Transport: Investment Plans

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how bus and rail passengers will benefit from the investment plans for the transport network announced on 9 March.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to have the opportunity to talk about this subject today. I promise that I shall say something different in the next debate, which has been fixed for the first day when we come back after the holiday. It is a mistake—I do not know whose mistake it is—but I shall make sure I do not repeat myself, and I am sure the Minister will not either.

I was persuaded to put down this subject for debate because of the launch by the Secretary of State on 9 March of a big investment plan in

“transformational transport schemes over the next 2 financial years across the country”.

I thought that was rather good, but when I looked into it, I had the feeling that there is lots of talk and lots of big figures—which we hear not just in transport but from many other people—but I want to question whether those schemes actually happen on the ground, where people want them to happen.

On the £40 billion over two years, it was confirmed in a Written Answer I received, HL6611, that it was the same budget over two years, and that included an extra £200 million for potholes—I am sure that is welcome. As for the rest of it, is the transformation growth or a cut? On the railways, the Midland main line electrification to Sheffield has been cancelled or postponed. For major roads, the statement says that they have cut £8 billion. We can have opinions on all this, but is it “transformational”? I am told that active travel has been cut by £3 billion, and lots of bypasses are referred to in the press release as being cut.

On buses, which are really important and on which I want to concentrate to a large extent today, the Confederation of Passenger Transport says that grants will now be 20% lower in real terms than they were 10 years ago. It may be that HS2 is mopping up all the budget, but leaving that aside, do all these cuts deliver for the customers?

I want to explore what the customers want, who they are and how they will benefit—this is transport customers all the way through. People need to travel—short, medium and long distances, and several times a day sometimes—to school, college, work or shopping, and sometimes once a year for a holiday. They also need to travel for important things such as doctors and hospitals, to visit friends or for caring et cetera. They are very similar to the needs that the NHS provides for. Many of those transport journeys are pretty essential.

We can walk, cycle or use scooters—I will leave that aside—but public transport is what everybody else will use for distances greater than the smallest ones if they do not own a car or cannot afford to run it. It needs to be safe, affordable and reliable.

It is always my impression when travelling around Europe that the charges and reliability of public transport are very much better than in this country. Some of it is very cheap. It seems to be the best way of getting around safely—and towards net-zero carbon—but we do not seem to care so much about those with no access to a car.

I welcome the Government’s new bus plan, as far as it goes, but to some extent it is another short-term fix. It does not enable people to plan where they might go to school, shop, work or live, and it does not cover all of England. When people want to use buses, they need certainty. The Transport Committee report published this morning commented of the bus service improvement plans:

“Local areas were asked to be ambitious, but the Department has not matched this level of ambition in the funding it has made available, pitting local areas against each other for a share of an inadequate pot.”


It also says that half the country has missed out. I hope that is not the case; perhaps the Minister has an answer to that.

One really bad example of the failure of buses is the community transport Dial-a-Lift funding in Northern Ireland. I know that the Minister is not responsible for transport there, but she could advise her colleague who is. They have cut the funding for Dial-a-Lift completely from the end of April and all the staff have probably been given the sack. This is because of the trouble with the Windsor Framework; I will not go into that, as we heard plenty about it yesterday, but it is a serious problem.

I will give an example. A young single mother in south-east Fermanagh has a 52-mile journey to hospital with her acutely ill six year-old son. She has no money or car; there is no public transport and the taxi service is a £60 to £65 fare. What happens to the child if she does not get there? A female wheelchair user had the same problem; a return fare in a taxi would cost £100. Previously, community transport provided all this. I have a bit of experience of this in Cornwall. The community transport people are really good; they are an essential part of the lives of people who do not have a car and cannot afford one. They reminded me that the Northern Ireland scheme was set up 25 years ago, which is a significant date in the Northern Ireland calendar. I hope the Minister can follow that up with her colleague and make sure that it does not happen here.

