Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very depressing debate—listening to the terrible problems that many noble Lords have had in using the rail network. It is wonderful that they have been able to expose them so widely. We have heard about them before, but it is depressing that we are in 2024 and they have not been solved already. All this could have been done years ago, without legislation and without any change. It just needs somebody to do it and to take responsibility for it. So the list of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is very good—all the lists are good. There are three things that I hope my noble friend will take forward.

There are three different elements to the GBR responsibility. One is the infrastructure—platforms. One is the trains—level boarding. The other is services—what people do or do not get at the stations. Most important is that the passenger standards authority, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, must be not only comprehensive, strong and fast but independent.

We have to think about how you can be independent of the Government and the railways, and still have credibility. I hope everybody can, but the Government will have to accept something that is independent, rather than something which takes backdoor instructions from Ministers who say, “Don’t get too strong on this, because it’s too expensive”.

We will have to watch this for a long time, but I congratulate other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate and exposed this, which should have been exposed a very long time ago.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I believe this is the most important group of amendments today because it has passengers at the core. I have added my name to three amendments because I am so convinced that the comment made earlier about the lack of focus on passengers in the current fragmented rail system has done so much damage to the rail industry.

When things go wrong—and things go wrong all the time—the train operators spend their time deciding whether it is their fault or Network Rail’s fault, instead of concentrating on putting it right for the passengers. To my mind, this is the obvious way ahead. I remind noble Lords that we live in an ageing society and the railway has to operate for all.

Not all disabled people are in wheelchairs. When I get on trains, I watch people who are capable of walking being helped by staff, or by other passengers, to get on the train because it is difficult. It must be made easier. Once it is made easier, you give people confidence; once you give them confidence, they become train passengers much more willingly.

I broaden it even further. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, referred to people who have a visual impairment—quite rightly. I wish to raise the issue of people with hearing impairment. I have 30% hearing. I wear hearing aids, which improve that considerably, but they do not bring me anything like up to normal standard. Unfortunately, one recent Saturday evening I was at Paddington station for over four hours, while no trains ran. Announcements were constantly given only over the loudspeakers. Every time a loudspeaker announcement was made, I had to go up to someone and say, “Can you just tell me what he said?” Of course, people were basically in a panic and they were not doing it clearly. Eventually they gave up and said that no trains would run to Wales at all that evening. But the point I am making is that, over four hours, that situation took no account at all of people who could not hear clearly.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee stage
Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

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

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

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

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

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

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

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

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

Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

3rd reading
Monday 19th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, in line with the usual courtesies of the House, I thank the Minister and his team, all of whom were exceptionally helpful and willing to give their time and expertise in some useful meetings with myself and my Liberal Democrat colleagues. I also thank my noble friends Lady Brinton and Lady Bowles, supported by Sarah Pughe in our Whips’ office, for their work. Finally, I thank noble Lords across the House: there was exceptional co-operation in improving the Bill, and one of the outcomes was the amendment of the Minister which clarified the statement of safety principles.

The Bill was a logical progression from 2018, and I would predict that this second Bill will be followed, I am sure, by a third Bill to try and get this right. There are still unanswered questions, and I will briefly list them. There needs to be a fresh look at the legislative framework affecting delivery vehicles that are already on our streets. Those who operate them are concerned about lacunas in the legislation.

We are also particularly concerned about the issue of disabled access, which is where my noble friend Lady Brinton worked closely with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said,

“the promise of automated vehicles is accessible mobility for all”.— [Official Report, 6/2/24; col. 1585]

It is, therefore, deeply disappointing that the concept of disabled access—from the physical space of the vehicle to the software that drives it—is not to be built in from the start. It always costs more to adapt things later, and I believe this is yet another missed opportunity.

Finally, it is a great pity that the vote on the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, was lost so narrowly. It was just the kind of thing an advisory council could provide a sense of direction on. I hope the Minister will reflect on the need for certainty on the future structure of appropriate bodies to provide advice and regulation.

We remain concerned, in particular, about data protection in respect of the Bill, which is predicated on a future conglomeration of personal and commercial data, and data associated with the security of the state. It will come together in an unprecedented way. It would enable a massive intrusion of personal privacy, but in its entirety would offer massive power to a malign foreign power or even to a clever, meddling, individual hacker. Although it is well intentioned, the Bill hardly starts to tackle the dangers of that accumulation of data.

Having said all that, I thank the Minister again for his co-operation, assistance and leadership on the Bill.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I join other noble Lords in thanking the Minister for the time he spent explaining things on the Bill. I support everything that has been said in this very short debate. I am also sad that the advisory committee did not get voted through. My idea of having an independent regulator was the same thing.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, made the most important point—that behind the technology for this will be very large companies with enormous balance sheets. When equipment starts operating on the road, if the Government and Parliament have to consider how to balance the interests of those companies with disabled people, cyclists, or pedestrians, it will be very hard to do that and resist the pressure from these big companies without some kind of independent scrutiny. As other noble Lords have said, we look forward to the next Bill with interest.

Pedicabs (London) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

3rd reading
Tuesday 6th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, stated, this Bill is limited in its scope. Indeed, it probably receives virtually no recognition beyond a couple of miles from this place—but it has been wanted for decades because of an increasing problem. Now this Bill is being passed in this House and sent down the Corridor, perhaps we can look forward to pedicabs becoming an asset to London’s tourism.

I add my thanks to the Minister and his team. They have been exceptionally generous with their time and exceptionally constructive in their approach. As a result, this is a much better Bill than when it came to this House. The devolution of powers over pedicabs to Transport for London is an issue of basic common sense. We have achieved that, and I thank the Minister for that and, finally, for his statement about batteries today. I had written a piece in preparation saying they are an unresolved issue and urging the Minister to keep working on it, but I can now thank the Minister very much indeed for his statement. It is not all that campaigners want—far from it—but it is a step forward. We are making progress, and I thank him for that.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to those of other noble Lords. Getting this Bill through your Lordships’ House has been very interesting process. There must have been a record number of people who went to see the clerks in the Public Bill Office and said they would like to add something about scooters and batteries, how you should ride scooters and that you should not do it on the pavement. We were all told—quite rightly—go away because it was outside scope. Now, at least the Minister has said that he and his department are looking at that and will also look at batteries, which are a very important part of it. One day, perhaps with this Government or probably the next Government, we might see something about riding bikes, electric or otherwise, and scooters where they are supposed to be, which is on the road, not on the pavement.

Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee stage
Monday 15th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I have Amendments 25, 55E and 59 in this group. Amendments 25 and 59 are associated. They make a simple and obvious point about thinking more outside the box and trying to predict the future.

Consequent on the revolution in vehicle operation, there will, of course, be a need for the modernisation of MoTs to include much more emphasis on software. It will be essential for owners and operators to download updates on a regular basis. If this is not done, the vehicle will either progressively or suddenly become less safe, or probably cease to operate. Last week, I tested the issue of what happens when someone writes software and then the company goes bust, and who is then responsible for carrying on with the software.

There is a major issue here about the modernisation of MoTs. Compared with internal combustion engine vehicles, there will be far less danger of automated vehicles having mechanical failures or deterioration, because there are far fewer mechanical parts to go wrong or to wear out, so the whole emphasis of the MoT and other tests will change and it stands to reason that it is essential to train people with the IT skills required to deal with that change. That is not currently happening in sufficient numbers. The vacancy rate in jobs of this nature within this industry is 7%—twice the average for the sector as a whole.

Amendment 55E asks the Government to develop a workforce strategy to ensure that we have a workforce with the right skills. There is bound to be concern, as automated vehicles become more common and as they replace services that currently operate with human drivers, that automated buses, taxis and delivery vehicles are taking away existing jobs. It is therefore very important that the Government maximise the opportunities for new jobs, too. The Government’s own research estimates that 38,000 new jobs can be provided as a result of this technology and, indeed, updating and maintaining IT. That is possibly an underestimate, but the Government need to prepare now for the highly skilled and well-paid jobs that will potentially come as a result of this technology.

The point of my amendments is simply to probe the Government’s plans to make sure that they are fully prepared and are looking at reviewing the MoT, because many modern cars are halfway there at the moment and need to have that annual look at whether their IT and software are up to date and fully functioning. We also need to have the people to make sure that that can be done. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment 37A. Before I start, I will comment on the noble Baroness’s introduction to her Amendment 25. What she proposes is extremely important. My amendment seeks to go a bit further, rightly or wrongly.

Given the issues we have talked about during the passage of this Bill so far, the issue of changes in technology is really quite serious. Obviously, we do not understand many of them, but we hope that the Government do, and I am sure that they do. I am quite keen to probe the idea of an independent body to keep an eye on safety, health and safety at work and other issues which come up in the course of this Bill. I think the noble Baroness’s Amendment 25 is a good start, but it is a wish to see the Government marking their own homework. That is better than not having any marking at all, but I think there is a long way to go before we can get anything that we can totally trust about what is going on—without getting into the Post Office, Horizon and things like that.

I asked to have a discussion with the Office of Rail and Road, as it has been called for the best part of 10 years. It is an independent body with statutory functions to supervise and comment on the safety and performance of rail and, more recently, it has had a similar but smaller role in respect of roads, in particular monitoring the performance of National Highways. I think most people believe that it performs its regulatory function pretty well. There are many other regulators that we are not going to raise today, but they all have one thing in common: they are all independent of government. Now I know that Ministers can sack the chair of these organisations and do things, but the independence is there.

They have regulatory powers as well. I shall quote one example of what the ORR has been doing on the motorway network. It is quite complicated, but it started off with the Department for Transport asking the ORR to carry out an evidence stocktake to gather the facts on the safety of smart motorways. Then the Secretary of State increased that and said that he wanted some quality assurance of the data and the evidence underpinning the conclusions arrived at with regard to lane rentals. This is the Government asking an independent regulator for its opinion. I think it is really good that the Government have done this. There were then a number of discussions with the House of Commons Transport Committee and the ORR provided its first report, Quality Assurance of All Lane Running Motorway Data. National Highways then used this data to assess smart motorway safety and demonstrate to stakeholders, the public and the Government that the conclusions drawn from the analysis were appropriate and robust.

The Transport Committee in the House of Commons has done quite a lot of work on it. Its conclusion in a report published in December 2023, in a second assessment, was that the ORR’s annual independent reporting

“has provided better transparency in relation to safety on the strategic road network and smart motorways and helped to drive performance improvements”—

which the report then discusses.

Noble Lords will know of the fuss about smart motorways, with lots of debates about their safety and so on. It is interesting that the Transport Committee concluded that, over a number of years, Governments, National Highways and its predecessors had

“underestimated the scale of safety measures needed effectively and reliably to mitigate the risks associated with the permanent removal of the hard shoulder”

from these motorways, and had

“failed to deliver safety improvements … in a timely fashion”.

I do not want to criticise the Government for doing this; they were trying to save money and increase the amount of traffic on the motorway, et cetera. My point is that here were the Government, rightly, asking an independent regulator for its opinion, and then passing it to the Transport Committee, which concluded:

“The Department should make the introduction of changes to the design and operation of the Strategic Road Network depend on a formal health and safety assessment by the Office of Rail and Road”.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Could the noble Baroness explain whether rapid or fast is the faster of the two?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

Rapid is faster than far, but that would not be obvious to the average local public sector employee whose job it is to ensure that there is adequate infrastructure for EVs.

My Amendment 486 requires the Government to update us regularly on their strategy to improve the charging network. It particularly refers to the discrepancies across the country. The discussion often relates to the pure numbers of charge points, but just as important are two different factors. The first is the adequacy of the numbers available in public places. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has made that point. Currently, EV ownership is concentrated among more affluent people—those with drives and who can therefore have chargers attached to their homes. We cannot have an EV revolution that is only for the rich. People who live in terraced houses and in flats must also be able to own EVs. As the revolution plays out and a second-hand market develops for electric vehicles, this becomes an ever more pertinent point. The second factor is that the Government have emphasised time and again that they believe that the market will adequately take care of the provision of charge points, but the figures do not bear that out. London and the south-east have a far more generous ratio of electric vehicles to public charge points than any other part of the UK.

My conclusions are that particular problems need to be addressed. The first is the disparity in cost between home charging and public charge points. If you charge at home, you pay 5% VAT; if you charge in a public car park, a public place or from a lamppost, you pay 20% VAT. That reinforces the unfairness. I urge the Government to deal with the issue soon as otherwise it will hamper any of their best intentions on this issue.

The second conclusion is that the Government must work much harder to increase support and funding in areas that have large gaps in their electric vehicle infrastructure. They are often towns in poorer areas and, of course, almost every rural area. Local authorities have a key role in this but often need greater advice because officials do not know the difference between fast and rapid and so on. They need not just money but support and advice to help them, otherwise EVs will remain vehicles for rich areas and poorer areas will remain subject to suffering from poor air quality.

My final point on this is that the Government simply must address the delays in national grid connection. They are hampering the whole thing which is totally inadequate to service the revolution that needs to take place.

In relation to Amendment 48 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I live in Wales. This week, 20 miles per hour became the default speed limit throughout the country. I live in Cardiff, where it has been the default speed limit for some time, and we have all—more or less—got used to it. The traffic flows more smoothly.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee stage
Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on her comprehensive introduction in moving this amendment about transport. I agree with everything she said. One depressing thing last week was a headline from the Government in a Written Statement, which said that they will be investing £40 billion in transport but in fact, when you look at the small print, you see that they are going to cut bits of HS2 for two years. Worse still, they have cut the investment in cycling and walking by more than half, having said that they are going to invest. There is an awfully big difference between what it says on the bit of paper and what happens on the ground.

When it comes to buses, my noble friend is absolutely right. We have to hear from the Minister, but we do have an Oral Question on Thursday, in the name of my noble friend Lord Snape, asking the Government

“what plans they have to support the bus industry in England following the end of the current bus subsidy arrangements.”

If that is not urgent, I have a message from the people who run the community transport service in Northern Ireland, saying that the Northern Ireland Executive have stopped all funding of community transport buses from the end of April. All the staff will be made redundant and there will be no community transport services in Northern Ireland. So much for making it easier for people; I hope that we will get some answers on that.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendments 92 and 98 but, in truth, I could have put it to every single amendment in this group. The amendments in my name, however, are designed to demonstrate the fundamental importance of transport functions to the effectiveness of the CCAs. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has outlined that very comprehensively and ably.

I subscribe to the view that bigger is not necessarily better in many examples of local government, but it is undoubtedly the case that larger local authorities give you the opportunity to plan strategically for public transport and, indeed, for every strand of transport. Without powers to provide a comprehensive and strategic approach to transport, CCAs will be asked to deliver their job with one hand tied behind their backs. They will not be able to do the levelling-up job in any meaningful way.

This series of amendments asks vital questions about the powers over transport infrastructure. Powers without funding are meaningless as a tool for levelling up. The amendments also address the issue of sustainability. That is important in relation to transport, which is responsible for about one-third of our emissions.

Railways (Penalty Fares) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.”

Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 26th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I stand to speak to the amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Scott: Amendments 6, 7, 8 and 9 in this group. We are pleased to see that the Minister has responded to comments from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and that her amendment addresses some of the issues that it was concerned about. Our amendments also address their comments, and the Government do not seem to have taken all of the committee’s comments on board. That concerns us.

