Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I am in the slightly unusual position of speaking to Conservative amendments that have not been spoken to already. However, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, will correct me if I interpret them wrongly.

The noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, set out the failures of the current system. Prior to the laying of the noble Lord’s amendment, I had taken the theme of this group of Conservative amendments as displaying a welcome, if overdue, conversion on the road to Damascus. After more than a decade of increasing confusion on railway services, declining levels of passenger satisfaction and rocketing fare prices, the Conservatives are actually looking at improving public train services.

Amendment 2 touches upon something with which I definitely agree: the inevitable winding-down effect of a four to five-year transition period. As I said at Second Reading, there is bound to be an impact on staff morale and the inevitable likelihood is that the best staff will move to other industries when faced with an uncertain future. There will also, of course, be cost pressures. For example, there is bound to be a tendency to level up across very different terms and conditions from one employer to another within the train operating companies. Last week, I was speaking to some train operating companies, all of which recognised the problems that will be faced as the Government try to bring together and harmonise terms and conditions without exposing the taxpayer and the passenger to higher costs. Of course, the most obvious problem is how to deal with rest day working. I know the Minister is fully aware of the problems to which I am referring, so I will be interested in his response.

Amendment 26 refers to costs. At Second Reading, I asked questions about several issues, such as station ownership and operation, which were not really answered. I also asked about British Transport Police, which is encompassed in Amendment 40, put down by the Liberal Democrats. The Labour manifesto contained a supposedly cunning plan for low-cost nationalisation, but there are still bound to be significant costs for such obvious things as new livery and uniforms. We all look forward to an integrated fare structure; that, of course, will come with upfront costs.

Amendment 22 refers to the establishment of an independent public body to assess performance, while Amendment 21 refers to an annual report from the Secretary of State. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, will explain exactly what he is aiming at in these amendments. One of them asks for the sort of close supervision by the Department for Transport that we have had since Covid, which clearly has not worked terribly well; the other refers to a more arms-length approach. Which of those approaches does the Conservative Party in this House believe will be better?

Liberal Democrats would establish a railway agency —a nationwide public body to act as a guiding mind for the railways, putting commuters first, implementing wholesale reform of the fares system and holding train companies to account. We do not believe that the renationalisation of passenger rail will automatically deliver cheaper fares or better services. From speaking to members of the public, we have concluded that they really do not care who runs the railways; they just want cheap, efficient and reliable services.

I do not doubt the Government’s good will or their wish to make this huge change, which we all want to happen. However, as a signal of their intent and an upfront signal to the public, I hope the Minister will speak with the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ensure that in next week’s Budget, we have a fare freeze and the public see from the start that there will be a difference under this Government.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group are all designed to try to get some information from the Government about the effect of the changes in this Bill. Will it help the passenger—as well as, I hope, the rail freight customer—and will it help with the costs? Several noble Lords have referred to the issue of costs on the railway, which is very serious; I shall probably come back to that later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I honestly believe that the amendment so ably moved by the noble Baroness opposite is extremely sensible. Like her, I can see no reason why we have a chronological system for dispatching the current franchisees based on the run-out date of their particular franchise.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, I am in favour of a mixed economy. There are certain aspects of privatisation, heresy though it might sound to some of my colleagues, that were successful. The fact that some of the railway system—rail freight, for example, which rarely gets a mention in these debates—remains in the private sector is indicative of the success of those who took what was, under British Rail, a very much declining sector of the railway industry. I do not wish to do an “all our yesterdays” speech, but my recollection of the freight sector in those days is ancient wagons clanking around the system, being shunted from one marshalling yard to the next, and with an average journey speed between loading and destination of around 12 miles an hour. Since privatisation, the rail freight side has improved greatly.

To return to the very valid point made by the noble Baroness, Greater Anglia is not just a success so far as its operations are concerned; it is a financial success as well. Because of this unfortunate coincidence of the run-out date of franchises, Greater Anglia is forecast to repay to His Majesty’s Treasury around £100 million in the current financial year. As my noble friend Lord Liddle said, presumably—unless my noble friend the Minister can reassure us otherwise— we are going to dispatch Greater Anglia to the railway knacker’s yard while pursuing with Avanti Trains, as he and the noble Baroness said, a franchise operator that, quite frankly, should not be there.

The previous Government, in the run-up to the election, were stupid enough—or ideological enough, perhaps—to give Avanti an extra nine-year franchise, on the grounds that it was showing some improvement. Those of us who travelled on Avanti regularly—thankfully, it is an experience that is now behind me since I moved home—could not find any improvement whatever. Indeed, it seemed to me that the service was deteriorating on an annual basis.

Again, it might be heretical for some of my colleagues to hear this, but aspects of the passenger railway that were privatised were successful. At Second Reading, I mentioned Chiltern Railways. Thanks to the financial constraints that British Rail had to operate under as a nationalised industry, Marylebone station was proposed to be a coach station by Sir Alfred Sherman, if I remember rightly, Mrs Thatcher’s transport guru at the time. The existing railway management, again through no fault of their own but because of financial constraints, had to run the service from Marylebone down, single much of the line and reduce the overall train service. Under the able leadership of the late Adrian Shooter, and with a long-term franchise of 20 years, with various break-off points, my noble friend Lord Prescott and the then chief executive of the Strategic Rail Authority came up with this 20-year franchise, but insisted that not only had the service to be improved but some of the infrastructure had to be restored. Under Chiltern Railways, lines that had become single were redoubled, and a pretty poor commuter rail service now has two trains an hour as far as Birmingham—with a price, incidentally, as my noble friend Lord Liddle might be interested to know, which considerably undercuts the fare of Avanti trains.