Our real challenge is in spending money on the railways, which I will not say much about. The National Audit Office has suggested that there needs to be a reset button on Euston; I suggest it should be a “Delete” button and send everyone to Old Oak Common, which everyone knows is a much better place. The key for railways is that there needs to be a much greater improvement in the services that people want to use every day to get to work, school, shopping or whatever. I have always had an ambition that this country would have a network of local services in the Midlands and the north as good as what we have in the south-east of England. But we do not have that yet, or any budget for it. It is very sad that HS2 seems to be swallowing all the money.

In conclusion, we need a long-term bus strategy. Who will provide it? That will depend on the next election. The Labour Party has produced some really excellent ideas about who should own it. The key is that it should be reliable, affordable and properly funded, delivered locally but with one consistent policy, and not dependent on how well the local authority has submitted its application—they are strapped for cash and time. It needs to provide a service for those who need it and do not have a car or do not want to use one—it is good for the environment, anyway. We need a long-term plan for the railways in the Midlands and the north, as many of us have said for a very long time.

I wonder whether some of the problem with transport is that politicians—we are all politicians—whether local or national, need to understand the needs of their electorate for local, cost-effective public transport and to put their regular daily journeys into a better state, rather than going once a week or once a month to places such as London.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I will of course look very carefully at the National Audit Office report. I do not know that it is saying that it believes that the line is unlikely to go beyond Birmingham; again, I would not know where its evidence would come from for a statement such as that.

We have an opportunity to improve the rail and local transport networks and to adapt to the needs of passengers today. There is a rare chance of some sort of redesign so that the system is fit for the future, because, as I said at the outset, I think all noble Lords want the same thing.

I will now turn to comments about HS2. The Transport Secretary has been very clear that Old Oak Common will act as a temporary London terminus while Euston is completed, but I do not think that any noble Lord should be under the impression that this will somehow be substandard. It will be probably the best-connected and largest new railway station ever built in the UK; it will have 14 platforms—six high speed and eight conventional—and it will be a transport superhub, providing connections to Heathrow via the Elizabeth line and, of course, high-speed rail services through to various parts of the country.

It was already planned that Euston would open later than Old Oak Common. However, we have decided not to proceed to full construction of Euston station in the next two years, which is the period that the Statement looked at, due to affordability and profiling issues. There is an opportunity to look again at the Euston station design to ensure that it is affordable and delivers for both the local community and passengers.

Following this debate, I will set out in a letter as much as I can about the phasing for the different elements of High Speed 2, including going to Crewe and beyond. It is important to put that on record.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her offer to write a letter. Will she also comment on the lack of a firm design for not the station itself but the approaches to Euston? My information is that there is no option that is actually safe to build, and that is quite critical.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I will certainly include that in the letter. I do not have anything with me today.

I turn now to buses, which, as many noble Lords have pointed out, are the absolute backbone of our public transport system. The national bus strategy, which we published back in March 2021, is a long-term strategy. It is important to understand the role of the BSIPs—bus service improvement plans. We asked all local transport authorities to prepare one, which they did, and we used them to look at how to prioritise funding. To a certain extent, there was no bidding process: we did not ask for bids but to review all the bus service improvement plans.

Noble Lords may ask themselves, “Where did these bus service improvement plans come from? Who inputted into them?” We were clear in the national bus strategy that they must have the input of local people; there had to be a passenger board, or whatever they wanted to call it. Listening to the input of local people and businesses allows the bus service improvement plan to have local accountability. I have heard two different things today: that we need to give more powers to local authorities but also that national government should take control of the bus network, as some noble Lords have suggested. Local accountability is really important.

Funding is absolutely key. The Government are spending an additional £3 billion. This is the largest investment in buses in a generation, and it is on top of funding that still goes out to local transport authorities or bus operators to support fares, such as the bus service operating grant of £250 million a year, and the concessions payment of about £1 billion a year. Local transport authorities also get funding in the block grant for tendered services. Unfortunately, some local authorities, particularly rural ones, decide not to use that money on tendered services. That is a disappointment, and local people should be holding those councils to account for those things.

