Scotland Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, in my view the words used by the Smith commission on this subject do not imply the break-up of the British Transport Police so far as it operates in Scotland. It says that the functions of the British Transport Police shall be devolved. If the British Transport Police does not exist in Scotland, it will not have any functions that are devolved. That does not seem to make sense.

My second point is that if this provision is to be applied in a sense that the British Transport Police is not to function in Scotland, but would have some kind of associated unit in Police Scotland, there will be no chief constable responsible for operations of transport police in Scotland whose exclusive attention is devoted to transport. The chief constable of Police Scotland has some responsibilities other than transport, whereas the British Transport Police chief constable is devoted entirely to transport—the full attention of the most senior rank there is in the police is available relating to transport only. Transport is sufficiently important to merit the attention of a chief constable.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Faulkner’s Amendments 41 and 42. I certainly will not repeat the excellent speeches made in support of these and the other amendments this evening. I will emphasise one or two things: first, how different policing the railways is nowadays. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, mentioned Waverley station, which brings me to crowd control of, for example, football crowds. The British Transport Police has an enormous and excellent reputation in ensuring safety of passengers on the Underground and ways into the Underground, and has ways of keeping them safe on the platforms themselves so that the train does not run into them and they do not get pushed on to the track. There is, sadly, the ongoing issue of terrorism and people trying to do nasty things to the trains, which can be very dangerous. There was an incident last Friday in Belgium where somebody put some concrete blocks on the track of a high-speed line. Luckily, the train did not derail, but that can happen anywhere. Again, having the local police going along and dealing with that might be all right, but there is a good chance that it would not be all right. We have to ensure that this specialism is retained and preserved in whatever happens.

My noble friend Lord McAvoy seemed to be saying that we should give the Scots everything they want in this legislation. That is an argument I do not have particular views on, except on the railways. If we want to give them British Transport Police separated from the rest of the UK, why not give them the railway completely? Why not give them Network Rail? There is nothing in the Bill that says Network Rail is going to be owned in Scotland, or separated from the UK. It probably does not particularly matter who owns the railway, but there is the matter of timetabling.

I spent many years in various discussions across Europe trying to encourage passenger and freight trains to move across frontiers without stopping for hours, minutes or sometimes days because the timetable is not co-ordinated. Of course, that could happen here if the Government give the responsibility to Scotland for having a separate timetable. I am sure it would not happen, because we are not that stupid, but it seems to me that if we are going to keep the railways as an integrated whole, and not make all the Virgin trains stop at Carlisle for everybody to get out and get on to a different train, why separate the police?

The other issue of which we ought perhaps to remind ourselves, also mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, is the question of who pays. We all know that Network Rail at the moment pays 50% of the cost of the British Transport Police and the train operators, passenger and freight, pay the other 50%—I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. If I were a train operator in Scotland and I found that the BTP did not exist there and any policing on the railways was being done by the local bobby, I would say to myself, and to the politicians, “Why do I, operating a train in Scotland, have to pay for policing the railway, such as it is, but if I operate a bus, a car or a lorry in Scotland, I do not have to pay?”. And I would not pay, because it is very out of balance between road and rail—I would probably get nothing for it either.

At some stage, someone is going to have to work out who is going to pay for the policing in Scotland that will no longer be done by the BTP. There is absolutely no reason why the rail passenger or freight customer should have to pay for whatever policing they get and the main competitor, which is road, should not have to pay. Maybe the Minister already has an answer to that.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Surely, under the no-detriment principle, what was previously being paid by the transport operators to cover Scotland would need to be provided by the Scottish Government in a cheque to the British Transport Police south of the border.

[Lord Berkeley]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord: that is the way it should be done. The operators in England do complain, occasionally, about what they get for their money—the British Transport Police probably spends half its budget in London, because London is very important, with the Underground. The fact remains that they all accept this, but they do expect to get the specialist knowledge, albeit sometimes in support of the local police, who may get there first. They know that the BTP is there to provide the specialist knowledge and make sure that everything they do is done safely. I feel very strongly about this and I hope that the Minister will give us some comfort. If not, we will have to see what happens.

