Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, this amendment deals with the obscure but important issue of escheat, which I suspect will empty the Chamber. When I was a Minister and put the 1993 leasehold Bill on the statute book, I made a statement to Parliament that, although the Crown was not bound by the various leasehold reform Acts, it would in practice follow the provision of such Acts relating to enfranchisement, lease extensions and collective freehold purchases.

However, there is a difference between where the Crown holds a freehold and accepts the responsibility of a landlord and where the Crown holds the land in escheat. William the Conqueror decreed that, henceforth, all land in the realm belonged to the Crown. The Crown would grant fee simple—freehold interests held from the Crown—on the one hand and leasehold interests on the other. Thus, where a freeholder dies without a beneficiary who can inherit the land, or where a freeholder company is liquidated, the asset falls back to the Crown. If the Treasury Solicitor disclaims the land, it falls into escheat and the original title is extinguished.

This creates a problem, and I apologise for talking legalese. If a non-escheat freehold is vested in the bona vacantia division of the Treasury Solicitor, existing tenants can, as per my statement to Parliament, serve notice on the Treasury Solicitor of their intent to enfranchise their leases, collectively or otherwise. The current government guidelines, set out on GOV.UK, then apply. That is form BVC4. The premium payable is calculated by a straightforward multiplier of the ground rent, plus a contribution to the Treasury Solicitor’s legal costs.

However, where land falling into escheat previously comprised a freehold subject to long leases, the Crown accepts no responsibility as the landlord. It neither collects the rent nor complies with the landlord covenants under the long leases. More importantly, with reference to escheat land, the Crown does not currently accept any responsibility under the leasehold reform Acts. This gives no opportunity for the long lease holders affected to extend their leases or purchase the freehold, pursuant to the provision of the leasehold reform Acts. They are left in limbo. It is worth remembering that, where properties are owned freehold by private individuals or companies, qualifying leasehold owners in those properties have a legal right under the Acts to enfranchise, unlike where the freehold is held in escheat.

The Crown can offer the sale of a new title, subject to the existing leases, or respond to an application by tenants to enfranchise but, crucially, it is not bound by any guidelines or formula, as would be the case under the said Acts. It arbitrarily sets its own legal and valuation fees without any mechanism for control. Equally, there is no formula for calculating the price, so in practice the Crown can ask what it wants, plus the costly fees of the private consultant lawyers and valuers, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. This is at odds with its stated policy to return assets it controls to private ownership quickly and efficiently.

The impact of what I have just described clearly conflicts with the stated intent of the Bill—namely,

“to amend the rights of tenants under long residential leases to acquire the freeholds of their houses, to extend the leases of their houses or flats, and to collectively enfranchise or manage the buildings containing their flats”.

By way of illustration, I have been made aware of a case where the Crown Estate is demanding an inflated premium, plus expensive private consultant lawyers’ and valuers’ fees, which total four times the total cost of what the premium and fees for an enfranchisement would be under the BVC4 formula that I mentioned a few moments ago. This is not justifiable or equitable, and it is wrong that, where the asset is effectively controlled by the state, namely through part of the same government department, the Treasury, this behaviour should take place.

As the unexpired term of the leases becomes shorter, it becomes increasingly difficult and costly for these leaseholders to raise capital on the asset. The inevitable result is that many leasehold owners are unable to afford the inflated premium and the fees demanded by the Crown to ensure that the housing stock is compliant and fit for purpose. So long lease holders where escheat applies are left powerless and exposed to the whim of the Crown’s legal consultants and surveyor representatives. These anomalies need to be brought into the 21st century to keep in step with the intent of the Bill.

My amendment is designed to provide a level and equitable playing field for all long leasehold owners. The Crown must accept that all Crown land, whether held in escheat or otherwise, must be subject to the provisions of the various leasehold reform Acts, subject to specific exceptions only where land is of a nationally sensitive nature.