Therefore, with the bus service improvement plans and subsequently the enhanced partnerships, which are a partnership between the transport authority and the bus operator taking into account what has been said by the passengers, that is how bus networks are planned locally. So it is not quite right to say that it is left to the market, because local transport authorities have quite a significant amount of leverage over the bus operators in agreeing what the enhanced partnerships should say, and 75% of enhanced partnerships have now been “made”—that is, they are in existence. Of course, if the enhanced partnership is not working or it is not what the local authority wants to do, it is at liberty to start franchising, and we know that places such as Greater Manchester have already done that. So there are many ways in which local transport authorities can exert power over the bus network to provide what their local people want.

I accept, as I did earlier today in the Oral Question, that the funding is short term at the moment, until 30 June, and that there is an enormous amount of analysis to be done: the impact of the £2 bus fare cap will be important—but also some of the BSIP funding, the revenue side of it in particular, is being used to support fares in places such as Manchester, Liverpool, West Yorkshire and Lancashire, so that will be important. The capital spending from BSIP will take slightly longer to come in, because that is all about bus priority, bus lanes and all those sorts of things, so we need to give that a little more time. However, the market is still in transition, so we are analysing where we are and looking at what any long-term future support might look like.

I know that the right reverend Prelate is a great champion of rural areas, and he was concerned that rural authorities would not have the resources to be able to do the BSIPs that we ask them to do. In fact, we gave them the money to provide the resources for that. We gave them £23 million to work up their BSIPs and enhanced partnerships and, subsequently, we gave all the local authorities that were not successful in getting funding—about half of them—£11 million to make sure that they could roll out the bus service improvement plans that they had. There are many things that they could do to improve services which do not necessarily require funding.

The right reverend Prelate will have heard me speak before about demand-responsive transport in rural areas—the bus fare cap is very good for rural areas, particularly on longer routes—and the BSOG really supports fares in rural areas as well. In addition, community transport is important in rural areas, which is also taken into account in any BSIP.

I am very conscious that I have 45 seconds in which to do rail. I recognise the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, in this area and his great interest in rail, and from a DfT perspective we recognise that performance needs to improve across the system. We have had numerous conversations about Avanti and TPE, and we know the impact of removal of rest-day working there. However, at the heart of it are the passengers, and GBR, the transition team for Great British Railways, is looking at that 30-year vision for our railways. We continue to invest billions of pounds in our railways for the sorts of local railways that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, wants to see. Now we have to look through the RNEP, make the correct decisions based on current passenger numbers, which again are not the same all over the country—some areas are seeing higher passenger return then others. Therefore the RNEP is being reviewed by Ministers at the moment and that will be published; the investment will continue, and that is part of the £40 million.

I note that I have gone over my 12 minutes. I know that there are many things that I have not been able to cover but I will certainly write a letter. Once again, I am always grateful to talk about railways and local transport—both subjects that are very close to my heart.

Bus Industry Support

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Snape, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

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

My Lords, on 17 February the Government announced that they will provide up to £80 million to extend the bus recovery grant until 30 June 2023. The department is evaluating the impact of this funding and working with local transport authorities and bus operators to develop sustainable solutions.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for her Answer, and I welcome the money that has been allocated. However, given that 80% of people who use buses have no alternative—in fact, in Northern Ireland, the community bus service has been completely cancelled from the end of April—is it not time for the Government to devolve the subsidy and funding of local bus services to local transport authorities to get a consistent and long-term service which will provide what people need and at a lower cost, and spread over the whole country the benefits that the Minister has provided?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not entirely sure that I follow the noble Lord’s thinking that, just by devolving it, the same amount of money will provide services at a lower cost. It is the case that local authorities get funding to support bus services, including from the fare cap, the bus recovery grant, BSOG and concessions. The simple answer here is that we have to make local transport authorities and bus operators work together more effectively.

Transport: South Wales

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

That was because assessment of that electrification project showed no significant journey-time savings. In 2018, the National Audit Office concluded that it is right to assess investment decisions about upgrades to make sure that they give passenger benefits. We have to put our funding where it can have the largest passenger benefits.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in addition to the helpful comments from the Minister on south Wales and investment generally, what about rail connectivity between the south and the north of Wales? That is one of the worst links—it is the longest and I believe it goes through England—so will there be some investment for that?