There are aspects of the future of the railway industry where a mixed economy would make some sense. I hope that, in those circumstances, my noble friend the Minister will look with some degree of favour on the noble Baroness’s amendment.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes some very good points. The Greater Anglia service is awfully good: my two noble friends who have spoken about it have confirmed that, and I have been on it recently myself. However, following the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, could somebody from the Conservative Party—maybe the noble Lord, or one of his predecessors or successors—explain the basis on which it chose Avanti and CrossCountry, which are two of the worst performing operators, to be given such very long contracts? I remember at the time there was a big debate between Virgin and Avanti as to which should get the contract. Whatever one thinks about Virgin, it has had some good services in the past, but Avanti is absolutely awful—as is CrossCountry, though for different reasons. Why did the then Government do it?

It is fine to say that we have given it to a private sector operator, but if we end up in a situation where the Government are effectively going to make similar awards to people—not companies, but people—we should know on what basis it is done. I hope my noble friend the Minister can explain what the criteria will be to make sure that we get some decent new franchises and how he is going to get rid of the two existing pretty bad ones as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Before the Minister responds, perhaps I could add something to my noble friend’s comments on Avanti and performance. My noble friend Lord Snape mentioned, I think, a 60-something per cent public performance measure. What we do not know is the difference between delays caused by Avanti itself and Network Rail, the infrastructure manager. GBR will be in charge of the infrastructure as well as the trains, and it is pretty important that we know the balance between the causes of the delay, and how this will improve. Maybe my noble friend the Minister could write to us and give us a breakdown of the performances of the existing services and Network Rail. I believe, at the moment, that Network Rail is responsible for something like 70% of the delays, but maybe I am wrong. I look forward to his comments.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

On my noble friend Lord Liddle’s comment, I am sure the Secretary of State would like to make her own decision, but I am pretty confident that the work done in the department to assess whether Avanti is meeting its performance standards has taken into account what latitude there is. I suspect there is very little because of the contract terms.

I will write to my noble friend Lord Berkeley, and make the letter available, about the causes of delay on the west coast main line and to Avanti’s services. It is, of course, as he knows, undoubtedly true that every set of delays on the railway is due to a combination of the train operator and the infrastructure, and the way in which those parties manage their interaction with each other. When the Secretary of State and I have seen train companies about their performance, we have insisted that they are always accompanied by the relevant route directors of Network Rail. One of the issues is the root cause of the delays; another is how well those parties interact to resolve them. One of the issues on the west coast main line is that Network Rail’s control point, not unreasonably, is at Rugby where the signalling system is, Avanti’s control is in Birmingham and its train crews are managed from Preston. I would not run a railway like that myself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will follow on from the interesting contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Young. I understood that Ministers had accepted that open access operators will be able to continue, or new ones may be able to come. So I have two questions. As the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said in her introduction to her amendment, Greater Anglia is contributing quite a lot of money each year to the Treasury. Presumably it could ask to convert that service into an open access service and keep the money, and that would presumably be all right and the Treasury would lose out. I would be interested to hear my noble friend’s view on that.

If there is a new service, as one of the noble Lords said, that an operator of some description thought would be a useful one to introduce but which the new GBR thought was not appropriate, presumably there would be no reason why the new operator could not submit an application for open access, as happens at the moment. It does not have to be a long distance one from London to Blackpool; it could be a short distance one. How would that be seen by the Government. Would they welcome it?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting group of amendments to debate so far, and I am very taken by the latest thoughts from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on playing around with the definition of open access operators and what will be accepted. I was interested, too, in Amendments 28 and 29 and the thoughts of the noble Lord, Lord Young, who is always very thought-provoking. His amendment, as he said, is very much the obverse of the ones put down from these Benches. I urge the Government to look at this and allow themselves the flexibility to change the order of nationalisation in order to allow good franchises to flourish and to give themselves time to unravel privatisation more slowly and more logically. It has to be more than just, “This was in the manifesto and therefore it will happen whether or not it is logical”.

I am really sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, is not in his place, because Amendment 35 is fascinating. It refers to a broader definition of what a public sector company should be, so that it includes public/private partnerships and co-operative ventures. I do not need to remind noble Lords opposite that some of them have been, or may still be, members of the Co-operative Party. As Liberal Democrats, we share an enthusiasm for co-operatives as a form of company and operation. I can envisage that a smaller rail line, perhaps in a rural area, would work very well on a co-operative or a public/private partnership basis. After all, it would bring in fresh investment without, in any way, undermining the Government’s commitment to a nationalised structure overall for the railways.

