(2 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I am always thinking about Yorkshire. The noble Baroness raises an important point. There is an amount of money that will be going into the system, which will be used to service what is at the moment a lower number of passengers. That is where we must get the balance right. We must work with industry to support it on the initiatives and boost demand, also ensuring that the services are there when they are needed. The increase of 3.8%, compared with what inflation is currently, is not significant, given that we could have had a more significant increase had we used an RPI from a later month.
My Lords, I press the Minister a little more on the question asked by my noble friend Lord Rosser about Network Rail’s costs. I understand from many in the industry that Network Rail has been told to cut its costs by 40% in the coming year. That seems an enormous amount, compared with what it is doing at the moment and the need for safety. Can she confirm whether that is true or completely wrong?
(2 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to extend the COVID-19 emergency funding for local bus services beyond the end of March.
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Berkeley, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberTo ask Her Majesty’s Government why they have removed the requirement for there to be an electric vehicle charge point in all existing non-residential properties with more than 20 parking spaces; and what assessment they have made of the implications of this change for their net zero target.
My Lords, we believe that a more ambitious and tailored approach is needed for existing non-residential car parks. We have already progressed this policy and are currently analysing feedback from a further consultation on the future of transport regulatory review. The noble Lord asks why proposals have been removed. I am unclear as to where he feels they have been removed from.
My Lords, I got this information from the Government’s Consultation Response: EV Charge Points in Residential and Non-residential Buildings, dated November 2021. The executive summary says:
“The Government will not introduce the proposed requirement for one charge point in all existing non-residential properties with more than 20 parking spaces.”
To me, that means that they have cancelled the need to put charging points in existing car parks. Maybe they do not think charging points are necessary; maybe we do not need electric cars. It is a bit of a confusing policy.
I understand why the noble Lord might have been a little confused by that sentence. It is not the case that we are not going to do it at all; rather, we are not going to do that specific proposal. The feedback we received from our original consultation back in 2019 suggested that the proposals were not ambitious enough and that details on the implementation and the impact were unclear. We agreed that perhaps we could be more ambitious. That is why we consulted again on the future of transport regulatory review, which closed on 22 November. It sought further views on this topic. Proposals in this area are absolutely still under consideration; we just want them to be as ambitious as possible.
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Grand CommitteeMy Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in yet another short debate on navigation systems. I was very grateful to the Minister for writing to noble Lords to clarify things after the last debate, but I was sorry that I did not get a letter saying that she had arranged a meeting with the Minister for Aviation. I hope that she may tell us more about that today.
I wanted to update noble Lords on what has happened on EGNOS since the last debate. I have been given a copy of a letter from Robert Courts MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Air, to Jim McMahon MP, a Labour shadow Secretary of State, dated 22 June. The letter explains why the Government are not going ahead with EGNOS, and basically says that, in discussions with the European Commission, the Government decided that it was not considered to offer good value for the taxpayer.
I have been reflecting on what that means. Having talked to people in the Highlands and Islands, and Loganair, and having been in the Isles of Scilly last weekend, I discovered that the issue of safety of life, which the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, mentioned, is actually quite serious. In Scilly, there is no ferry in the winter, so people rely on air. There was a time between Christmas and new year this year when some people got delayed and had to spend five days in a hotel with their family, which does not come cheap.
More importantly, the Isles of Scilly and many of the Scottish islands rely on air help for medical emergencies—either a helicopter or a fixed-wing plane, depending on the circumstances. If people cannot fly due to bad navigation, usually fog, their health is at risk. I am not sure how the Minister for Aviation can say that that is not good value for money. I do not know how much he puts on a life that is lost because you cannot fly, when there is an alternative.
The Minister may not have the answers today, so perhaps she could write, but what is the actual cost of reinstalling EGNOS? There must be a cost from the European Union, even as a temporary measure. If there is an alternative, what is it, and when will it be ready? We need answers to those questions, because at the moment a lot of money is being spent on abortive attempts to keep EGNOS going, or not even start it. Maybe some of those who spent the money will look to have compensation, but it is more important that we find a solution that can be done and, I hope, worked with the European Union, even as a temporary measure.
I conclude by noting that the Channel Islands, which are not part of the UK air traffic system, have EGNOS. They have confirmed to me that they are continuing to use it, and as far as I can gather it does not cost them very much, if anything at all. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and I hope that she can soon give us a date for meeting the Air Minister.
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for raising this aspect of air traffic services, and it is a pleasure to follow him. I should perhaps draw attention to my role as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on General Aviation and as an aviator who is often confronted with inclement weather conditions, when the provision of satellite-assisted navigation is of enormous help.