Railways (Penalty Fares) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Lords Chamber

We were told that all this was going to change. As long ago as 2018, whoever was the Transport Secretary at the time—it is probably half a dozen Transport Secretaries ago—promised a simplification of the ticket system, which is as complicated as I have just outlined. Mr Grant Shapps, ever modest, during his spell as Secretary of State for Transport added his name to somebody else’s report to show how keen he was to simplify the ticketing arrangements on our railway system. He has been airbrushed out, a bit like the photo he published recently where the Prime Minister had been airbrushed out. He has had more jobs since than he has had aliases over the years. The fact is that since 2018, when his promises were made, nothing has been done to simplify the railway system and there are no signs of anything being done to simplify it in the future. We are committing fraud on the travelling public and fraud on the taxpayer with the current system. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Snape. His speech was very interesting but I am afraid that everything he said about the problem with getting tickets is true. It is very tempting to refer to Spain, where I believe they have just announced that they will offer free travel to everyone on the trains. That would solve all the problems except those of the Treasury, so it is probably not worth even talking about. It comes down to the failure of the TOCs. They have no incentive because all the income revenue goes to the Treasury. That is where we are at the moment, and we have to find a solution. It must be a way of encouraging more people to use the trains and it must also, I hope, increase the revenue to the Treasury and to the operators in a way which does not put people off. My noble friend’s comments about Birmingham International and everything else were frightening.

We also look forward to hearing from the Minister on where the legislation is; it is part of the SI. She will probably be able to tell us that when she comes to respond.

I have been talking to one or two experts on the ticketing issue. I understand that a year ago, in January 2022, a ticketing system for the whole country was ready to be put in legislation. It is called CORS—the consolidated online retail system. The Department for Transport approved it. It is basically an online system that would allow anyone to buy a ticket between, to and from any station on the network remotely on their iPad. It is guaranteed to give you the cheapest ticket. It means that, with a little bit of checking, it would reduce the need for a large number of ticket inspectors and booking clerks. Obviously, there must be facilities for people who cannot use it—I accept that—but such a system has the great advantage of guaranteeing people the best deal for whatever journey they want to take, and they would be able to check it.

What this system needs, I am told, is for the Department for Transport to put it out to tender. Apparently, it does not need legislation, so why are we bothering to wait for the legislation and other things to come in? If it went out to tender, quite a few companies would want to run it and to make sure that the information they provided was 100% reliable and available to all the different ticket retailers—there are several hundred of them, I think—in this country. One can see that this system would also give people continuous information on their journey, which would certainly help people on Avanti routes, so that they knew what was going on.

During the train strike a week or so ago, I had to come to London from Cornwall, so I caught the National Express bus. The IT system for it was actually rather good. It is probably better than for many of the rail systems that we have because not only does it give you a map of where the bus stop is, saying whether there is a shelter and things like that, but it gives a progress report on where you are going and where you can get off. It was generally very customer-friendly. I believe that something like that, or even better, could be available on CORS. It would also help with something that my noble friend Lord Snape did not mention: if you want to go from, say, Plymouth to Glasgow, it is often much cheaper to buy several tickets for the different sections rather than one complete ticket. There are ways round that if you know them but, again, a computer would in effect do it for you.

There is a solution to this, which would require the Government to get on and put this CORS thing out to tender before the legislation we have all been promised for a long time comes into effect or is even discussed. It needs looking at as a way of not only protecting revenue but doing the most important thing, which is getting passengers back on the train. It is now a year since the system was apparently approved; although the legislation is delayed, there is no reason why this scheme should be delayed. I hope that the Minister will encourage her colleagues to put it out to tender, get on with it and tell us all about it, because I think that it is a really exciting system.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Snape, for giving us an opportunity to debate this issue.

In principle, I fully accept the need to update penalty fares in line with inflation. However, if you look at the £20 fine that was fixed in legislation in 2005, the rates of inflation have been very low in the intervening years since 2005. It is highly unlikely that overall prices have multiplied by a factor of five in the past 18 years. Such a swingeing increase in the level of the fine or penalty fare is tone-deaf in a period of such massive disruption; for example, through strikes on the railway and, leaving the strikes aside, a very poor service from several train operating companies—including TransPennine and Avanti, to name but two. I fear that customers are totally fed up with the service they are getting in some parts of the country. Faced with fines of this size, they are likely to lose their temper with staff; I am not happy with the risks that that might pose.

