Integrated Rail Plan: Northern Powerhouse Area

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

If my noble friend will forgive me, does he think that its record on Great Western electrification is creditable to Network Rail? The costs are running at about four times the projection and it is taking three times as long as it was supposed to.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, this is only a one-hour debate and we are quite short on time.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Briefly, Great Western electrification finished about five years ago and Network Rail has improved things as a result. That was true at that time but things have got a lot better.

What is missing from this document is a real acceptance by the Department for Transport that the decision-making on strategies and routes, priorities and deliveries should rest with the northern powerhouse/Transport for the North members—the local authorities which know their areas. That is devolution. I am afraid that the document has demonstrated the department’s inability to plan and deliver to time and budget. It should give TfN a chance.

If the Government were honest in wanting to improve the rail network in the north and Midlands, they would cancel the bits of HS2 that they are funding and put all the remaining funds included in the IPR into not only giving much-improved capacity and speed on the two east-west axes—Liverpool, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds and Hull, and Sheffield, Birmingham, Derby and Nottingham—but improving the many secondary lines in each area. So many people rely on those for their daily commuting to school, colleges, work, levelling-up and everything else.

I fear that this Department for Transport will result only in nothing happening for the next few years and I hope that it not the case. I hope that the Minister, when she replies, will say that I have got it completely wrong that it does not matter that Bradford is only connected to the south and not east-west. I hope she will sit down with her colleagues in the department and northern powerhouse people and come up with a solution that is acceptable to all.

HGV Driving Tests

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

Wednesday 1st December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a good point. The Government are determined that the planning system should play its part in meeting the needs of hauliers and addressing current deficiencies. Planning plays a critical part in the allocation of land for lorry parking. On 8 November, the Secretary of State for Transport published a Written Ministerial Statement addressing the strategic national need for more lorry parking and better services and lorry parks in England, and we will be investing £32.5 million in roadside facilities. We have published planning practice guidance setting out how local planning authorities can assess the need for, and allocate land to, logistical site users, and we are accelerating work recommended by the National Infrastructure Commission to consider the appropriateness of current planning practice guidance. This includes taking forward a review of how the freight sector is currently represented in guidance.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, has the Minister ever tried to reverse a caravan, a trailer or a boat or heavy goods vehicle trailer? Would she not agree that it needs quite a lot of training? It is very nice for those who cannot be bothered to take a test to hear the Government say that we do not need a test any more, but that cannot contribute to road safety.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

The noble Lord will be pleased to hear that I can reverse a trailer; I have been doing so from quite a young age, and quite successfully. At the moment, I have to reverse a trailer into a tiny space by our carport, and I can do it.

Public Contracts: Conflicts of Interest

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen

Thursday 17th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their policies on conflicts of interest in respect of contracts with public and private organisations which provide or deliver public services or projects; and where those policies are made publicly available.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, public sector procurers are required to seek value for money through competition that is fair, open and transparent. Rules on addressing conflicts of interest are set out in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015, which make clear that contracting authorities should put in place measures to avoid any distortion of competition and to ensure equal treatment to all bidders.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. There are a number of conflict of interest issues around at the moment, but the one that I would like to mention is about HS2. The very eminent company CH2M has been project managing the work for the past few years. This year, it was awarded a further £360 million contract as a “delivery partner” and, more recently, it supplied the interim CEO for HS2. In a Written Answer I got from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who I am pleased to see is in his seat, he said that the conflict of interest had been cleared by an internal panel and that the names of the members of the panel were confidential. This is a £50 billion contract. Surely there needs to be independent scrutiny and transparency about the process. There is always a risk that even a partner can screw the Government. I suggest that the solution that the noble Lord the Minister has given us is not sufficient and needs greatly strengthening.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

My Lords, there were lots of questions there. HS2 Ltd follows recruitment practices that are similar to those followed in Civil Service appointments and are made through open and fair competition. The short-term services of the interim CEO have been obtained to fill the gap until those fair and open procedures for the permanent appointment can be completed. The interim CEO is not an employee of HS2 Ltd, so it would not be appropriate to follow a recruitment process for such an appointment.

To quickly cover the noble Lord’s point about not being open regarding the people on the panel, as my noble friend Lord Ahmad said—indeed, I wonder why my noble friend is not standing here instead of me—in his previous Answer:

“It is not possible to provide the names of HS2 Ltd’s Conflict of Interest Panel Members, nor details of specific cases which have been heard as we do not consider doing so would be consistent with the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). Unfair disclosure of personal data is a breach of the First Data Protection Principles under the DPA”.