To conclude, I hope that my noble friend will undertake to get those assurances that I have just referred to from the Crown Estate and the Treasury. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I follow that interesting speech by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, which explained his amendment clearly. It may be that the amendments in my name in this group, Amendments 93A and 106, are not necessary—but I am not certain yet, because it is a complicated subject, shrouded in mystery and secrecy sometimes. So I should like to speak to those two amendments as well and hope that we can have some good discussions, meetings and so on, between now and Report with the noble Baroness the Minister to see whether there is a solution.

My amendments refer only to the Duchy of Cornwall: let us be quite clear about that. That is partly because I do not think that the other two members of the Crown need it in the way that I am speaking, because they do not have lots of residential properties. Secondly, if one reads the Law Commission report, which went into some detail, one sees that the Crown Estates and the Duchy of Lancaster both agreed to comply with what the Law Commission recommended, whereas the Duchy of Cornwall did not. So we need to we need to consider some special legislation to cover just the Duchy of Cornwall’s ownership of land.

The other reason for saying this is that the Duchy of Cornwall, unlike the other two Crown groups, is in the private sector. It states quite clearly on its website that it is in the private sector. The argument is that it should be treated differently from other big estates, such as Cadogan, Richmond, Devonshire, and so on. They are all in the private sector and my understanding is that, whether they like it or not, they are going to go along with whatever happens with this legislation when it is accepted. But the Duchy of Cornwall will not do so.

I live in the Isles of Scilly, as noble Lords probably know, and I have a number of friends who have been trying to enfranchise and have been turned down. It is not a question of them looking for a 99-year or 999-year lease. Some of them want 50-year leases and they cannot have them, either, because the Duchy does not like it. So nobody who leases from the Duchy of Cornwall at the moment can enfranchise. That is unfair on the people who live there. The population is about 2,500 and they should be treated like everyone else in this country. Whatever the legislation says, they should do it.

The duchy’s argument, which goes to some length and is repeated in the Law Commission’s report, states all the wonderful things that the duchy does as a kind of landlord in Scilly. Well, it is not really true. The Scillies have a council, a local authority, like any other area. They have a Member of Parliament, water services and national landscape designation. I could go on with a long list of all the organisations, but the environmental concerns are properly looked after and there are even marine protected areas around there. I think the people of the Isles of Scilly would say that they are well set up to manage themselves, just like any other part of the UK. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me and for the correspondence we have had, but trying to find some solutions is important.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I apologise to the House for that. The amendment aims to address the problem of local planning authorities unwittingly, and I think occasionally intentionally,

“frustrating a higher-tier authority’s aspirations for walking, cycling or rights of way networks”.

We must not forget the rights of way, because you cannot walk or cycle if rights of way get blocked. The problem is in not recording those network aspirations in authorities’ own development plans,

“thereby failing to safeguard land for those networks, to connect new development with existing networks and/or to secure developer contributions to implement or upgrade specific routes”.

I will give examples. It is probably worse with two-tier authorities. Where the local transport or highway authority, which is usually a county council or combined authority, is not the same body as the local planning authority, you can have this example, which Sustrans exposed. The alliance says that

“one part of a unitary authority commissioned Sustrans to assess the feasibility of re-opening a disused railway line as a walking and cycling route, yet another part of the same authority then gave permission for a housing development which blocked that disused railway line before Sustrans had completed the study. In another case, planning permission was granted by a local planning authority for development which adversely impacted a section of the National Cycle Network (which Sustrans manages), with planning officers unaware of the existence and importance of this walking, wheeling and cycling route”.

This is confusing for local authorities, especially when they are probably very short of resources, as many noble Lords have said on previous amendments. I think the Government believe that our concerns about lack of co-ordination would best be addressed through the NPPF, but that does not mention it, and it omits other things altogether. Unless we get something here that links granting planning permission with taking account of adequate provision for walking, cycling and rights of way, we are in trouble.