This is apparently to be called not a “fine” but a “penalty fare”. That invites the question of whether the penalty fare should relate to the size of the fare that you should have paid; surely it should. You might have been going to pay a fare of as low as £5 to go from one stop to the next, or you might have been due to pay a fare of much nearer to £50 or £100. So the £100 fine—let us call it a fine because that is what it is—becomes totally disproportionate if you were due to pay only £5, whereas it is very reasonable if you were due to pay £50.

My belief—it echoes the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Snape and Lord Berkeley—is that the promised reform and simplification of fares must come first. I am frustrated by the delays to government plans. The reform of fares has been promised to us year after year. At the moment, it is only too easy to get the wrong fare by mistake. For example, I believe that there are three different definitions of “peak time” for trains going through Birmingham; Birmingham is featuring largely in our debate this evening.

I draw the Minister’s attention to the principles of punishment. When he was about to set up the police force, Sir Robert Peel coined the concept that it is not the severity of the punishment that deters criminals but the certainty of it. He said that at a time when we were deporting people to the other side of the world for minor theft. The police force was supposed to increase the certainty of being caught; indeed, it did so by a considerable amount. The problem on the railways now is the lack of certainty of being caught and the lack of inspectors on trains. Also, in many stations, gates are left open because there are no staff to supervise them; this happens often late in the evening or early in the morning. There is also a lack of staff to ensure that ticket machines are working. I urge the Minister to ensure that the Government incentivise train operating companies to employ additional staff and enforce ticketing rather than imposing what is clearly a haphazard fine regime.

Finally, I want to refer to the complexity of devolution. The Explanatory Memorandum refers to it; however, I have read and reread it, but I do not understand it, so I want to ask the Minister about it. It states:

“If a passenger is travelling on a train in England but is travelling to Wales … then the penalty fare of £100 … can be issued and an authority to travel for the section of the journey within England only. Penalty fares issued within … Wales are a matter for those devolved administrations to determine.”


It goes on to say that:

“Where a penalty fare is issued within England and the passenger wishes to travel to the next station which the train calls at and this is within Scotland or Wales, they should be issued with the penalty fare of £100 reduced to £50 if paid within 21 days but not an authority to travel as part of the penalty fare.”

--- Later in debate ---

I recognise the point that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, made about fatalities. When a fatality occurs on the railways, or on the roads, one always wants to get the system up and running again, but the police often advise, because the circumstances of the fatality may not be known, that they need to take their time to ensure that they have the evidence that they need so that, if there is any injustice, it is properly investigated.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. She has given us a very interesting response to many of the questions that noble Lords have raised but, so far, has not mentioned what has happened to the Bill that was promised and mentioned in my noble friend’s Motion, which we are debating. Can the Minister give me some indication of why the Department for Transport has had this proposal to simplify ticketing, by using IT and everything else, for a year? It would save a great deal of money and give people a lot of confidence. According to some people I have talked to, this does not need legislation. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, has also said that parts of the Bill do not need legislation, so why can we not do that? I appreciate that the Bill is late—we could have a long debate about that—but what is holding this up, if it does not need legislation? I am told it is opposition from the train operating companies, but who is in charge? Minister, you are in charge.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Oh, good! I take the noble Lord’s point. I was going to spell out a number of things that do not require legislation. We want to legislate and we must do it when parliamentary time allows, but there are many things that we can do without legislation. I will take back the specific point about the ticketing system and maybe write to the noble Lord and all who spoke in the debate to see if I can find a little more clarity on that.

While I am on a roll on this, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, mentioned long-term planning, which is one of the things that we do not need legislation for and which we have been thinking about. We are developing for publication the first draft of a long-term strategy for rail. I am sure noble Lords will appreciate the opportunity to debate that when it is published, because it sets out a long-term vision for our rail system over the coming decades.