Clause 11 gives the Secretary of State power to give directions to harbour authorities, requiring them to do—or not to do—a number of things. The DPRRC concluded that this was

“a completely open-ended power”

and pointed out that this could modify the whole Bill by directions which are not subject to any form of parliamentary scrutiny. The Government accepted this argument in relation to Clause 3 and put in an amendment, so my question is this: why is the same principle not applicable to Clause 11? I made the point earlier this afternoon that the Bill is, in my view, poorly constructed. I genuinely think that it is quite possibly an error, rather than a considered decision by the Government, that has led to their failure to rectify Clause 11, because there is no logic to making the effort with Clause 3 but not making the effort with Clause 11.

As the Bill stands, the Government are hiding behind harbour authorities by expecting them to do the enforcement work. I understand the points the Minister made in the various debates in that regard, but at the same time the Government want to retain all the ultimate power. That is not satisfactory. It overrides Parliament’s role and parliamentary democracy. It is an abuse of government power and it is bad law.

So my question to the Minister is: will the Government consider responding to and taking on board the rest of the DPRRC’s comments and, at a very late stage—at the last moment—ensuring that there are amendments in line with its comments? If she feels that the Government really cannot do that, will she give an undertaking in this House that they will not depart from the Bill’s basic script and intention—because there is a fear that that could happen, given the very wide-ranging power they are giving themselves in the Bill?

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I tabled Amendment 10, which is designed to do exactly the same thing as the amendments from the noble Baroness. All I can say is that I entirely agree with what she said. It is really not acceptable that the Government can instruct or direct ports to do something, direct them not to do something, and then basically fine them, take them to court or whatever if they do not do what they say. It is all wrong and I support the noble Baroness’s statement. I hope the Minister will consider this and possibly come back with changes, as she did with the earlier recommendations.

Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) (No. 3) Regulations 2022

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comments. Slot alleviation has become routine in the last couple of years. I have always accepted it as an important aspect of ensuring that we do not have unnecessary flights. “Half full” would be an overstatement; “almost empty” would be more accurate during Covid. However, I have got to the point where I question whether it is justified any longer in the current terms that the noble Baroness presents.

The Explanatory Note refers to an expansion of the list of reasons for slot alleviation, but that expansion is still in terms of Covid. Paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to demand being at or around 80% to 85% of 2019 levels during May to July. Does the Minister now have access to figures for August and September?

The irony is that the reduction in demand over the summer was significantly affected by the cancellation of flights because airports instructed airlines not to fly, not because of Covid but because they did not have the ground-handling capacity. That happened at both Gatwick and Heathrow. The impact was, of course, to reduce the number of flights, but it also suppressed demand beyond those who thought that they had booked flights. I am sure we all know people who found that their flights were cancelled or deferred, and people who simply gave up trying to fly abroad as a result of the congestion at airports. There was suppressed demand over the summer, so the alleviation of slot rules could be said to be no longer appropriate for those reasons. It is time the Government reconsidered it, because it distorts the market.

Finally, I point out that there is no impact assessment for this. The grounds given for this are that it is for less than 12 months, but this has actually been going on for years, as the Minister pointed out in her explanation. I draw the Committee’s attention to the 12th report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Losing Impact: Why the Government’s Impact Assessment System Is Failing Parliament and the Public. At this stage, now that we appear to be through the immediate emergencies of Covid, it is important that the Government restore the standards they once had in legislation, in terms of impact assessments.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on taking over full responsibility for air—until the next reshuffle anyway. I think that happened last week.

These are very interesting regulations. As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, I can see that in the Explanatory Memorandum there is a sort of conflict between wanting not to lose slots at airports, wanting to preserve monopolies and wanting to encourage competition. We do not really like running ghost flights if that is the only way to do it.

The question I would like to ask the Minister relates, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, to some of these lists of reasons, which could become cop-outs for just about everything an airline or airport does not want. The noble Baroness mentioned shortage of airline or airport staff and strikes, which have been happening and will probably continue.

Then there is slot limitation. The noble Baroness mentioned Heathrow Airport limiting slots. I looked at the website for Schiphol Airport and it has similar limitations on slots, I suspect for similar reasons. Perhaps the Minister could tell us what is happening to these limitations on slots, certainly at Heathrow, because I think the present one finishes at the end of October. Is that matched with Schiphol and other regional or local airports in Europe? Presumably you have to have similar restraints at either end of a flight, and an awful lot of them go to Schiphol and places such as that.

The other interesting item in the list of reasons, for me, is in paragraph 7.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which is to do with the

“closure of airports or hotels”

and the effect that it might have on the passenger. That is a very subjective way in which to decide on slots, if one is relying on the number of people who are complaining, or what you think the solution is. I am not sure that the regulations will help matters much, in that way.

Seafarers’ Wages Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak briefly to oppose Clauses 4 and 9 standing part of the Bill. Again, this goes back to what I spoke about earlier in terms of the legality of this legislation. It comes from the International Chamber of Shipping, which says:

“The vessel declaration requirements envisaged in the Bill … contravene the international frameworks and principles governing seafarers’ remuneration, which confer jurisdiction to the flag State. Notwithstanding the fact that NMWe”—


national minimum wage—

“payments and declarations would be limited to work done while a ship is in UK waters / ports (to address ‘extraterritorial reach’ concerns), this would still amount to an excessive claim to prescriptive jurisdiction, contrary to the fundamental principle of flag State jurisdiction, i.e., that a vessel’s flag State has overall responsibility for the employment conditions aboard a vessel. UNCLOS Article 94 (Duties of the flag State), specifies that the flag State shall ‘exercise its jurisdiction and control in administrative, technical and social matters over ships flying its flag’. It would further be contrary to the universal norm that port States will not regulate the ‘internal affairs’ or ‘internal economy’ of visiting foreign vessels (a principle that includes employment conditions).”

This may seem a long way away from ships going between the UK and close waters, but it indicates that what vessels from further afield—which may or may not get tied up in this—will do may be something that the UK finds unpalatable. In other words, if they start doing this to show up the UK as not complying with the UNCLOS requirements, it could be difficult. Again, I would be grateful if the Minister could write to me on this; indeed, we may need a meeting with our legal experts to see how important this is and what can be done about it.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, we do not have any amendments in this group, but I take this opportunity simply to make the point that we share the concern of those noble Lords who do have amendments in this group. These are important issues that reflect the reasonable fear that employers could use tactics that circumvent the measures in the Bill.

One thing that has been speculated on is that seafarers could be paid at a lower rate when they are outside UK waters to compensate for the higher rate that they must be paid in UK waters. There are things about which the Government can do nothing, but it is really important that the things that can be got right are looked at carefully to ensure that they are absolutely on the nail. I point in particular to Amendment 26 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, to emphasise the importance of monitoring the effectiveness of this legislation and engaging with the trade unions. P&O’s tactics—the audacity with which they were announced surprised everyone, I think—exposed the weakness of the current safeguards. However, if the Government attempt to plug the loophole but fail to do so effectively, I fear that P&O would not be alone and other owners would attempt to do something similar—perhaps not as blatantly as the way in which P&O did it, but it certainly could undermine legislation further if the Government’s efforts here are not fully effective.

Hovercraft (Application of Enactments) and Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Pollution) (Law of the Sea Convention) Amendment Order 2022

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her introduction of this very interesting SI. My first question is: why now, apart from the fact that Brexit has happened? We have all been travelling on hovercraft for 40 years or more, and one could assume, therefore, that it has been all right to pollute from hovercraft for 40 years without anyone worrying and you need only one person on the bridge because the regulations do not apply to hovercraft. Can the Minister explain why hovercraft are different? There are other types of fast passenger boats around these days—they are probably called “jet boats”, or something like that. I am not sure why a hovercraft is so different, apart from the fact that it gets its lift from air which does not leak out. It is still a craft and therefore obviously still needs to be subject to the pollution regulations and the manning rules.

On manning, is the intention to make rules for hovercraft the same as for any other passenger vessel, where, I think, the rule is that if you do not have more than 12 passengers, you can have one person as the crew, whatever the size of boat? But then there are various rules according to the number of passengers, size of ships, weather conditions and everything else. Hovercraft generally do not operate in bad weather in the way that many ships can. Perhaps the Minister can explain how the manning regulations would be different on a hovercraft from an ordinary ship in the number of crew wanted.

Lastly, I think that, as the Minister said, the only service now in the UK is the one across to the Isle of Wight, but there used to be one across the channel. If that re-emerges in some shape or form—between the UK and France or another EU country—will we get into the same knot as has happened with P&O Ferries with manning and everything else? I hope that will not involve coming back here with some more regulations; I hope it is already covered. I look forward to her answers.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her introduction, and the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, for pointing out that the situation will be different in Scotland. It will also be different in Northern Ireland, so far as I understand it from my reading of the SI.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

What about Wales?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

No, the situation will not be different in Wales; as so often, it is a case of “England and Wales”.

I join the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in asking why this is happening at this point. My research suggests that not only is there only one public hovercraft service left in Britain, but there appears to be only one commercial hovercraft service left in the world. If that is the case, hovercraft really are yesterday’s technology. They are even less likely to make a comeback following the huge increases in the price of fuel, because they consume very high amounts of fuel as well as being unreliable as a passenger service, of course, because they are difficult to operate in bad weather—and we get a lot of that in the UK. In modern terms, although hovercraft are exciting and interesting to travel on, they are environmentally unacceptable because of their high fuel consumption.

My suspicious mind led me to wonder whether there was a specific Isle of Wight issue. I would be grateful if the Minister would address in her answer whether specific aspects will be applied to the Isle of Wight service, which, despite all that I have said, is an important part of the infrastructure connections for people living on and visiting the island.

When I had stopped wondering why the measure was being introduced now, after all these years, I wondered whether this was part of the major catching-up exercise that the Minister has bravely embarked on in her department. We know that the Department for Transport has a backlog of marine legislation that long pre-dates her coming into her position there. Is this part of a routine catching up to ensure that we can apply rules to hovercraft that apply to other types of seagoing vehicle? I would be grateful if the Minister could answer my questions now, or in writing afterwards if she is unable to do so immediately.

Passenger, Crew and Service Information (Civil Penalties) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister for her comprehensive introduction to the regulation. My amendment would disapply the sunset clause, and I shall briefly explain why. If the provision has been successful—and I accept that it has—why do we need to keep it anymore?

I spent a lot of time building the Channel Tunnel, 30 or 40 years ago. We have had problems on trucks, trains, coaches, ferries and air—and with people getting into small boats, as we all know—and there has been a trend. As soon as life gets too hard for people smuggling in one mode, they go to another. If it has settled down now, it is time to consider whether it is appropriate for the long-term future for these operators to continue to act basically as immigration officers on behalf of the Government. They are commercial operators—ferries, airlines and train operators, passenger and freight—and it costs them money. I am pleased that nobody has faced serious fines yet, but it could happen. I have no objection at all to including the Channel Tunnel services; that is a good idea, but it needs to be fair and proportionate.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. The word “scheduled” services is used several times in the Explanatory Memorandum and was used in her speech. To me, trucks going across the channel are not scheduled: they go when they feel like going. If a truck is caught smuggling people, and it just happens to be on the next ferry that goes, that is hardly a scheduled service, and ditto with rail freight, which does not go on a particular schedule. I just wonder why the word “scheduled” is used and why this does not cover non-scheduled services. My second question is on transport to and from the Republic of Ireland, which is of course in the European Union. Do the regulations apply there by road, rail and, presumably, sea? Perhaps she could respond on that one.

My main reason for raising the issue today is that I have come across a European Commission draft regulation, COM (2021) 753 final, which is trying to impose similar controls on the borders of the European Union and, equally, within its internal frontiers. I do not know whether the Minister and her colleagues have talked to anyone in the Commission about this. It is still in draft form—it is open for consultation—but it applies to all transport operators, so it covers much the same ground as this regulation.

It basically means that if these transport operators are carrying somebody defined as having entered the European Union illegally, and if the transport operator facilitates this movement across anywhere within Europe, the Commission can take action against the transport operator. This can include—this is key—removal of the right to provide transport services anywhere in the EU. That could cause British Airways, if it happened to be accused and found guilty of carrying one illegal immigrant from Berlin to London, to lose its licence to operate anywhere in the EU. It could apply to trains, coach services or anyone operating services not just on external frontiers such as Spain, Italy or Greece, but between France and Belgium, for example, if it is a British carrier. I do not know whether the European Commission has tried to learn from the British regulations over the years and tried to make them a bit more stringent, but this could mean that if an operator—for example, P&O Ferries or Ryanair—transported an illegal immigrant, as they might be called, from the European Union to the UK, it would suffer twice. It could be fined £10,000 per offence and lose its licence to operate.

Is the Minister aware of this? Whether she is or not, I hope the British Government will have discussions with the European Union to come up with some common policy on dealing with people who are either being smuggled or want to move between the UK and the European Union for whatever reason—that includes Ireland. I hope they could persuade the European Commission that this is not a particularly good idea. I do not think it has got to the European Parliament yet, which is probably a good thing; I do not know what it will say.

This indicates that there are two different means of dealing with the problem of people wishing to come into or leave this country when the Government do not want them for whatever reason. It is really important that there is some commonality of policy, otherwise we are all going to look pretty stupid. I hope I have got it wrong and this does not happen, but this is an opportunity to debate the whole thing and it would be much better if the immigration department looked after immigration and the transport operators were allowed to get on with their jobs, which they are very good at. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her explanation. As she said, this SI does two main things. First, it removes the sunset clause in the original 2015 regulations and, secondly, it extends the provisions to the Channel Tunnel. The 2015 regulations were welcome because they introduced civil penalties that effectively encouraged transport operators to take regular and systematic steps to keep accurate records to check passengers against names and so on.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Lords Hansard - part two & Report stage
Monday 13th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I will speak briefly to support my noble friend’s amendments and welcome the support that other noble Lords have given to him. I watched from the sidelines an issue that reminded me that the drink-drive legislation comes from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. It does not just apply if you are driving on a public road; it applies if you are on a private road, driving along a beach in a 4x4 or driving round a large field or estate that you own. The fact remains that if you are under the influence there and you injure somebody, the penalties are no different from those you would incur if you were on the road.

I reflect that it is a responsibility to drive a vehicle. It is no different to driving a train, piloting an aircraft or operating machinery in a port or a factory. Most companies nowadays are adamant that employees should not have alcohol in their bloodstream. We all accept that and think it is a very good idea—we do not want to be on a plane if the pilot is half drunk. Why, then, do we accept that people can go around with too high a blood-alcohol level when driving a car, which is just as lethal as a plane, a train or a piece of machinery?

I support these amendments. I would go further, as I think the noble Baroness would. This is not about fun. It is about driving safely what can be lethal machinery.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I was very pleased to add my name to Amendment 61. Alcohol has been a factor in road safety for as long as there have been roads, but we know a lot more about it now and there is worldwide evidence of what works. That evidence has been taken up across Europe and, indeed, across the world, by a large number of countries.

