, particularly on charging, certainly need bringing in, but we also have to make sure that it is proportionate. I hope the Minister will consider something along the lines of an objective for the Bill and the regulations, such that we have responsible operators and try to weed out the irresponsible ones while making things proportionate to what is used in other countries and current taxi regulations. This is a really good opportunity, although lots of things are missing, as I said earlier.

The only other issue which we need to look at is the limits of where these things can operate. Presumably, it will be within the whole TfL area, which one would assume is reasonable, but where can we park them? When I look for somewhere to park round here, my hired electric bike has nice dials on the handlebars which tell me where I cannot park—that includes, of course, outside your Lordships’ House, which is a bit irritating but probably a good idea. Then I go down Millbank, to a place where “P” comes up on the bike to tell me that I can park there. People want to be able to park these bikes as close as possible to where they want to go and have them available. We need to look at where they can be parked convenient to those who want to use them—not just tourists but others as well. I hope that this comes into some of the objectives.

As for the rules on who can drive them, Clause 2(9), which says that regulations may impose requirements on drivers or operators, is very important because some of them are, shall we say, not very good at the moment.

Overall, if we examine this in Committee, as I am sure we will, it will be a really good Bill. I hope that, when the Minister replies, he will agree to look at the issue of objectives and at making sure that we can balance the rights and responsibilities of drivers and pedestrians with what may be proposed, and that if someone who hates the things is appointed to TfL, there is no opportunity for them to cancel them completely, which would be a shame. I am sure that is not the Government’s objective, but with a future Government in a few years’ time, who knows what can happen. I am sure it would not be done under a Labour Government —we love pedicabs—but it is just something to add. I am very pleased to support the Bill.

Low-traffic Neighbourhoods

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what are the health benefits of low traffic neighbourhoods.

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

My Lords, when implemented well and with good community engagement, low-traffic neighbourhoods can improve air quality and bring the obvious health benefits of increased cycling and walking. The Government continue to promote traffic management that enables more choice in how people make their journeys. That is why we are carrying out a review to ensure that, where they exist, low-traffic neighbourhoods are delivering the attractive choices for active travel that we all want to see.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply and welcome him to his new post, but why did the Prime Minister order a review of low-traffic neighbourhoods? I quote from the Telegraph:

“I just want to make sure people know that I’m on their side in supporting them to use their cars to do all the things that matter to them”.


Does that not include the health of their family, or does the car come first?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his welcome. On 30 June, the Prime Minister announced a review of low-traffic neighbourhoods to be carried out by the Department for Transport. The review is intended to focus on the processes for creating low-traffic neighbourhoods, including understanding the consultation and engagement processes that were followed for such schemes and the views of local communities impacted by them. The review will focus on the schemes installed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and will not look at historical street layouts.

Flying Schools: Liquidation

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I was not aware of the issue that my noble friend has raised. It is right that local authorities are able to impose restrictions on aerodromes in certain circumstances. However, they must do that balancing the advantages of having an aerodrome in a certain location, not only in terms of getting people learning to fly, but all the ancillary services and other businesses that are often on aerodromes and are hugely beneficial.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that one of the reasons for these flying schools getting into difficulty is the lack of air navigation aids, which were cancelled when we Brexited? Will she look into reinstating EGNOS or possibly Inmarsat so that not only can more people can learn to fly but so that we can fly to the Hebrides or the Scillies more easily in fog?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord is pushing the boundaries of this Question and indeed my patience.

HS2 Ltd: Costs

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of reports alleging that HS2 Ltd did not disclose accurate cost estimates for the project; and what plans they have to establish an independent inquiry into that company’s actions.