To conclude, the vast majority of passengers who travel on our railways have the right ticket. If they do not, there are understandable circumstances. We accept that there is flexibility in the services that the train operating companies offer. However, we believe that the increase in the penalty fare is a sensible measure to discourage travel without a valid ticket, because it is simply not fair on other passengers or the taxpayer.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, for the debate today. I have no doubt that I will be back at this Dispatch Box to discuss the railway system again, and I look forward to it.

Railway Station Ticket Offices

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend is quite right. Huw Merriman MP has taken over as the new Rail Minister. If I may, I will just plug the meeting I have arranged with the Rail Minister tomorrow at 5.30 pm for any noble Lord who wishes to attend to ask him questions about current services, industrial action or, indeed, the critical modernisation that he is focused on.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has talked about driver-only trains, but the key surely is to have people on the station who can help people who are in wheelchairs or disabled in some way—my wife uses a wheelchair all the time—to get on and off the trains. Whether they are behind a ticket barrier or in an office, it does not really matter. Can she assure the House that there will be no reduction in the number of people who are on the platforms—whether they are from the train or the platform—to help people who need mobility assistance?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I can reassure the noble Lord that we are absolutely focused on making sure that every single passenger, whether they have reduced mobility or not, gets the service that they need at the place they need it. That may not be the ticket office; it may be on the platform. I am really pleased that the Government have worked closely with the Rail Delivery Group on developing the app for passengers with reduced mobility. That has proved very successful. It is but one step and there are many more things that we can do.

Merchant Shipping (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping) Regulations 2022

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Greenway (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for outlining these new regulations that, as she has explained, implement amendments made to the STCW convention. I think we were all taken aback by the size of these regulations; in fact, if I took time to read right through them, it might take almost as long as these regulations have taken to reach this House. We are playing catch up again, but I am pleased that we are now getting on with it, and I have no real queries with the regulations.

I see that pleasure craft are included, and I think there are limits. I cannot remember what the length and tonnage is for pleasure craft, and I have not had the time to work it out, but could the Minister tell me if it brings the Thames Clippers operating on the Thames here into the remit of these regulations?

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I also congratulate the Minister and her officials. I think I should also congratulate the MCA, which has probably done most of the work and produced some amazing documentation; I think we are all very grateful to it. As the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, says, it has taken a lot of reading and I will not go through many of these things, but I have a couple of questions for the Minister.

First, concerning the heading “Application” in Part 2, the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, asked about the Thames Clippers. I saw that the minimum weight was 80 gross tonnes and the length 24 metres. Which ships on the Thames does this apply to, as he asked? We debated life jackets on ships some time ago and I trust that has all been sorted out.

I have another question on this section. We see that it does not apply to foreign- registered vessels, which we know, but in Regulation 5(2)(e) we get an exclusion for

“wooden ships of primitive build”.

Can the Minister say what a wooden ship of primitive build is? Does it have to be over or under 24 metres? Is it powered by sail or motor, and where does it go? The only criterion seems to be that it should have a UK flag, if it ever had one. I do not know about that, but I suppose my concern is that these regulations go into great detail. I notice that only 25 UK-registered ships are owned by small businesses, and you can understand why: if they have to plough through all this and comply with it, the answer is they probably will not. That is quite a worry.

I am not sure how much of these provisions will apply to foreign-registered ships in UK waters. Does anybody check on those? Do the other ports of registry for ships have similar requirements to this—let us hope they do—or will we have one law for the British ones and one law for the rest of the world? As the Minister said, we want to encourage UK-registered ships but if this is the only country of registration that requires 200 pages of documents to be gone through, that is hardly an incentive.

Finally, I have often raised the question of enforcement before on different things. The Minister mentioned human error in her introduction. There have been a couple of interesting accidents with ships this summer, including the MV “Alfred”, which seemed to hit an island in Orkney on 5 July. One has to question how, in broad daylight, that happened with safe manning. I am sure we will see the results of an inquiry into that. I hope that in implementing and enforcing these regulations, the MCA will be given enough staff and resources to do it properly—it will be largely down to them—so that we have a good reputation for following these regulations, rather than just publishing more bits of paper.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness for her helpful introduction and exclaim, as others have, at the huge challenge that these pages offer to those who have little or no expertise on what is clearly a vital matter. This is a doorstep of regulations, Explanatory Notes and, shall we say, additional pages. Taking into account the principle that the Executive are to be questioned and held to account, which in this instance is virtually impossible by what might be called a Back-Bencher, I want to ask the Minister about the importance of training, which is now a priority for all Governments in succession.

