Railways Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Harper

Committee stage
Wednesday 16th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Harper (Con)]

From the little frisson I have created here, I hope I have not damaged the noble Lord’s reputation among his Labour colleagues by agreeing with him. I do not wish to do that. Noble Lords should wait for my remarks and see how in line they are.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, for her extensive recounting of the considerable progress that Network Rail made on environmental matters, under the leadership of the board by the Minister when he chaired it, and of course under a number of Conservative Secretaries of State. I thank her for recognising the considerable environmental progress that was achieved, which I support.

On this group of amendments, I am supportive of GBR—Network Rail in its new incarnation, as far as the infrastructure is concerned—continuing to have an important eye to environmental matters. But I want to flag pretty much the same concern as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, to recognise that rail travel is a relatively low-carbon form of transport. When we were discussing the civil aviation Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, was obviously very critical of aviation. One of the dangers here is that if we load lots of responsibilities, costs and burdens on to the rail industry, and we make it very expensive to build and deliver new infrastructure, we are making it harder to get more people on to rail, which means that we will be taking fewer of them away from aviation and the roads.

The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, gave me a perfect example by referring to the bat tunnel of HS2. One of the problems with HS2, and one of the reasons why I took the decision to cancel the second phase of it, was that the costs had run out of control. Although the present Government were critical of the decision at the time, I notice that in the two years they have been in power, they have not reversed the decision and show no sign of reversing it, because they recognise the same cost pressures. The only word of caution that I would have on framing these amendments is that, if the Government are tempted by the thrust of any of them, my advice would be to bring back some amendments that are more tightly focused. We do not want to make it more costly and difficult to build and operate railways, so that we have fewer of them, fewer services and less investment in infrastructure, which will push people into higher-carbon forms of transport. That would be shooting ourselves in the foot.

There are one or two aspects where I wanted to flag up some concerns. In Amendment 130A, for example, I notice that there is a reference to transition to a zero- carbon railway, as opposed to one that is net zero. I flag that as important for this reason. It talks about generating electricity on railway land, for example, which obviously makes a contribution. If you are trying to get to a zero-carbon railway, I am not sure that that is achievable, but, if you strive to do that with no eye on the cost, and given that public money is not infinite—it is limited—the effect is that you end up making less investment in railways than you otherwise would, which is a bit self-defeating. That is where I would be a little concerned.

There are two other areas about which I am concerned. One is whether this ends up making it so difficult to develop on railway land, either by selling it to others or using the joint ventures that we referred to in an earlier day of Committee, that we end up stopping development, reducing the income to GBR and making it more expensive to own and operate a railway, which is not helpful for the taxpayer. The positive thing, which I absolutely support, referred to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis, and a number of other noble Lords, is recognising that our climate has altered. The work involved in looking at and identifying the parts of the network that are particularly vulnerable to different forms of weather, then putting together a plan to deal with that, so it can be costed and judged accordingly, is very sensible. I know that Network Rail already does a lot of that work, but putting it all together in a coherent way is very sensible.

My final point concerns electrification, which I support. Much of the electrification on the railway in England and Wales was done under a Conservative Government—the Labour Government pre-2010 had done very little, leaving the bulk of it to be done under us. Again, one must have an eye for practicality and cost. Something like 70% of passenger journeys take place on trains that are electrified. Because of the nature of our network, and the years in which it was constructed, electrifying what has not already been electrified will be increasingly costly. That is due to bridges and the rest of the infrastructure. You get to the point at which it just does not make any sense, and this is where our earlier debate on innovation is very helpful.

Noble Lords may have seen some recent rolling stock procurement news, where trains were going to be battery electric. That is helpful, as you enable the train to be electric, without having to electrify the infrastructure. Electrification is not a problem, but we must be careful not to insist that every railway line has an electrical cable running above it and insist that that be how power is delivered. The principle is okay, but you need innovation and flexibility on how you deliver it. There are some parts of the network where trying to do overhead electrification is simply not sensible. It is either impractical from an engineering perspective, or so costly that it would make no sense to do it. Innovations like battery electric trains or tri-mode trains—where you enable that technology to best use the existing network—are the way to go. There is a risk of being too specific in primary legislation about the way we deliver some of these things, albeit that the overall objective is one that I support.

In conclusion, I very much support the work we have done over the years in recognising that GBR will be a very big public landowner, and it absolutely should continue the work that it is already doing. I just say that the existing legislative framework and the duties that fall under it have done a very good job, so I am not sure that we need to pile loads of extra duties on top, as was said by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I want to continue that work. I just have a note of caution, as he did, about making sure that we do not overdo it and make it so costly that we either do not develop the railway or reduce the number of people shifting from cars and planes on to a relatively low-carbon form of transport. That would be rather shooting ourselves in the foot. While supporting moves to be environmentally friendly, conscious of changes in the climate, we have to be a bit cautious about the practicalities. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government will balance those two competing objectives.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate, and I congratulate the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Willis of Summertown, on making strong points about the need for environmentally friendly policies to justify the ongoing construction and development of railways. As the noble Lord, Lord Harper, and my noble friend Lord Liddle referred to, there is always a risk that if you took the 300-odd amendments in the Marshalled List and applied them to roads, you would be laughing yourself silly. There is far too much detail, much of which is totally unnecessary. That is a different point to take forward.