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

My Lords, my department and HS2 Ltd have ensured, and will continue to ensure, claims of misrepresentation are taken seriously and thoroughly investigated. Several of the claims recently detailed in the media have already been established as unfounded, including through an independent National Audit Office report in 2018. The HS2 Ltd counterfraud and business ethics team is investigating the most recent allegation about the company, and while this is under investigation it would be inappropriate to comment further.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that interesting response. There were a lot of people quoted in the Sunday Times at the weekend, including experienced HS2 directors who have risked their careers and jobs because they are so worried about what went wrong within the company. Noble Lords will know that the Prime Minister criticised HS2 in his speech at the Conservative party conference, and I quote:

“There must be some accountability for the mistakes made, for the mismanagement of this project”.


Those are tough words from the Prime Minister. Can I suggest to the noble Baroness that, if she will not have an independent public inquiry into these allegations, the Government should sue the Sunday Times and take it to court?

Transport: Zero-emission Vehicles, Drivers and HS2

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, many noble Lords and other people have said to me, “You must feel very pleased that you won and it got cancelled”. I do not look upon it that way at all. I have been campaigning for many years now because the cost of HS2 was ballooning, but my main reason was that I thought it was the wrong project for what was being built. The costs had gone right out of control and the Prime Minister made the right decision. I am sorry that lots of colleagues will disagree with me.

The question we have to ask the Minister, and ourselves, is: what next? The Prime Minister made the commitment to £36 billion being spent on public transport and other things. That is set out in some ways in the Network North document. I am very pleased to know that some of my friends in Devon and Cornwall will get a slice of something called Network North—well, that is all right. We have to make sure that this is actually delivered. The most important thing for me is to see the delivery in the hands of people such as the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, and his team opposite. They actually represent the transport people in the Midlands and the north who will be the users of whatever gets done there, to some extent. I hope that devolution will help to support that and that they will be given enough money and decision-making powers to make it work.

My questions to the Minister include one or two urgent ones. What about safeguarding of the land? How much of it will be reduced or removed—and when—in phase 2a, phase 2b west and any other bits that do not get used? What is going to happen to the bit between Birmingham and Old Oak Common or Euston? It could do with a repurpose as a railway, but there are ways of saving money without affecting the effect at all.

My final question is: what is going to happen at Euston? The Statement is clear that there is going to be a development company involved. But then I read something else in the press which said that there is no government money going into this and that if the development company cannot make it work, it will not get built. That is not good news for the people who live around there. I remind the Minister that if the project stopped at Old Oak Common, which I still think is perfectly reasonable, she would save £12 billion, on my figures. Maybe that does not matter and maybe it does. We also need to have a proper design of the tunnels going into Euston, because there is no safe design. We presented one to the Select Committee about 10 years ago. It got rejected by HS2, but it may be worth looking at that again. I am very happy to sit down with the Minister and anybody else to talk about this further.

On this very rare occasion, I support what the Prime Minister has said. Let us make it work in the future.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am very grateful for the noble Lord’s support for the Prime Minister’s decision. I would like to reassure him that another piece of good news, which I have not been able to talk about so far, is the massive increase in CRSTS—the city region sustainable transport settlements. We are adding billions of pounds to the second tranche of this. These are very significant amounts of money. For example, Greater Manchester will get an additional £1 billion. Again, the same is going to the West Midlands. We are adding to the £8.8 billion that we had already said the mayors would get. There will be several billions of pounds; forgive me, I cannot add it all up in time. It is sufficient to really turbo-charge some mass transit schemes. For example, in West Yorkshire we have committed £2.5 billion to fund a mass transit scheme in full. Finally, Leeds and the surrounding areas will have one, which will be amazing. That is a very positive thing. We recognise that devolution to the metro mayors is a good thing.

On safeguarding matters, we recognise that there is an issue with safeguarding and blight. We will be going through the proper legal processes and following them for properties that are no longer needed. For phase 2a, the safeguarding will be formally lifted within weeks. For phase 2b, it will be lifted next summer—the rationale for that is that there will still be some significant rail infrastructure projects in the north, and we need to make sure that we do not sell land we subsequently need. As the programme is developed, that land will either be sold or kept if it is needed.