Finally, I urge the Government to look again at their plans and the precise terms of the Bill through a post-Covid lens. Covid caused the collapse of the railway system, necessitating a whole new approach to franchising for the train operators. It could happen again, either for similar reasons or as a result of a financial crisis, and I urge the Government to look again at the terms of the Bill. Have they allowed themselves sufficient flexibility to cope with the unexpected, to allow rail services to continue to operate even if there is a series of unlikely events that have upset the market for those services?

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

6: Clause 2, page 2, line 15, at end insert—
“(1AA) Before making a direct award of a public service contract to a public sector company under subsection (1A), the relevant franchising authority must publish a report on—(a) the possible impact on rail network capacity used by rail freight services,(b) the possible impact on the meeting of the rail freight growth target for at least 75% growth in freight carried by rail by 2050 on 2019 levels.”

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 6 in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, I will speak to two other amendments in this group, including Amendment 41, to which the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has added his name. It is so good to see him in his place again as one of our real rail experts in this House, and I look forward to his remarks.

This amendment is about rail freight, largely. As noble Lords may know, I was chairman of the Rail Freight Group for some years. It is designed to put a requirement on the Government to report on the rail network capacity used by rail freight and to confirm a target of at least 75% growth in freight carried by rail by 2050 compared with 2019.

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his quite long letter, which we received over the weekend, explaining different parts of this Bill. I welcome the letter; there are some good points in it and he answered my question, as he has not done so far today, about open access passenger services. The letter is there, so I do not need his answer again, and I am grateful to him.

However, what we have here is a Government who, as the Minister states in his letter, are clear on open access passenger services and want to encourage rail freight. The letter says that

“to enable the growth of rail freight … the Secretary of State will set an overall freight growth target to ensure that it remains a key priority”.

That is good. My question is how this will be achieved. Within the Great British Railways envelope, we have GBR itself, freight operators and the freight sectors. We also have the Office of Rail and Road, with “rail” apparently to be defined in the next Bill, and we have open access operators. All these groups will be vying to get capacity on lines or tracks that, as many noble Lords have said, are congested at the moment.

It is not just a question of how we get capacity on the track. I am told that, on the east coast main line, the current LNER service apparently wants to have five trains an hour running more-or-less non-stop from Edinburgh to London—I hope they find the passengers from somewhere. That is going to cause serious problems to the regional services which might want to cross that line at York or Doncaster or somewhere else. It puts into question the Government’s priorities: getting to Edinburgh every 10 minutes, or so, or getting across the main line from the Humber to Leeds, or similar places, on a service which may only run once an hour because there is no capacity.

The capacity divide between the long-distance passenger services and local services is something that we will need to explore in the future, but capacity also affects freight. One of the issues with freight which we have heard for many months, if not years, is that it needs a different speed of train because it cannot accelerate that quickly, and therefore needs electrification—which I am not going to go into. Something that has come up in your Lordships’ House so often is the improvement of the railway at Ely on the route between Felixstowe and Nuneaton or the north. Improvements there would enable many more freight trains to use that route, saving them from trundling along the North London line and places like that. Such improvements would also enable the capacity for freight; it just needs electrification.

Great British Railways will be in charge of the budget for railway investment and infrastructure, as well as the budget for keeping the passenger trains going. It will therefore effectively be in competition with the private sector operators and freight companies, and very careful work will be needed to ensure the allocation of capacity is fair and transparent. In my book, it is pretty unfair if one of the major operators, which will be GBR, in line with the infrastructure manager, which it will also own, will have control over how much capacity is available for freight—which is in the private sector—or open-access operators.

I am making this point because, while I think that producing a report after the first year—which my amendment would mandate—and looking for targets is a good start, we will need from the Minister, now or in the future, much firmer commitments on how much capacity will be needed on the main intercity or congested routes, and how the Government will allocate it. I look forward to further discussions with the Minister on this at some stage, but for the moment I beg to move.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 40, which is focused on the issue of policing and safety on the railways. I welcome the Minister to his new role; I look forward to working with him, asking him many questions and debating the issues, as we have done elsewhere over the last 16 years.

As noble Lords have interrogated this legislation, safety has been a feature of our deliberations. However, safety is not just about the infrastructure and rolling stock; it is about the safety of passengers and staff on our railways. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the impact of this Act on the British Transport Police. The British Transport Police provides a policing service to Network Rail, rail and freight operators and their passengers and staff throughout England, Wales and Scotland. It is also responsible for policing other parts of our transport network including the London Underground, the Glasgow Subway, the Tyne and Wear Metro, the West Midlands Metro, the Docklands Light Railway, London trams and even the cable car in London.

What is different about the British Transport Police is that it is primarily funded by the railway industry, not the public purse, and it sits within the Department for Transport, not the Home Office. The train operating companies, Network Rail, other operators and Transport for London, through either police service agreements or different funding agreements, pay for the British Transport Police—its latest budget shows annual funding of around £416 million.

On these Benches, we are concerned about two specific areas. First, we are worried about the impact on policing the network, and the safety of staff and passengers as they use and work on our railways, as these changes to franchising take place. Secondly, we are deeply concerned about the potential significant funding gap, which had not previously been identified, as a result of taking public ownership of the railways. I hope the Minister will be able to provide assurance in this area and explain the Government’s thinking about the future funding of the British Transport Police.