I will give one other example before I conclude. In a recent case in Chesterfield in Derbyshire, the local planning authority considered a housing development close to the town centre and railway station. The council officials pressed for the development to include walking and cycling routes to facilitate access to, from and through the development, and obviously to and from the station. However, when the committee was due to consider the application, the developer made a submission claiming that the walking and cycling routes would render the developments economically unviable, and the councillors accepted that view without really challenging it. I have cycled on many cycle routes that probably suffer from the same failure by a developer to provide a proper, sensible route, because it tried to persuade the planning authority that it would be all right on the night, and it is not always.

I hope that the Government will support this amendment. Active Travel England is involved in this, and I certainly welcome what it is planning to do. However, it will often be consulted only at a later stage, and it would be much better if the relevant authorities’ walking, cycling and rights of way network plans were clearly shown in development plans from the outset.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 199 on cycling in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and I will follow briefly in his slipstream, if I may.

I am grateful to the Minister for the Teams meeting that she held on this subject at the end of last month to find common ground. Throughout our debates on the Bill, the Government have suggested that our objectives could be better met through NPPFs rather than through legislation. But throughout the debate there has been some scepticism about that, as there is ample evidence that leaving things to guidance does not actually produce the results.

The NPPF guidance on cycling was last revised in 2018, but there is a real problem with that guidance, and I hope that my noble friend can give me some assurance. One paragraph of that guidance said:

“Development should only be prevented or refused on highways grounds if there would be an unacceptable impact on highway safety, or the residual cumulative impacts on the road network would be severe”.


This paragraph makes it very difficult for local planning authorities to refuse developments whose location or design fails adequately to support walking, cycling and other sustainable transport modes. If we are to rely on future NPPFs, can my noble friend give me an assurance that that provision will be removed, because it stands in the way of many of the Bill’s objectives?

The final point raised in the Teams meeting was one that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has just mentioned: the conflict between upper and lower-tier authorities. At the meeting, my noble friend was good enough to say that she would have another look at this and would perhaps be able to respond on it.

I very much welcome what has been said—that Active Travel England is now a statutory consultee—but it would be better if it could be involved at an earlier stage of the proposals, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, rather than at a later stage, when it would be difficult to retrofit the provisions for cycling that we would all want to see. I hope that my noble friend the Minister is able to provide some reassurance on those two points.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to start this day in Committee by moving Amendment 240. I shall also speak to the other amendments in this grouping.

I am very grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who apologises for not being here today. This amendment has the support of the Bicycle Association, Bikeability Trust, British Cycling, Cycling UK, Living Streets, Ramblers and Sustrans. I think you can say that that support basically includes the Better Planning Coalition. Its purpose is to ensure that the various walking and cycling network plans and rights of way drawn up by county councils or combined authorities are incorporated into local planning authorities’ development plans and are reflected in their planning decisions. This would help to safeguard land for new walking and cycling routes or rights of way, including disused railway lines, improve existing routes, and ensure that developments connected with existing or new walking, wheeling or cycling networks with secure development contributions are introduced. This came to a head within the last six months, when National Highways was caught filling in disused railway bridges with concrete to prevent them from being used in the future as footpaths or cycleways, for example. I am grateful that there has been a pause put on that. I hope that it stays a pause, because it was a very stupid decision with no benefit whatever.

This amendment addresses the problems of local planning authorities that sometimes, wittingly or unwittingly, frustrate a higher tier authority’s aspirations for walking, cycling and rights of way by not recording these network aspirations in their development plans. That means that they are not safeguarding the land for these networks or to connect new developments with existing networks for secure developer contributions to implement or upgrade specific routes. There is much discussion going on about all these issues, but it is very important that this covers what is happening now and what might happen in future. The biggest problem is when we have two-tier authorities—county councils or combined authorities, and district councils. In one case, one part of a unitary authority commissioned Sustrans to assesses the feasibility of reopening a disused railway line as a walking and cycling route, while another part of the same authority gave permission for a housing development which blocked the route. There is no point in doing this; it wastes a lot of time and seriously affects the people who want to develop cycling or walking routes.