My concern with Amendment 130A is that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, is basically saying that the environment, nature, is more important than humans. That is a pretty rough thing to say. I am sure she will have a go at me when I have finished.

If you apply some of these provisions—I compare them with the recent policy whereby our Government have been encouraging people to develop housing near stations—there is a conflict, not everywhere but in certain places. The idea that you can have a nice place to live near a station, so that you can use a more environmentally friendly means of transport to get wherever you want to go, seemed a good one from our Government.

Railways Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Harper

Committee stage
Thursday 10th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support what my noble friend Lord Lansley has said on his Amendment 26. I had some dealings on this when the Prime Minister was the Mayor of the Greater Manchester and when Andy Street was Mayor of the West Midlands. Both of them engaged with the department on their desire to integrate the national rail network into their plans locally. They wanted to have those conversations, which worked well. In those cases, obviously, they were both mayors.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Lansley. Given the announcement this week that local government reform and the bringing together of unitary authorities, which is, in many cases, a precursor to having mayors, have been held up and there have been legal challenges, it would be much more sensible, as my noble friend says, if we made sure that GBR could have those sensible conversations and had the powers to do that with all appropriate local authorities with a strategic transport function. We should not limit that to those authorities with a mayor.

As my noble friend said, although it was at least the preference of the Government led by Keir Starmer that there should be limits to what you could devolve if you did not have a mayor, it sounds like, from what the Prime Minister said in his answers to Cornish MPs, that he is open-minded about that. Therefore, we could have some significant local authorities with transport powers without a mayor. I know from my own experience that there are a number of proposals in the Cornish area, for example, for some rail infrastructure that would bring significant benefits to the Cornish economy. It would be perverse if the Cornish council could not have those conversations with GBR or if people had to work out weird ways of having to facilitate those conversations because we had not provided for that in this legislation.

I agree with my noble friend. The Minister would be wise either to accept his amendment or, if it needs to be worded differently or other changes need to be made, at least to take it away and come back on Report with a government amendment, or suite of amendments, to achieve the same function. That would improve the position and, in fact, get to a position that I think is the Government’s intention—certainly the current Government’s intention. It may not have been when the legislation was drafted but I think that it would more accurately reflect the position now.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to speak to the amendments in my name, Amendments 298, 299 and 300, which follow on from the amendments about which noble Lords have spoken. I want to double-check that there will be consultation with the relevant authorities—whether it is Scotland, Wales or other authorities—before any change is made to access charges, timetables or anything else.

Several noble Lords have spoken about Cornwall, where I live. It may be down as a mayoral authority but, knowing the politics of Cornwall, I think that it is highly unlikely that anything credible will come out of that. Whether that is good or bad, we can debate.

There is also the question of what improvement—or lack of improvement—is needed to the railway in Cornwall and, to some extent, in Devon. We have been debating for many years whether the line at Dawlish is at risk and by how much. I know that my noble friend the Minister has said that it is all going to be fine. Rock bolts are being put into the hillside to stop it falling down, which I am sure is a good solution, but we still only have one rail line going to most of south Devon and the whole of Cornwall. It would be nice to think that the local authorities—the south-west regional authority is already doing some work on this—are able to take some of that forward with a budget to look at the alternatives and make sure that the various authorities, whoever they may be at the time, are properly consulted, especially on access, charges and things like that.

Railways Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Harper

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th September 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, these are interesting amendments. I have had several representations from the rail sector in Wales and Scotland, and they are clearly quite concerned.

The first question I probably need answering is on who will be owning and operating the infrastructure in Wales and Scotland. At the moment, in Scotland, it is done by Transport Scotland, and in Wales, I cannot remember but think it is different. Of course, both those organisations may, and do, operate passenger train services. Given the scope of the Bill, which we have been discussing at length today, will Transport Scotland and the Welsh Assembly be able to let their own contracts with GBR or an independent operator to run trains? Who will be responsible for managing the infrastructure if it goes wrong or needs maintenance, and for the issue in the amendment, which is about co-ordinating with the rest of the UK? To me, it is not clear at the moment, and I would be grateful if my noble friend could clarify. I am probably being stupid, but there we are.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I just want to speak briefly about three groups of amendments within this group. Amendment 145 in the name of my noble friend Lord Moylan has quite a lot to recommend it. The Bill, as set out, sensibly says that the UK Government and the Scottish Government should have a memorandum of understanding about how cross-border rail services should work. That is very sensible, but it seems to me that you would want to have the documents published at the same time; you want them on the same timeline because you want a GB rail strategy to be produced, given the way the rail network works. The whole point about GBR bringing together track and train and having some consistency means it seems very sensible that, if you are to have this memorandum of understanding between UK Ministers and Scottish and Welsh Ministers, you want them on the same timeline. Then what you publish is, in effect, a GB rail strategy with a level of consistency.

Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Harper

Committee stage
Tuesday 16th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I start with an apology. I could not be here for Second Reading because I was gale-bound on the Isles of Scilly due to the failure of the air services. Therefore, it seems an appropriate time to look at the whole subject of general aviation, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, to see what can be done. I have been lobbying hard for improved navigation and improved services to the Isles of Scilly, where I live most of the time, for about 10 years; I shall come to that in later amendments. It is 10 years since we left Europe with Brexit and cancelled our membership of EGNOS, which I shall come to later.

It is important that general aviation is included in the Bill, and I support much of what the noble Lords, Lord Davies and Lord Moylan, have said. I am not sure about the European Union amendment, but we will come on to that later. It is worth reminding ourselves that the long title of this Bill says that it is to:

“Make provision for the protection of purchasers and users of air transport and airport services”,


and it then mentions

“air traffic and air navigation services”,

all of which are part of general aviation, just as much as they are part of the rest of the aviation world. It is right to have something at the start of the Bill which demonstrates that this is an important subject which needs full consideration.

Much of what is in the Bill is really good, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, all the issues relating to general aviation need discussing, such as training, access to small airfields—on the islands or different parts of the country—and how things compare with what has been going on in Europe. I support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and certainly part of the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and look forward to discussing these issues more in subsequent amendments.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest, as set out in the register, as non-executive chair of RVL Aviation. I strongly support the purpose clause which my noble friend Lord Moylan has set out because I think most of the discussion on the other amendments will look at passengers by talking about airlines and concentrating on the experience of passengers. I draw attention to the fact that his Amendment 1 also talks about the international competitiveness of the sector, economic growth and the rights of those who purchase air transport services. My understanding of his amendment and of Clause 1 is that the definition of air transport services is not just passengers but those people who purchase freight and cargo services. I see the Minister is nodding assent.

That is important because it is critical to the growth of the economy. Air freight accounts for over 40% of non-EU trade by value, even though it is only about 1% of freight by volume. That is incredibly important to the overall economy, especially for some sectors, such as pharmaceuticals and high-end manufacturing, where we are particularly competitive, and it contributes to our balance of payments. An amendment that means that Ministers, when making regulations, have to ensure that our international trade remains competitive would be extremely valuable.

That is important, because the conversation about rights and the regulatory burden on airlines is often had while not thinking about the cost of those regulations. It does not mean that you do not make regulations if they have a cost; it just means that when you think about regulating, you have to think about the cost, look at the benefit and balance those two things. You also have to look at them cumulatively. My noble friend Lord Moylan touched on that when he talked about the Government’s target to reduce the cost of administrative burdens by 25% over this Parliament.

It is worth putting on the record—this is why the competitiveness of the sector is important—that overall, in 2024, European airlines had a net profit margin of around 3.9%. They are also expected, once all the results are in, to have had a net profit margin of around 4.4% in 2025, with a profit per passenger of around $8 or $9. I accept that that varies hugely by carrier, but it means that we have to think carefully about the costs that we load on to the industry so that we ensure that it remains competitive for both freight and passengers.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley and Lord Harper

Report stage
Tuesday 10th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a very interesting amendment, because a revenue certainty contract, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, is wonderful for the suppliers. It presumably links in not just the price but the volumes—which may change from year to year —and the sources. The noble Lord opposite mentioned the issue of Drax and where that material comes from every year. Would there be a 10-year guarantee price for that? As the noble Lord, Lord Harper, said, any old agricultural product that was edible could be covered as well. And we have not yet discussed the worry that many people have about the number of trees and everything else being cut down in the Amazon basin, which could also be covered by this. So, a revenue certainty contract is pretty difficult and this amendment is a good start in at least limiting its scope and time.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Moylan set out the challenge—the thing you have to justify—to put the revenue certainty mechanism in place. It was certainly one of the things that I grappled with, and challenged the industry on, when I was the Secretary of State for Transport and we were developing the beginnings of this policy. As my noble friend said, the SAF mandate sets out some guaranteed demand for the industry producing sustainable aviation fuel. The challenge I always put to those thinking about investing in producing the technology was exactly the challenge that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, set out: if you have guaranteed demand, what is the barrier to producing that product?