Scotland Bill

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I was somewhat amused by the views of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, because road signage is something with which we are all too familiar, unfortunately. We have one little twist in the tale for the noble Lord. We have a system whereby a Minister who happens to hold the relevant portfolio for traffic signs will put the signs up in both languages—indeed, some of them are up in three languages, if you include Ulster Scots—but when there is a change, the new Minister will take them down.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps we need an amendment stating that all road signs about broken pavements should be in two languages.

To return to the issue of broken pavements, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, was beginning to imply that there were not many pavements in Scotland and you had to walk on the muddy verges or get splashed by cars. I do not think he meant that. There are just as many muddy roads in England, Wales and everywhere else as there are in Scotland, I am sure. There is an argument for saying that issues such as broken pavements and enforcement should be devolved locally. Why should we here decide on the legislation for parking offences such as causing a broken pavement or double parking? The incidence of it is just as bad in Scotland as in England.

I commend the amendment, and Living Streets for giving us some very good information on it. It is relevant that the consultation in Scotland received the fifth-highest number of responses of any Scottish Parliament Member’s Bill; 95% of responses were in favour of this parking legislation. That demonstrates a lot of interest in having the change proposed in the amendment. I see no reason why the local Edinburgh government should not be allowed to prohibit parking on footways and pavements and at dropped kerbs, and double parking of vehicles. Clarification is needed of what the offences are and who should enforce them.

There is a similar issue in England and the situation is awful, actually. We have had many debates about what enforcement is carried out for various alleged crimes. It is like the PCSOs, who are allowed to fine bicycles for going through stop lines but are not allowed to fine cars. They are all going through stop lines—what is the difference? It would be nice if one day, the UK Department for Transport got on to this but in the mean time, I cannot see any reason why the Scottish Government should not be responsible for these local issues.

[Lord Dunlop]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for his ingenuity in taking the debate in a different direction from the one I was expecting and on which I have been briefed. In social media Twitter-speak, road signs are trending in the House of Lords.

Returning, with the House’s indulgence, to the new clause proposed in Amendment 53, introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Davidson, this seeks to address questions that have been raised about the Scottish Parliament’s ability to tackle the issue of inconsiderate parking on pavements. This issue was raised by the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, the Member for Edinburgh South, who was at the Bar earlier to listen to the debate. He tabled an amendment in the other place, which has been re-tabled for consideration by this House.

It is clear, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Davidson, said, that this is a matter of great concern to many people, including people with disabilities, as well as the elderly and parents with pushchairs, who can find their way blocked by vehicles parked without due consideration for others who require access to the pavement.

Your Lordships may be aware that this is a complicated issue for which the devolution settlement has not been clear. There have been a number of attempts to bring legislation forward in the Scottish Parliament to tackle this, but they have not succeeded due to doubts over the legal competence of the Scottish Parliament in this area. In September 2014 the former Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, Mark Lazarowicz, tabled a Private Member’s Bill in the Commons to attempt to address this issue. At the time, the Government gave assurances that we would do what we could to address it, although we explained that the Scottish Government would need to be clear about what measures and powers they would support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sanderson of Bowden]

I, too, have grave concerns about this part of the Smith commission report, in paragraph 67, on the functions of the British police in Scotland being a devolved matter. We have heard from somebody from Northern Ireland on this whole question of security, which is so important. Why, if we have something that works as the British Transport Police does, do we change it? It is very dangerous to change it in this Bill—and I hope that my friend on the Front Bench will be able to give us a reasonable answer.

[Lord Berkeley]

I wonder whether it would be useful to reflect on some of the things that the British Transport Police currently does. Like it or not—and most people like it—we have some very highly congested railways in this country. Sometimes the trains go very fast, and some of them are freight. Here I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. Some of the passenger ones go even faster. One thing that the BTP does is make sure that people do not trespass on the railway, be it in towns, countryside or whatever. There have been one or two occasions when the local police force—I cannot say where—has trespassed on the railways and put their own lives and other people’s lives at risk by not knowing how the trains work. The BTP knows how the trains work.