Local transport authorities have a duty to prepare a statutory local transport plan. They are also responsible for drawing up one or more non-statutory local cycling and walking infrastructure plans. That is all a bit of a mouthful, but really important. Usually it is the same body, but for each one it is required to draw up a statutory rights-of-way improvement plan for its area. We probably all have examples in our own areas of rights of way not being taken very seriously—and we will talk about that later—but all these things need co-ordination.

The Government have argued that our concerns about this lack of co-ordination would best be addressed through the NPPFs, rather than through legislation. My worry is that the current NPPFs, which are still in proposed revisions, mention these local cycling, walking and infrastructure plans only in passing, leaving out the right-of-way plans altogether. This results in developments being granted permission without taking into account the need for walking and cycling or improving these links. I call it active travel—it is a bit shorter. I am sure that the Minister will take this amendment seriously, and I hope that she gives me a nice positive response to it and says that perhaps we can have further discussions and see what happens.

My Amendment 470, on electric vehicle charging, is quite a short amendment. It requires a change to the Electricity Act, for the Government to facilitate or accelerate the rollout of electric vehicle charging points for domestic and commercial customers. We have discussed this in your Lordship’s House quite a few times. A few statistics really worry me, frankly. First, the Government have a target of 300,000 public charging points by 2030, and there is a long way to go before we get there. Interestingly, a Written Answer from the Minister on 29 March to the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Warwick, stated that the number of installations were 8,600 public charging, 71,000 electric vehicle home charge schemes, and very few electric charge point sockets and grants, while workplace had 15,000.

Another telling Written Answer, to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, on 21 March, stated that

“the majority (around 75%) of electric car charging happens at home, as it is often cheaper and more convenient for drivers.”

I am sure that the Minister is right, but the problem is: how many people have home charging? I expect many noble Lords here have home charging, if they want it, but there are an awful lot of people in this country who park on the road and, if they want to charge their cars, they will have to get it off a lamppost.

Another Written Answer from the Minister said that there was no national data on how many lamppost chargers were available. If we do not know how many are available, we do not know who wants them, and we do not know where the public ones are, where do you charge your heavy goods vehicle or coach? Who will fund them? Most important of all, what about the regulation of chargers? There is a lot for the Government to do to meet their target of 300,000 charging points by 2030.

Finally, I support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on the same subject. I am sure that she will tell us a great deal more of it. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, in this debate on transport, it is a pleasure to follow in the slipstream of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and add some footnotes to his speech on Amendment 240.

Before I turn to the amendment, I will say a word about the target of 300,000 EV chargers. Some chargers are fast chargers and some are slow chargers. At some point, we need to define more accurately the division of those 300,000. If they are all slow chargers, that will not do the trick. If they are fast chargers, we may not need quite so many. So a bit of granularity on that target at some point would be welcome.

Researching for this debate, I came across a government document stating that

“continuing growth in road transport and consequential environmental impacts present a major challenge to the objective of sustainable development. Traffic growth on the scale projected could threaten our ability to meet objectives for greenhouse gas emissions … and for the protection of landscapes and habitats”.

I should have recognised it instantly, as it was in a document that I published nearly 30 years ago when I was Planning Minister. It was PPG13, which offered advice to local authorities on integrating land-use planning and transport. Its object was to reduce reliance on the car by promoting alternative means of travel and improving the quality of life.

I note in passing that I referred to the then Government’s policy of increasing the real level of fuel duty by an average of at least 5% a year—a policy now very much in the rear-view mirror—and also my commitment to introducing electronic tolling on motorways. Back in 1993, I was clearly a little bit ahead of the game.

Amendment 240 could almost have been lifted from PPG13. It promoted development within urban areas at locations highly accessible by means other than the car, and it supported policies to improve choice for people to walk, cycle or catch public transport, rather than drive between homes and facilities that they need to visit regularly.

I also came across an article in the Independent from 10 July 1995, when I became Transport Secretary and continued my campaign. In an open letter to me, Christian Wolmar wrote:

“When your appointment as Transport Secretary was announced, the whoops of joy from cycling campaigners could be heard across the nation. The notion of having a Transport Secretary who is not only an active member of Friends of the Earth but also an active cyclist and tandem rider was beyond their wildest dreams”.


