Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, I do not intend to rehearse what others have said, only to underline a few things. May I turn to resources? It is essential that the Civil Aviation Authority has sufficient resources to do the job it is asked to do. If it is being kept short of resources, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, I hope that the Minister can assure the House that it will have the resources to do what is asked of it. They are well respected, hard-working people, but they do not deserve to spend a lot of their time fighting over their budget.

In terms of resources, however, I am more concerned about the responsibilities being put on the police. A lot of legislation has passed extra responsibility to the police, be it looking out for knife crime, looking out for drug crime or looking out for terrorism. I know that the police are hopelessly stretched. I seek an assurance from the Government that, if the police are to be given extra responsibilities under this legislation, the resources at their disposal will be increased so that they can train specialist officers to deal with them. It is not something that—if I may put it this way— PC Plod from around the corner can claim to have specialist knowledge of; there will need to be intelligent people behind any enforcement.

It also strikes me that a lot of private benefit is likely to come from the use of drones. I think all of us can think of things that might happen, from the delivery of parcels by Amazon to people filming for television—all sorts of things. I urge the Government to make sure that the people doing these things for private gain—they will not do them for free—contribute something in the way of licence fees to whoever is to enforce the law, because one without the other is quite meaningless.

I also reiterate what has been said about powerful deterrents. You have to decide who you are dealing with. Finding powerful deterrents for an individual may be quite easy, but for companies such as Sky or Amazon deterrents must have teeth in order to bite. I echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby: there comes a point when people should not receive fixed-penalty notices, however big, if they do not obey the law. They should come before a court to explain what they are doing and answer for it. We are talking about potentially dangerous activities.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

The noble Lord will remember Christmas a year ago when the drone—or drones—caused so much trouble at Gatwick. The police and the authorities seemed to have great difficulty in identifying the drone and the person controlling it. It is fine to have more police powers, but how will they be able to use them unless there is some form of identification for the drone or the operator?

International Road Transport Permits (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing these three draft statutory instruments. She has done well in trying to explain them in a reasonably clear way. This is highly complex and I can see quite a few pitfalls ahead. The Minister rightly said that there are 7.8 million journeys between the UK and the EU per year. If they are all to be replicated by licences, that is quite a load on the DVSA. Can she confirm that it will be staffed to do this? What will be the maximum time it will take for applicants to receive their licence? It says in the Explanatory Memorandum that applications open in November and the licences become valid from 1 January, so one might assume that the return time will be one month, but I hope it will not be much longer than that. If I ask for a categorical assurance I will not get one, but I hope the Minister can give us some response.

As I read it, Regulation 4 in Part 2 of the International Road Transport Permits (EU Exit) Regulations states that if you have a truck with goods on it heading out of the UK, it will be illegal to operate that truck in the UK if you do not have a licence. It says that,

“an operator must not use a goods vehicle for the carriage of goods on an international journey”.

The international journey starts in the UK. I hope the Minister can confirm that that is not the case and that operators will be free to get to Dover or wherever without fear or favour. The Minister also mentioned Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. I think these regulations apply equally to that, so everybody will have to have the same licences for that.

My next question for the Minister is about the allocation of numbers. We discussed this a month or two ago and I was not wholly comforted. The allocation of numbers is obviously a bilateral arrangement and, as she said, it will probably have to be done separately with each member state. I do not know how much traffic will go to the non-member states listed in the regulations, but they still deserve negotiations. The Minister did not explain what all the exemptions for each country mean, probably mercifully for us. How will the allocation of permits be done fairly and transparently? As we know, about 80% of the trucks crossing between the UK and the EU are non-UK owned and operated. I think a large proportion are probably Bulgarian and Romanian. The Minister said that the process will be fair and transparent and that the Government will produce some guidelines. When will we receive those guidelines? What does the industry think about this? If this is not sorted out pretty quickly, the traffic jams at Dover that so many people are talking about could become a reality. The Minister and her colleagues have a mammoth task but, to keep traffic moving, it has to happen.

I have just one comment on the Road Safety (Financial Penalty Deposit) (Appropriate Amount) (Amendment) Regulations. I did not really understand the exemption that she mentioned between Northern Ireland and the Republic. There will of course be quite a few trucks that start in Northern Ireland, drive through the Republic and then catch a ferry to France. There are several ferry services operating at the moment and more will probably come. Will they be exempt from these regulations or not?

The penalties look pretty cheap to me; I imagine the drivers will just come with a few wedges of £100, and that will be all right. And who enforces these regulations? I expect the answer will be nobody and a blind eye will be turned to the whole thing. There is no point in putting all this time and effort into producing these lists of regulations and penalties if they are not enforced. If they are designed to discourage people from disobeying the law, they look pretty feeble. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

The Secretary of State visited Dover in the last few days. I preceded him by a few days and was absolutely shattered by the level of activity there, and how efficiently it is run. Some of the ferries go to France and back five times a day. They are unloaded with remarkable discipline, then loaded up again, and are on their way within 40 minutes or so.

Airy remarks have been attributed to various Ministers: things like “Oh well, we will divert the ships somewhere else”. This is absolutely impossible. The infrastructure at the Port of Dover is not replicated anywhere else. As for getting ships, even if we wanted them, there are very few ro-ro ships available. This sort of airy-fairy remark trivialises the importance of the industry. Everybody is waiting for concrete evidence that we will reach some sort of deal. A no-deal situation would be absolutely catastrophic for the haulage industry.