In Committee, I was surprised to hear doubt being cast on this issue on the basis of an apparently disappointing impact in Scotland of lowering the limit. However, this is a very misguided approach, casting doubt on the scientific evidence rather than looking to see, if it has not worked in Scotland in the way that was hoped, why. Indeed, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, that there are sound grounds for saying that it has had an impact in Scotland.

There are two factors involved in all this: the level at which it is illegal to drive and the enforcement of that level. There is scientific evidence for the former and a debate to be had on the best ways of enforcement, which is why I did not sign the other amendment, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Brooke. That does not mean that I do not agree with it, but I think that there is a serious debate to be had about how you enforce it most fairly. The story in Scotland is that enforcement has been weak. All social change requires a combination of legislation, enforcement and social debate. There has been proper legislation in Scotland and some social debate, but also a lack of enforcement.

I want to concentrate on the statistics. In Committee, I made the point that with Scotland remaining at a stable level and things getting worse in England and Wales, you could say that Scotland was a success story. I am very pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has done her maths and confirmed that this speculation is possibly accurate. However, I want to turn to government analysis, because government statistics say that overall, 5% of casualties in reported road accidents in 2019 occurred when at least one driver or rider was over the limit. In Wales, the figure was 6.9%, which is very disturbingly high. In England, the figure was 5.1% and in Scotland it was 4.6%, despite the fact that Scotland has a lower limit, which you would expect to lead to a higher percentage of those involved in accidents being over the limit.

So the difference might be marginal, but at least these statistics show a positive impact in Scotland—and, remember, each percentage point represents lives saved. I can think of no reason why British drivers and riders should be different from those across the world. We need to modernise, and this should be a top priority for the review of road traffic legislation—but I will be supporting the noble Lord if he presses this to a vote.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Lords Hansard - part two & Committee stage
Monday 8th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, at various points in the Bill, the Government are seeking to increase penalties and create new offences, but it is fairly pointless increasing penalties on paper if you regularly allow people to avoid them through what has effectively become a legalised loophole. People avoid a driving ban under the totting-up procedure by pleading exceptional hardship. The problem is that this excuse is being used far from exceptionally. I recall, when in court as magistrates, that we would expect such a plea from some solicitors as a matter of routine for all their clients. The reality is that the definition of exceptional is very broad and applied unevenly.

To give an example, in 2015 Christopher Gard killed cyclist Lee Martin. It was the ninth time he had been caught using his mobile phone while driving. Magistrates had repeatedly accepted that a ban would cause exceptional hardship. There is a case on record of a man being allowed to continue to drive because of the “exceptional hardship” it would cause him if he could not walk his dog—he had to drive a mile to the local park to do that.

This amendment provides a definition of “exceptional hardship”. It is exceptional

“only if it is significantly greater than the hardship that would arise … if the same disqualification were imposed”

on the great majority of drivers. To assist, it gives examples of what the court can take into account.

For example, where you live: if you live 10 miles from the nearest shops and healthcare facilities, halfway up a mountain with no bus service nearby, the ability to drive is clearly very important to you—although, of course, if you live with other family members, you would not be likely to face exceptional hardship because they could probably drive you there instead. If you have to drive as part of your job and will presumably lose your job if you cannot drive, then that would be exceptional hardship; although one wonders whether any employer would want such a bad driver. At the moment, with the shortage of drivers, they might put up with it but in normal circumstances, not so. Clearly, if you are disabled, or a carer on whom a disabled person relies for being taken to the shops, to healthcare and so on, then you would experience exceptional hardship if you could no longer drive. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and I are not being hard-hearted; we are, instead, seeking to ensure that the “exceptional hardship” proviso is used as it was intended to be used.

Finally, to give this some context, in 2020 in England, 33,196 drivers were disqualified under the totting-up procedure and 8,764 people are currently driving around with more than 12 points on their licence. Noble Lords will immediately see from those figures that the “exceptional hardship” plea is being accepted in such a high proportion of cases that it cannot be regarded as exceptional. I urge the Government to give consideration to the need to tighten up that definition.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this amendment and I shall add just a few words to the noble Baroness’s excellent introduction. I have a friend in Cornwall who is quite famous and about a year ago he was caught driving at about 80 mph in a 50-mph zone. He already had 12 points on his licence, so he pleaded exceptional hardship because he had to visit his ailing mother every day. He was allowed to keep his licence. Two months later, exactly the same thing happened and he made the same plea. As noble Lords will know, you cannot make the same plea twice for the same offence and the magistrates took away his licence, which made him very angry. But he should not have been angry, because there is an easy solution to this: do not do it in the first place.

The noble Baroness gave many examples of exceptional hardship. I could give a lot more, but I am not going to at this time of night. However, there is a solution to this, which is, do not do it in the first place. Stick to the speed limit, do not go through red traffic lights or whatever else people might think about.

This is not a question of hardship. It is a question of not doing it in the first place so that you are not taken to court and maybe convicted. The definition that the noble Baroness has put in this amendment is a very good one. If the Minister does not like it, perhaps he can come back with an alternative before we get to Report, but we need to find a solution to the 83,000 drivers who have escaped driving bans in the past 10 years because, unless they learn to behave, driving is going to get more dangerous. I hope that the Minister will agree at least to look at the text and come back with something else before Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, this amendment simply calls for a review of road traffic offences. It refers back to the debate we had earlier. My amendment is very broad—and deliberately so. Other amendments are much more specific and deal with worthwhile issues, but the haphazard range of amendments laid to the Bill is a result of its broad coverage of topics. The amendments that have been laid are just a snapshot of a wide range of issues that require attention and modernisation. I do not believe that this Bill is the place for any kind of systematic look at road traffic offences; they need their own Bill.

The Government undertook a consultation and review in 2014 with that kind of action in mind, but nothing happened. Of course, that 2014 review is now hopelessly out of date and would have to be undertaken again. I want to run through a few of the issues that are significant today but which were hardly worthy of note in 2014. The first is e-scooters. The Government have dozens of so-called pilot schemes under way, but wherever you live in the UK, e-scooters are visible nowadays. They pose problems and need regulation. The situation has gone way beyond any form of government control. I suggest that the Government will find it difficult to impose regulations now after such a period of a lax approach, but they really have to do something about them. In practice, e-scooters are sold with no attempt to explain to people that they are illegal on public roads and pavements outside the pilot scheme areas.

E-scooters pose a danger. In 2020, 484 casualties were officially recorded as the result of e-scooter accidents. Of those, 384 were the users themselves, one of whom, a 16 year-old boy, was killed. Some 128 of those involved in accidents were seriously injured, including a three year-old girl who received life-changing injuries. Reports this year suggest that at least 11 people have been killed so far, but, of course, that has to be officially recorded.

Another issue that hardly featured in 2014 is smart motorways. I do not want to dwell on the details of those, because last week we had the report from the Transport Select Committee in the other place, but it recommended a halt to smart motorway developments until significant safety improvements had been made and more powers for the ORR to block schemes until safety concerns had been dealt with. Clearly the Highway Code needs amending to deal with smart motorways. Since only 29 miles of smart motorway have been running for five years or more, they clearly did not feature in 2014.

Other issues that need tackling are: autonomous vehicles—road regulations and layouts, driver behaviour and legal responsibility all need tackling as a result of those; the trend towards more 20-mile-an-hour zones, as we discussed earlier today; and the fact that, for environmental reasons, road layouts need to change to encourage more walkers and cyclists. Those are always put together in the same paragraph, but in fact their interests are not identical and can conflict.

Bikes themselves are not what they once were. The welcome increase in the number of people cycling, and more people using bikes to commute, means that cyclists are often in a hurry and there is often a conflict with pedestrians and other road users. Electric bikes, which are certainly a recent innovation, are on occasion ridden much faster than the legal limit of 15.5 miles an hour, because you can tamper with the maximum speed. Cyclists can and do injure and kill, as well of course as very often suffering in accidents themselves. Cyclists who cause accidents can be charged only under the 1861 Act, which I referred to earlier today, with “wanton and furious driving”. The fact that we have to refer to an Act that is more than 150 years old is an indication that there is a need for a proper and comprehensive review of road traffic offences.

For those reasons and a host of others, we need a review, not this Christmas tree of a Bill. This is a probing amendment and I will of course withdraw it in due course. However, my question for the Minister is simple: when can we expect a proper road traffic Bill? When can we look for a proper review to modernise our roads?

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendment 165 in my name and in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. We are grouped together with Amendment 159 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. I think we are both looking for the same thing, which is a review of road traffic offences, which we discussed a little earlier this evening. It seems that the time has come to put a time limit on this. We suggest two years from the date of the Bill’s enactment.

As I mentioned earlier, this started in 2014. In 2015-16, the Commons Transport Committee reported with an inquiry on road traffic law enforcement, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking reported in 2017, with an inquiry on cycling and the justice system, and in 2018 there was a Westminster Hall debate on road justice and the legal framework, which revealed a cross-party consensus on the need for wide-ranging reforms. Many of the amendments we have discussed tonight demonstrate the need for reform but also the very wide range, scope and potential, and to some extent the differing opinions, which is of course quite normal.

In addition to the groups I have mentioned, there needs to be discussion not just with road safety and road user groups but with representatives of the police, the legal professions and local authorities. It is interesting to reflect that, seven years on from 2014, we could have had that debate by now and we could be passing laws that would save lives by taking the most dangerous drivers off the road.

I hope I can persuade Ministers that there is time for such a review now. I suspect we will be told that there are no current plans. However, the amendments which we and other people have tabled to Part 5 indicate that a review is needed. I suggest that it is time to address the awful additional pain and deaths that so many people have suffered as a result of the failure to review and change the law, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Competition Act 1998 (Coronavirus) (Public Policy Exclusions) (Revocations) Order 2021

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I decided to put down this Motion to Regret because it provides an opportunity for us to discuss the role of competition in ferry services. Does it incentivise operators to compete? Can they compete? Is there a role for the competition commission or some other body, because there is also a problem of a lack of transparency? This regulation relates to the competition exclusion for the Isle of Wight ferries during the Covid epidemic. That has now been, quite rightly, removed, but many of us can wonder what the difference is between when the regulation was in force and now, when it is not. I want to address my remarks both to the Isle of Wight services and to the Isles of Scilly services, and I declare an interest, as I live there.

The ferries kept going during the Covid-19 restrictions, thanks to grants from the Government to make up for the lack of passengers. I think they are all very grateful for that. For the ferry routes to these two islands, the total grant was about £10 million, but we do not know which company received it and what it did with it. They were not allowed to compete with each other on the Isle of Wight, while they now are, but I again question what changes have occurred since they were allowed to compete. Does competition, therefore, work in the ferry sector to give customers, passengers and freight a reasonable service at affordable prices? It is quite important for the people who live on these islands. Do they ever really compete, or is something else required to look after the customers’ interests?

We do not know whether the companies make excessive profits, but there is quite a lot of evidence that some of them fail in providing lifeline services for those who need urgent transport, particularly for the NHS. It is true to say that successive Governments have recognised the particular difficulties caused to both businesses and social services, as well as to education services, by barriers imposed on these communities. It is not, perhaps, surprising that schools on the Isle of Wight have long been at the bottom of the league table, with Ofsted constantly imploring improvements. There is no reason why it should be that way, but apparently it is.

Councillor Phil Jordan, who is the Cabinet member for transport on the Isle of Wight Council, has said:

“We have great concerns over the transparency of the operational factors of ferry companies that, in turn, lead to commercial decisions that take little account of the lifeline service the ferry operators provide, or the human cost involved with such commercial decisions.”


There is a lot of evidence that patients going to the mainland for NHS treatment, such as cancer intervention, are given absolutely no priority on some ferries. Quite apart from the costs involved, there is evidence that patients returning from NHS treatment—anaesthetics or invasive cancer treatment, I am told—are not given priority to board ferries. Sometimes, they are refused travel or sent to a later ferry. In other words, as they say colloquially, the sick are being bumped from travel.

The local MP, Bob Seely, has voiced support for a public service order, and the Isle of Wight Council has committed in its corporate plan to achieving a public service order on the Solent ferry operators. We do not know much; perhaps the Minister can tell us where that has got to.

It is the same for the Isles of Scilly. It is a very infrequent ferry service. Loading and baggage handling are, frankly, Victorian. There is no passenger shelter and freight charges are double those of the Scottish equivalent, which are already pretty high. It is good that the council has been awarded £48 million in a levelling-up fund announced by the Chancellor last week for two ferries between Penzance and St Mary’s. The trouble is that this is intended to perpetuate the inefficient, bad services, when they could be run with one ro-ro ship costing half that, about £22 million. I have told them that. The taxpayer is wasting about £19 million. When he responds, can the Minister tell me whether the Government required the council to seek competitive quotes for the new ship and services or ownership of these vessels? Is he happy that this £48 million will perpetuate what I think is an inefficient and expensive monopoly, to the detriment of the islanders—forget about the company?

We have two monopolies to the Isle of Wight and one to Scilly, providing what the Government seem to agree are lifeline services. There is not much monitoring going on as to whether these are effective. You have to ask what customers can do when these services are seen to be failing. You can ask the carrier, but it will say that it is not interested. You can ask the Department for Transport—we do not have a Transport Minister responding tonight, so let us say the Government—which will say that these are commercial services that they cannot influence. Customers may then ask what the remedies are if companies are seen to fail. After all, rail services are tightly controlled, as are many bus services, and there is generally competition for air travel in most places. Where is the community bit? What about affordability, service quality and frequency, for the NHS and other emergency services?

I will give the House a couple of examples. In Scotland, something called a road equivalent tariff is generally applied on fares and charges. To Islay, this is 29 pence per mile, while to Scilly it is £1.62 per mile, which is five times higher. For the Isle of Wight, on the Southampton to Cowes route, it is 96 pence per mile, which is three times higher. The train fares in the UK are very similar, between 10 pence and 30 pence per mile. As I said, the freight charges to Scilly are double those to Islay. This is not good for the economy. Unlike rail, the ferry fares are not regulated. There is no transparency about the ferry company costs, what might be a reasonable profit or the use of the Covid-related grant. What can people do? Should they ask the carrier or the department?

It is interesting that, over 10 years ago now in 2009, the OFT undertook a market study into the Isle of Wight services and the lack of transparency of their operations. Three operators wrote to the OFT offering increased transparency. One of them, Red Funnel, offered to publish clear information on performance, price per passenger, costs, capacity utilisation, customer satisfaction, reliability, punctuality and market growth. In spite of these commitments, which you might call solemn and binding, 12 years later, none of this has been done by Red Funnel or any of the other operators.

The same applies for the Isles of Scilly. It is a monopoly and there is no such information. There seems to be no pressure on operators to reduce costs or improve services. Where does the pressure come from? It could come from competition or from a government agency. After all, the Government control rail fares.

I do not think that the competition on the Isle of Wight works properly and, as I said, on the Isles of Scilly, the council has refused to commit to put the operations in the levelling-up fund bid out to competitive tender. Why? This failure of competition and governance is clearly having an adverse effect on the economy. Scotland recognises this, but in England I think the Government hope it is all going to go away.