We discussed this in Committee. The logic is that, for some of these products, it is new technology that requires significant upfront capital investment, and the judgment is that, if you compare it to other similar sorts of investments that these investors are making, the risk is higher than with those other investments. Therefore, if you do not do something to close that gap, you will not see the investment in the technology, particularly here in the United Kingdom, where we want to see the production take place, at least in part, if for no other reason than resilience.

What you are really dealing with is closing the gap between the risks involved in producing SAF and the alternative products that those investors could invest in. I do not think, therefore, that you need an open-ended contract. You need to put some limits around it. I am sure that the Minister will have some responses on what those limits should be, but a very obvious one would be to have a time limit, so that investors have some certainty: they have guaranteed demand and a period when they will get a guaranteed price. That should enable the risk premium to be reduced and enable the investment and production to take place.

If we start from the assumption that it certainly does not need to be an infinite period and should therefore be fixed, the debate is therefore just about what the length of that period should be. Now, the Minister may want to come back and say that the 10 years proposed by my noble friend is the wrong number or limitation period, in which case I would be happy to listen to the arguments that he makes about an alternative period, but I do not think that the right answer is that it can be any length at all, with no cap on it. I would be much more comfortable if we put a cap on it.

Again, if, at some point in the future, there was a clear justification for changing it, there would be nothing to stop this or a future Government coming back to Parliament to change the position. But I do not want to see open-ended contracts in place, particularly since we have legislated for there to be guaranteed demand. So I strongly support my noble friend’s amendment, unless I hear a very good counter case from the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this amendment, which we discussed at some length in Committee. The amendments then, which other noble Lords supported, covered the relationship between the sustainable aviation fuel used for aeroplanes and the same fuel used for home heating. I declare an interest as having a boiler in Cornwall that survives very well on home heating.

Interestingly, sustainable aviation fuel produced through the HEFA process generates hydrotreated vegetable oil as a by-product. HVO accounts for approximately 30% of the output, a significant amount that should not be overlooked. HVO can play an essential role in helping to decarbonise the 1.7 million oil-heated households that are off the gas grid. Otherwise they use electricity, which is expensive.

Last month, we had a delegation from the village of Kehelland in Cornwall who have all been trying out HVO in their houses for about three years. They travelled, leaving at 2 am, to meet the Minister at DESNZ to present their response to the consultation that we discussed earlier—a 500-mile round trip shows they are pretty committed. But what is interesting is that, in describing their experience of using the fuel, they highlighted how renewable liquid fuels can cut emissions from home heating by up to 88% compared with kerosene—88% is a figure worth having. They work simply as a drop-in replacement. The Government’s consultation said that, of all those considered, this was the most cost-effective option for off-grid consumers.

However, the consultation still questions the feedstock availability for the fuel, which we discussed in earlier amendments today. It is puzzling that the DfT is confident that there is more than enough feedstock to boost SAF production by 22%. The research done by the industry, the EU Commission and the Irish Government indicates that there is enough feedstock—again, we have discussed that at length. I was pleased to welcome the Government’s confirmation in a Written Answer that the targets under the SAF and RTFO mandates

“are set considering global availability of feedstocks and competing demands between transport modes and across sectors of the economy”.

That seems to highlight that there is enough material for both aviation and home heating, so it would be a great shame if we pitted one sector against the other, rather than try to have a bit more of what you might call cohabitation in-between.

To incentivise HVO production, I believe a renewable liquid heating fuel obligation needs to be implemented—that is the solution—triggered under Section 159 of the Energy Act. That would create the necessary market mechanism, in a similar way to the SAF mandate and the RTFO, to give certainty to the industry to distribute HVO to households at an affordable price. I hope that I can persuade my noble friend when he responds to try to ensure that his department, the Department for Transport, and DESNZ are working hand in hand to ensure that we can scale up the production of sustainable aviation fuel to capture the benefits of HVO for home heating. I must not keep asking him for meetings every day, but, if he would accept, it would be very nice to have a meeting with him and our colleague the noble Lord, Lord Whitehead, the Minister for Energy Security, to discuss the benefits of this approach. The consultation closes today, so it seems to be the right time to meet.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I have to confess to having been a little perplexed when the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, moved Amendment 13, because I had just listened to the speech of her colleague, the noble Earl, Lord Russell. I thought my noble friend Lord Moylan’s proposal simply to publish and have some transparency about ticket prices was perfectly reasonable, but the noble Earl, Lord Russell, set out a whole raft of reasons why that was entirely unreasonable, incredibly difficult, completely unnecessary, bureaucratic and costly and why we should not bother ourselves with it, and he then proceeded not to support my noble friend’s amendment. Although I disagree with the noble Earl, he made some perfectly reasonable arguments, although not ones that I agree with. I am perplexed because his noble friend’s amendment is very comprehensive and would place some really quite significant reporting requirements on the Government in a way that seems to be completely at odds with the argument that the noble Earl just made.