There is an article about this in today’s Times. It refers to the lottery, to which the noble Baroness also referred, and the fact that hauliers do not seem to know how a lottery will work. The big hauliers want the permits, if they are restricted in number, but the small hauliers want a fair share of the action. Everybody is crying out for fairness, but the idea that this will be conducted by some sort of Department for Transport lottery is very difficult to understand. The Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association are pretty well in despair and do not know what they are to do if an agreement is not reached.

I also raise a point about foreign drivers. Britain’s road haulage industry is very dependent on foreign drivers, by 30% or 40%. Reaching an agreement that enables us to keep our own traffic moving is important. These are very important issues, rather than trivia that can be swept aside. They really matter and will matter even more from the end of March onwards, in ensuring that we continue to have food on our tables and spare parts in our factories.

Transport: Remote Island Communities in England

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

Thursday 20th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, I shall follow what the right reverend Prelate said. I used to work in Northern Ireland, and the Giant’s Causeway is in some ways a similar tourist attraction. The National Trust does not let you approach close to the Giant’s Causeway. It has a bus service which brings you down the narrow road from the car park, which is not only a bit more remote but is out of sight. The idea of linking an island, where it can be done, with some form of park-and-ride service is a very good one. I cannot see why the people whose cars are driven over there should not pay the cost of it, but somebody needs to get on top of the problem and do something about it.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for introducing this debate. My relationship with the Isles of Scilly is tenuous. For two periods of my railway career, I was responsible for the railways in Cornwall. On one occasion, I intended to visit the Isles of Scilly, but I was unable to do so because it was foggy. It was summer. Fog does not happen only in winter. It is a perpetual hazard.

The Minister has to ask himself and his Government whether they really value the islands. It has been pointed out by several noble Lords that the Scottish Government do. I have given the example of the Giant’s Causeway. Although it is not an island, it nearly is. Other islands, such as Rathlin Island off Ireland, are valued by the Government. We should turn the Government’s attention to that issue.

In previous debates and in Questions mostly asked by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about the Scillies, the reply from the Government Benches has been that it is an open market and anybody can have a helicopter service or a shipping service if they want to enter the market. Anybody who does must like being invited to put his head into the dragon’s mouth, because they will be set upon by the incumbent.

I shall talk about making things better. I shall not talk about maritime things because I do not know anything about boats and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, will tell us more about the ships. In a couple of years’ time, the Great Western railway franchise will come up for renewal. My contacts there tell me that it regards the present sleeper service from Paddington as an act of charity, but that service is improving and it could be made better by two things. First, the Scottish sleeper services are going to be replaced, which will free for other use some of the vehicles presently employed between London and Scotland. I am not talking about a huge increase in capacity, but if the sleeper car train had six sleeping carriages, they would regularly be full, particularly if much more effort was put into promoting tourism within this country—a subject one of my noble friends refers to often. We do not promote our tourist industry.

If there were a decent, regular service, it would make a difference. I am not saying it would solve the problem because the final link has got to be made through the various ideas noble Lords have suggested, but simple things can probably be done before. The Monday morning service coming from Paddington overnight arrives at Penzance less than an hour, I think, before the Scillonian leaves.

[Lord Berkeley]

It is 10 minutes.

[Lord Bradshaw]

Thank you very much. Ten minutes—that is absolutely ridiculous. The Government can do something. I do not accept that they can brush it off and say that is a matter for Great Western. They set the terms of the franchise, and they should be active rather than passive and hands-off.

Can the Minister tell us whether the position of the Scillies will be made worse if we leave the EU—or, to use the Minister’s probable words, when we leave the EU? I prefer the first version. What effect will the decision to leave the EU have on the economy of the Scillies? Are the Government prepared to make some sort of commitment to replace any funding that the Scillies receive?

High Speed Rail (London–West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

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

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, Amendment 18, standing in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, is to do with traffic and transport issues during the construction of phase 1. It came from a conversation I had with people at the West Midlands transport authority—I think that is the right name; it has just been changed—who expressed concern that the Bill could allow HS2 to restrict the flows on motorways or national rail services as it felt necessary without any consideration for the needs of other rail travellers or drivers on the motorway and local roads. They felt that the consultation had been not that comprehensive to start off with and they were really quite worried about this issue, which they say could cause major trouble and problems for traffic on rail and road during the construction. It seems that Camden Council has similar worries and I think that TfL probably does, too. Their solution was to propose this idea of a regional integrated command centre. I do not know whether that is the right term. It is not a sort of Army command centre but a co-ordination body to bring all the bodies which I have listed, including,

“Highways England, local highways authorities, emergency services”—

the transport authorities local and regional—

“transport operators and the nominated undertaker’s contractors”,

and probably a few more, together on a regular basis to plan what is going on and minimise the adverse effect of traffic and transport on the users.

We can debate whether there should be one centre covering the whole route or several. The amendment I have tabled says that there should be one but that is for discussion. This is one of those things which, if it does not happen, probably would happen several years on when there had been a crisis or disaster. My suggestion is that it should be set up from the beginning, whether that takes three months or six months or whatever. I hope that it would be funded by HS2; after all, they are the people causing the problem. I think this would be welcomed by all the different users and could be a major benefit to the communities along the route and the longer-distance travellers, who would see all the obvious problems which come with construction mitigated to some extent. I look forward to some interesting comments and debate on this proposal, which would be extremely cheap to run and very beneficial. I beg to move.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

I shall speak very briefly. The Minister has already said in reply to a previous amendment that local authorities would have substantial powers in organising traffic. I am anxious to have some assurance that HS2 Ltd will not, as it were, have overriding powers which prevent the proper processes taking place.