I would like to hear the Minister’s response to the proposal that there needs to be some kind of regulatory oversight to make sure that the companies behave and provide the lifeline services to which they have committed themselves. It is a light touch role but could be done. We have the Office of Rail and Road for the railways and part of the road network; perhaps the remit of that could be expanded to cover ferry services. Maybe it is time for the CMA to be given a remit to examine these issues afresh and, most importantly, keep them under regular surveillance. In conclusion, I believe that some urgent action is required to make competition work for the benefit of consumers. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for tabling this Motion to Regret. I agree with almost everything he said. Of course, there are contrasting models in operation for ferry services around the UK, from market-based models to very much more subsidised models. Those complaining about the Solent services often look to other services for comparison, but the problem is that no two islands are really the same. People are searching for a model which provides the guarantee of service that the isolation of many UK islands requires but also an incentive for efficiency.

To look at a comparison of the islands, let us take Lewis off the west coast of Scotland as an example. Lewis is 130 miles off the mainland. It is about 350 miles from Edinburgh and about 600 miles from London. In contrast, the Isle of Wight is only 14 miles from Portsmouth and there is a ferry service which takes only 45 minutes. There is no regular air service, but there does not need to be one because of the short distances. The Isles of Scilly, whose service I know relatively well, are 35 miles off the coast. There is a sea crossing which is only for those with strong nerves and a strong stomach. It takes nearly three hours on what is a very elderly boat. I was therefore delighted to hear that there is funding to help deal with this situation. In reality, people go backwards and forwards to the Isle of Wight on a daily basis as commuters. You are not a daily commuter on a regular basis on the “Scillonian”, but of course people do go back and forth in a day to take up medical appointments. The vast majority of medical services are provided on the mainland.

We need a nuanced approach. Even in good times, islanders in general across the UK complain about their connectivity. There is, and rightly so, an emphasis on the importance of lifeline services. The SI to which this Motion to Regret relates suspended some elements of the Competition Act in relation to the Solent ferry services. There are three companies involved—one hovercraft service and two ferry services—so there is an element of competition. However, of course, during the pandemic they were apparently down to 10% of the normal passenger numbers and obviously it was not commercially viable. Yet it was obvious that essential services had to continue—freight as well as lifeline services—in terms of life-saving services.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage
Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an interesting amendment. I shall just concentrate a very few remarks on proposed new subsection (2)(c) and (d). The first thing to say is that I do not think that anybody is serious in expecting them to build extra stations on phase 2a. Crewe is a very good junction and it must involve, possibly on other lines, building extra stations if it can be justified.

As part of the Oakervee review, I also, with the team, visited Crewe. I think the Select Committee went there as well. It brings into focus the fact that the Select Committee quite rightly looks at local things and people’s concerns, but who looks at what one might call the regional connectivity? I will give one example. We were sitting in the office in Crewe talking to HS2 and Network Rail representatives and it became quite clear that the design of HS2 to go through Crewe station was effectively preventing even an hourly service from Shrewsbury through Crewe to Manchester because of the point layout. I got the impression that HS2 did not care at all about that. Network Rail said, “You’re stopping us doing even what we can do at the moment with difficulty”. I do not know where that should be discussed, or whether it should be in a report, as the amendment proposes, but there ought to be an opportunity to discuss it. It is not a matter for petitioning, but I will be interested to hear what the Minister will say about it.

[Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 4 because HS2 has come in for criticism about the quality of its consultation with local residents. Although it has impressed on us how much it has improved, I am sure that there is probably still some way to go. I am particularly concerned about the impact of the construction process, which may not be obvious to either HS2, or to local residents, before it starts. Construction of a project of this size and this kind is not a transitory process, in that it will impact on some communities for years. It is not like your next-door neighbour building an extension, where it is bad for a few months but then the disturbance goes away. This could last for years.

The amendment specifies traffic and the impact on the environment. Although both issues were raised in Committee, we still need some answers from the Minister. We have heard a lot, and will hear more today, about the impact on ancient woodlands, but other aspects of the environment are of equal importance, for example wetlands. The amendment also includes an important reference to new links to HS2 itself. I am not suggesting—it never occurred to me—that that means stopping on the way, as that obviously would be a very slow way to run a high-speed railway. Treated properly, HS2 will be the catalyst for a widespread upgrading of our existing Victorian railways. I was taking this amendment to mean improving links into HS2, to the stations that have been specified.

Amendment 8, which is in my name, is also in this group. It specifically refers to that aspect. It provides for an annual review of connectivity in our rail network and the impact of HS2 on that. I have already spoken this afternoon about the importance of using HS2 to unlock capacity to allow more intensive use of existing lines by commuters and for other local journeys, as well as to provide room for the transfer of freight from road to rail. The northern powerhouse and Midlands Connect rely on that. I suggest that progress on this needs annual review because the Government—any Government—need to be kept under pressure to maintain the momentum for change. The review is to be laid before Parliament within six months of its completion. Once again, that is to avoid backsliding.

There is also a provision so that the impact of the pandemic is taken into account. This is specifically to address the impact on demand for public transport, which has clearly fallen sharply in recent months, largely because people are worried about safety, although public transport providers have made huge efforts to ensure it is safe. However, demand will return, albeit maybe in a different pattern which providers will have to adapt to. Anyone who thinks that we will suddenly not want to travel has misjudged human nature and failed to take the lessons of history. I am keen that above all we encourage people back to travelling by rail. There has been a lot of discussion about building back better, and part of that is ensuring that new services are fit for the future, and ensuring that HS2 is the catalyst to enable future UK Governments to deliver on climate objectives, by taking cars and lorries off the road and replacing planes with trains.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 2nd sitting : House of Lords & Committee: 2nd sitting
Thursday 12th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have heard many noble Lords say that there is not a problem because the Select Committee, if it received complaints, dealt with them. I suspect that, if there was a problem and people got as far as petitioning about it, the committee would have made sure as best it could that it was solved, and that is very good.

However, I have also heard many examples of people not being paid, and some landowners who have found that HS2 was trespassing on their land, and maybe doing damage to it, not being paid for months or even years. That has been a common thing—and I suspect that both examples are equally valid. The real issue here is that, if there is no problem, the amendment does no harm to anybody. If there is a problem, it will encourage HS2 to behave, and pay for what it intends to occupy permanently or temporarily.

I suspect that the issue may have been something to do with the timing: the Select Committee sat for a certain time and the HS2 Bill has been around for several years. In the intervening period, what do people do if they suffer hardship? There is a lot of evidence, which I think that the Committee has heard before, that the budget that HS2 was given for land purchase by the department, and which the department was given by the Treasury, was woefully inadequate—probably about 50% of what was needed. That is probably one of the reasons, apart from having too much work to do, and maybe incompetence—I do not know—for late payments. HS2 and Ministers will have to do all in their powers to make sure that that it does not happen again for the next phase or two. There may be lessons to learn. In the meantime, I cannot see what is wrong with the amendment, which might incentivise HS2 and other businesses to behave in what is normally thought of as a normal business relationship.

[Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for giving us the opportunity to discuss this issue. In a way, this amendment goes alongside the previous one on NDAs. You wonder why the use of NDAs is apparently routine in an organisation on this scale. The problem with routine use of NDAs is that, while no individual one is possibly downright wrong, the whole oversight of the scheme gets suppressed. Therefore, it becomes difficult to see those early symptoms of things not working as they should.

We must also bear in mind that it is very easy for an organisation the size of HS2 to look overbearing, unfeeling and unreasonable. It is therefore very much in everyone’s interests that it operates as a good business with the highest ethical standards. It is, after all, a programme and a business for the future, producing something that will be at least 10 years in the making. Therefore, it needs to have modern, responsible business practices.

I suggest to the Minister that, while I am sure she will not want to accept the amendment, it would be an idea for the business practices of HS2 to be given a good look, with this amendment and issue in mind.

Common Rules for Access to the International Market for Coach and Bus Services (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Thursday 21st March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for bringing this SI and for her introduction. She has probably answered my question, but from reading paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum it looked as if UK operators would not be able to operate on the continent from 30 March. I think she has confirmed that that is no longer the case because of these more recent agreements. I hope we will be able to see a continuation of this important traffic without any interruption. What the French customs and immigration people do is of course a different matter, but let us hope that at least the services can run. I hope this will continue and that therefore the services that go to many member states across Europe can continue without getting bogged down in too much bureaucracy. As the Minister has said, it is a very important market.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, here is an SI that does not replicate what exists now, yet, astonishingly, there has been no formal consultation on it. The Explanatory Memorandum claims that it makes just technical amendments, but really it does much more than that. We must remember how important this industry is to us. Every year there are 3.6 million journeys to and from Britain by coach and 1.6 million overseas visitors coming to Britain by coach. That is 4% of all foreign tourists who come to Britain, and 83% of that 4% are from the EU. On the return leg, 1.1 million British residents go abroad by coach, of which 99% go to the EU. Looking at Northern Ireland, which is very important as well, there are 900,000 border crossings from Northern Ireland to the Republic and vice versa in a year.

The EU regulation allows reciprocal access for regular scheduled services and for occasional services—we would call them coach holidays. This SI provides unilateral access for current EU operators after Brexit in the hope that there will be reciprocal arrangements. I will turn to that later. The SI was originally recommended for the negative procedure. I was disturbed to see that, because I believe it is sufficiently important to be worthy of the affirmative procedure. Anyway, we are discussing it now.

I have some questions for the Minister. In future, EU coach operators will have to apply to the International Road Freight Office, when previously they received authorisation for coming to the UK from their home state. The DfT estimates that there could be up to 600 applications for authorisation for regular services at a cost to the Government of up to £95,500. Will the Government be charging an extra amount for this service? It did not need to exist before, so any charge would be additional. Is the IRFO being given sufficient additional resources? The Explanatory Memorandum also refers to a separate SI coming through for Northern Ireland. When will that be? Can we expect to see it in the next few days?

Obviously, things will be more complex and bureaucratic for EU operators. What will the Government do to make them aware of what they will have to conform to? What work are the Government doing with coach operators on the continent of Europe to make sure that the industry is fully aware of the change to the processes?

The Government hope to solve this problem in the long term by joining the Interbus agreement. The problem is, first, that the agreement does not allow cabotage and, secondly, that it applies at the moment only to occasional services. This will of course impact specifically on National Express and Translink in Northern Ireland, because they are the companies that provide the bulk of the regular services. Translink provides a lot of cabotage services as well.

In any event, the UK first has to join the Interbus agreement. I gather that the Government ratified it on 30 January. Will the final accession date that we were given of 1 April still apply if Brexit is deferred? Is it the case that we cannot accede until Brexit, or is 1 April a fixed date? At the moment, if we were to leave at the end of next week, there would be a two-day gap when services could not run. That might not seem like the end of the world, but it could be inconvenient and a real problem for the companies concerned. If they tried to run services without that specific authorisation there would obviously be insurance implications for them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

Would the noble Baroness care to speculate as to whether progress would have been so fast if this had been called European Interbus?

[Baroness Randerson]

I think we have a complete rewriting of the dictionary in Britain at the moment. We are not allowed to use the word “European” in any technical or official sense.

The EU is proposing a regulation to maintain basic road connectivity, which the Minister referred to. Does she share my concern that this is for a very limited period? Part of it applies until December, but only until September in Northern Ireland for cabotage and so on. It is all very messy, and therefore very complex for those operating in that industry. Do the Government intend to publicise this on GOV.UK? I am seriously concerned that while this will not apply to big companies, small coach operators in particular—there are quite a few of them in the industry—will find it difficult to keep pace with the very complex changes that the EU and the Government between them are proposing as short-term solutions. What about progress with the bilateral agreements that the Government are proposing to sign? How many countries have signed up so far to those?

On the publicity to the general public for all this, we are coming up to peak coach holiday season at this moment. Easter will be the beginning of high season for coach operators. Are passengers fully aware that they are in a situation of some uncertainty in relation to the ability of UK coach operators to ply their trade in Europe?

Aviation Safety (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing these regulations. It would be good if she could say something further as a result of the Boeing accident a couple of days ago, which brings aviation safety into focus.

I have a couple of questions, and I will use the Explanatory Memorandum as a reference because it is easier. My first question is on paragraph 7.2, “Corrections to domestic subordinate legislation”. She said that most aircraft types are subject to EU technical requirements and that will be changed from “EASA aircraft” and “non-EASA” aircraft to “Part-21” and “non-Part-21”. What is the point of this, and has anybody seriously tried to get associate membership of EASA? I know “European” is in the name, which probably means that it is anathema to some members of the Government, but it would be a lot easier. I will probably bring this up when we debate railways as well. EU technical requirements are well known and well respected. We will have CAA technical requirements if this SI goes through. What happens when they diverge? Is there any mechanism for our side to talk to the European side? It is pretty stupid to have technical requirements for aircraft in this country that will be different—even to a small degree—from those in the European Union. Of course, the same applies vice versa. We tend to think only about the problems in this country, but for our planes to be able to fly on the continent, presumably somebody has to confirm with EASA or the Commission that the technical requirements of our planes fit in with their specifications.

My second question relates to paragraph 7.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum concerning banned operators. Quite a few rather unpleasant cases over the years come to mind. The paragraph refers to the,

“list of aircraft subject to an operating ban in the Community”.

That means that there is a list, which is great, but what process will there be for the UK and the European Union to share that list? It would be pretty stupid to have two lists, and I hope that the Minister can give us some comfort that there will be a mechanism for sharing, as this is a very important issue.

My last question relates to paragraph 7.8, which refers to,

“powers provided for in Single European Sky”.

That is an ambition that has not quite been achieved, although it is some of the way there. Do I understand that it will now be dumped, that there will be a single European sky that does not include the UK and that we will have our own little sky? I look forward to the Minister’s responses.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her opening statement. The Ethiopian Airlines crash has been a salutary reminder of the fundamental importance of aviation safety. Sometimes we take it for granted, but it relies on a complex interlocking of the highest standards for design, manufacture and maintenance, stringent standards for the training of flight crew and air traffic controllers, and exacting standards for the design and operation of airports. As aircraft have become more complex—the crash two days ago illustrates this point extremely well—and the skies become more crowded, the importance of international co-operation on the specification and maintenance of these standards has never been greater.

Yet this SI is intended to withdraw us from EASA and hence from access, as of right, to much of that international co-operation. I was very pleased that the Minister confirmed yesterday that the Government want to remain a member of EASA. I have no doubt that the Minister wishes to do so, but it was good to have the reassurance that that was the Government’s position. However, in the present political chaos, we cannot rely on this SI being simply a paper exercise.

Last November, the Second Legislation Scrutiny Committee drew our attention to this SI. It drew attention to the impact on CAA resources and to whether the EU will reciprocate in the recognition of licences, certificates and approvals. The UK will continue to have the same technical requirements and standards on exit day but, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has just said, there are real questions over future changes and over whether and how we will keep in step with the EU. Next week, we will be looking at maritime SIs, and we are way behind in keeping up with the flow of maritime legislation. I have real concerns that in the aviation sector, where technology moves on really fast, we will not be on the ball in changing our standards as fast as the EU.

Aviation Statistics (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be quick. I note that in paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum, the Government think that,

“The gathering of such data … of derived figures are activities that are crucial for Government, the public and the sector itself to be able to monitor performance”.