At the conclusion of the Brexit negotiations, a number of reasons were put forward from various sources as an explanation for the loss of the high-accuracy guidance provided by the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, EGNOS, ranging from running out of negotiating time to the EU demanding an excessive amount of money to remain within the Galileo system. Seeking clarification in a Written Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 20 April last year, I asked
“what financial contribution the EU requested for the UK to continue to access the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service Safety of Life service; how the request compared with the UK’s previous contributions; how they assessed value for money in view of its impact on aviation; and what plans they have to renegotiate access to this service.”
It was a disappointing response. I was told:
“The UK sought to negotiate a service access agreement on
EGNOS
“with the EU. However, the EU required participation in the programme along with the full associated costs of participation, as per previous years, for continued access to the EGNOS Safety of Life service. For all programmes under consideration, the Government was clear it would only participate where the terms were in the UK’s interests, and in this case, it was not considered value for money.”
The question of financial contribution was not answered.
I am bound to say that I find that quite astonishing. The whole purpose of EGNOS, which provides localiser performance with vertical guidance, commonly known as LPV accuracy, is the safe operation of aircraft. The clue is in the title: Safety of Life service. Surely this should be in the UK’s interest, and everyone else’s.
The loss of this service has had enormous financial implications for airfields, many of them small training establishments, which have assisted in EGNOS-assisted approaches. What is more, student pilots training for commercial licences have lost the opportunity to undertake the necessary practical training for those airfield approaches within the UK, with the prospect of moving to European training schools and consequent loss of revenue to UK training establishments.
Above all, it is the safety access which the EGNOS service provides and which has now been lost due to the Government putting value for money before the Safety of Life service. My question is simple: how much would it cost to retain that facility, or is it still the Government’s position that finances override the safety aspect of EGNOS?
In answer to a further Written Question of mine a year ago, I was informed:
“The Government continues to explore options for mitigating the loss of the LPV capability.”
Perhaps the Minister can update the House on exactly how much further forward we are on those much needed options and what the timescale is.
This is an extremely important issue on which the aviation community feels sorely let down, so I ask the Minister to do whatever she can to reinstate this important service, which, on the face of it, appears to have gone completely off the radar. I look forward to my noble friend’s response.
As we are considering aviation licensing issues, perhaps I can ask my noble friend’s indulgence for a moment longer on the issue of a recently adopted regulation resulting in pilots now being prevented from flying in UK airspace using US FAA flight crew licences. This is having a particular effect on helicopter operations. As the Minister will know, many pilots in the UK have FAA licences due to the costs involved with the UK’s authority, the CAA, which is one of the most expensive authorities in the developed world. I believe that Article 2(1)(b)(ii) of UK regulation 2018/1139 is the element causing problems for owners. The legislation applies to all third-country licence holders, including FAA licence holders resident in the UK, and all third-country aircraft registered in the UK.
The pressing issue is residence within the UK. If it was a case of the aircraft residing elsewhere, it would not be an issue. The legislation does not consider aircraft on the FAA register separately, as they are on a third-country register. Pilots and engineers who work on aircraft hold a multitude of different licences, not just FAA ones. Rather puzzlingly, the FAA instructor who conducts checkrides is invariably also a UK CAA examiner. Therefore, it is difficult for operators to understand why they should now be stopped from flying. We have a frustrated section of the aviation community unable to fly for business, with multimillion-pound helicopters and experienced private and commercial pilots having been made redundant through the legislation. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline how the DfT plans to address the issue.
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberAt the end insert “but that this House regrets that the regulations, while providing interoperability for train drivers between Ashford and Calais, do not extend to full European Union and United Kingdom interoperability in a similar manner to drivers of Heavy Good Vehicles.”
My Lords, I suppose that I could have added airline pilots to the wording of my amendment, but I did not. First, I want to make it quite clear that I welcome these regulations 100%. I know that Ministers and officials have worked incredibly hard to get them ready and agreed by the deadline, which, I think, is in about a week’s time. If these regulations do not get through by the end of this month, trains will stop—they will not run. It is therefore very important that the regulations go ahead; that is what I have been told. The noble Baroness gave us a pretty good introduction to the purpose and scope of the regulations but I think that she will agree that it is a pretty complex matter, and it is clear that they are all necessary because of our leaving the European Union.