I am looking at page 37 and its references to nautical colleges. Might the Minister say who reports to her department regarding assessment and inspection there? Does she know, or is her department able to say, how many nautical colleges there are? Is it possible for her to say what the number of students is in the average nautical college? Where might they be located?

On that basis of attempting, in principle, to question the Minister, I say that time is of the essence so I shall sit down.

Swing Bridges

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, my department has a fund that exists solely to encourage freight off the roads and on to waterways. It is top of mind; we encourage our own delivery bodies to ensure that they use a variety of modes to transport construction materials. That includes inland waterways, as the noble Baroness has pointed out. If it is not in the maritime strategy, that is not because it is not a priority; perhaps it simply did not fit.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister feel that, when it comes to funding, she has a conflict of interest between being Minister for Maritime and the spokesperson for roads in this House?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Not at all. As the former Roads Minister, I am very grateful that I have that background of knowledge. I am perfectly able to want to transfer freight from the roads to inland waterways, because it is good for carbon.

Midlands Rail Hub

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Unfortunately, there is never sufficient funding for all the positive business cases the department has in its filing cabinet at any given time. That is why priorities must be considered. We must look at the strategic case and think about how the different enhancements work together. But where positive business cases are submitted to the department, we of course look at them with great interest.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the Midlands Rail Hub, which is designed to dramatically improve the east-west and local and regional services in the area, which are pretty awful at the moment, should be a much greater priority than getting to London a few minutes faster by HS2?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord that the Midlands Rail Hub would indeed do some of the things he outlines. He may also be interested to know that it would improve the integration to HS2 and therefore make HS2 ever more valued.

Drivers’ Hours, Tachographs, International Road Haulage and Licensing of Operators (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley]

That this House regrets that the draft Drivers’ Hours, Tachographs, International Road Haulage and Licensing of Operators (Amendment) Regulations 2022 introduce a requirement for new tachograph equipment in goods vehicles weighing more than 2.5 tonnes on international journeys without providing evidence of the availability and cost of that equipment.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her comprehensive introduction to this SI. My reason for tabling this amendment is that, when the SI was tabled in July, I came across quite a lot of evidence of a lack of availability of some of the tachographs, lack of information about the costs, and lack of general information and, possibly, training for the people who would have to make this work.

I do, of course, support the regulations, and I congratulate the Government on them, but they have to be workable. Maybe things have moved on since July, but I have a few questions for the Minister which I am sure she will be able to answer. Most of the comments that I heard came from a magazine called Roadway, which comes from the road freight industry. It comments that, since January 2022, the DVSA has changed its approach and is—as the Minister said—enforcing these regulations at the roadside and during operator investigations, which is good. It is interesting that the traffic commissioners are now getting involved, which is also something quite new. Could the Minister say whether there have been any prosecutions yet, and outline how many investigations have been going on?

Secondly, what has the DVSA done to raise awareness of these requirements? I suggest that the Government have an obligation to ensure that these very complex regulations are widely known and understood. Have the drivers been trained to meet these requirements? If they have not, it is not going to work.

Regarding some of the comments in the Explanatory Memorandum, can the Minister give some idea of whether the smart tachographs—version 2—are available, whether they will they fit into all the types of vehicles that they are supposed to fit into, and how much they will cost? If there should be a supply shortage, the whole thing will not work and the Government will get a very bad reputation over it. I assume that the cost of installation is possible. It is often found that some of the bits of equipment that people are required to use do not fit into the vehicle concerned; it also applies to ships, but I will not bring that up today. I know that it is in the future, but light goods vehicles are going to be brought into scope in 2026, which, again, is probably a good thing but will make the equipment more difficult to install.