Furthermore, there is the issue of the British Transport Police Authority itself and how it is structured. It consists of 15 members, often with railway expertise from the train operating companies, who ensure value for money for the policing service they provide across the network. It is not clear how this will be structured going forward to ensure the right level of challenge and independence from the Department for Transport, given the department will now be effectively running the railway in public ownership. I hope the Minister can reassure noble Lords that the funding and oversight of the British Transport Police has been considered as part of this legislation, and that he will respond to our specific points.

My noble friends will speak to our Amendments 41 and 6 regarding freight operators and the impact of this legislation on their operation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I think in due course we will have to come back in the substantive Bill with a proposition on how those decisions are made, who makes them, and for what period of time the plan is valid.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his response to my amendment and other people’s. I have one or two questions that I hope will help the extended debate, because I do not believe we can leave the most important question of competition, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

Before the noble Lord sums up on his amendment, I think the Minister has yet to reply on the issue of the police.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I apologise to the Committee; it is my novice inexperience. I thank the noble Lord for that intervention.

I turn to Amendment 40 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pidgeon and Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. Amendment 40 would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the impact of the Bill on the British Transport Police 12 months after its enactment. The BTP is governed by the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003, which is not affected by this Bill. Under the 2003 Act, the British Transport Police Authority is responsible for the efficient and effective policing of the railways and for maintaining the British Transport Police force. The authority sets annual budgets for the BTP and recovers the costs of the BTP from the rail industry—of course, now, notably, this is all paid for by government—by entering into police service agreements. The authority sets the funding contributions for each railway service provider via a cost allocation model to ensure that contributions reflect the services provided by BTP and cover its costs.

Under the 2003 Act, the Secretary of State has made an order which requires railway service operators, as well as Network Rail, to enter into police services agreements. This obligation applies equally to public sector operators and private sector franchisees, and I can confirm that all four existing operators under DOHL have a police services agreement in place.

In conclusion, there is no reason to believe that public ownership under this Bill would have any adverse impacts on the freight industry or the BTP, so I hope my noble friend will be persuaded to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I apologise for intervening earlier and preventing my noble friend responding on the British Transport Police issue, which is most important. I would like to ask him whether it applies to Scotland.

About 10 years ago we had a debate here when the Scottish Government wished the Scottish police to take over British Transport Police activities in Scotland. My noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester and I tried to argue—I think the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, was there too—that this was a bad idea because policing the railways is fairly specialist work, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, has told us. We ended up trying to divide the House at about midnight, which my Chief Whip at that time did not think was a particularly good idea because I had not told him about it. I pointed out that he was probably in bed asleep by then. Anyway, we did not win that time, but we did manage to achieve BTP having responsibility for railways in Scotland. It would be nice if my noble friend the Minister could explain how that will work under the new GBR system.

I will respond to my noble friend’s comments on the other issue, which is mainly about capacity and competition—whether it is freight, open-access operators or whatever. It was interesting that he said that the Government invested £4 billion in the east coast main line. That must have been in order to get an extra train per hour and a few other trains between Edinburgh and London. I am wondering who decided that it was a good thing to invest in the east coast main line to get more intercity services, rather than more freight or cross-country services. That it has not been delivered yet indicates that something else needs resolving, and we will have to see what that is.

The other issue is straight competition. I was not working on the railways before privatisation. I am assuming that Great British Railways in its 1990s shape had a number of divisions, as a noble Lord told us, including a freight division. That obviously worked very well at that stage, but when those in the freight division wanted another pass or two on a main line, I would hazard a guess that they had quite a job persuading the passenger people to move over a bit and give them space.

Great British Railways will be a monolith organisation. I am sure that underneath, it will have lots of subdivisions, which we will debate at some point. This will probably include the intercity services and regional services, and it will have to take into account open-access passenger and freight services. I cannot see how it will be able to demonstrate a fair allocation of paths when, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, mentioned, it will get all the extra revenue from an extra train if it is a GBR train, but no revenue apart from track access charges if it is an open-access train or a freight train.

This is a really serious and financially challenging discussion that we will need to have. I hope my noble friend will be able to respond in part to what I have said. I hope he will be prepared to meet me and anybody else who is interested in this competition issue before Report. I would like to see some wording in the Bill that would give open access passenger and freight some comfort that what goes in the next Bill will not send them over the edge. Could my noble friend respond to those points? I do not know whether he is prepared to.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will respond to my noble friend by either talking to him outside or writing to him.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 6 withdrawn.

Bus Franchising

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his contribution. I should have said in my previous remarks that this is all preliminary to a buses Bill, which will be introduced to the House in due course and cover a wider range of subjects.