On Euston, I am going to have to disagree with the noble Lord. I think that sometimes the private sector can do wonderful things. I refer the noble Lord to Battersea Power Station. If noble Lords have been there, they will know it looks quite remarkable. That attracted £9 billion in private sector investment.

NATS: Staffing

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The issue that the noble Baroness raises will be covered when the CAA completes its review of the outage in upper airspace that NATS suffered recently. I will await the independent regulator’s views on that, and we will obviously take action if needed. The noble Baroness said that the penalties are inadequate, but I also want to stress that when it comes to Gatwick tower control, the Government have no oversight of or insight into what those penalties are. They may well be adequate, as they are negotiated on a commercial footing.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government seem to have a problem with people, because there is a shortage of people in this, as we have heard from many noble Lords already. It is a similar problem to what we will be debating later: a shortage of drivers on the west coast main line. Both those problems involve businesses which the Government say are commercial but in fact, behind the scenes, they make very sure that nobody is allowed to recruit enough people to ensure that there is a contingency. What are the Government going to do about that?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord conflates two of my favourite topics. As he knows, both those companies are privately run and can recruit as many people as they like. However, they suffer the same thing: during the Covid pandemic, it was very difficult to train traffic controllers and train drivers. To a certain extent, there is a bit of catch-up going on. As I say, for train drivers as for air traffic controllers, training takes a very long time. It is at least 18 months before that person is operational.

West Coast Main Line

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Avanti, like all train operating companies, is working with its stakeholders and Transport Focus and London TravelWatch on the responses to the consultation to its proposals. The results of that will be forthcoming soon.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, there have been many reports of quite severe overcrowding on some of the CrossCountry services to the south-west in recent months. Can the noble Baroness explain whether any extra capacity is planned? I believe quite a few of the trains have been scrapped. What kind of new rolling stock will there be and will there be more capacity? This is a very important route. It is the only intercity route that does not go to London and one begins to suspect that, because Ministers do not take much notice of it, it gets the worst rolling stock. I hope the noble Baroness can give me some comfort.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The department is well aware that there is some overcrowding on CrossCountry routes. We are considering options, with CrossCountry, on the size of its future fleet. This will be balanced with the interests of taxpayers, given the financial pressures.

High Speed 2

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am aware of my noble friend’s position on HS2. It demonstrates that there is a wide range of views. As I said earlier, the Government will update the House as part of their regular six-monthly reports on HS2.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, about six to nine months ago, the Government said that they would pause all work at Euston. Has that happened? My impression is, as reports I get suggest, that there is a great deal of work going on there. Can the Minister tell us how much work has gone on even after it was paused?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not able to give an update on the physical work that is going on. My understanding is that the position at Euston has not changed. Again, that will be in the regular six-monthly update.

National Air Traffic Services: Operational Failure

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for highlighting this issue, but I am afraid that I do not accept the premise that the two are comparable. There are elements in NATS’s current licence that allow financial penalties to be placed on it in the instances of poor performance. Indeed, as I stated in my first Answer, there is also a mechanism to reduce charges in subsequent years to the airlines because of poor performance. However, I would say that the event that happened was, thankfully, very rare; nothing similar had been seen for over 10 years. Therefore, we are very grateful for the work that the airlines did, and we worked closely with them to repatriate people as necessary.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, if a passenger is delayed on a train, they can claim compensation from the train operator, which in turn can claim from Network Rail, the infrastructure manager, if it caused the delay. It seems to me that NATS and Network Rail are very similar—they are infrastructure managers—so what is the difference between compensation if you are on a train or on a plane?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I do not think that those two comparisons are quite correct. We have to deal with the situation we are in now, where there are already arrangements for NATS to be penalised financially and for future charges to the airlines to be reduced, should NATS’s performance fall below set levels. I am delighted to say that NATS’s overall performance is incredibly high and it tends to outperform other European air navigation service providers.