However, paragraph 7.7 suggests it is no longer appropriate for any of these statistics to be given—they can be given to the Secretary of State, if he so directs—to anybody else in Europe. Why is that? Would we not want data from there? Would it not be helpful for our ongoing air services between the whole of the European Union and the UK if we exchanged this statistical data? Or will we put a ring around ourselves and pretend that Europe does not exist? Surely it would be useful—and the Government say it is useful. Why is no mention made of the CAA being able to share this information with the relevant European body?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, airport operators currently provide their statistics to the CAA, which passes them on to Eurostat. This is to be replaced, according to this SI, with a system whereby airport operators give the information to the CAA, which then provides that data to the Secretary of State if directed—not by legal obligation but if directed.

There are four problems with the SI. First, statistics collected on a national basis are much less useful and meaningful than international statistics. As the noble Lord said, there is no guarantee that this information will be shared internationally.

Secondly, there is no obligation on the Secretary of State to even want to see the statistics. What will he do with them? There is no obligation on the Secretary of State to publish them. Therefore, one has obvious concerns about transparency. Statistics should be important for the Government; they are certainly important for the public and the industry itself to monitor performance. The CAA already collects this data, but it will be of much less use for comparative purposes as matters stand in the SI.

The third problem is the impact of changing rules on exactly how the data is expressed and collected. This is the kind of internal thing that happens in any organisation. If you change the order of the questions or one or two words in the questions, you impact the results. It does not matter that much if you are looking across the piece and everyone is obeying the same rules, but we will be collecting our data on a different basis. I more or less guarantee that, within a year or two, we will be told that our data is no longer comparable because of differences in collection procedure.

Finally, there is the new power of the CAA referred to in the SI to impose a £5,000 fine if an airport does not provide data. I am not entirely clear about this, and I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify. I believe that this is a new power; I am not sure that the CAA has it at the moment. If it does, what is the fine, because £5,000 seems derisory as a fine on a large organisation for failing to provide data? It would cost Heathrow Airport or Gatwick Airport a great deal more than £5,000 to collect the data, so there would be an incentive not to bother. Where does £5,000 come from? Has it been thought through as a penalty that should be paid by a large commercial organisation? It does not seem worth it.

Aviation Security (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Monday 25th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, this SI deals with the legislative framework for aviation security in the UK covering everything from screening passengers to the rules governing access to airports. This is a hugely important field and one where the UK has an extremely good reputation based on rigorous efficiency and the fact that we were one of the first countries to take up the option to introduce more stringent measures on security. Safety at our airports is of course based on the pooling and swapping of key information—a process that has been built into the EU system which this SI dismantles—so I have some questions for the Minister.

On paragraph 6.4, the reassurance here on the use of the affirmative procedure is so gloriously vague that, to be honest, it is meaningless. We might have some affirmative SIs as a result of this, but on the other hand we might have some negative ones. We are given no proper measure of how that decision will be made. I would be grateful if the Minister could give us some information on how that judgment will be made. This is a fundamental area for our country.

Paragraph 6.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to the revoking of Commission decision C(2015) 8005 and then states that the decision is so sensitive that we cannot be allowed to know what is in it. I have to say that this is a first for me. In my experience, I have never known the Government to revoke a secret power. Can the Minister give us some information as to what this might be about, even if she cannot give us the details? Certainly, can she explain why it is impossible to give us that information?

The question of airport inspections is important because we rely on the inspection of airports in other countries in order to ensure that UK flights and UK citizens are safe. We use the information from those inspections to give warnings to UK citizens that they should not fly to certain airports and to discourage airlines from doing so. This system relies on a free flow of information of a very sensitive nature. In future, we will inspect our own airports. That produces two questions in my mind. First of all, how will we make sure we keep in step with the rest of the world on those inspections and the terms on which they take place? Secondly, how will we continue to share information with the remaining 27 EU countries? The sharing of the information is the absolutely crucial thing here.

I move now to the granting of operating licences, which is dealt with in paragraph 7.3(h) of the Explanatory Memorandum. What will be the impact of removing the provision for mutual recognition between member states in the case of the granting of operating licences?

Finally, the EU has a system of mutual recognition of approved air cargo carriers, whereby approval is given following inspection. Once we leave the EU, we will no longer benefit from this system and will have to set up our own system of inspection and designation. To start with, it is explained here, we will recognise all those carriers we currently recognise, but, obviously, things will move on pretty fast. New companies will enter the field, new information might come to light about existing carriers, and so on. We will have to erect a new system that will be expensive to the taxpayer, but also—this is an important point—to the companies seeking approval, because they will have to do it twice over. They will have to seek approval in the EU and in the UK. Once again, I am really concerned that we are isolating ourselves on a security issue. We are voluntarily forfeiting access to information via EU systems. Obviously, on the balance of probabilities, we will be less secure as a result.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a very interesting SI, in particular the issue of confidentiality. This has come up again and again in not just the secondary but also the primary legislation. I know for a fact that people in the industries that I am in touch with say, “We have signed non-disclosure agreements, so we can’t tell you anything”, which is fine because it means they have to do what the Government say; they have no other information and no means of questioning it. More importantly, I need to ask the Minister how long these NDAs are going to go on for. As the noble Baroness said, once you have “security” in there and everything is confidential, getting that removed is almost impossible because there will always be 25 reasons for not doing it. That applies to NDAs and, even more important, to this legislation. We might just as well sit back and say, “Well, you didn’t tell us about it. Of course we trust you; you’re the best security in the world until something goes wrong”. Whether we believe that is a different matter, but there is nothing we can do about it.

My second point concerns Regulation 16, which the noble Baroness mentioned, about removing the power of the Civil Aviation Authority to grant operating licences to UK-registered air carriers. Why can the CAA not continue to do this? After all, it is a UK government body with the expertise—probably unlike the Secretary of State and his Ministers. I would go one step further and say we can still leave the EU and not have any input into the decision-making processes that go on—if that is what is going to happen—but is there any reason why we should not have the back-to-back arrangements with member states on operating licences with the CAA on mutual recognition? What is wrong with that, apart from the fact that Ministers do not want to do it? The Minister shakes her head, but technically it would make life a great deal easier. It seems to me that it should be looked at. I do not think any noble Lords will oppose this SI tonight—it is a bit late now—but this is something we ought to be thinking about and challenging. On many of these SIs coming up, including railway ones next week, the decision has been made but actually has nothing to do with the basic principle of leaving the EU. It is somebody’s interpretation of it to suit their own political ends or whatever. It is worth reflecting on that. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response

Operation of Air Services (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, when I put forward my Private Member’s Bill—excitingly entitled the Open Skies Agreement (Membership) Bill—immediately after the last election it never occurred to me that, nearly 18 months on, my concerns would still not have been answered. My concerns related to the international air agreements that make international air travel possible. We are members of those agreements by virtue of our membership of the EU. The sad, chaotic situation that the Government have got themselves into in their Brexit negotiations is threatening many people’s plans for the future and threatening companies’ ability to trade in the future, because they cannot rely on air services.

This SI in preparation for a no-deal scenario is far from reassuring. Rather, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, said, it reminds us all of what is at stake and how far we are from a solution. The report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee points to a number of unanswered questions. I am grateful to the committee, as I am sure we all are, for its work and I am glad that the Explanatory Memorandum has been updated. Being rather a keen student, I read the original—even the updated one has a lot of complexity and leaves a lot of questions unanswered, but the original one was not as good as it should have been. If there is no deal, UK and EU airlines will lose, as the Minister said, the automatic right to operate services between the UK and the EU without the need for permission from individual states.

The DfT has stated that it expects to grant permission for EU carriers to fly to and from UK airports and expects that to be reciprocated. That is a lot of expecting. What discussions have the Government already had? The Minister said that a lot of work has been done on it, but are we in a position where the whole thing could be more or less rubber-stamped if Brexit arrangements were sorted out? Would everything else slot into place quickly, or are we at an earlier stage in the process? If there is no deal, the Government have said that they intend to make bilateral agreements with individual states. These would obviously need to be in place by the end of March if there is to be no gap in services. It might not be technically possible to sign them until that day, but they have to be fully agreed and worked up. Specifically, what progress has been made so far in these draft agreements on developing the understanding with the other 27 EU countries? Are we negotiating with all the rest of the EU as individual states or just taking the most important ones in terms of the level of traffic?

These regulations are yet another example of the steady increase in the amount of bureaucracy that is being heaped on individuals and companies as a result of Brexit. Last week—or was it the week before?—we were here discussing hauliers permits, trailer registration and international driving permits. This week it is the requirement for UK licensed air carriers to have both a route licence and an operating licence to provide services outside the UK. Although the DfT has been proactive in contacting carriers about this and we can therefore, I assume, count on the fact that air carriers across the EU are aware of it, and although awareness is clearly higher than in the case of the hauliers, who are largely completely unaware of what is going to hit them very soon, nevertheless it puts an additional burden on the airlines, as well as putting further responsibility on the CAA. I have remarked here before on the burden on the CAA of a wide group of responsibilities. We expect it to deal with space travel and failing airlines and to modernise airspace, and now we are expecting it to provide additional licences for air carriers. Can the Minister give us details of the additional resources being allocated to the CAA to deal with the more complex air services market that we will now face?

If there is no deal, all foreign carriers, including those from the EEA, will have to apply for a foreign carrier permit. Already the CAA processes thousands a year, but clearly it will have to process very many more in the future. What happens if a carrier does not apply? The DfT says that it expects EU carriers to make applications in good time, so what is the timescale? Using a parallel with haulage permits again, we discussed this not much more than a week ago. The hauliers have to apply by the end of the month, or certainly the beginning of December, in order to have a hope of getting their permits by January. There is a huge rush in that case. Is the system similar for the CAA? Is it fully geared up and are the airlines all ready to apply?

[Lord Berkeley]

Does the noble Baroness agree that the system for selecting who gets the permits for haulage that we discussed, as she says, a couple of weeks ago involves either drawing names out of a hat or seeing which haulier provides the best value for money for the country? Does she see that as an appropriate way of dealing with these air licences?

[Baroness Randerson]

My disappointment with the SI that we had a week or so ago was definitely with the lack of certainty about which criteria the Government would use. The Government adroitly managed to give themselves the broadest possible set of criteria and we are no nearer knowing how exactly those permits will be applied. The industry is worried as a result.

There has already been a degree of reorganisation within the aviation industry as airlines previously registered in the UK have moved abroad for their registration, with the inevitable drift of at least some jobs abroad. It is important that we bear in mind that this additional bureaucracy—the additional requirements as a result of Brexit—will put our expertise in such an important aviation market at a disadvantage.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee raised the issue of wet leasing, which, as the Minister explained, is when an airline releases an aircraft and its crew and so on. This is usually done at busy times or in exceptional circumstances. If the aircraft is not registered in the UK, the airline has to satisfy certain safety criteria. The airlines are concerned that this should be the subject of a reciprocal agreement with EU countries. Can the Minister explain what progress the Department for Transport has made in its discussions on this?

Public service obligations apply when a service would be uneconomical but is needed for economic and social reasons. They usually apply to far-flung places such as the Scottish islands. In future, such services could be operated by UK carriers and by others with cabotage rights—although, to be honest, that would be unlikely with no deal. These are sensitive and complex issues of state aid. As someone from Wales, I know that there has been a long debate on why rights are granted on some Scottish routes but similar rights were not granted in Wales. Could the Minister give us a little more detail on this?

State aid rules were previously adjudicated by the European Commission. This is a complex and controversial area, but the distance of the European Commission in power terms from the decisions that it made neutralised the issue to a large extent. Those powers will now be given to the CMA. What resources will it be given to deal with this? I also warn the Minister that those things are likely to become much more sharply controversial.

Paragraph 7.10 of the Explanatory Memorandum deals with the allocation of scarce capacity. The 2007 regulations dealt with air service agreements between EU members and third countries. Scarce capacity occurs when there are restrictions on the frequency of flights. The Explanatory Memorandum includes a political declaration that the UK Government will always seek to lift or remove such a cap but will hold a hearing to allocate frequencies if that is not possible. What is the legal force of that statement? It seems that it is simply a political declaration. It is a statement of intent by the current Government, but they cannot bind their successors. I would like some clarification on that.

Finally, it would be helpful, as we sit here week after week wading our way through dozens of these SIs, to be able to see the full context of where we are on air services. Maybe the Minister can tell us what other air services SIs we are waiting for.

International Road Transport Permits (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

Can the Minister explain how small businesses are going to be taken into account according to those criteria? You could be a small business doing 100% of your business with the EU but have only one lorry. You are therefore going to be at a huge disadvantage in the numbers game, compared to big companies. A small business could well go to the wall as a result.

[Lord Berkeley]

May I ask a question supplementary to that? If the criterion is going to be the greatest economic benefit, how can the Government identify something vital for a small business, as the noble Baroness suggested—25 tonnes of oranges, or the parts for a major car manufacturer who says, “If I do not get the parts today, I am going to close the whole thing down”—when we are only going to get a quarter or so of the permits we need at the moment? It seems there is going to be chaos either way. Does the Minister have a solution?

Civil Aviation (Insurance) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s introduction of these regulations. I imagine it is the first of a very large number of statutory instruments—and it just covers insurance. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, there is the whole question of EASA, which we will come to another day.

I have a few questions about the insurance cover itself. The Minister said that it covers the insurance requirements for air travel in the UK. Does that cover airlines registered in the UK? Does it cover airlines registered in the EU which are flying to or from the UK? Does it cover airlines registered in third countries which are coming into the UK and going on somewhere else or stopping here? Is there any requirement under these regulations for an airline registered in the UK to demonstrate that it has insurance outside the borders of the UK, specifically in the EU? I am sure that airlines do not think, “We just want to be insured in this country, we do not care what happens when we cross the frontier”, but it would be nice to have some comfort on that. Does the Minister expect the EU to want to know whether all these insurances that we have just talked about are valid in the UK before it will allow planes to arrive in its own airports from the UK? There is a large number of different scenarios here, leaving aside the fact that London to Dublin is the most traffic-heavy air route into and out of this country and Dublin will still be in the EU and apparently we will not be.

I would be grateful if the Minister could address those questions and give us some idea of what other SIs will be coming to cover all the other things that are required to enable continuity of flying after 29 March. I gather that either the Minister or her Secretary of State was given a bit of a telling-off by Mr Barnier for trying to prejudge the Brexit negotiations by going round every other member state and trying to get quiet deals with each one. I am sure she had a great time going round all those places but I do not know what has happened with this. I look forward to her comments.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, the airline industry in this country is intensely competitive. It is a commercial environment where there is a real danger that airlines seeking to reduce costs will cut their insurance to the minimum in order to do so. It is obvious from this SI that freeing ourselves from EU standards means that we could allow airlines to have a lower level of insurance. The Minister read out an impressive but rather grim list of the risks that airlines face. Obviously those risks are also faced by their passengers and therefore I would be grateful if she could give some more detail about what restrictions will be put on airlines that are registered in Britain: how low can they go as regards their insurance cover?

