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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

E-bikes

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am incredibly grateful to my noble friend, because we know that e-bikes have huge environmental benefits. They can be used on more difficult journeys, and they can take those who may be less able—which, of course, I am not suggesting is the case here—further and slightly faster. If we were to change the regulations on e-bikes, which are very clear at the moment, we would do so with an abundance of caution.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm whether there is any type approval for the types of what I think she called e-bikes that are not limited to the speed of a normal Brompton bike, such as the electric one I have, and do not need any pedal power? It seems to me that there are lots of them running around London and other places that can go any speed, do not need numberplates or helmets, and probably do not have any insurance.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

No, those people who are riding those vehicles in those circumstances are breaking the law. All vehicles that are not e-bikes—they would be electric motorbikes—have to be registered with the DVLA, insured and taxed; the person would have to have a driving licence and to wear a helmet. Essentially, they would be the same as a traditional ICE motorbike and, yes, there is type approval of those vehicles.

Driving Licences

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for raising that. When I was Roads Minister until fairly recently, I worked very closely with DVSA to ensure that those bots cannot get access to the booking system. I will take his comments back and ensure that DVSA is doing all it can to make sure that those slots are not being used by other people. At the moment, there are about half a million people already booked into slots, and there are about 44,000 slots available in the next 24 weeks. The key to all this—it loops back into the road safety element of this Question—is that we must ensure that drivers are ready to take their tests. At the moment, fewer than 50% pass, so the number one message for learner drivers must be: be ready and then you will be able to pass your test and drive with confidence.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, if it takes up to a year after you have applied for a test to get one, it is not surprising that people apply early, because they will have to practise driving in the long period before they get to the test. Can the Minister confirm that the only way to get a test quickly is if you are rich and can afford a couple of hundred quid to bribe one of these middle people?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am certainly not going to confirm that, because, as I have said, I have worked closely with DVSA to ensure that we limit that as far as possible. Indeed, I do not believe that the reselling of tests is a huge problem. Again, working with DVSA, we have created over 900,000 more slots—37,000 per month—to try to get as many people through as possible. As I have said, if people are better prepared, they will pass first time and will not need a secondary test.