This is offering a choice to local authorities. It gives them the opportunity of franchising, if they believe that it is the right thing to do. Of course, all funding is being considered in the round as part of the spending review. I cannot share details about the discussions with His Majesty’s Treasury at this stage, but, in the meantime, the department is building its capacity to provide tangible, on-the-ground support to local transport authorities that wish to take back public control of bus services. We are also working with all stakeholders to determine how the buses Bill will make franchising easier and cheaper to deliver and further reduce the barriers to its introduction.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome my noble friend’s Statement, because it is about time that buses fulfilled their role of providing local transport for so many people. I worry about where they will get the money from and how many people will use them, if they use them to start with. As the noble Baroness said, it is important to get young people into the idea of using buses. How young is young? They need to be school kids right up to people starting their first job, who may well be in their 20s. If they live a long way from an established bus route, they will not get a job.

It is quite clear from what my noble friend said that all local authorities will be invited to do this and to participate one way or another, be it concession or franchise. But what happens if they do not want to do it? How will the Government encourage them? It is important to enable everyone who needs it to access public transport.

I have one example that I ask my noble friend to look into, although he may not be able to answer today. For those who live in the Isles of Scilly who want to go between the islands, the average fare in the winter is somewhere between £10 and £100—to get to the doctor, to the chemist or to work. It seems to me that what is good for city centres and the countryside in England could also be useful to people who live on islands. It might apply to the Isle of Wight as well, I do not know. I look forward to my noble friend’s comments.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his contributions. What would happen if local authorities did not want to pursue this course? The existing and partnership arrangements for bus operations, which have been in place locally for some time, would continue. It is a fair observation that there is a huge variation in standards of bus provision across Britain. If local authorities do not wish to participate or to pursue franchising, they can continue to pursue the arrangements that they currently have with their bus operators.

I cannot, of course, comment on the costs of transport between the islands of the Isles of Scilly or the minimal bus service on St Mary’s. However, as my noble friend knows, the provision in Cornwall, which is a largely rural county, is very good. That is an example of an arrangement that has been tailored to a rural area. None of these new arrangements would prevent existing arrangements from continuing.

Pedal Cycles

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Lord in his description of all the things that are wrong with cycling and cyclists. He made some good points. But one has to look at it from a view that the number of people killed in accidents, for example, by cyclists is very small compared with the some 2,000 people killed in road accidents. The noble Lord did not mention road accidents between vehicles—be they cars, lorries or whatever—and people. There are not many pedestrians that seem to suffer that.

Most of the issues that need to be looked at come under the category of either safety or enforcement. Many noble Lords have been speaking in this House for a long time about the lack of regulation and enforcement of electric scooters. I hope my noble friend will give us some answers about what has happened to that because, actually, you can have fun on a scooter. You should be on a road, in my view, and not on a pavement. You should also not be cycling on a pavement. There has to be much better education of cyclists and pedestrians, as well as car drivers, before we can get to a situation where everybody can live with other road users without getting completely fed up with people who disobey whatever the law is.

The noble Lord mentioned a load of statistics and I can quote a load more from a report by Sustrans, which is very useful. It gives the view that a lot of younger people are very keen to cycle and would be very keen probably to use scooters, if they were allowed to. It helps with your quality of life. One statistic really hit me:

“Every day, walking, wheeling”—


whatever that is—

“and cycling in … cities take up to 2,300,000 cars off the road”.

There is a health and accident issue there and I think it is something we need to look at in the round.

The proportion of residents who think cycling safely in their local area is good is actually not very high—somewhere between 31% and 44 %. It should be better, and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, is quite right that proper police enforcement is one thing that really should come in. One final statistic is that cycling actually keeps the cities moving, as 290,000 return cycling trips are made per day:

“If these cars were all in a traffic jam it would tail back 867 miles”.


I am sure noble Lords will like that.

We need to have a debate about this and we need common sense applied to all the issues that the noble Lord has mentioned. But let us not forget quality of life, safety needs and health. We should encourage other people to obey the lights and the rules. There are pedestrians who jaywalk, as well as cyclists. I am not in favour of licensing either walking or cycling. Do we want to have a licence to walk? That would be fun. But we should do more and there is good work done already on cycle training around the country. We need to do more of that and much more education, with some enforcement.

Every debate we have in your Lordships’ House tends to say that there are not enough police to enforce things, but we need this so that people can do what I love doing in Germany when I go there. There are cycle lanes for cycles and scooters. There are footpaths and road lanes and everybody obeys the lights and waits their turn. That should be our objective here.

Local Bus Sector

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to provide longer-term support to the local bus sector.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

The Government are determined to deliver better bus services. We are setting out an action plan allowing every community the opportunity to take back control of local bus services to deliver improvements for passengers and giving local leaders more control and flexibility over bus funding to deliver their local transport priorities for growth, jobs and housing. We will consider how best to support buses in the longer term as part of the forthcoming spending review.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that Answer. He has long experience in the bus industry. Would he look, in particular, at the problem of rural bus services, which on the whole do not get much visibility? He may know of a very good one in Cornwall; buses go every half hour, with cheap fares. How will he ensure that the whole country benefits? Will the funding be there and will it be ring-fenced? Will the Government encourage or force local authorities to pick up their offer?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The proposition for local authorities and communities throughout the country is to take advantage of the proposals that the Government will table, which will ensure the right solutions for each area. My noble friend knows that the bus service in Cornwall is particularly well organised; it is not franchised but is subject to a large degree of local authority control. Consistency of information, ticketing, fares and service standards is an important feature, wherever in the country buses operate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