It is obvious that the Government are anticipating a reduction because paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum makes it absolutely clear that this legislation will free airlines in the UK to take up lower levels of insurance cover than those required in the EU. It gives the example of “non-commercial operations”. As an aside, I would like to ask the Minister if she could define what the Government mean by that phrase. What sort of operations will need to have or will be allowed to have a lower level of cover? There is no point in freeing yourself up from EU controls if you are not going to allow variations from the standards that the EU has set. Will there be any guarantees of a minimum level of insurance cover or will we have some sort of free-for-all as a result of this? Air passengers will be concerned that there should always be an adequate level of cover.

I reiterate the question put by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley: exactly how will this work? I have been trying to envisage the process. Thank goodness that several of our airlines have decided that they will neutralise some of the risks of Brexit and life after Brexit by registering in other countries. That covers their risks, which is a very good thing for them to have done. However, airlines are often based in more than one country. They may have their headquarters in one country but have most of their aircraft based in another one. Of course they fly between countries, so who will set the level of insurance that is required on each occasion? Will it depend on their country of origin, the flight that day, or will it depend on where the airline’s headquarters are based? If our UK-based planes fly from the UK to an EU country, will they not have the right to demand that those planes have an EU level of cover, not the reduced cover that the Government seem to envisage would be possible?

Finally, I put a rather prosaic point to the Minister. Paragraph 3.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“The territorial application of this instrument includes Scotland and Northern Ireland”.


What has happened to Wales, which has more than one airport? Can I ask for an assurance that the Scottish Government—sadly I cannot ask about Northern Ireland at this moment—have expressed their agreement to the concepts behind this SI and that the Welsh Government have done so as well, particularly since they do not seem to have been mentioned?

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I also thank the Minister for explaining the purpose of the regulations before us. Perhaps I may pursue the point that has been made about paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum to clarify what it means—or at least to establish that what I think it means is correct. It states:

“Article 6 sets out levels of insurance in respect of liability for passengers, baggage and cargo. Under Article 6(1), the minimum insurance cover for liability in respect of passengers is set at 250,000 SDRs per passenger”.


Can I take it that, as far as these regulations are concerned, there is no change and that the minimum insurance cover which applies at the moment will continue to be applied in the future and not be reduced? The memorandum continues:

“For non-commercial operations by aircraft with a MTOM of 2,700kg or less, there is an option for Member States to set a lower level of minimum insurance cover”—


I take it that that is the present situation with us being within the EU and that we already have the option because the memorandum says—

“which the United Kingdom has chosen to exercise. To ensure that the flexibility provided for in Article 6(1) is retained, Article 6(1) is amended to include a provision for the Secretary of State, by regulations, to set a lower level of minimum insurance cover in respect of non-commercial operations by aircraft with a MTOM of 2,700kg”.

Does the Secretary of State intend to go to a lower level of minimum insurance requirement than we have already exercised under what I understand is provided for under the existing arrangements? It is clear from looking at it that the Secretary of State could take the first opportunity to reduce it even further. What are the advantages of having the lower level of minimum insurance cover that the Secretary of State may set by regulations? To whose advantage is it? Is it safer to have a lower level of minimum insurance cover? It would be helpful to know what the advantages are and whether the Secretary of State intends to lower the level even further than I presume we have already reached.

Department for Transport (Fees) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for outlining these regulations with such brevity and clarity. I have a couple of questions, though. As she said, they cover international agreements, driving licences, vehicle registration, public service vehicle operation and licences to operate goods vehicles. I believe we have added licences for trailer operation, or something, which we discussed in some legislation—I cannot remember its name now—a few months ago.

The Minister mentioned non-UK drivers. Does this change mean that the charges are going to go up? Did the European Union previously have any control or oversight or a role in setting these charges? It is always very easy to say that the costs of doing it are going up. There may have been some control or advice from Brussels as to how these things should be assessed and charged.

Lastly, the noble Baroness mentioned that there might be some changes to the licences of non-UK drivers. The impression I get is that licences from other member states will no longer be valid in this country. How do drivers get new licences and are they going to be charged a rate seen by most people to be reasonable—or is it going to be one of these Home Office ones that make you pay £500 to try to dissuade you from coming? I hope it is the former and not the latter. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her clear explanation. I believe this is the first in a very long line of statutory instruments on transport issues that are directly related to Brexit. I want to express my regret that the time and effort of the Department for Transport is being mopped up in this way when we face so many transport challenges. We would considerably appreciate its efforts being put to another use.

I want to ask a couple of questions that are not unlike those from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I want to start with the Explanatory Memorandum. Paragraph 4.1 says:

“The territorial extent of this instrument is the United Kingdom”.


Then it says that,

“the territorial application is either the United Kingdom, or Great Britain”.

I am concerned about whether the devolved Administrations have been properly and fully consulted. These SIs are really going to annoy and upset the Scottish Government in particular. Therefore, it is particularly important that the Government maintain clear and detailed discussions with them on these things.

In the policy background section in the Explanatory Memorandum, paragraph 7.4 says that fees orders lay out the costs that the Government can take into account when setting fees. Paragraph 7.5 summarises the sorts of things that can be taken into account. They are very logical: driver licensing, vehicle registration, international permits and so on. Paragraph 7.9 then makes it clear that the Department for Transport is responsible for this legislation. It contends that these changes are “minor” and simply recognise Brexit. It says that, as a result:

“Stakeholders will not be impacted”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

This SI refers to goods vehicle licensing in the UK—or England, Great Britain, whatever—and as about 80% of the trucks crossing the channel are now driven by Romanians or Bulgarians or people from other member states, where the trucks may also be registered, what happens to the licensing of the vehicles from these member states if they come in here? Will they be subject to the same arrangement or is there another arrangement that would require them to be registered? If so, will they have to do that at the frontier and so on? I hope not.

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord has found an ingenious way of adding an extra question and I will pass it on to the Minister.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I accept that my Amendment 3 is a very simple and straightforward device. It was an attempt to approach one aspect of the safety issue. Amendment 29 is a much more complex and comprehensive approach. If Amendment 29 or something like it were adopted, there would be no need for Amendment 3.

I was trying to begin to talk about safety and to raise the issue that if you allow adaptations, the Secretary of State will have to devise a way to apply a wide and rigorous range of safety tests. Currently, if you build your own car in a garage you can test it pretty straightforwardly and take it on the road. You could be stopped by a policeman and you could take it to a garage and it would or would not get its MoT on a series of straightforward yes or no tests with no doubt about it. But, if we are talking about adaptations to autonomous vehicles, the danger in these adaptations will almost certainly be in the software, which it is very much more difficult to test. We have only to look back at the Volkswagen scandal. Volkswagen installed the so-called defeat device in the software of its diesel cars that kicked in only when it detected that it was being tested. It was therefore able to mask the true extent of emissions. That is a very complex operation. To test software we would have to go through very lengthy, all-situations style testing to make sure that a vehicle is truly safe. It is not just a case of putting your foot on the brake and saying that it stops quite quickly and it is fine.

[Lord Berkeley]

Would the noble Baroness be tempted to press the Minister to have a meeting on these issues before Report and come back with a much shorter text than Amendment 29 with the intention of covering these issues? I think that would give many noble Lords who have spoken in the debate quite a lot of comfort.

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, puts forward a very good idea. I know that the Minister is always very generous in providing opportunities to discuss issues. We already have two issues that we need further information on. I am sure that there will be other amendments later where we will need a meeting or, at the very least, a fairly lengthy letter—but it would be better to discuss it.

I readily acknowledge that the approach taken by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is a more thorough approach to the issue of safety. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

Before the noble Lord sits down, is he aware that there are now reasonably big drones delivering goods? They trundle along pavements and across level crossings and so on, appearing to behave a bit like pedestrians. I have been thinking about what the noble Lord is saying, and he is raising a good point. What is the difference between a drone delivering an Amazon parcel and a driverless van delivering an Amazon parcel? The only difference is probably the size, so there will have to be some definition of a cut-off point—unless we are going to insist that drones are insured, in the same way as vehicles.

[Lord Berkeley]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, may I ask her whether she really thinks that drones trundle along pavements?

[Baroness Randerson]

I have indeed seen them. There are experimental systems that are wheeling along pavements.

[Lord Berkeley]

On wheels?

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, my name is attached to three amendments in this group. I have added my name to Amendment 1, which is a retabling of an amendment put down in Committee by the Labour Party that would put on the face of the Bill that it is the Government’s objective to secure continued participation in the EU’s Community licence arrangements. This is another example of where a perfectly good arrangement currently exists in the EU but we will be leaving that arrangement and undoubtedly, I fear, moving to a less satisfactory situation. These amendments, as a group, are intended to encourage the Government to make the best possible arrangement with the EU for the future and to move to the best possible set of arrangements in the circumstances.

The amendments tabled by the Labour Party will almost certainly also ensure that the powers granted under this legislation will not be applicable if we stay in the EU’s Community licence regime, and that is very similar in principle to the sunset clause that I tabled in Committee. My Amendment 2 carries on this theme, because our argument is that the Bill should be applicable only with its original intended purpose, which is to make provisions for after we leave the EU, and that it should not be used as an opportunity to tidy up existing law. We often hear the phrase “skeletal Bill” but this is a “coat-hanger Bill”. It is possible to put any garment you can think of on this coat-hanger because it is drawn so broadly, and it is very difficult to see where the Government might go with it. Therefore, I believe that it is in everyone’s interests to keep the Bill to its original purpose.

Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, refers to the new permits regime and attempts to ensure that there is agreement in the future between the Government and the EU.

Finally, our Amendment 7 would make it a negotiating objective of the UK Government that there must be reciprocity regarding the number of UK-registered hauliers travelling to the EU and vice versa. This is a key issue. The view of haulage industry leaders is that we have to do all we can to ensure that there is an agreement, because, in their eyes, it is certain that the system proposed here will not work. The Freight Transport Association says that last year 300,000 journeys to the EU were made by British trucks and that 103 permits were issued, as those were all that were needed. If the Government are to adopt the permit system, a massive scaling up will be required to cope with that volume of traffic, but I think it is unrealistic for the Government to believe that they can scale up quickly and satisfactorily to that extent.

There are other issues which the transport associations are very concerned about and which these clauses do not deal with. After Brexit, WTO rules will require a significant increase in the number of checks. However frictionless a system the Government manage to create, ensuring that there are a limited number of checks to be made, WTO rules will kick in and will require checks to be made on a much bigger scale than now.

Simple precautionary measures are bound to be required to deter people intent on cheating the new system. There is also the unlikelihood, in the eyes of those who engage with the system at the moment, that the new computer-based system that will have to be devised by HMRC will be fully functional in the less than three years that we have left before the end of the transition period.

Then, of course, there is the issue of bringing 85,000 businesses up to scratch—that figure is from the NAO report. Currently, those businesses export only to the EU. Therefore, although they are exporting frequently—on a daily basis in many cases—they have never made a customs declaration. These businesses have no processes in place and no departments dedicated to that. If you add to that increased border delays caused by non-tariff aspects of the Bill, such as the end of mutual recognition of standards, there must be every incentive to reach an agreement, because there will be huge impediments to trade.

This Bill deals only with part of these issues. It makes no reference to the mutual recognition of lorry driver qualifications or to a shortage of skilled workers—13% of trucks on British roads are driven by EU drivers. Therefore, we are keen, through these amendments, to encourage the Government in every possible way to ensure that they make an agreement. I fear that we are not in a strong position on this, but the Government have to make every effort. Unless they do so, there is a huge chance that our major haulage companies will move abroad. There is already talk of companies seeking to register abroad in order to trade more easily. None of us wants that to happen.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 2, 3 and 7 in this group, Amendment 3 being in my name. Before I do so, I note the comments from the Chief Whip a few minutes ago on what noble Lords are supposed to do during Report stage. I question the second point, which says,

“a member to explain himself in some material point of speech”.

I do not imagine that the Minister will be able to answer that, but I hope that we all explain ourselves.

I support all the points made by my noble friend Lord Whitty and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. The noble Baroness said that this is a coat-hanger Bill, and she is probably right, but I suggest that it is a great deal better than nothing. There are many other sectors being debated in the context of Brexit for which there is nothing. We should give the Government a bit of credit for this, albeit that the Bill as it stands is pretty defective in many of the solutions that it comes up with. My conclusion, along with that of the noble Baroness, is that the system will not work anyway.

It is worth mentioning that, although this applies to road haulage, the border checks that we are all concerned about cover a very large number of different issues. Previous speakers have mentioned some of them. The easy one, actually, is customs. If that is done well and the IT system works—there is a big question about that—much of the work can be done in advance and, in theory, there would be no delays at frontiers, provided that it all goes smoothly. We discussed the drivers in Committee and their need for permits for vehicles and trailers and then we get into the interesting bits, which are the responsibility of Defra—plant and animal health and welfare, foot-and-mouth and rabies. You cannot check for those away from the frontier; it has to be done at the frontier. I do not know how many trucks per year would come under that, but they probably all need inspecting.

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 13th March 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, Amendments 2, 4 and 5 in my name come from a question I have about Clause 1: why do drivers transporting goods to Northern Ireland get singled out? We know that the Republic is going to remain in the single market and that Northern Ireland is not. I see no difference between the requirements for a permit, or anything else, for drivers going between Northern Ireland and the Republic, between Northern Ireland and the UK—I assume that there is no need for a special licence between Northern Ireland and the UK—and between Northern Ireland and continental Europe. There is an added complexity to the licensing system which is not justified. What is the difference between drivers in Northern Ireland and those in other parts of the UK going to other parts of the European Union? Finding that out is the purpose of these three amendments. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, Amendment 3 in my name also deals with Northern Ireland. It is a probing amendment, seeking an explanation from the Minister. Following an “international agreement”, Clause 3 allows the creation of regulations prohibiting an operator of a goods vehicle using it in specified circumstances. This creates obvious problems for the Irish border. If an international agreement were able to prohibit the travel of goods between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, this could lead to a diminishing sense of the common identity that has developed in the years following the Good Friday agreement. It also presents a practical problem, as the avoidance of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic would not be possible. We all know that the Prime Minister has repeatedly said that she wishes to avoid a hard border, but you are going to have a problem delivering that if checks are needed on the border. Whether the operator can cross the border or not, it is the checks that are the issue.

The Bill suggests that there is a sensitivity about travel between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Our amendment simply strengthens that reference. We obviously do not want to imply that there should be checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK—quite the contrary. I therefore want to emphasise that the amendment is to investigate how this provision would work and in what circumstances the Government anticipate that they might have to use it. It would obviously be a lot easier for everyone if we kept to the current arrangements.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, this the last of my three amendments and it is to do with aviation. Aviation has so far come out better from the various statements from the Prime Minister and others because of the noise from the aviation industry, be it airlines, which were rightly frightened about being unable to fly one day after Brexit day unless some changes were made, or the manufacturing industry, which is reliant on a massive amount of approvals for all components. Some 2 million components manufactured in this country go into an Airbus. They are all approved centrally by the European agency. If we do not retain membership of this agency, those approvals will be null and void and we will not be able to carry on.