The noble Baroness referred to the Train Driving Licences and Certificates Regulations 2010. Even the Explanatory Memorandum to that legislation was, I think, 22 pages long. What is interesting about it is that more than 10 years ago the UK, and the rest of Europe, signed up to a common driver’s licence for the whole of the European Union. It had a purpose: to
“create a more flexible labour market for train drivers (i.e. make it easier for train drivers to move from one Member State to another … introduce common standards of driver and train crew competence … make it easier for cross-border rail services to operate; and increase public confidence in the rail system”.
I find it extraordinary that the Government have decided that these objectives are not a good idea. Presumably they do not want to encourage public confidence or more cross-border rail services. I do not know. Perhaps the noble Baroness can answer those questions, but it is a bit odd. It certainly does not apply, as I mentioned, to trucks and air services.
My Lords, I rise very briefly to say how much I support what my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said. They have raised lots of detailed issues, which I hope we will get a clear answer to at the end of the debate. I just want to add one thing. What is the Government’s vision for international rail travel of which Britain is a part? Is that the way that they are thinking about it, or are they thinking, “Oh well, we can’t do anything because it involves ECJ jurisdiction”, or something like that? Where is the vision? There is a real opportunity here: if we are serious about reducing air travel and all the damage it does to the climate, we have to be in favour of more people going on holiday or on business on the continent by rail. The opportunity is growing. I was lucky enough to be brought up as a railway clerk’s son and, every year, we would use our free passes to go from Carlisle to the continent.
Yes, first class, too. It gave me a great taste for it, when we arrived at Basel and saw the great age of international rail transport, which was then gradually coming to an end as flying was growing. But it is coming back. Last year—or two years ago, before all the wretched Covid—we went on the wonderful Austrian sleepers to bring us back to Britain, except they could not bring us back to Britain, of course; they could bring us only to Cologne and then we had to get a train from there. But why should that not be part of the vision? Do the Government have this European vision? That is what we need and it is where the future lies if we are serious about a modal switch in medium-distance travel.
Correct, but, as I mentioned, the training is the same on both sides and there should be no barrier to the driver getting that second licence.
My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. I am also grateful to the Minister for her answers, which have cleared up a lot of our questions, and for the regularity with which she writes letters to speakers after these debates. They are incredibly helpful—I may not agree with them, but they are really helpful. I thank her for that, and I am sure we will get a good one today—or it may now be tomorrow.
It was really good to hear comments from several noble Lords about the need for a vision. That is really important at the moment for the railways, particularly cross-channel. We had a debate about a year ago about whether Eurostar would survive during Covid and what the Government were going to do about that. It is important that the Government facilitate, encourage and do whatever they can to get as many new services through the tunnel as possible to whatever destinations make commercial sense.
I am sure we will return to this, but it was interesting to hear the Minister’s comments at the end in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about HGVs. Everyone thought that, two years after Brexit, it would all be sorted out. It may be that the railway has got there before the roads, for once. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberThe Government are very keen for passengers to return to the railways. We are working closely with the industry as it supports demand and revenue recovery. However, we accept that there may be enduring changes in the way in which people travel, whether it be for work versus leisure. That is why the Rail Delivery Group is working closely with VisitBritain to establish a new domestic rail tourism product, so that we might perhaps go interrailing around our own nation.
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned the 10% cut that the Treasury has asked all the rail industry to impose. Can the Minister confirm that the Night Riviera sleeper, which keeps Cornwall connected to London and the rest of the country, is safe from this, or will that be cut as part of the 10%?
My Lords, I cannot comment on the Night Riviera sleeper; I wish I could, but I will write if I can find out any information on it. However, we do need to look at our railways to ensure that they are financially sustainable for the future. The Government have committed £14 billion since the start of the pandemic to support our rail sector. We know that in future, we will be looking for workforce reforms and cost efficiencies. We want passengers to come back and, of course, overall, we want an excellent performance for all passengers and freight.
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Grand CommitteeMy Lords, I welcome very much this SI today. By way of background, I have had the privilege of reading the CAA publication Airspace Modernisation Strategy, and I have had the chance to look at the Airspace Change Organising Group’s work so far. From my background as a former pilot in the RAF who takes an interest in aviation, my stance is that I certainly do not accept the view put forward as a result of COP 26 that aviation is in decline mode; I think that aviation is absolutely fundamental to the future success of our country and our economy. I welcome enormously the work that the CAA is doing alongside the department involved, because it is absolutely vital for our exports trade and for internal trade that we use to the maximum possible the airspace that is available.