So, the Minister will not be surprised that, as middle age taps me on the shoulder, my commitment to environmental means of transport is undimmed.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, set out the case for the amendment, which I believe is even stronger than it was in the 1990s. I will not repeat it. I understand from the Government’s response to a similar amendment in another place that, instead of an amendment to primary legislation, the objectives to the amendment should be incorporated in a revised NPPF, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has just said. My response is that I tried that and it did not work. We need to be more assertive.

Paragraph 1.10 of PPG13 said:

“If land-use policies permit continued dispersal of development and a high reliance on the car, other policies to reduce the environmental impact of transport may be less effective or come at a higher cost”.


That is exactly what has been happening, as the Government’s own publication, Gear Change: A Bold Vision for Cycling and Walking, published in 2020, recognised. Despite the exhortation in that PPG and, I suspect, many other PPGs since, we have not seen the transformation in planning for transport that is required. We continue to build housing with little or no public transport provision, or where it is impractical to get to school, the shops or work without jumping into a car. We must up our game and cease relying on guidance.

The amendment also addresses the problem touched on by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that has arisen in two-tier authorities, where, typically, the county council is the transport authority but the district council is the planning authority: if you do not have the commitment to walking or cycling networks recorded in the district plan, this can then frustrate the county’s ambition to promote cycling and walking networks—clearly an undesirable outcome.

The challenge to my noble friend, who I am delighted to see is replying to this debate, is to convince me that we should continue to rely on guidance, as I suspect my officials advised me to do in 1993, despite the evidence that it has not brought about the transformation that I aspire to. I wish her every success.

Wheeled Goods Vehicles

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

Thursday 13th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The standards that we follow on sideguards are international standards imposed under one of the United Nations sub-committees. So a vehicle, wherever it has been constructed, will have to meet those international standards, which cover sideguards. We are now taking extra steps to make sure that, in addition to the vehicles being fitted with sideguards when they are manufactured, the sideguards are maintained—for example, if they become damaged, quite often they are not replaced—and those are the regulations that we are looking at bringing in next year.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister explain to the House how much enforcement of these regulations takes place? I was kindly invited to a demonstration of enforcement down by the Tate Gallery a couple of years ago, where the police and VOSA were combining to enforce the regulations on tachographs and all other rules relating to trucks. They must have spent a lot of money on this around the country but they said that the main achievement was to put a board on the back of scaffold lorries to stop the poles falling off. If that is all they can do, surely we need much more enforcement of these regulations?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As the noble Lord will know, there are regular spot checks on roads in this country where heavy goods and other vehicles are stopped and checked to make sure that they comply. I will supply the noble Lord with more information on the effectiveness of these spot checks and how often they are carried out.

Church of England: Disestablishment

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

Wednesday 28th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for the disestablishment of the Church of England.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, none.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that comprehensive reply. Going back a short time in your Lordships’ House to 1953, when the Queen was crowned, some noble Lords may remember that the Archbishop of Canterbury crowned the Queen and she gave a sworn oath to,

“maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, discipline and government”,

et cetera. According to the National Secular Society, even since 2002 the proportion of Britons who identify with the Church of England has halved from 31% to 14% and half of British people have no religion. Is it not time for the new monarch, when he comes, to embrace this secular state and perhaps swear an oath to Parliament, as suggested by the UCL Constitution Unit, that he will in all his,

“words and deeds uphold justice, mercy, fairness, equality, understanding and respect for all”,

his,

“Peoples, from all their different backgrounds”?

Is that not the way we should be heading?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, the noble Lord seeks to amend the Coronation Oath Act 1688. The Act sets out the oath and requires that it is,

“In like manner Adminstred to every King or Queene who shall Succeede”.

While it has been altered to modernise the language and to reflect the territories that have been added and subtracted, the noble Lord’s proposition goes beyond that, raising broader constitutional issues and requiring primary legislation.