There is the issue of suicides, as noble Lords have mentioned, and the issue of graffiti. None of us likes graffiti on trains. Where does the graffiti get put on? It gets put on in depots. Now depots are where the trains get parked when they are not used, and they are lovely places to go into because you can hide from people and probably not be seen. Most have fences around them, but some have electrified lines. People who do not know could hurt or kill themselves. The BTP is involved in all that. Then there is the question of passenger crowd control; we have all seen what happens when there is underground congestion, and they stop people going down there. London Underground does it all, but if there is beginning to be a problem and the police feel that they need to be there, they are there—and they know how to deal with crowds. Noble Lords have probably read about some of the issues facing London Underground at the moment, because of the growth in traffic. Wrong action by a policeman or policewoman who does not know the layout of Underground or mainline stations can put lives at risk, again—and that is the kind of knowledge that the British Transport Police has built up over the years. Level crossings and the deaths that happen there—that is another piece of knowledge that the BTP has.

It would be a great shame to lose this specialist knowledge. Railways are different from roads. Everybody knows what happens on roads, and how you try to avoid problems, and the police are very good at it. On railways it is different, and there is a different type of control because if a driver sees something he cannot stop, unless he is very lucky; he has signals but, if somebody is on the line, he cannot stop. That is going to get very nasty, because trains are not designed to stop on a penny.

Having a national force is highly desirable. I agree with all noble Lords who have spoken who have said that they cannot see any reason for changing it. But let us also look at frontiers. There have been problems in the past, which I am sure my noble friend Lord Faulkner will talk about. Can the BTP be in hot pursuit outside railway property? The noble Lord, Lord Empey, mentioned that. It has got better these days, but there is still a problem; there certainly will be a problem if there is a kind of frontier for police between Scotland and England. I travel a lot on the continent, usually on railway activities, and we have all seen the problems between France and Belgium and the apparent lack of communication between the police forces of those countries. The solution that they have come up with is to have police or security checks at all the stations approaching the frontiers. Heaven help us if we have that between Scotland and England; whatever happens in future, we need our trade and our passengers to get through. But the fact remains that, as other noble Lords have said, if there is a need to go across between England and Scotland it needs to be done in the easiest possible way and nobody should stop the expertise of the British Transport Police from being able to do it.

I personally see no reason why this is thought a good idea. The suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—that we should get rid of the word “British” and turn it into a national force—would probably be a good compromise. But I worry seriously whether the BTP’s expertise on railway matters, stretching from John O’Groats right down to Cornwall, would be affected in any way, with the result that the non-specialist police person, doing their best, gets into trouble on the railways in pursuit of whatever they are trying to do.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I was not suggesting that the name would be changed—I was saying that it might suit the nationalist agenda.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

This has been a remarkable debate, and I am sure that British Transport Police officers will be delighted by the degree of support expressed for them in all parts of the Committee, starting with the splendid speech from the noble Lord, Lord Empey, who was followed by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth.

I shall correct one thing the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said. He said he thought the force had been around since the 1850s. That is not right. The force was started in 1825, in the earliest days of the railways. It predates a great many of our normal civil forces. The reason the railway police were formed in the first place was because criminals discovered that by getting on the new-fangled trains they were able to get away from the scene of the crime much quicker than they could by any other means. It was therefore necessary to have a force that was able to operate across county boundaries and country borders.

I find it extraordinary that this proposal to lose that ability should come forward now. I should remind your Lordships that breaking up the British Transport Police has been tried once before. It was done around the year 2000 by somebody called Ken Livingstone, who was Mayor of London. He was anxious to hand the duties of the British Transport Police over to the Metropolitan police force because he felt he had some control over it. The Government of the day, after some deliberation, decided that that was not a sensible thing to do and it was much more sensible to build on the skill and expertise of the British Transport Police; extend its jurisdiction, to which my noble friend Lord Berkeley referred, where necessary; give it, after some reluctance, the opportunity to arm a limited number of its officers, which it had asked for; and, above all, encourage it on what it did really well, such as combating scrap metal theft. The BTP led the government task force on that subject and made a huge contribution to reducing the incidence of metal theft after Parliament passed two important pieces of legislation which regulated that business.