The next issue—I do not have very many more—relates to what is called triangulation, and cabotage. Paragraph 7.20 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to

“removing the triangular rights of EU hauliers and the cabotage rights following unladen entry”

into the UK. It says that because this is the same as the reverse on the EU it is probably all right, but is there any intention of trying to renegotiate some of these things? One reads quite often of vehicles, maybe small ones used by theatre clubs or orchestras taking their equipment across when they want to tour many different member states. We have had debates in your Lordships’ House about that, but it is a complex consequence of leaving the EU. It is not a very big problem except for those who suffer it and I hope that the Government will look at that again.

Paragraph 7.22 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to excluding combined transport. I question why combined transport is excluded, because if the truck happens to be loading or unloading a container from a ship or train that should be included, along with everything else.

Finally, the usual question from me and other noble Lords: if there is going to be a bonfire of EU regulations, are we going to have to go through all this again or will there be a new lot? I am sure the Minister will want to write to me on that, rather than answering today, but I beg to move my amendment.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I will briefly raise some points that follow on from what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has said. They were raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee and are just to put my mind at rest.

In particular, on page 16 of its 10th report the committee raised a number of questions in paragraph Q2. The department seems to agree that these questions are causing some concern, and has confirmed that industry raised these concerns. The committee asked:

“What are industry’s concerns, is it the cost of the new equipment or are there supply issues that will make compliance by the deadline set difficult?”


In its answer, the department says that it is both: the cost of the new equipment and meeting the deadline. Can my noble friend the Minister put my mind at rest on whether the cost issue has now been resolved? Given that the department realises that there will be “only a few months” before the supply and installation “into newly registered vehicles”, can she confirm that the deadline will be met, or will the department be fairly flexible and allow them more time in this regard?

The department says:

“If there is a supply issue it would be felt at European level not just in the UK.”


But obviously the House is concerned about how that is to be addressed in this country. I therefore ask for confirmation: how does the department expect to address this issue of supply? Are we perhaps getting a little ahead of ourselves and should the deadline for when they should be fitted be a little more flexible than it has been?

The department says in its concluding paragraph on question 2:

“The Department will work with industry to raise awareness of the new requirement.”


Perhaps my noble friend will be good enough to tell us how that is to be achieved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. It has been really good to hear so many questions to the Minister, and I am grateful to her for the answers she has given—most of them, anyway.

I still find it extraordinary that although we have this legislation which requires tachographs to be installed, she could not seem to tell us how many suppliers there are. In this country, we have some pretty good examples of monopoly suppliers of large volumes of things that have gone horribly wrong, particularly in the health service. This kind of equipment should be available from many manufacturers, and I am not quite sure why we can have only the ones that the EU says. We obviously have to comply, but there we are. I think that a cost of £1,200 plus installation is pretty high for many operators. I am sure they will be able to do some financial wizardry with it, but it is still quite a lot of money, though it is for a good purpose.

I worry about the cabotage issue, because we still have traffic problems at Dover and many other places quite often. The freight industry is short of drivers. We used to have a situation in which probably only 10% of cross-channel road freight was done by British drivers. Whatever we think, we have to find the drivers somewhere if we cannot find them here, otherwise we will not get the goods across.

I hope we will keep this under review and I look forward to the Minister’s letter, which may be quite long. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment to the Motion.

Amendment to the Motion withdrawn.

HS2: Wales

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

As I tried to explain, the Government take an overarching approach, as heavy rail infrastructure is the responsibility of the Government in England and Wales. But if one looks at rail investment in Wales, one can see that we are investing record amounts already. In CP6, we have invested £2 billion in Wales alone, which includes £1.2 billion in renewals and upgrading infrastructure and £373 million for rail enhancements.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, Ministers have said that all trains from south Wales to Paddington will stop at Old Oak Common, the station of HS2 in London. That will add 10 minutes to the journey. How much will that station cost and how many years of delay will there be while it is constructed on the Great Western main line?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord and I have had many conversations about Old Oak Common in the past. The Government remain committed to the construction of Old Oak Common; we believe that having trains stopping there will mean that the station becomes a vital integrated transport link in west London, which would lead into many other parts of London and beyond.