[Baroness O'Cathain (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps we could probe this amendment. A lot of the work that we did on the Select Committee referred to HS1, Crossrail and the tunnel. With all his expertise and knowledge, can the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, tell me whether this actually occurred in the case of HS1—the Channel Tunnel route—and Crossrail? Perhaps we should benefit from that, because we frequently went back to the experience of those two projects. There was no point to going through them if you were not going to get some learning from them. Are we trying to reinvent the wheel here or was there a separate way of doing it, which the noble Lord thinks was not good enough and is why he has tabled this amendment?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, for the convenience of the Committee, I can speak to Amendments 19 and 20 together, which should save us a little time. This is a very short and probing amendment which comes out of experience with HS1. When the HS1 legislation was going through, Ministers seemed to have a lot of intentions to set it up so that it could be sold to the highest bidder in the shortest possible time and at the highest price. They seemed to think that if they did not have independent regulators keeping an eye on what was going on, that would dramatically increase the sale price. Anyway, the Bill received Royal Assent and it all happened, but a few years later we realised that, having no regulator with any teeth at all, the infrastructure manager, which could have been in the private sector, could charge exactly what it liked for the trains to run on it, could close it when it liked, and did not have to justify its costs of operation or anything else. All I have put down in these amendments is simply to probe the Minister to ensure that he is not trying to do that this time. I have no evidence that he is at all but I just wanted to probe to make sure. We spent an awful lot of time in the years after the HS1 Act—the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and I did a lot of it together—bringing in regulations, which the Government accepted, to right the mistakes of the first Act.

[Lord Bradshaw]

Perhaps I may just draw the Minister’s attention to the large number of occasions on which Ministers of both parties have committed themselves to the fares on HS2 not being excessive and taking into account ordinary people and various other things— I have about 20 of them. This is not a railway that is apart from the rest of the railway, I hope.

High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

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 Bradshaw (LD)]

If I may just follow up a few of the points made by my noble friend, we have discussed before the question of a link between Euston, St Pancras and King’s Cross. When I was deputy general manager at Euston back in the far-off days, it was being discussed—it is one of these projects that seems always to be under discussion but is never carried out. I am looking for something like the link you get between terminals in airports; that is, a wide, well-lit way of getting between the two stations with a travelator or similar device for your luggage. I am not looking for some form of futuristic railway, just a convenient, out-of-the-weather way for moving you and your luggage between the two places.

There will be a lot of time to think about this, because there will be a long period when Old Oak Common will be the London terminal for HS2. There can be dispute about how Old Oak Common could be used, but there will be six platforms there and the trains from Birmingham, which will take only 38 minutes, can almost be described as commuter trains. They will not require huge amounts of servicing at Old Oak Common, it will be possible to turn trains back there very quickly, and Euston may well not be needed until after phase 2A of HS2, so there is plenty of time to think about it and get it in place.

My noble friend commented on connections to HS1. I know that people in the south of England feel that it is very difficult for them to use it: they have to make a big journey. That will be alleviated if the Government could—again, they could work on this contemporaneously with the work on HS2—strengthen the link along the south coast between Brighton and Ashford. There are bits of that railway that need sorting out. I hope we can get some sort of assurance about what the Government intend to do.

Those are questions, not things that we will have disputes on, but we want to know what the Government envisage that they will do, in the long term, about the problems here.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 9 is grouped, although I am not sure it is closely connected to what the two previous speakers have been discussing. It would delete one of the amendments that the Select Committee proposed in its report. Let me make it quite clear: I do not criticise the Select Committee on this issue; I am sure its amendments are just what is needed. I ask the Minister, however: is it not a bit unusual for a Select Committee’s amendments to be incorporated in a Bill without debate? I had assumed that they might have been tabled for debate today, and we could have debated and no doubt approved them, but it was surprising that a new issue of the Bill was published in the past week as a result of the amendments being included. This may not be a question for the Minister—it may be a question for the Chairman of Committees or someone else—but it is something that we should debate. Perhaps it will be different next time, if there are to be more committees such as this.

While I am on my feet, the Minister kindly briefed us on progress just before we broke up for Christmas. One question that many asked him was: were the Government going to respond to the excellent report from the Select Committee? It would have been nice to have their response before Committee today. We have not had it, but can he assure me that we will receive it in good time for Report?

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, since we are talking about the west of England, I should say that I met the person responsible for providing bus services in the city of Bristol, and a rather ridiculous situation has arisen there. The Bristol omnibus company, whatever it is called now, has introduced lots of new buses. It has been summoned by the traffic commissioner because its services are unreliable. Bristol City Council has agreed to appear on behalf of the bus company against the traffic commissioner, because it has concluded that it is impossible to run a reliable service. It puts that down not only to congestion, but to the near free-for-all which has been allowed by the utilities to dig up the roads for roadworks. This is not because there is a gas leak or a burst water main, but because somebody needs their telephone connected. Perhaps the Minister would address the whole problem.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, if the Minister does not accept the amendment to include the need to reduce congestion—bearing in mind what colleagues on these Benches have been saying—it may be that he wants to use it as an excuse not to do anything about congestion. I am sure that is not the case, but we would understand, because congestion in London, as we have heard, is so bad that the buses go slower and slower. The motorist will say this it is because there are too many buses; the bus passengers do not like it, because they could probably walk quicker. But what we really need are measures to allow buses to operate more on time, whether it is bus lanes, traffic lights that give them priority or many other measures that can be used. These all cost a little bit of money, but they are essential. It will be slightly odd if the Minister does not accept the amendment on the basis that it might cost local authorities money to provide the bus lanes that they should have provided anyway. This is terribly important; it applies to London, to other cities and to some places in the countryside. It is quite a serious problem and I think “congestion” needs to appear in this clause somewhere.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, one thing that my noble friend has forgotten is that these Oyster cards should possibly be called Whitty cards, rather like the bicycles that are called Boris bikes. I am sure he would not want to be related to Boris in that way, but they are a great success.