Having said that, I have just a couple of short questions. One of our previous problems, particularly with unmanned aircraft—in other words, drones—was that people claimed that there was not proper awareness, the publicity was not adequate and somehow or other they had missed out on this, that and the other. Given the nature of these penalties, which are absolutely justifiable, we need to take particular care to ensure that there is proper publicity in depth and to check, by way of research, that people are aware of the changes being made.
Other than that, I just ask my noble friend, because I do not quite understand, why, according to paragraph 7.4,
“Public consultation on some of the airspace change proposals is likely to commence in 2022.”
From reading the material I referred to, it is a package in toto, so I am not quite sure how you can regulate just a section of the airspace—unless it is felt that you can do Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland separately. I am not quite clear why it should be just “some”, as opposed to a complete package. I look forward to my noble friend’s responses.
My Lords, I welcome this regulation. On first reading, I thought that it was a bit of a sledge-hammer to crack a nut, but when you start reading the Aerospace Modernisation Strategy—127 pages of it—you can see why it is necessary. I question whether the strategy will not need some amendment as a result of Brexit, but I shall come on to that.
I have one interesting suggestion, which relates to paragraphs 2.1 and 2.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum on the regulations. It seems to me that, having cancelled EGNOS—which I shall come on to—the Government could be seen to be contravening the notice in those paragraphs. Could the CAA instruct the Government to reintroduce EGNOS or face a fine of 10% of the Government’s turnover? That is a pretty stupid question, but it is a consequence of the way it is written. I hope we will never get to that, and I am sure we will not. My interest in EGNOS is that I live on the Isles of Scilly and spent three days waiting to fly out after Christmas, because it was a bit foggy and there are no ships, so we rely on aeroplanes. I think that some of the Scottish islands are in a similar position.
I have been following EGNOS over the years, which, as we all know, is a satellite-based system that is a great deal cheaper than the ILS that they have in Heathrow, Gatwick and other places. Originally, the Government were enthusiastic about EGNOS, and I understand that the Secretary of State wrote to the CAA just after he became Transport Secretary to direct it to prioritise the airspace change proposals necessary to put EGNOS in place. Sadly, of course, in May last year, it was cancelled, and the Secretary of State confirmed that the Government could not agree terms with the EU for continuing to use EGNOS, saying:
“I recognise that it nonetheless remains a disappointing outcome.”
I certainly agree with him there.
I have had discussions with the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, who played a major part in setting up the Galileo satellite system when she was in the European Parliament. She is very surprised about this decision, which I do not think she knew about. There has been very little comment about it. In April, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, put down a Written Question, which did not really get much of an answer from Ministers, but they did say that they agreed to cancel EGNOS because
“it was not considered value for money.”
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Grand CommitteeMy Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this fascinating draft order. It is interesting that the Government blame everything on things coming from the Far East, be they Chinese or Japanese knotweed or Japanese oysters. I expect that equal blame goes in the opposite direction.
This needs doing—I have no problem with ensuring that ballast water is sampled and tested—but I wonder whether the Minister can just help me. How is this sampling done? It is presumably done when the ship is in port, then sent away for analysis—that seems quite clear to me—but what happens if some of the samples are found to be non-compliant with whatever regulations we are coming up with? Will they nail a writ to the mast of the ship, the next time it comes in? Will they send our Navy out on to the high seas? How will these things actually be enforced?
It is wonderful having regulations. These have been coming for a long time. The IMO worked very fast to get them ready by 2017. It probably takes 10 years to do these things, and now we are taking another five. It is important to understand how these regulations will be enforced. They need to be enforced around the world. We can do only our bit, but we can set an example. I hope there is a way of doing it without us spending too much money on it.
My Lords, I too am grateful to the Minister for introducing this order. As she said, the convention dates from 2004 and was not ratified until September 2016 by 30 states, representing 35% of the world’s merchant tonnage. By the time it came into force a year after that, over 60 countries had ratified it, representing over 70% of the world’s shipping.
The Minister mentioned the delay in bringing forward this order. I am not certain that I entirely buy her explanation. It seems to me that when so many other countries, representing so much of the world’s shipping, have already ratified it, it does not do our reputation as a so-called maritime nation much good when we are seen to be dragging our feet over these conventions.
She also mentioned in passing the Chinese mitten crabs. When I went through the list, it read more like something out of a science-horror movie, since we also have round goby, North American comb jelly, zebra mussels, toxic algae and even cholera, which has been transported on micro-organisms such as plankton. There are some very nasty things going around, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, just said, and this convention was brought in for very good reasons.