At my age, I share the noble Lord’s enthusiasm for the freedom pass scheme. He is attempting to put me in the invidious position of making a concrete commitment for all time. The freedom pass, and the local authority and national scheme for free travel for pensioners, has lasted a long time and we would all hope that it continues into the future. The Government are not in a good position with the state of public finances they have been left with, but we will bear in mind his enthusiasm, and that of many others, for free travel for elderly people on buses as we move forward with our commitments for the bus service.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in addition to the work that my noble friend is doing with buses, we will soon hear about the Great British Railways changes, with Ministers taking much greater control of the railways. Does this not provide an opportunity for some proper timetabling, so that when a bus arrives at a station there is a train soon ready to go, rather than one that has just left, which happens in so many parts of the country at the moment?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. It is a subject that has engaged the bus and railway industries for generations. In fact, it is more likely that the bus will have to alter its timetable to suit the railway, because the railways are a national, integrated system, but he is right to suggest that the opportunity arises as a consequence of the Government’s proposals for Great British Railways and for buses as part of a more integrated public transport service across the entire country. The Government will do their best to make sure those opportunities are built on.

Mail Carriage by Rail

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

There is certainly a constraint on the amount of railway capacity over the Pennines from east to west. The trans-Pennine route upgrade, which is currently costing £11 billion, is a significant project already in delivery that seeks to increase that capacity. I know the department’s officials have looked and are looking at what needs to be done with that upgrade in order to make sure that it is suitable for the carriage of more freight, including containers of the larger size.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is only 20 years ago that Royal Mail built probably between 26 and 29 large and complicated sorting offices connected to rail and road so that mail could be sorted. This was the modern way of doing it. Two of those—I think one of them is at Warrington and the other is at Willesden, opened by Her Royal Highness Princess Anne —are no longer going to be used. Does that have anything to do with my noble friend’s question about capacity on the west coast main line?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The issue of the age of the infrastructure that Royal Mail uses is overtaken by the issue of the age of the train sets that it currently uses to carry mail. There were originally 15 train sets built, but only six are now in service and they are all 30 years old. Royal Mail’s judgment is that these railway vehicles are now of an age when they are becoming unfit for service.

National Networks National Policy Statement

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

That this House regrets the Government’s decision to lay the National Networks National Policy Statement, laid before the House on 6 March, without carrying out the systematic review of road projects recommended by the Climate Change Committee; addressing the risk of insufficient environmental action by the Department for Transport highlighted by the National Audit Office; or joining up their policies with the missions presented to Parliament under the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to introduce this short Motion tonight. I think the text of the Motion is pretty clear to noble Lords: in simple terms, I believe that the Government have introduced the latest national networks national policy statement without proper consultation and I fear that it will end in tears.

These NNNPSs have been around since they were set up with the Planning Act 2008 and are supposed to be produced every five years or so. They can be debated in both Houses. The present one was debated in the other place. I think there were 10 Members of Parliament present, and everybody had the feeling that it was being pushed through by the Government. The same legislation basically requires any debate in the Lords to take place within what they call a “relevant period”, otherwise you do not get the benefit of a response from the Minister. I was only told about this particular need for a debate quite recently by the Transport Action Network, for which I am very grateful, but we are actually out of time already.

The Government have not actually designated this NNNPS yet, and I hope to get comments from the Minister in this debate to explore what they are going to do next. Last week, the Government lost a case in the High Court on climate change issues. The case was led by Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project. They took legal action over the targets that the Government had put in the NNNPSs, having successfully challenged the previous budgets. The High Court ruled that Britain had breached legislation designed to help reach the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of keeping temperatures within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels, which required a new plan. The court effectively ruled that the NNNPS was illegal.

So my question to the Minister is: what next? Given that surface transport caused over 29% of UK emissions last year, it would be pretty foolish if the Government were to designate—in other words continue with—the NNNPS now. A lawful climate plan will inevitably require a fundamental and radical shift in transport policy, and we have not seen it yet. There is no sign of it. There are many examples that I could go through, but I will not, because a number of colleagues wish to speak. I have noted examples from organisations such as the Institution of Civil Engineers, the House of Commons Transport Committee and a lot of the other organisations that have submitted evidence. They are name-checked in the NNNPS, but just mentioning their names does not actually mean that the Government will do what the particular organisation says that they should do.

The Climate Change Committee’s report to Parliament stressed the importance of a

“systematic review of all current and proposed road schemes”.

That was in 2023. I am wondering where they are; maybe the Minister will be able to tell us. Many things in the Environment Act 2021 have not been translated into the NNNPS. Policy issues on cycling, wheeling, walking et cetera—particular interests of mine—are totally missing.

I have come to the conclusion, as I expect other noble Lords may have, that the Government have got a rather unsavoury record of ignoring any climate change documents or reports—even their own report—if they conflict with other policies. The two that I have come across govern oil production and building more roads. A couple of weeks ago, we had a debate in your Lordships’ House in Committee on the offshore oil and gas Bill. The Minister completely ignored the strong recommendations from the Environment Agency’s Joint Nature Conservation Committee—a statutory maritime advisory committee—not to drill oil in marine protected areas. The Minister totally ignored it, and the Government are going to go ahead. The same comment applies to the Department for Transport and the Climate Change Committee.