I am pleased to be able to tell your Lordships that the local authority in Cornwall is going to implement a similar thing. It is very long and based on customer focus, but I will summarise it. The big double-decker buses will have wi-fi and tables so that you can put your laptop on them. They are going to run very frequently on the main routes. Smaller buses will go into the smaller areas. They will link in with the railway timetable, and I think that the operators’ ability to talk to each other will be unique. They are proposing a single ticket structure—one standard, one band. I hope my noble friend will appreciate this. It is going to happen within the next year or two.

This is a real example of a local authority taking an initiative. It sees that where you have several different operators, as there are at the moment, they never fit with the train timetable. They are going to. Nor do they fit with the ferries to the Isles of Scilly, but I am not going to go on about that now.

Amendment 54A in my name and some other amendments propose something on the quality of standards and on frequencies. We should probably also include interchange points, but we have not done so yet. Maybe we should also add something about a percentage of the population not having to walk further than X miles to a bus stop and an hourly or better bus service. There are what you might call faster services between the major centres of population—plus ones that you might say wiggle between villages and take a lot longer, although they do get there for people who do not have access to public transport. I believe that TfL has a bus services plan, involving the public transport accessibility level, which takes this into account, as does Transport for Greater Manchester.

Not all these things need to be in the Bill; the amendments here are perfectly adequate. However, they and the initiative that Cornwall County Council has shown would mean that neither partnerships nor franchises would provide a much better quality of service for all types of people who want to use it. The irony is that although it has been suggested that Cornwall will be able to have franchises in the same way as authorities with mayors—we will come on to that later—it is confident that all this will happen without the need for a franchise.

It is encouraging that the Government have produced a structure. I am sure that we can improve it, but at least it is there, and it should enable the volume of bus passenger traffic to go up, which is what we all want, with a much better quality of service. I commend what Cornwall is doing, but I hope that the Government will seriously consider adding something about the standards and the frequency of service, as well as the quality, and perhaps come back with their own suggestions on Report.

[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, perhaps I may add a point to what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said. Any move towards smart ticketing or reduced fares for young people is revenue-generative. It is not a dead-weight cost. In fact, some bus operators are voluntarily introducing reduced fares for young people and they are finding that they can be almost self-financing. Young people have a very high propensity to travel. They will travel at the weekends and in the evening, provided that the cost does not build up.

High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

Thursday 5th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, neither I nor my noble friend Lord Berkeley wishes to detain the House long. However, since we had the debate in the House, real misgivings about the cost of this scheme have emanated from the Cabinet Office, and I believe the need for economy is very strong. I say that as someone who has a lot of experience with these things.

One of the things the committee should consider—I am not giving it an instruction—is the appointment of a technical engineering expert to get under the costs which HS2 Ltd is proposing: I can nominate people who will not charge the earth. I believe there are billions of pounds to be saved if we can unpick the HS2 figures.

One of the issues is very important, namely whether Old Oak Common can be the phase 1 terminal. It will have six platforms, which is quite adequate to deal with the trains from Birmingham. They can be turned round in that space. It would then give time to sort out the huge costs and disruption proposed at the London end and in Camden. These issues were not properly examined by the Commons committee, which ran out of either time or energy to give them proper consideration. I suggest that the committee should consider starting its work not at the Birmingham end, as the Commons committee did, but at the London end, where the real costs are.

One of the most important things surrounds rolling stock. HS2 is proposing or considering using rolling stock which is not compatible with the rest of the network and is capable of running at very high speeds. I believe that both those things need to be challenged very strongly. It will reduce the cost of the rolling stock by billions of pounds if we have slightly lower speeds and rolling stock which is compatible with the rest of the network, not unlike the Javelin trains from St Pancras into Kent but, obviously, made better for intercity travel. The journey from Birmingham will not take very long—probably about only 38 or 40 minutes—and many noble Lords travel far further than that in commuting to their homes.

I stress that it is not European regulation that is driving HS2 to bring in world specifications. They are not necessary on our railway. This is a domestic railway—not an international one—and I believe it is important that these things are brought to the forefront of the committee’s considerations.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly to all four amendments, two of which are in my name. First, I congratulate the Chairman of Committees on the quality of the committee that he is announcing today. There is a lot of talent and experience there, as one would expect from your Lordships’ House, but I also know that under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, the committee’s procedures will be conducted properly and fairly. As the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, said in a letter to most noble Lords who spoke in the last debate, this will be a proceeding under quasi-judicial conditions. That is very important and I certainly welcome it.

I turn to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, concerning the committee taking advice from a technical expert. My worry is to do with timing. The experience of the House of Commons Select Committee was that there was no time for people to bring in their own technical experts because the hearings were very much truncated, and in my view the committee ended up taking advice from the promoter without questioning any of it at all. I was particularly concerned when I read a letter from a number of groups in Camden—the Camden Cutting Group, the HS2 Euston Action Group and the Camden Civic Society—to the chief executive of HS2, basically saying that the consultation that was supposed to have taken place had not worked at all. That is supported by two other reports—those by PACAC and Bynoe. The Bynoe report says:

“We are concerned that HS2 has failed to identify with what we believe to be the root cause of the”,

consultation,

“forums’ failings: namely that the process was treated as a one way ‘box-ticking’ exercise by HS2 Ltd, with no genuine two way engagement”.