There is one thing I would like to ask the Minister. What has been the position with our ships? This measure does not mean that an awful lot of ships, in the general sense of the word, would be affected because our Merchant Navy is a shadow of what it used to be. But what has happened to those ships to enable them to continue trading? Have they been, on their own accord, taking the actions necessary to comply with the convention in order to trade? If they were seen to be operating under the flag of a country that had not ratified, they would quickly be picked up by port state control around the world and forbidden to trade. I would be grateful if the Minister could shed some light on that.
Before the noble Baroness sits down, could she write with a list of prosecutions that the MCA has done on these issues? She mentioned that, for non-compliance, the MCA would be the prosecuting authority. Has it done any yet?
It would not have done anything against the convention, because, obviously, the convention is not implemented yet. So that would be a difficult list to compile at this stage. Perhaps I will send the noble Lord some nice information about the MCA and its enforcement, shall I? Excellent. We will do that. I beg to move.
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Grand CommitteeMy Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this order. I declare a non-pecuniary interest as an Elder Brother of Trinity House, the general lighthouse authority for England, Wales, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar. As the Minister said, Trinity House has been closely involved with the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation since its formation in 1957 under its previous name, the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities, which is where the acronym IALA comes from.
At a meeting in Spain in 2014, IALA agreed that the best way forward to develop and improve marine aids to navigation for the benefit of the maritime community and the protection of the environment would be to seek international intergovernmental organisation status as soon as possible through the development of an international convention. Three subsequent diplomatic conferences were held to thrash out a draft convention, and it was finalised and adopted at a fourth conference held in Kuala Lumpur in February 2020. Just under a year later, the convention was opened for signature in Paris, where IALA is headquartered, and some 20 countries have now signed. Five of these—Singapore, Norway, Japan, Malaysia and India—have since ratified.
The convention will lead to increased international acceptance of standards, enhancing harmonisation, and will raise IALA’s status at the International Maritime Organization from merely consultative to equal partner, facilitating direct links with the experts working at the sharp end of research and development and thereby obviating difficulties that have arisen in the past when dealing with some governmental bodies.
Despite the huge technological strides that have been made in the aids-to-navigation sector over the past 20 or so years—here Trinity House has played a major role—the importance of such aids is as great now as it ever was, arguably more so due to the greater emphasis being given to environmental concerns. Bearing in mind our close association with IALA, I sincerely hope that the Government will see their way to ratifying the new convention at the earliest opportunity.
My Lords, I welcome this order. As the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said, it is well overdue but is certainly going to happen. It appears to be going at a faster rate than on ballast water, perhaps because it will be based in France; we can conjecture on that. However, that is not really what I want to ask the Minister about.
As the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said, Trinity House is responsible for the lights and other navigation aids in England. It must have been more than 10 years ago that the shipping industry got very upset because it was paying its light dues for when ships use British ports—the light dues go to maintaining the lights—and we discovered that the lights being maintained included all the lights around the Irish Republic as well as those around England and Scotland. I recall that at the time my noble friend Lady Crawley, who was a Minister, was having great trouble negotiating with the Irish Government on the rather simple idea that they should pay for the maintenance of their own lights. She said, “They’re not very keen to negotiate”. That was not a very good answer from the Irish Government.
It was finally sorted out, and the other thing that was sorted out was that Trinity House and the Government together found a way of becoming much more efficient, as they are now, and therefore reducing the light dues applied to ships coming into this country. I am very pleased with the way it has gone, but can the Minister confirm, if not today then in writing, that there is no question that any of the money from ships coming into UK ports and paying light dues goes towards funding anything to do with lights in the Irish Republic?
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberI reassure my noble friend that we still believe that vehicular congestion has an economic cost; this can be a personal economic cost and a national economic cost. But we do not estimate a total cost of congestion on the road network as a whole; that is not routinely assessed by the department. We look at things such as journey time savings on road schemes appraisal, alongside many other impacts, be they economic, social or environmental, to make the right decisions.
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the three most congested roads in London are the A503, the A2 and the North Circular Road, which are multilane roads with no cycle lanes? Would she also agree that the Blackfriars north-south cycle route now carries five times more people per route than the carriageway next to it? Is there not an argument for having more cycle routes, in particular on the high street in Kensington, which Kensington and Chelsea council has removed illegally?
Oh, my Lords, not again. The noble Lord has clearly been looking at the INRIX report in some detail. It is correct that the roads he cites are some of the most congested in London, but that does not necessarily mean that they are ripe for a cycle path. What one does need is effective cycle networks running through long distances. He rightly mentions the one over Blackfriars Bridge, which is a huge success. It is up to the Mayor of London, working with the local highways authorities, to put these in place.