So I ask the Minister: what next? I could have divided the House on a Motion to Regret, but I am afraid that that does not solve the problem. If the Minister does nothing and the Government eventually designate this NNNPS, they will end up with multiple court cases and judicial reviews, which will likely stop them in their tracks because they have been defeated in the courts and they have to accept that. The presumption in favour of road building will also have to be looked at and obviously there will need to be changes to some of the planning laws.

The most important thing is for there to be an in-depth review of how the NNNPSs are actually created, and the role of other organisations who have an input, within government and outside. Some debate on them is a necessary part of NNNPSs being produced and they should be debated in both Houses in a proper, structured way.

I shall stop there. I beg to move and look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to support the regret Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, even though I think that regret Motions are pathetic, frankly. At least it means a debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

It is better than nothing.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

It is better than nothing. As somebody who has watched this Government for a long time now, I cannot believe that they have backtracked on so many of their plans. Actually, they had very few plans to start with, but they seem to have backtracked on all of them about delivering net zero. They seem to not even understand what net zero means.

As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, the Government were taken to court because it is obvious that the UK is going to fail to do its bit to save the planet—and they lost in court because they no longer believe in doing the right thing. They are now fighting another court case because they cut £200 million from the promotion of walking and cycling, a key part of delivering net zero.

I almost think that I—or someone else, possibly on this Bench—ought to write the Ladybird Book of Transport Policy for Climate Change Deniers, because, really, you do need to understand what we are going to see in the future. As has been said, transport accounts for nearly a third of emissions and, despite a million electric vehicles on our roads, those emissions have hardly changed in a decade. All the road building has led to extra cars and longer traffic jams. Instead of switching people away from their cars by creating places to live that are within easy, 15-minute walks of shops and services, this Government have run down bus services and built sprawling suburbs that actually increase the use of cars.

One big reason for the Government doing the wrong thing, rather than the right thing, is the millions that the Conservatives have received in donations from the oil and gas industry. Gas and oil people want drivers to spend longer driving to the shops and to fill up at petrol stations, because that means more money for them. Gas and oil do not really like people cycling or walking—all those cheap, easy things—because those people are not making them money. The big polluters finance Tufton Street think tanks and social media bots, because they want to squeeze as much money out of their planet-killing business as they possibly can.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said that the Government have an unsavoury reputation on climate change. I do not think that it is unsavoury; it is ignorant. I do not understand how you can go through the last few years of hearing what is happening on climate change and still be so ignorant about it.

I do not expect this Government to change their mind. I expect them to lose the general election and then have nothing to do with transport policy and not be a political force worth talking about for the next—

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

For a few years.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

How many years in Government does the noble Lord want? Maybe a couple of terms. As such, I will focus my next few remarks to those in the next Government, because these national policy statements were Labour’s idea—and they are a really good idea. To make them work, we have to make sure that the Treasury listens and that the next Government get the funding to deliver real change.

When I was the Deputy Mayor of London to Ken Livingstone, I told him that, if we were to be serious about creating more cycling routes, we were going to need hundreds of millions a year. There was a huge shudder of shock around his whole office. It was eventually accepted that, if you want to change things and to get people more safely walking and cycling, you need the sort of money that we might spend on a new road. The truth is, if you build those opportunities, people will take them. We need to imagine a future that is better than what we have now and spend the money building that future.

--- Later in debate ---

The Government recognise the need for timely infrastructure delivery and an updated NNNPS is a critical element in ensuring our consenting regime for nationally significant infrastructure projects functions as effectively as possible. The NNNPS has been subject to a thorough review process. We are very grateful to all those who provided comments during the public consultation and to the Transport Select Committee for its careful consideration of the issues. The revised NNNPS reflects the latest legislation and policy. It strikes the right balance between enabling the delivery of infrastructure and protecting the environment and provides much clearer guidance to all those involved in the consenting process. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that the revised NNNPS delivers on its purpose.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate and to the Minister for his comprehensive response. He said that he felt that the NNNPS brought the right balance between the need for transport and the need for the environment and zero carbon, but all I can say is that most noble Lords who have spoken tonight probably do not agree with it. We shall watch what happens in future.

The one thing the Minister did not tell the House was whether the NNNPS has actually been designated. He said we should all support it and that it is the most wonderful thing probably since sliced bread or whatever. We will have to read very carefully what he said, but I did not hear the word “designation”. We will wait for that. We have been here a long time. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, which were really helpful. I apologise to my noble friend for getting in before her when it came to putting the name of the debate down, but in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

Transport System: Failings

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

It gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Birt, in this debate. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Snape on the wording for his debate. He has hit the nail on the head, in saying that we have lots of incoherent plans and need a strategy, as the noble Lord, Lord Birt, also said. I fully support this, and we have had some very interesting speeches so far.