Many noble Lords have been involved in consultation processes, as have I. Some are good and some are bad, but this is some of the worst criticism that I have ever seen, and I trust that HS2 and Ministers will take note and put it right.

My final comment concerns my amendment to the Motion that would leave out the words,

“if the Committee so wishes”,

to publish evidence. I am surprised at this being in the instruction because, after all, the evidence is given in public hearings of the committee. I envisage a slippery slope—not with this committee but it would be possible—where the hearings are held in secret and there is no justification for the committee’s decisions. I argue that all evidence should be published, or that at least there should be a public link to a publication in another journal, so that anyone can read all the documentation referred to or produced as part of the committee hearings.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend and will briefly speak to some of the amendments in this group, namely Amendments 2, 2B, 5, 6, 6A, 7 and 7A. I will not repeat all that my noble friend has said, because the various amendments that we have tabled between us provide the basis for the proper link between primary legislation and the licence, which, as my noble friend said, is so lacking in the Bill.

I started off by looking at the relevant clauses of the Railways Act 1993 and the Railways Act 2005, which we discussed in Committee and in some helpful meetings with the Minister and officials, for which I am grateful. It was remarkably easy, at this comparatively high level, to cross out “rail” and put in “road”; they are very similar. If, as my noble friend said, we are to have a company that looks after the strategic roads in a way that is similar to what Network Rail became in September by becoming fully government-owned, it would seem logical that the legislation under which this happens would be similar.

I will not go through all the amendments in detail; my noble friend has done that very well. However, I have two questions for the Minister when she comes to reply. First, under the Bill, will it still be possible for Members of Parliament and of this House to table Written Questions and ask questions of Ministers, as we currently can with the Highways Agency? Noble Lords will know that we cannot do that for Network Rail, because if you table a question about it the answer comes back, “Write to the chief executive”. I am sure one gets good answers from the chief executive, but one does not see the answers that other noble Lords get to the questions that they ask the chief executive. I hope that the same thing will not happen with the strategic highways company and that we will still be able to table questions about its operations and the company generally, and to get a proper Written Answer or be able to have an Oral Question or debate on it as the circumstances demand.

I also hope that when Network Rail becomes subject to the Freedom of Information Act on 1 April next year, that situation will apply to it. Clearly, we would not want to ask whether a motorway sign or signal had been moved; that would be a ridiculous waste of ministerial time. On the other hand, there are many things that it would be useful to ask such questions about for the purposes of parliamentary scrutiny.

My second question for the Minister concerns my Amendment 7A which relates to Section 48 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. This exempts Crown-owned companies, or officers or companies of the Crown, from being taken to court by the Health and Safety Executive if it believes that they have contravened the Act. I know that the Highways Agency itself is exempt, being a Crown agency. It would be nice to know whether any change was planned in this relationship, and therefore the exemption, when the strategic highways company comes into existence. I believe that Network Rail does not have an exemption, because the Health and Safety Executive, through the Office of Rail Regulation, has taken action against it on several occasions. There should be a balance between the two and as much transparency as possible. I am very much looking forward to what the Minister has to say in response and fully support the amendments of my noble friend.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

I shall say just three things. The Government are mistaken. The Office of Rail Regulation should, under that title, oversee roads as well. In spite of all the arguments, if it were signalled, it could change its name at some future date. It could be planned for and there would not be a lot of expense. It would be much more understandable to motorists and everybody else who the regulator was, whether it was a railway regulator or a transport regulator.

I also endorse the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about safety. One thing that the Office of Rail Regulation has done is to drive up safety standards on the railways. Although the Government keep saying the safety standards on the roads are the best in Europe, these are really quite deplorable, as we see with the continued deaths of cyclists in London, for example.

Lastly—I know I am reaching for the moon here—would it not be better to be honest and say that we have to adopt road pricing some time and, to make it acceptable, to say that the money raised from it would be used for roads and motoring purposes? If you explain what the money is for, people are much more likely to embrace the idea. A recent opinion poll in one of the national papers showed that people were against raising taxes, but if they were specifically asked whether they would pay more tax to improve the health service, they said yes. The same applies to road pricing.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Bradshaw]

This is the last of the road amendments but it is not the least. There are great problems with our roads and the way that they are run. The amendment simply asks the Government to agree that within six months of the Bill being enacted, the Secretary of State commissions,

“a body to review the funding and condition of the road network”.

This body should consider four things, including,

“whether the heaviest users of the road network, in terms of wear and tear on the roads, congestion and pollution, should contribute a higher proportion than at present of the funding of the road network”.

We keep talking about the railway because that is in our minds at the moment, but people who travel at peak times have to pay higher fares than those who travel at off-peak times. The train operators who use congested parts of the network pay more, and it is time that a more rational way of paying for the road network was developed.

I am also asking that the methodology for calculating the axle weights of vehicles, used in calculating the rates of vehicle taxation should be changed, or re-examined, which might be better. The present methodology is based on experiments that took place in 1958 in America by the American state highways authorities. These experiments consisted of running a properly laden lorry, with a distributed load at 35 mph over perfectly level surfaces, and measuring the deterioration of those surfaces. The authorities came to the conclusion that it was reasonable to use the fourth-power function and the standard axle as a means of calculating load damage. Lorries do not go at 35 mph, they do not have perfectly distributed loads and the road network is not in perfect condition, as it was in 1958 when the Americans conducted the experiments. I suggest that it is perhaps time that we revisited this whole area and looked at the real position, not the theoretical position in the laboratory conditions in which experiments were conducted in America.

My third concern is whether the arrangements for the utilities, which dig up our roads to lay their pipes and cables, include them making an adequate financial contribution to the remaking of the road surface on completion of such street works. Is the remedial work of a suitable standard, and if not, how could those organisations make an appropriate financial contribution? I know that noble Lords will see, as I do, that outside their own homes the entire road is pockmarked by holes which have been dug by the cable companies, water companies, gas companies and so on. Most of the work is not properly finished and often the edges are not adequately sealed, allowing water to get in and break up the road surface, which is the primary cause of potholes. However, it is no good spending money on just filling up those potholes, the problem has to be attacked at its root cause.

My last issue is the question of the other part of the highways network that is not covered by this legislation. It is not in a satisfactory condition. The structural condition of the road is usually pretty terrible, and what is more, it is declining more and more rapidly.

Those are not issues that I expect the present Government to tackle, but they should be working on drawing up the terms of reference of a review that would look into how to address them. I have referred previously to why this is now urgent. The revenue from fuel tax will decline as cars and lorries become more efficient, which means that the Government will face a mountain of expenditure with a declining source of revenue. Moreover, very fuel-efficient cars are not eligible to pay much road tax. I have noticed since I acquired such a car that I am putting around a third of what I had been into the pot for the upkeep of our roads. That is a serious strategic problem and, while I am not expecting any answers, I am expecting some sympathy and a form of commitment that these issues will be taken in hand. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, these are interesting amendments which, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has said, cover a wide range of issues. It is definitely time to revisit the issue of damaged roads. Road vehicles are getting heavier and their tyre pressures are higher, but that may be balanced by improved suspension systems, making this a complicated calculation. Of course, higher speed incurs more damage to vehicles of all types. It is reasonable that vehicle excise duty, in the absence of any sort of road user charge, should reflect the different types of damage caused to roads as well as congestion and pollution. We need also to take into account something else which has come to the fore in the past few years. Worsening road surfaces are having a serious effect on cyclists. If the Government want more people to take up cycling, it must be safe for them to do so. A large pothole can cause a cyclist to fall off their bike and hurt themselves, and at night the potholes cannot be seen because they are so deep. It is a serious issue and now would be a very good time to address it.

On proposed new paragraphs (2)(c) and (d) in Amendment 64, we are where we are with the undertakers. I suspect that that is one reason why we do not do more with our roads. Constructing trams in cities is so expensive because the private sector undertakers take anybody to the cleaners if they want to build anything. I do not see an easy solution, except that they need to be kept up to the mark and ensure not only that the quality of the reinstatement is good but that the time it takes is kept short. Some emergency potholes and road works are there for weeks.

On new paragraph (d), damage to the roads in the past couple of winters probably reflects the same cause and effect as damage to the rail network: the weather has been very bad. The motorways mostly stayed open, as did the existing high-speed rail link because they have been designed and built in the past 50 years to cope with the current forecast weather conditions and using more modern drainage systems—slopes on cuttings and so on—which are appropriate. Most of the other roads and the classic railway system has suffered from being built 100 or 150 years ago. It is time to look at all that again, and it would be interesting to see the results. I hope that the Minister will look on the amendment with favour.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I support my noble friend in his Amendment 4, and I shall speak to the other amendments in this group. On Amendment 4, he is absolutely right. The strategic highways company needs to have responsibility for all the things that he has put in the amendment. I remind the Committee that there is very strong evidence that a month or two before the Olympics, when the air pollution on one or two of the trunk roads in London was reaching Chinese levels, the solution by the Mayor was to cover the monitoring points with plastic bags, which of course reduced the level of pollution inside the plastic bags but did not much help anybody else. But this needs to be done by the strategic highways company, and I would suggest that it needs to be supervised by somebody. That may be a role for the Office of Rail Regulation, or whatever it is to be called in future, because these are very important points.

My noble friend is right in his comment about research, but there needs to be some research into non-trunk roads, which are a very large part of the road network. I hope that that can be taken into account as well.

Amendments 6 and 7 relate to the 20 pages of consequential amendments to which my noble friend referred. It relates to something that may have got lost in the search for consequential amendments—the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and the question of which body is responsible for collecting litter on different roads. These two amendments are designed to make sure that the strategic highways do not get left out of the wrapping up; otherwise, we will see them covered in litter from head to foot.

I shall not read out all the parts of my amendment, because everybody can read them, and it probably would not make much sense anyway—unless you put a wet towel on your head.

Finally, my noble friend did not mention Amendment 61, which follows on from Amendment 4 and is to do with the transfer of additional functions to the strategic highways company in Clause 13(2). It covers highways and planning, but I agree that it should cover road safety as well, because that is a terribly important part of it. We will talk about safety comparisons later, but it would be good to see road safety in there, or something like it.

[Lord Bradshaw]

The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, with which I agree, mentions “speed control systems”. We are considering the Deregulation Bill on Monday, which makes specific provision for a lot of the enforcement of speed and other offences to be undertaken by people who go round with pads rather than the modern method of using cameras. Will the Minister cover that, or at least take it away and get sorted out the apparent contradictions between those two pieces of legislation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, to some extent Amendment 13 follows on from my noble friend Lord Whitty’s Amendment 4 on responsibilities and scope. There is a strong, if not stronger, argument for having in the Bill a clause which sets out the duties of the strategic highways company, because there is already legislation which puts duties on the Secretary of State or the regulator as regards railways. Some noble Lords will recall the Railways Act 2005 and the Railways Act 1993, which was the basis of privatisation. The duties there included promoting,

“improvements in railway service performance … to protect the interests of users of railway services … to promote the use of the railway network in Great Britain for the carriage of passengers and goods”.

I was very pleased to see that goods got in there. The list of duties continues:

“to contribute to the development of an integrated system of transport … contribute to the achievement of sustainable development”.

I could go on reading out Section 4 of that Act. It very much mirrors what has been achieved by successive Governments and rail regulators such as the Office of Rail Regulation in succeeding years through putting those basic principles into effect. This is quite important, and we have the opportunity to put a similar range of duties on the strategic highways company—or companies, however many there are.

Looking at this amendment, it is important that we start to include the cross-modal issues that I and several other noble Lords spoke about at Second Reading. We should look at modes of transport such as highways and railways—probably cycling and walking as well, and maybe other things in the future—on a cross-modal basis, with the duties to secure something like, as I put in the amendment,

“the economic, social and environmental gains jointly and severally”.

I am sure Ministers could come back with a better version, but I hope this is a useful basis for suggesting what the duties of this strategic highways company should be. Unlocking development is important, as is encouraging occupancy and loading rates for passengers and freight and looking at the need to drive, the need to move around and, of course, its sustainability.

We shall be talking about some of these things in later amendments, but it is important for an organisation such as this one to have duties, which should be in the Bill just as they are for the railways. I have tried to mirror what is in the original Railways Act. It has changed over the years and is in a different format now, but the duties are still there, and if we had something like this for the strategic highways company, alongside the responsibilities that my noble friend Lord Whitty talked about, it would make us all feel a lot more comfortable. I beg to move.

[Lord Bradshaw]

I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has said, but will add something. You can argue for or against it, but having chosen to go down the route of rail regulation, there is one thing I really would like to be assured about. We know that the motorist—maybe “road user” is the right term—is to be represented by Passenger Focus. That of course covers the railway, bus and tram industries; it has seen incremental growth, and I think the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, had a good deal to do with its genesis. With railways, buses, trams and the other things for which it is responsible, it has a right to get information from the regulated party or from the party for which it is responsible. A train or bus company cannot refuse such a request. I would like to be assured that the strategic highways company, too, will not be able to refuse a request for information from Passenger Focus acting in pursuance of its duties to represent road users. I am quite happy that it should represent them, but I do want it not to be treated any differently from the way it is treated in other industries.

Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations (Amendment) Order 2013

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, this is a very interesting order and quite complicated for some people to understand. I have a few questions for the Minister.

The first question refers to this issue of non-road mobile machinery. The Minister will be aware that a lot of work and debate took place on this issue, which has been around for some time. The Commission, after much persuasion, produced a directive which was published in October or November 2011 and allowed non-road mobile machinery to continue not to comply with stage III B or the equivalent for a period of three years. That would allow the railway industry—I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group—to purchase locomotives which did not comply with the new directive. There is a good reason for that: nobody had designed a locomotive that would comply, so it was either no locomotives or ones which did not comply. The industry persuaded the Commission of this and since then, surprisingly maybe, one or two designs have popped up. However, there is still a demand for this. It is now one year and three months since the directive was agreed in Brussels but it has not yet been converted into British law. So, technically, although anybody who buys a locomotive—I think that it also applies to tractors and other things off-road—is compliant with EU legislation, they can be taken to court and fined in this country because the Government have not got round to producing these regulations.

Perhaps the Minister can therefore answer two questions. First, when are we going to see these regulations? I hope the answer will not be “soon”, because in many Governments’ terms “soon” probably means a year’s time, and by that time they will have run out of space.

Secondly, what effect will the new regulation converting the directive into UK law have on this order? It seems to me—I may have got it wrong; I stand to be corrected—that we are implementing what is not a very sensible scheme from the Commission to add biofuel to existing fuel, especially when there is a shortage of crop area and crops around the world, which puts up the cost of fuel. Turning some of those crops into bio seems a bit perverse to me. Certainly the Renewable Energy Association believes that this will be a seriously perverse incentive to investment in renewable fuels and renewable generating capacity. It is talking about the market size being reduced to 30% or 40%, jeopardising investment of £1 billion and putting 3,500 jobs at risk. One can dispute those figures, but what consultation has taken place with the Renewable Energy Association? It is a very respectable organisation.

On Monday I attended a sort of round table with the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, our new Treasury Minister, who was extremely good. It was a Chatham House event so I am not going to say who said what. It was to do with investment and infrastructure, and investment in other things that the Government are so keen on at the moment. We were told, and there was general agreement, that there was not much trouble with finding the funds for investment. The two problems were: first, planning—which is going on in the Chamber at the moment; and secondly, some kind of comfort for the investors that the Government are not going to change their mind and change the ground rules or the buy-in price or whatever during the time when investors are trying to get a return on their capital.

I hope that the Government are going to follow-up this particular regulation with a new debate with the Commission as to what is right and what is wrong for biofuels and whether they should be there at all. Current thinking across many parts of the world has probably overtaken the original idea behind this.

[Lord Bradshaw]

The question that I wish to address to the Minister is slightly different from that of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. Making renewable fuels is a very complex and difficult thing, and we know that there is a lot of tension between the use of land for agriculture for producing food, and turning that crop into fuel. The noble Earl will recall that we have had discussions before on the question of recycling used cooking oil. This used to enjoy a margin of 20 pence over the ordinary cost of fossil fuels. The Government, in their wisdom, decided to put an end to this and “generously”—in inverted commas—decided that when this cooking oil is converted into fuel, it should enjoy a premium of two renewable fuel certificates.