There are many other consumer interests as well. The airline sector benefits dramatically from being part of a European group of airlines. Leaving EADS and having to negotiate directly with goodness knows how many other member states for particular routes does not bear thinking about. The noise from the airlines has been great; I hope it continues and that Ministers take notice of it. Let us not forget the manufacturing industry. It is not just aircraft wings for Airbus, which I think are made in north Wales, but many other components. We need a thriving industry and we need to stay part of it. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some comfort on that. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I first raised this issue in the autumn of 2016 and have done so repeatedly since then, even in a Private Member’s Bill on the Single European Sky. It is important because there is no fallback position for aviation; there are no WTO rules that we can rely on. If things do not go right, there is simply a blank in which planes will be grounded. Along with them will be the passengers and very high-value freight which goes by air.

I do not mention these concerns on my own initiative; they have been put to me by people in the aviation industry from across the world, because our whole economy stands on the shoulders of our air transport industry.

All along, the Government have expressed confidence that this will all work out fine on the night, but there has not been any official commitment either to remaining in EASA or the Single European Sky. Despite the commitment made by the Prime Minister last week there has been no official commitment, so these amendments give the opportunity to provide that. With the best of intentions, we could find ourselves at an impasse, and this is not just a little local difficulty between the UK and the EU; it is also very much about the US. We rely on the EU/US open skies agreement as a member of the EU, and we will cease to be a member of it when we cease to be a member of the EU. It cannot just slot into place later because airlines sell tickets a year in advance. Indeed, they are already selling tickets for a period of time when they cannot be absolutely sure that the planes are going to fly. There will be an awful lot of airline tickets on sale from next month for a year hence—some have already been sold, as I say.

There are already stories—for example, in the Financial Times last week—that early talks have not gone well. The Minister denied that and I am very pleased to hear those words, but in the past the United States has not been easy to make aviation agreements with. Opening up US aviation to both EU and UK flights has been a problem in the past. There are potential issues over the continuation of anti-trust exemptions, which allow airline alliances to set fares and share revenue. Any new deal has to allow for the pattern of ownership of our own major airlines, which have very big foreign shareholdings, especially IAG, of course. In the short term it is important that we remain in the open skies agreement during transition, or at least that we are treated as if we are within that agreement. In the longer term it is clearly best if this continues beyond transition.

Briefly on EASA, at any one time half the aircraft in the skies above Britain are not UK registered, so we need to remain the dominant influence over aviation security and safety in the EU and beyond. We have been a major force so the Prime Minister’s words, as I said earlier, were welcome last week. We need full, official government commitment here in legislation: not just to being associate members of the EASA or observers, but to being full members because there is consensus in the sector that it makes no sense to create a national regulator. It is essential that we remain fully integrated with EU rules and systems. The EU has brought huge benefits to passengers—lower fares, more destinations and greater passenger rights and compensation. We must remain part of that scheme. We must also maintain the environmental benefits it has brought.

Renewable Transport Fuels and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I think you could sum up what I feel about these regulations by saying, “At last!”—because this legislation has been delayed for many years. It goes back to the 2013 directive and we are now in something of a race against time to get it approved before next month, I believe, when a new year of target implementation comes into force. So it is very welcome, because the uncertainty has had a significant economic impact on the renewable transport fuel industry.

Interestingly, the aviation industry has also been asking for this for a long time and has warned that we are being left behind by a number of other countries. So I am pleased to see aviation included here, but I would ask the Minister for more detail on the Government’s plans for aviation. Sustainable Aviation has also called for government to de-risk investment in sustainable fuels by underwriting the risk and prioritising research into sustainable fuels to bring the UK into line with our competitors. What other measures are the Government taking to encourage sustainable aviation fuels?

My general comment is that, although the legislation is welcome, as ever it lacks ambition in its targets and timings. For instance, paragraph 8.9 of the Explanatory Memorandum explains the Government’s amended targets. There will no longer be a 2% interim target for greenhouse emissions in 2018, and the interim target will be left at 4% for 2019. Is that because the Government have run out of time to do it in 2018 or is it because, as the Explanatory Memorandum suggests, we are already at 2%? I would like some clarity on that, please, from the Minister.

As the Minister has just told us, the proposals include a crop cap, which the industry is of course unhappy with. Does the Minister believe that the proposal to put that cap at 4%, reducing to 2%, is stretching enough, and at the same time reasonable?

Throughout Europe, the United States and Australia, E10 is commonly used, and it is more environmentally friendly. Will the Government be introducing it later this year when the new regulations on fuel pump labelling come into force? I remind your Lordships that, in the past, British Governments have led the way—for example, on the introduction of unleaded petrol. Those were difficult decisions to make, but they were of huge importance for human health. This is a similar decision that needs to be made.

Behind all this is the force of EU law and requirements. I regret to say that the Government can no longer pretend to be at the forefront of EU policy on this, so I am anxious to get the Minister’s commitment that this is one area of EU environmental regulations where we as a nation will continue to shadow the leadership of the EU.

Finally, it is quite possible that the Minister will not be able to answer this now and might wish to write to me, but I would like a little information from her. In point 15 there is a reference to reporting on electricity usage by a supplier for the charging of electric vehicles. With the AEV Bill also before us, I am keen to see how exactly this requirement will work with that and how the data requirement in the Bill fits with these regulations. In asking this question I bear in mind, of course, that an electric car is really only as clean as the electricity that goes into it. The question of how electricity is generated is key, and in due course I would be grateful for further information on that.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I follow the noble Baroness with a similar question. I was at a meeting this morning about electric cars, which was a sort of precursor to the Committee stage of the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill. My question is about the addition of biofuels. Obviously I support the percentage increase up to 9.75% by 2020, but can the Minister tell me whether there are any types of motor that use this fuel that are adversely affected by it? The noble Baroness mentioned the aerospace sector. I understand that, among some parts of our large boating industry, which obviously uses lots of engines, there is a big worry about even the existing proportion of biofuels in the fuel because it adversely affects the engines. I do not know—if the Minister cannot answer this, perhaps she will write to me—whether it is because of the type of engine or because many boat engines spend most of the year doing nothing: it may be something to do with that. Manufacturers did not like the previous fuel and were even asking for two sets of fuel pumps, one with the biofuel addition and one without, which of course would cost an enormous amount of extra money.

I do not know whether this applies to any other type of motor. The railways are probably all right, as I suspect are most of the road transport and car industries, but it is important to know which type of motor and which type of use is adversely affected by this and what the manufacturers can do about it. Obviously it is good to increase the percentage, but if it is going to wreck engines in the process we will have to find a solution. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 27th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

The noble Lord has my support in wanting to push this issue a bit further. I recall raising in Committee the issue that it would be difficult to imagine why people would be walking around carrying a laser and pointing it at either objects on the road or planes in the air unless they were intent on doing some mischief.

It is also possible that people would find it very difficult, as the noble Lord has said, to prove the intent that is in the Government’s proposed legislation. I understand where the Minister is coming from on this—the Government do not want to criminalise people simply for walking around with a laser pen in their pocket—although I go back to the point, which I believe I made at Second Reading, that we have a situation with knives where we all own them and use them on a daily basis but it is an offence to be carrying a knife in certain situations. So we have managed to sort out the law in such a way that it is possible to distinguish between people who happen to have a knife in their rucksack because they were cutting up their apple for lunch and people who are carrying a knife with the intent to use it as a weapon. I say to the Government that it is probably worth while going back and looking again at applying that approach to the carrying of laser pens and lasers in general.

[Lord Berkeley]

My noble friend has made a very good point, as has the noble Baroness. It is a question of what evidence would be needed to secure a conviction for the intention to dazzle. It seems to me that, taking the noble Baroness’s example of having a knife in one’s pocket, evidence that a laser is switched on is not hard to find. Evidence of intent to dazzle is very difficult. I hope that she can give some examples of the type of evidence that would be likely to be accepted in order to secure a conviction. If she cannot do so after she has had time to consider the matter, it may be that my noble friend’s amendment is the right one, and the paragraph should be thereby deleted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation. I just want to clarify something I said earlier, because if I do not, the lawyers will start nitpicking at vast expense. Presumably “vehicle” in Amendment 7 includes trains—I think it should. Does it include bicycles, and people on bicycles? The controller of the vehicle is the person at whom the laser may be directed. Then we have things called segways, scooters and single-wheel segways. If they are all vehicles, that is fine by me, but I hope people will not start nitpicking and say, “Well, it’s not this, it’s the other”. I hope the definition is comprehensive.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her amendments. They demonstrate that she has approached this Bill with very much an open mind. Because of the Bill’s technical nature, some experts in the House were able to add some very useful amendments, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, being an example. But it perhaps gives us pause for thought that the Bill, which has been pretty narrowly drafted—fortunately the noble Baroness has tabled amendments to broaden it significantly—still needed quite a lot of amendment. Although this is an issue that the Government have been considering for many months, there were still technical issues that needed to be addressed. That does not suggest that the proposals had been consulted on sufficiently. However, in relation to the Minister’s approach, I am very grateful to her for her assistance.

High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 12th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 17 is to do with the restriction of lorries and road use. I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. The committee obviously spent a long time considering this, as it covers about 12 paragraphs in its report. Probably as a result of its questioning, HS2 has considerably improved its offer of the proportion of freight that will be taken by rail rather than by road, particularly in the Camden area.

My reason for putting this amendment down was to try to cover the whole of the route of phase 1 rather than just Camden. I point out that the reason we are in this situation is that HS2 did not start off the project by thinking, “It is clearly unacceptable to have 1,500 or 2,000 trucks a day going through Camden for several years, so how can we design a station and its approaches in such a way that you could use rail freight?”. In fact, Network Rail said that it did not want any rail freight into Euston, because it might delay the passenger trains. Since there are not any passenger trains at night, it is difficult to accept that that was a sensible argument. However, we are where we are.

HS2 has come some way at Euston. Given the pressure it has taken to get it this far, it would be a good idea if one could put some percentages in the Bill of what it would be required to do to move materials by means other than road. We are not just talking about spoil and demolition material; other materials can easily come in on rail and be trained off. Then there is the whole question of concrete, bringing in the aggregates and maybe the cement, and having a batching plant on-site. I remember saying to HS2, “Why don’t you put a batching plant there?”. I was told, “We’re going to put a generating station there”. I said, “But you could have thought of putting a batching plant there first”. “Well, we didn’t”. That was the kind of discussion that went on.

We can talk about this for a long period. HS2 is in discussions with the train operators now, and I hope that it has enough rolling stock to do it now. Again, we asked, “If you want to suddenly move all this material by rail, is there enough rolling stock in the country, or should somebody pre-order it?”. It did not want to pre-order it and influence what the contractors might say or do, and it will probably be all right. Outside London, it is unclear what could happen, so there is a strong argument for making sure that HS2 sticks to these percentages. We can debate whether they are the right ones, but we need to hold it to account. On Tuesday we heard about trucks in Wendover, and we heard about other places. We even heard, in the last amendment, that HS2 wanted to run trucks down the bus lanes in London because the trucks were more important than buses. It would be useful if some sort of legislative grip was taken on the provider as regards this serious and very important issue because otherwise we could still have 1,500 trucks a day going through Camden and a similar number going through other places that are equally congested and in need of protection. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I start by referring to the excellent committee report which refers to this issue in detail, and I am delighted to support the amendment. The committee notes that some areas of Camden, along with other urban areas, suffer levels of air pollution that are in serious breach of EU limits. It calls the haulage by road of materials to and from the construction sites,

“one of the gravest problems of the project”.

As the project has developed, the Government have made a commitment over time to more and more tunnelling in order to alleviate the problems of noise for residents in other areas, but that in itself creates another environmental problem because the excavated soil will have to be moved over long distances. Add to that the cement, aggregates and steel for tunnels and bridges and so on, plus building materials for several new stations, and we are talking about very significant amounts.

The committee’s comments on Euston concentrate on the level of disruption over a period of more than a decade which involves the demolition of a large office block as well as other homes. It is critical—I urge noble Lords to read paragraph 178—of the impact on local people and is particularly critical about the idea of rebuilding Euston station in two stages. I am using this opportunity to urge the Minister to press his colleagues in government and HS2 to ensure that a co-ordinated approach is taken, and I also urge the Government to bring forward the funding so that planning and rebuilding can be done together to limit the problems for local residents. Both Camden Council and the Regent’s Park Estate tenants gave evidence to the committee, as did the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. It is noted that the shortest journey by road from Euston to the nearest landfill is 26 miles one way. In contrast, one train can move as much material as 124 HGVs, so to my mind there is absolutely no argument about the need to transport more materials by train—or indeed by river. Given the strong words of the committee, I was very disappointed that no clear recommendation was made about transporting the soil and that the committee simply resorted to exhorting HS2 to do better than the 28% of excavated soil and 17% of construction materials it guarantees to move by rail. Euston may, as has been stated, be a congested site, so I would argue that there is all the more reason to apply the highest standards.

It is also important to learn the lessons of the past. For both the Olympics and Crossrail, which in many respects were similarly congested sites, a political decision was taken to minimise transport by road and to set targets. As a result, some riverside wharves that would otherwise have been sold off for housing were retained to enable transport by river.

We need the Government to aim high. I believe that exhorting HS2 to do better will not maximise the use of rail for transport in this regard or, indeed, encourage it to consider river transport either. We need to set targets and there needs to be a political decision on this. This is all the more important because of the protracted nature of the plans for Euston. I take this opportunity to ask whether the Minister can confirm the rumours circulating in the Euston area that HS2 is considering moving the portals of the tunnel from which the proposed new HS2 line will emerge to the west of Euston station about one kilometre nearer to the station. Local residents would be very supportive of that because they believe that it would reduce the disruption caused by the removal of materials. Therefore, if that rumour is accurate, we will be pleased.

As regards whether it is appropriate to set targets for this issue, obviously some sites will be more difficult than others in terms of removing spoil by road. It is not practical to address this on a completely comprehensive basis but it is entirely reasonable to tell HS2 that it should have overall targets so that it achieves an overall picture.

As I said, from time to time the Government have acceded to requests for tunnelling and increased compensation, particularly in rural areas. That is laudable and we appreciate that responsiveness. However, the committee itself suggests that some aspects of the compensation schemes are unbalanced, favour rural areas and do not pay sufficient attention to the disruption caused by the construction process. Therefore, as well as addressing the issue of fairness in the compensation arrangements, I urge the Government to take a much more fundamental approach by reducing the disruption altogether. Transporting as much material as possible by rail would reduce that disruption.

In conclusion, although I have emphasised Camden and Euston, this issue applies throughout the length of the project, particularly in other urban areas as well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

The noble Lord is tempting me to get on to the issue of guards, which I shall not do. The answer is yes—but it is not for the guard but for other things. But there are not many left.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I recall the old luggage vans, although the Minister is far too young to remember things like that. I was travelling on a train in Australia a couple of years ago which still had a luggage van, and it was used for two things. First, it was used for people to put long-distance small packages on. They were not travelling on the train themselves; they were simply sending their package. That might be a company or a private individual. It was also used in the same way as we check our luggage on to an aeroplane—you checked your luggage on to the train. It transformed the experience of sitting on a crammed carriage with people jockeying for position with their luggage. I fully accept that that model is probably not acceptable or appropriate in the UK, but we need to move on from our fatal tendency to cram as many seats into the space as possible while ignoring the requirements for luggage space. I am sure that your Lordships will all have sat on a so-called express train to an airport—by definition in a scenario where you are likely to have quite a lot of luggage—and seen people sitting with large suitcases on their laps because there is absolutely no space left in the tiny amount of room allocated for luggage on those trains.