[Lord Berkeley]

My noble friend is too modest to say that he led that legislation through Parliament.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

That is very kind of my noble friend, but I do not think it matters who claims credit for what. What matters is that the outcome of those deliberations was an improvement in the situation in which the British Transport Police played a crucial role. I find it utterly inexplicable that these two clauses are in the Bill. I am sure that in due course they will give the Scottish Parliament with a nationalist majority the opportunity, effectively, to nationalise the BTP in Scotland. It would be a terrible mistake, and I hope the Minister will agree to come back on Report and have these clauses removed from the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McAvoy]

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, always takes a keen interest in the position of the Labour Front Bench. The fact is that the Labour Party supports the Smith commission, as do the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Government. There is consensus. I know the noble Lord does not really like being described as a consensual figure—he would probably regard it as an insult—but devolution is devolution and it can, will and should be worked out in that atmosphere. I know the noble Lord is a bit puzzled by that, but I have accepted devolution and he should do the same and move on.

In March last year, as the noble Lord has indicated, the Scottish Justice Secretary signalled the Scottish Government’s intention that the BTP’s functions would be transferred to Police Scotland following the passing of this Bill. Once the power is devolved to the Scottish Government, that is of course a decision for them to make and to justify to the Scottish public, the Scottish electorate and the communities within Scotland. Having said that, in recent months there have been a number of legitimate question marks over the way in which the Scottish Government have chosen to manage the resources of the police force in Scotland since we have had this Police Scotland set-up, with police stations being shut—as my noble friend Lord McFall of Alcluith has mentioned—call centres being closed and much-needed front-line police doing back-office functions. I make it clear that this is no reflection of the phenomenal work that our police officers do on a daily basis. However, we should view this as a further opportunity, and I have no objection to it, at the very least to assess all the possible implications of a merger between Police Scotland and the British Transport Police.

[Lord Berkeley]

If my noble friend is suggesting that it is Labour Party policy to devolve the British Transport Police, does the same apply to railways? I was not aware of that. Network Rail could be separate, of course; we could even have a separate gauge. I thought the whole idea was that we should actually have an integrated system.

[Lord McAvoy]

I thought I had all the trouble in front of me, but I have some behind me here as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

The noble Lord mentioned funding by the train operators. He will be aware that, as the noble Lord, Lord Sanderson, said earlier, 50% of the funding of the BTP UK-wide comes from Network Rail and the other 50% comes from the train operators roughly in proportion to their passenger miles. He said that Scottish train passengers would not want to pay for this, and that will mean that the BTP will have to be paid out of general Scottish financing rather than through the current arrangement. The consequence of that will be that the budget will be cut pretty quickly and everything will be integrated. I would also be interested in knowing how Network Rail’s contribution will be arranged. Is it legal and how will it be done? Will it be on the basis of track miles or something else? Those are the sorts of questions to be answered.

[Lord McCluskey]

Perhaps the Minister would take a short question from me. Is he advising the Committee that Clauses 42 and 43 enact the provision contained in paragraph 67 of the Smith commission report and nothing else?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dunlop]

In answer to my noble friend, the function of the BTP is the policing of railways, which is the subject matter of these clauses and what we are devolving in this Bill. That is what the Smith report stated and we are committed to delivering that agreement.

[Lord Berkeley]

Will the Minister answer the question that I put to him a few minutes ago, please, on the financing of the British Transport Police north of the border?

[Lord Dunlop]

I did answer it, to the extent that there is a plethora of detail that lies behind this. However, it requires, as I said, the Scottish Government, in discussion with the UK Government, to specify what their operating model is. Until we have that, we cannot answer in a lot of detail. I come back to the fundamental point that we are devolving something, and it is for the Scottish Government and Parliament to decide how that will work within Scotland.