Infrastructure and Projects Authority

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what action ministers are expected to take when they receive adverse reports on costs or progress from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Infrastructure and Projects Authority provides confidential and independent reviews of major projects being delivered by government departments. While primarily aimed at project leaders, Ministers monitor delivery confidence in projects and intervene where necessary.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the Minister for that Answer. Is he aware that the two departments with the biggest spend on the Infrastructure and Projects Authority list are the MoD and Department for Transport, with about £130 billion each? HS2 is by far the biggest project on the Department for Transport’s list. In my book, it is coming up to between £50 billion and £100 billion. The IPA’s red/amber/green traffic light analysis on HS2 says that for six years it has been amber/red, which means:

“Successful delivery of the project is in doubt, with major risks or issues apparent … Urgent action is needed to address these problems and/or assess whether resolution is feasible”.


What have the Government been doing over the last six years with HS2 being at amber/red? Did they talk to the Department for Transport and what was its answer?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for trailing his supplementary question in the House magazine. To put this into context, the IPA was formed in 2015 to help the Government to deliver critical national infrastructure projects. It does this by commissioning independent reviews, which the noble Lord referred to. It then gives a rating to the relevant projects. Those ratings are taken very seriously, as I said in my initial reply, by the project leaders in the departments and by Ministers, who take action when necessary. After the rating has been allocated to a particular project, the IPA and the relevant department have an ongoing dialogue to ensure that milestones are met and that projects meet their commitments. The noble Lord mentioned £50 billion. That is not a figure that the department recognises. The estimate is roughly half that.

Railways: Transport for the North

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Having sat through previous exchanges, I am well aware of the anger in the north at the disruption to services following the introduction of the new timetable. The top priority has to be the stabilisation and restoration of the services to which people are entitled. On the noble Lord’s question about the franchise, the Government have instituted a review that will be completed by the end of the month to see to what extent GTR and Northern were in breach of their contracts. A range of sanctions are available if that turns out to be the case. My initial view is that much of the problems in the north was due to Network Rail being late with infrastructure and late in delivering the timetable. We must await the outcome. So far as splitting the franchise is concerned, the franchise is due to run for some time. There is a real risk of further disruption if the franchise were to be taken back on board now and then split. The top priority is to get stability, and then to make further progress with the substantial investment that is now planned by the Government.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that although Network Rail was late with its electrification of one route, many other faults have contributed to the present problem? Some very good people in Network Rail are trying to do some enhancements on the east-west route, which should be applauded. My worry, which I put to the noble Lord, is that Transport for the North needs to decide what it wants, and its members need to decide what services they want. I have had many discussions with them and, as chairman of the Rail Freight Group, I am very concerned that they are trying to cut out rail freight going across the Pennines in order to get one or two more passenger trains. They should look at the whole thing in the round and then talk to Network Rail about what is possible and come up with a coherent plan—which they do not have at the moment.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. We have a national network and it is crucial that we preserve its coherence and integrity. That is one reason why one cannot devolve entirely responsibility for infrastructure to Transport for the North—the very reason given by the noble Lord. On what TfN wants to do, it has been there for only three and a half months. Looking at its business plan, it is now in the process of starting work this financial year on the business case for further devolution. As I said in my initial reply, if it wants more powers, the Government are very happy to look at that, but having given it responsibility under the statutory instrument, it is now up to TfN to come up with a statutory plan, advise the Secretary of State and, if it wants to, bid for more powers.

