Covid-19: Public Transport Safety
Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord McFall of Alcluith(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, in his statement to the country this Sunday, the Prime Minister said, “Get back to work if you cannot work from home.” He also said, “Don’t use public transport, use cars or bikes.” I commend the Government for encouraging cycling and walking. However, many lower-paid essential workers travel long distances and do not have a car, so they have no choice but to use public transport. I recently received a paper from SOAS at the University of London, which said that security staff, construction workers, bus drivers and other essential workers are up to eight times more likely to die from the coronavirus compared with someone in a professional occupation. These essential workers fear that if they do not go to work using such so-called unsafe modes, they will lose their jobs. Passenger Focus has come up with some good ideas on this. Will the Government commit that those who cannot travel to work safely and be safe at work within the Health and Safety Executive guidelines will be able to retain any current benefit entitlements they may have at the moment?
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
The Minister will answer the Question and the noble Lord’s supplementary question combined.
High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill
Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord McFall of Alcluith
The Senior Deputy Speaker
That, as proposed by the Committee of Selection, the following members be appointed to the Select Committee:
Brabazon of Tara, L, Goddard of Stockport, L, Haselhurst, L, Hope of Craighead, L (Chair), Horam, L, Liddle, L, Snape, L.
That the quorum of the Committee be four;
That the Committee have power to meet outside the Parliamentary Estate;
That the evidence taken by the Committee be published, if the Committee so wishes; and
That the Report of the Committee be printed, regardless of any adjournment of the House.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I offer a few words of congratulation to the noble Lords appointed to this committee. With previous Select Committees, the House of Lords has really done very well in listening to petitions and coming up with recommendations. It is particularly important for this phase, which is much shorter than the first one. I hope that noble Lords, when they consider the petitions, will listen not only to the promoters but to the petitioners, because many of the issues are particularly dear to me as a civil engineer. They are to do with ground settlement, how many lorries are needed to move spoil through villages and things such as that. As the committee will know, the Prime Minister, in his Statement two or three weeks ago that set the project in train, was critical of some of the work done by HS2. So my plea to noble Lords on the committee, apart from wishing them well, is to listen to petitioners, give them time and listen to the evidence—I know that they will—rather more than sometimes happens in the Select Committees of the other place, where everybody is in a hurry. Here, I hope that they will listen and read the speeches from two or three days ago from the Members of Parliament who set this project moving again after the election.
Procedure
Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord McFall of Alcluith
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, perhaps I may come in briefly on this, having been involved in several private and hybrid Bills. I welcome the changes that have been made. They clarify many things and should make it easier for the next stage of HS2 and any other Bill that comes before your Lordships’ House. However, I question why the committee has decided to remove information about radii of curvature of tracks, gradients and junctions. It is very easy for a promoter to put that information into the document. When it comes to helping petitioners, as I have done on many occasions, I am aware that it would be much better if they had that information officially in the document, rather than having to work it out for themselves and having a big debate. Perhaps the noble Lord and the committee could consider that when they next look at revising the document.
Lord McFall of Alcluith
Sure. This was done as a result of HS2 and the petitions that we had. In fact, we are engaged in a wider bicameral review. Only the other day the Chairman of Ways and Means in the other place and I were up to our eyeballs in embankments, gradients, rail curves and whatever else. No doubt I will become a real expert on that subject and come back to the noble Lord. Perhaps if he has any questions outwith this Chamber, we could agree those, remembering that this is a wider bicameral review. I beg to move.