I shall say a few words about rail, but this debate is about transport. We had a very interesting briefing from the Low Traffic Future alliance, which reminded us that transport is for moving people and goods. Net zero is important but we have big problems, such as the increased dependency on motorised traffic, poor public transport, poor walking and cycling conditions—certainly compared with the continent—and potholes. I actually came off my bike when I hit a pothole a week or two ago, and it was not very pleasant. We do not seem to be doing anything about that either. We are also out of balance in the benefits of transport between the different regions.

There is an argument for, after the next election, before rushing into legislation, thinking carefully about a national transport strategy. Everybody has been talking about strategies today and I will not go into the detail now. That could involve pausing road schemes and putting more investment into healthy and sustainable transport, and probably helping with changes to planning law. On the railways, it is interesting. We now have the two major parties coming forward with plans to reorganise the railway by legislation, putting the customers first, which is wonderful. I wonder whether actually we need legislation at this stage. How much of it can be done without legislation?

Noble Lords will remember the strategic rail authority, which took two years to be created and then, after a couple of years, two years to be removed. During those two years, very little happened and some of us got extremely frustrated that nothing was happening. I think it is worth looking at what can be done to put customers first with some quick wins. Many noble Lords have mentioned strikes. That is the first thing, and I trust that a new Labour Government will address that. I believe that many of the problems that I and noble Lords have spoken about this morning are down to bad management. I am not sure that it matters particularly whether the management is nationalised or private sector; the Rail Partners’ proposals are a pretty good mix of the two. The management, mainly from the Department for Transport, with a bit—I do not know whether it is support or not, and we can debate that—from the Treasury, has not organised at all well addressing many of the problems noble Lords have spoken about.

My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours and other noble Lords have talked about train fares, but most are set by the Government. The train operators have to implement them, adding a few of their own fares, such as savers. One of the ideas I shall be pursuing over the next few weeks is that train fares should go to the operator on whose train you are sitting. They do not at the moment, unless it is a saver fare. All other fares are divided: if there are two operators on a route, the fare is divided between the two. That removes all incentive for operators to do better. It is a serious issue. It could be done, as now, most people have their ticket checked electronically. It would mean that the train operator has an incentive to run the trains—as other noble Lords have said, that does not always happen—and to provide decent seating and catering, clean, on-time trains, a timetable that customers want and mitigation for customers when things go wrong. Whether the operator is in the private or public sector does not matter very much. It does not need legislation and it would not cost the Treasury a penny. There is now enough information on tickets for this to be taken forward. Train operators could quickly demonstrate how good they are, if they are, or how bad they are if they are not. That leaves the Department for Transport—until there is a change—to identify whether there should be any changes.

We are having an interesting debate on all this. I do not believe it is necessarily in everybody’s interest, including passengers, to hang around for a couple of years before any legislation gets through. A great deal of this can be done now. If the management in the past few years has been bad—it certainly has been pretty bad—that can be dealt with quickly. We should look at that, rather than saying let us do nothing for two years.

I congratulate my noble friend and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has got to say.

Rail Manufacturing: Job Losses

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

Yes, I can. The Transport Secretary had a constructive meeting yesterday with Alstom’s chairman and chief executive officer and its UK and Ireland director. We are now in a period of intense discussion with the company on potential options to secure a sustainable future for Alstom’s Litchurch Lane factory. While it would not be appropriate for me to go into the details of those discussions at this stage, I know that the Transport Secretary plans to update both Houses at the appropriate time.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the potential Alstom order from the Government for extra trains on the Elizabeth line is, allegedly, to cope with more passengers who will come off HS2 and want to go somewhere else on the Elizabeth line. Can the Government confirm that the new trains—it may be up to 10—will have toilets? In a recent incident on the Great Western, there were people stuck on trains for something like 10 hours without access to a toilet—and then they got criticised for jumping on to the track. Surely, in this day and age, the minimum should be to have at least one or two working toilets on such trains, which possibly go for two-hour or three-hour journeys.

Avanti Trains

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

The decision to award the contract to First Trenitalia was contingent on the operator continuing to win back the confidence of passengers, but as with other operators, it is a combination of things. Its train crew issues are linked to its continued lack of driver overtime and ongoing industrial action. There are many issues that contribute to this. It is not always the operators’ fault.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, last week, the Government launched a draft rail reform Bill, which they claimed would put one organisation in charge of all the railways. It is pretty obvious that that organisation will be the Government. How will that actually improve the appalling service that Avanti is still giving, in spite of the Government actually being in charge now?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. We are committed to reforming the railways, and we are getting on with delivering improvements for passengers, freight customers and the taxpayer now. Rail reform remains a priority for government. Our priority for the next 12 months is delivering the improvements I just mentioned, and we are focused on collaborating with the sector to lay the foundations for a reformed industry, taking more of a whole-system perspective within the current legal framework.

Pavement Parking

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I have not yet had the opportunity to look at my noble friend’s proposed legislation, but as soon as I leave here I will go straight back to the department and do so.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not about time that the Government grasped the nettle and said that roads are for things with big wheels, such as cars, bikes and scooters, and that pavements are for people who are trying to walk? It does not take three years to make a decision like that.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I think I have covered the point the noble Lord raises. I agree that three years is a long time but, in fairness, it takes time to analyse all of this. I undertake to move as fast as I possibly can on this issue.