I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, because I think that we need to be more far-sighted on this. His suggestion on flip-down seats is extremely interesting and a useful compromise, because it provides seats where they are needed, when flexible space is not needed, allowing for change in future. Buggies are not going to go away. People are going to go on having children and using buggies and needing to put them on trains.

I want to use this opportunity to explore the issue of wheelchair space. By legislation, there will be such a space, but the Minister will remember that we had the discussion on the Bus Services Bill about what happens when two people in wheelchairs wish to travel together. Wheelchair spaces are very often a solitary allowance, so flexible space would allow additional space for wheelchair users. HS2 will be an absolute boon for wheelchair users; the current railway system is often difficult for people in wheelchairs to navigate, if not impossible. Air travel is very difficult for them. Many people in wheelchairs simply cannot drive a car. So this will be a huge opportunity for wheelchair users to undertake long-distance travel in comfort, and we need to ensure that the trains are designed in such a way that they are flexible enough to accommodate more than one wheelchair user at a time in a carriage.

Given that there has been so much publicity lately about the availability of toilet facilities for people with disabilities—noble Lords will recall the very distressing story of one of our Paralympic athletes who was put in a very undignified position by the fact that the sole disabled toilet on the train was not functioning—can the Minister clarify that these trains will have a modern and respectable level of toilet facilities for disabled people? I would like to feel that all the toilets were accessible for disabled people. By the time it is built, it will be the middle of the 21st century, and we really cannot have only a single available toilet on a train.

High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Lords & Report stage: House of Lords
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I echo the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon. I have had communications from Transport for London, Camden Council and the West Midland Transport Authority, all expressing serious concerns about both the procedure being used and the practicality of what is proposed. In his opening remarks, the Minister said that the size of this project was unprecedented and therefore all these special regulations were needed to make sure you could get along the road. It is bigger than HS1, but not that much. Crossrail, going all the way through London was a pretty major project, too, and had many traffic issues. I was vaguely involved in both of them. As the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, said, that begs the question of why, if this legislation was thought necessary, it was not in the original Bill so that local authorities could petition.

In terms of consultation, I have a letter here from Transport for London, dated 6 January, to the Department for Transport expressing concern that it had a meeting before Christmas where the consultation consisted of bringing up this draft regulation under AOB and that was it. It states that the discussion focused on the removal of vehicles and did not cover the amendments. So there was no consultation. Camden, in particular, must be worried about lorries: the latest figure for the borough is 1,500 per day. We shall probably come to that in a later amendment. It is no good HS2 trying to ride roughshod over TfL’s Safer Lorry scheme or using bus lanes for its heavy commercial vehicles. For a bus user, why should HS2 trucks get in the way of buses? London has to continue to operate. The cycle superhighway network—which I love, of course—is apparently going to be affected. None of these organisations appears to have been consulted.

There is a way forward. All these organisations—and I am sure Bucks county council and others are the same—want to consult and find a solution. I urge the Minister to withdraw the amendment and organise some far-reaching and comprehensive consultations so that, if there has to be legislation, a new draft can be brought forward on Report. If he does not withdraw the amendment, I shall oppose it.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I share the serious concerns that have been voiced around the room this evening. The way in which this is being attempted undermines trust in the whole process. We just heard the noble Baroness go to great lengths to reassure us about the care and concern that has been taken over an issue such as ancient woodland, and we are all very pleased to hear that. However, then to hear that the lives of thousands of residents and many thousands of drivers could be seriously affected by the introduction of changes to traffic regulations that have been subject to virtually no scrutiny and are contrary to the wishes of the local councils and traffic authorities means that the whole approach is unbalanced. I urge the Minister to think again, to reach out and discuss it with the authorities concerned and give them an opportunity to put their case. Some form of compromise can probably be reached. At least they will have been properly consulted. If that is not done, it feels a bit like sharp practice. I dare say that it is the result of people thinking about the need for this rather late, but I also tend to think that it is an overreaction and probably is not needed. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, other big schemes have managed without it.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 84A I shall speak also to Amendment 84B, which is also in my name. Amendment 84A is a small amendment, but it is designed to ensure that when two or more enhanced partnerships meet and work together, the minimum standards that we will be discussing elsewhere and have already discussed are provided in both or all the schemes. Amendment 84B provides—on page 38, line 37—that an enhanced partnership scheme “must” specify the,

“requirements about the frequency or timing of particular local services or local services of particular descriptions”.

As a general comment on the further amendments in the group which propose changing the word “may” to “must”, I would be much happier if the word “must” appeared in the text because “may” can also mean “may not”. Is this going to be covered in further documentation and regulations? For something like this it would be much better to have a bit more definition. I am sure that it is the Government’s intention that these enhanced partnerships should specify the frequency and timing of local services as well as the different types of service, and indeed we have talked about these issues during the course of many amendments during the previous two days in Committee. I hope that the Minister will accept that the word “must” would be a beneficial improvement to the Bill. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I shall address Amendments 85 and 86 tabled in my name. Once again these amendments are an attempt to firm up the Bill by ensuring that enhanced partnerships take into account the list of factors specified on page 39, which at the moment suggests that they “may specify” those factors. The list includes such fundamental things as tickets and entitlement to travel. We believe that enhanced partnerships have to take these into account. We are saying not that problems have to be solved in a particular way but that enhanced partnerships must take account of this. We are not prescribing the solutions.

Amendment 86 specifies that emission levels must be included in the factors that vehicles must meet and that disabled access arrangements must be taken into account. We have raised these issues before. Once again, this is a very basic reference to simple principles that really need to be taken into account in a Bill that will become an Act in 2016 and will probably suit the industry for the next 20 or 30 years, as the previous Act did. If we want to look ahead, we have to look at the society we are serving to ensure that the factors that are so important, such as emission levels, are considered in every circumstance, not just by the best operators and the most thoughtful local authorities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, Amendment 93, which is in my name, states:

“Once consulted, the Competition and Markets Authority may not overturn an enhanced partnership plan and scheme”.

We tabled it because we are seriously concerned about the retrospective role of the CMA that we have seen operating in the rail industry, for example. A retrospective power to impose competition, red in tooth and claw, at all costs is at odds with the principles behind the Bill.

We have a deregulated bus market. Through the Bill, the Government are trying to bring in an element of regulation to improve quality and standards. We support that, but the potential role of the CMA could undermine or, at the very least, seriously disrupt the purpose of the Bill. It is important that we get the role of the CMA clear at this stage and that, once consulted, it will not be able to say retrospectively—after an agreement has been made or a partnership or franchise established—that it is not possible, and to disrupt it and prevent it going ahead.

I draw noble Lords’ attention to the statement put out by the CMA on 5 July. Among other things, it states:

“We recognise that the introduction of franchising may be appropriate in specific circumstances. But we continue to believe that on-road competition should only be abandoned in favour of competition for the market where it’s clear that this is the only way to secure better outcomes for the travelling public”.

I emphasise the word “only”. It is impossible to prove that something is the only way. You can prove the reverse, but it is often impossible to prove that something is the only way. That sets an impossible hurdle for local authorities trying to set up either enhanced partnerships or franchising.

The CMA states that local authorities should have to,

“demonstrate that any distortion to competition created by the proposed arrangements”—

this applies to partnerships as well as franchises—

“would be justified by the contribution to achieving other policy aims”.

That is another complex and potentially impossible step. It states that local authorities should,

“ensure that partnership schemes don’t harm competition unless it’s strictly necessary to achieve their objectives. We want that principle to be hardwired into every stage of the process”.

It recommends that,

“LTAs should be obliged to take the following steps”,

and one of them is to,

“demonstrate that any distortion to competition created by the proposed arrangements would be justified by the contribution to achieving other policy aims”.

That is setting an impossible hurdle for local authorities to achieve. It is also in danger of making even partnerships so complex to achieve that local authorities simply do not bother. If that is so, the Bill will fail.

Amendments 108 and 111 both simply specify bus users as among those who must be consulted on enhanced partnerships. This is very much in line with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, just emphasised. It is truly astonishing that the Bill, which purports to have at its heart the desire to increase the number of people using buses, specifies as people to be consulted the operators, the CMA and,

“such other persons as the authority or authorities think fit”.

It is perfectly reasonable to include the operators and the CMA, but I am unsure why it is not acceptable to use the phrase “bus users” or “bus user groups”. The poor old passenger is worthy of a specific mention. I know that the Minister will say, “Of course bus users will be consulted”, but I think that they are worthy of a mention. There is no philosophical or legal objection to mentioning bus users, because the Bill mentions them at one point—but it does not mention them consistently.

I urge the Minister to take our points on board. The bus user point is not new, but the role of the CMA needs to be clarified if it is not to make it very difficult for the Bill to work as intended.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I would like to discuss Amendment 93. The noble Baroness has done the Committee a service by reading out a letter from the CMA. My first reaction was that the amendment was not a good idea, because it put a constraint on what the CMA would normally do. On page 42 of the Bill the CMA is listed as one of the organisations to be consulted, and that seemed all right to me. However, the CMA’s letter causes me some concern. Presumably, the Government consulted the CMA before drafting this text. The idea that, having been consulted once, the CMA would go against the principles of the Bill and come back for a few more bites of the cherry is going to put off a large number of authorities that might want to take forward these changes. That is worrying, because it might put off a lot of local authorities from doing it at all.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Monday 4th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 67 raises in relation to bus users the same issue of principle that was raised earlier. Before I briefly explain in detail, may I take this opportunity to thank the Minister for the assurances he gave earlier today? We are very grateful to him for the progress we have made on this issue.

In the case of franchising, before an authority publishes or withdraws a franchising notice, the Bill specifies that, quite reasonably, it has to consult

“persons operating local services in the area to which the scheme relates”.

According to the Bill, it also has to consult,

“other persons whom, in their opinion, it would be appropriate to consult”.

What is wrong with saying that it is right to consult bus users? It is obviously right to consult bus operators and it is clearly right to consult bus users. Greater prominence and guarantees simply must be given to the views of bus users, whether they choose to make their views known either locally, through small and informal groups, or nationally—for example, through Transport Focus. I urge the Minister to encompass this amendment with the other amendments which relate to bus users.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be brief. I support the amendments in the names of my noble friend Lord Bradley and the noble Baroness in this grouping. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has a point about why franchises should be postponed or cancelled. It brings to mind the situation in which a franchise is advertised and several companies respond, spending quite a lot of money in the process. If it is then cancelled for no particular reason, they could probably reasonably ask for their tendering costs to be reimbursed, although that will probably never happen. However, it behoves the franchising authority to produce a franchising document against which companies will bid, and if nobody bids, it will not have achieved anything. Therefore it is not all one-way. My gut feeling is that if it makes a mess of it and then issues it again within six months or so, that is much too short a time, but on the other hand five years is too long. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, made some good points in his amendments, but I would reduce the time to two years or so, which is a more reasonable time in which to do this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I will be brief as I am very conscious of the hour. This amendment is another of those which seeks to replace “may” with “must”, this time in relation to advanced ticketing as part of franchise schemes.

Research by Greener Journeys shows that smart ticketing across all services would improve bus journey times by 10% at a time when congestion is a very serious problem on our roads. Some 90% of buses on our roads nowadays have smart ticket readers, so there is very little practical reason why schemes such as this should not be part of franchising. We want to encourage advanced ticketing in all arrangements for the provision of bus services. I believe it is a reasonable expectation that it should be required above all in franchising services.

The Bill makes some very admirable attempts at future-proofing in certain respects, for example, in relation to information. We live in a time when I can order a theatre ticket online and take my phone along to the theatre as proof that I have bought the ticket. My Oyster card is rapidly being overtaken by the ability to use a credit card or a smartphone. Tickets for flights, trains or whatever you mention are rapidly being converted to smart applications. In that respect, the Bill is downright unimaginative and unambitious because it does not maximise the potential that is growing, literally by the month, for advance ticketing schemes. On that basis, I urge the Minister to give serious consideration to the amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I shall be even briefer. I fully support Amendment 77. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is absolutely right. We have talked about ticketing before and the word “shall” should go in there. It is an excellent amendment.

Amendment 78 would require the ticketing system to be extended to demand-responsive transport and flexible bus services, assuming that the operators agree. I am sure they will but, as the noble Baroness said, if we do not put something like this in, they could argue that it should never be and we will be left for the next 30 years without a flexible bus ticket that you can interchange. That is why I tabled this amendment.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and my noble friend Lord Snape have a very good point when it comes to discussing big operators and little operators, because there are competition and quality issues. In Cornwall, where I live, there has, in recent years, been one major operator and one smaller one. On two occasions in the past five years, the smaller operator’s bus garage was torched. Whether it was deliberate or not I do not know, but the fact remains that something nasty went on there. The small operators ran a very good service—as did the big one—and it was good that they were both there. But somebody had something against them. That is something that we must all be careful about, because at that level it is not something for the competition authorities.

I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, spoke to Amendments 19 and 68, and I do not quite understand his amendments. He wants to leave out, in the case of Amendment 68, a reference to,

“such other incidental matters in connection with franchising schemes as the Secretary of State thinks fit”.

I agree with him, because I am suspicious of that: it allows the Secretary of State to do whatever he likes, if he does not fancy doing what is in the rest of the legislation. I would support omitting those words—but I wonder whether the noble Lord or one of his colleagues fancies explaining what this is all about.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I think I can probably help the noble Lord by speaking specifically about Amendments 19 and 68. One of the problems with the Bill is its scattergun approach to giving the Secretary of State additional unspecified powers. As the noble Lord has clearly picked out, these are two examples among dozens of broad powers. The Government have made a list, from (a) to (f), and then they say, “In case we’ve forgotten something, we’ll just give the Secretary of State the power to deal with life, the universe and everything”.

By putting these amendments before your Lordships, we hoped to probe exactly what the regulations might look like. To take up the theme of the Delegated Powers Committee report yet again, I say that the powers are too vague. The Secretary of State is being given very broad powers without specifying properly, even in the Explanatory Memorandum, what those powers will be used for.

Ideally, draft regulations should have been available by now, at least on one or two aspects of the Bill. It is hopelessly optimistic to think that they might be coming out any day now, because we have only just had the impact assessment, and we are still awaiting the response to the Delegated Powers Committee. But that is what we should be doing—looking at drafts to find out about the tenor of a Bill as broad and as dependent on regulation as this one is.

The success of advanced quality partnerships, and of enhanced partnerships and franchising, will stand or fall on the quality of the regulations. If the regulations are too onerous, the Bill will fall into the trap of the 2008 Act and prove impossible for local authorities to manage and implement, and will therefore fail. But the regulations have to be sufficiently ambitious and robust to deliver a true improvement in service.

I have spoken to Amendment 19. Amendment 68 is simply a similar example in the case of franchising. One amendment relates to advanced quality partnerships and the other to franchising. I remind noble Lords of the tenor of the criticism in the Delegated Powers Committee’s report.