I would like to know, since this has been in place, how much we are actually paying in the way of money for transport renewable certificates compared with the 20p which was a very definite sum and caused investors to really work hard at this particular subject. I am of the opinion that two renewable fuel certificates do not equal 20 pence, and I would like to know whether they have ever reached that. The important point is that as well as producing renewable fuels, the producers of renewable energy from cooking oil are doing a very important job in removing it from landfill, or stopping it from being tipped into rivers or drains or whatever they do with it. Unless it is worth while for people to collect and refine it, it will end up not being used and being dumped in some form or another on the landscape.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I had just about finished, but want to conclude by saying that I hope that the Minister and our other colleagues will look at the proposed new clause very carefully before Report, because there are some serious things wrong with it. I commend the amendments of my noble friend Lord Whitty for consideration.

[Lord Bradshaw]

I endorse what has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. The proposed new clause states:

“The Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument amend any enactment so as to remove from a sectoral regulator either or both”.

How long is that going to take? If there is a weakness in the regulation, which is apparent, and even if the Secretary of State can recognise it, how long is the remedial action which is set in the Bill likely to take to bring into force? If a regulator is incompetent, surely there must be other ways of getting him to move over. He has a board of his own which, if he is exaggerated in his actions, can take action to rein him in. However, the whole edifice which is built here is wrong. I know two of the regulators involved and I have known some of the regulators in the past. Generally speaking, they are extremely competent people and probably more competent than the people who would advise the Secretary of State to use these powers. I believe that the powers are heavy-handed and very long-winded into the bargain.

[Lord Berkeley]

What would the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, think if there developed a debate between the Office of Rail Regulation, which is the regulator that we probably both know best, and the Government, and the Government said to the ORR, “You’re not pursuing this competition case in the way that we think you should, and it should go to somebody else who, like the CMA, could do it better.”? Is that not serious interference in the independence of the regulator?

Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Authority to Carry) Regulations 2012

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Bradshaw

Thursday 12th July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that introduction. I have read all the documents about this with considerable interest. Before I comment on the regulations, perhaps I may say that I am also grateful to the Minister for the improvements that appear to have been made to the Eurostar immigration services. I came back yesterday and there seemed to have been some improvements. Much more work has to be done, and I am sure that we will have many more meetings, but it was good.

My concern about this draft regulation is its exact purpose. The second paragraph of the evidence base document which came with the draft regulation states:

“Existing powers are available to direct airlines not to carry a UK national who poses a threat to an aircraft, and to prevent people who pose a terrorist threat”,

within the country. The end of the paragraph says that this provision is to close a gap.

Can the Minister explain whether the real purpose is to prevent people blowing up an aircraft; to prevent them coming here to do nasty things on the ground, so to speak; or whether it is a bit of both? I can totally understand it if the purpose concerns the aircraft—in that respect, it all looks quite reasonable, and I shall come on to some of the detail later. However, if it concerns people coming to the UK generally, presumably it would be possible for them to avoid any problem by travelling across the frontier from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland, or coming in by sea on a ferry, or coming in by train. I think that one of those means is included in these regulations, and I am pleased about that, as it might plug one gap. However, there might be one or two other gaps that should be looked at. Alternatively, we might need to consider whether this is all necessary.

I was interested in the consultation responses. I do not always read consultation responses but there is a long paragraph, in which it says:

“A response was received from a member of the public who was very supportive”.

If only one member of the public was supportive and nobody thought it was a bad idea, does that justify going to all this length? In a telephone conversation, a civil liberties group was also “supportive”. That is good, but to push these as the only two responses to the whole consultation indicates that people either did not understand it, were bored by it or did not think it would do any good anyway. If the Minister has any comments on that, I would be glad to hear them, because one could say that it was a bit of a job creation scheme and not much else.

Paragraph 18 of the Explanatory Memorandum says:

“Carriers will be informed by the Home Office if they do not have authority to carry any of those passengers. Those passengers should not be brought to the UK”.

I think that there is already legislation to enable those who come in to Heathrow or another airport to be turned round and sent away again. If the aim is to avoid terrorists doing bad things in this country as opposed to on an airplane, why do we need this if they can be turned round and sent back anyway without it?

From a practical point of view, if the airlines are happy that they have to send all this information in and the Immigration Service can respond within 15 minutes to a list of several hundred passengers, all I can say is, “Good luck to them”, and I hope that there will be a certain amount of settling-down time before people start sending out lots of fines. Frankly, it looks quite challenging, even if the Home Office’s computers work properly, which I do not think they do all the time.

My final point concerns the evidence base for this. I do not know whether it is a joke or we are supposed to take this seriously, but it talks about “hit” rates and “false positive” assessments, and the “movement search” covering five years of travel using the e-Borders system. It then uses a planning projection that is made by multiplying the result by 300%,

“which allows for a reasonable margin of error and ensures a prudent planning response”.

It goes on to say:

“Where the result is zero, the planning projection is taken to be 3 (as zero cannot be multiplied upwards)”,

which is helpful. I do not know who has produced this but is such a load of rubbish really value for money? “You cannot multiply zero by three”. Perhaps the Minister can suggest to his officials that they think of something better to do because if this is not a job creation scheme, I do not know what is. Apart from that, I will be pleased to hear the Minister’s response to my comments.

[Lord Bradshaw]

I wonder if the Minister can answer a very simple question; if he cannot, perhaps he can write to me. If people arrive here by plane, train or ferry who have not got permission to enter the country, is it possible for the carrier to send them straight back to wherever they came from without them getting any recourse to the immigration procedure?