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

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

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think I said when I was speaking to the amendments that at the moment the powers we have are sufficient. We can use existing powers in the Road Traffic Act 1988 to revise existing, or create new, road vehicle construction and use regulations to transpose or reinforce new iterations of the global regulations as they appear. However, as has been the case with other regulations we have debated, on safety and other issues the Government will bring forward the appropriate legislative framework in due course if we do not already have powers under existing primary legislation.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, the Minister has mentioned the Law Commission report several times. Can he give any timetable for when the Law Commission will report on various issues? I am not just thinking about this one. One report on railway level crossings was completed about five years ago. I know that you are supposed to wait two years after a report has been produced before it is introduced into legislation. However, if one waits three, four or five years, the report’s conclusions may get out of date. I remember threatening the last coalition Government with putting the whole Law Commission report on level crossings down as amendments to a suitable Bill—it would have been about 50 pages long, but that was not the problem—in order to get the coalition Government to do something. My impression is that, because of all the Brexit legislation, everything has come to a grinding halt. I am not necessarily suggesting that the Minister will be able to answer my detailed question, but if he or a colleague could write to me on that, I think it would be a useful subject for discussion later.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I understand that the Law Commission work on the issue that we are debating now is a three-year programme. I am not sighted on the level crossing review, but either I shall write to the noble Lord or, perhaps later on, during one of our debates, we can update the exact timescale of the Law Commission review of the existing legal framework for automated vehicles. Obviously, automated control is not in operation.

Terrorism: Public Alert Technology

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

Monday 16th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Baroness is quite right that this would need the co-operation of the communication providers and, indeed, Ofcom. My understanding is that after initial discussions they are willing to take part in such a service: that is not one of the obstacles we envisage in our way.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has not answered my noble friend’s first question: why has it taken five years to get not very far and when is it going to be complete?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord is quite right that some work was done a few years ago—I think in 2014—but at that stage it was decided not to make progress. Progress was reignited by the report done by the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and the correspondence with the Mayor’s Office and the Cabinet Office. As a result of that, progress is now being made. I accept what the noble Lord has said about a possible delay. We think the scheme has potential and we are working it up.

Revised Draft Airports National Policy Statement

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

Thursday 15th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

It is an Act that his Government generously put on the statute book, but I will of course write to him with details of the section that gives the Secretary of State those powers.

[Lord Berkeley]

Will the Minister very quickly tell us who Caroline Low is? From thousands of responses, why did he choose hers?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Because it summarised in one sentence the case for Heathrow. Caroline Low works for the Department for Transport and is obviously a very able civil servant who can summarise an argument concisely, which is exactly what a Minister looks for.

Subject to any revisions to the Government’s proposals in the light of this process, we plan to bring forward a final airports NPS by the end of June. I hope on the basis of what my noble friend and I have said today, your Lordships will feel able to support the airports National Policy Statement.

Carillion

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

Monday 15th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Can the Minister possibly explain something? In the last five years, contracts such as for the railways, HS2 and maybe others have become more and more complex. Therefore, the cost of responding to them can, I am told, be £10 million or £20 million. These companies are not making a lot of money, so if they lose a contract they have lost that £10 million or £20 million. This may happen to rail franchises as well. If this goes on, I worry about who will be next. It is getting more and more complex, the cost is greater and the companies do not really make that much profit to get a reward. I would be interested in the Minister’s comments.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

That goes slightly wider than the Statement. There are a few limited circumstances where the Government have undertaken to reimburse people bidding for a contract for the costs of tendering. As a general principle, the Government do not pay—nor does any customer pay—for people to produce a bid. Obviously, there would be consequences for public expenditure if we went down that road. At the moment, it is not such a deterrent that we are failing to get good competition for contracts. If it appeared to be a serious deterrent, we would look at it again, but at the moment I do not think that that is the case.

Infrastructure Improvements: Funding

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Young of Cookham

Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think the noble Lord is somewhat harsh in his verdict on the PFI. For example, the NAO says of the PFI:

“Most private finance projects are built close to the agreed time, price and specification”.

It further states that PFI contracts provide,

“two key advantages over conventional procurement … transparency of pricing in that the public sector knows in advance how much it will be paying”,

and a,

“consistent approach to maintenance as the SPV”—

the special purchase vehicle—

“is under an obligation to maintain the asset in good condition”.

Of course, some projects have not gone correctly, but this country is a world leader in the development of private finance and we should be proud of what we have achieved.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords—