MV “Ruby”: Ammonium Nitrate

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. I hope he goes nowhere near Great Yarmouth for the foreseeable future. It is a serious point, and the Health and Safety Executive has been fully engaged. It has been helpful and supportive in providing advice and guidance to the ship’s management company and Peel Ports to ensure that the handling of this cargo is in line with UK regulations and, of course, safe.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

Given the intervention of the noble Lord opposite, can we have a reassurance that he will be checked very carefully next Tuesday?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

But not by me.

Pavement Parking

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My noble friend makes an important point, and I cannot help but agree with him. Pavement parking is a widespread problem and a complex issue. We must ensure that whatever approach is taken works for all road users in the community. We know that our streets belong to us all and understand that parking on the pavements damages them and exposes pedestrians to risk. We have empathy for those members of our society for whom pavement parking poses particular difficulties—those who have sight and mobility impairments, wheelchair users and those with prams and buggies—but we must get this consultation right.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I commend the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for his Question. There is a major challenge; he and I are fortunate enough to have a degree of assistance in navigating cars and motorcycles on pavements, but others do not. There is an additional hazard as well, which is the new fashion of using electric bikes on pavements. Those are a real danger to all the same cohorts that the noble Lord spelled out. Is it not time to do this now? It would not cost much and might get the Government some popularity.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

Again, the noble Lord makes a valid point, which I cannot disagree with. E-scooters are allowed on public roads only as part of the e-scooter rental trials, and private e-scooters can be used only on private land. The use of any e-scooters on the pavement is illegal under current legislation and the Government have no current plans to change this. But at the end of the day, these things have to be enforced and it is a matter, particularly in London, for the Metropolitan Police. It is also for councils to look at and I cannot help but agree with the noble Lord.

Bus Services

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

As we set out in our long-term national bus strategy, ensuring the safe and comfortable movement of all people on buses, including those with accessibility issues, is an absolute priority. I will take back to the department my noble friend’s specific question about disabled people. In a similar vein, it is also worth mentioning some further good news: the accessibility information regulations should be laid today, which, I am sure, many noble Lords will welcome.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder if the Minister would be kind enough to go back to the department for me and then drop me a line on the appalling treatment of the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority in respect of central government funding. It is a mystery to all of us how the Government can talk about better buses when buses are actually disappearing.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

We asked all local transport authorities to prepare bus service improvement plans; some were better than others, and the best ones were given funding. Regarding the ones that were not so good, we supported the local transport authorities by providing them with revenue support so they could upskill their staff and improve their BSIPs for the future. I believe that is what happened in South Yorkshire, and I very much hope it has been able to use the money we gave it successfully.

Airports and Airlines: Staff

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

As the noble Lord may know, the Government published our Jet Zero Strategy today. We are absolutely focused on decarbonising the aviation sector, but we recognise that high-speed rail is also very attractive.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests. Would it not help passengers to fly if the Government could manage to sort out the renewal of passports? Also, would it not help if the Government were able to get the airports and airlines to work together, instead of criticising each other, given that check-in and baggage handling are handled by the airlines but the remainder of the journey through the airport is the responsibility of the airport itself?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, is completely right. When we and the CAA wrote to the industry at the beginning of June, we said that we wanted each airport to set up airport partner working groups, which would bring together the airport itself, the airlines, the ground handlers, Border Force and air traffic control. We are conscious that ground handling is an important part of the movement of passengers and their luggage through airports, so we will conduct a review of the sector to look at its quality and efficiency and at whether there are any opportunities for change.

Airports Slot Allocation (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2021

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interest in the register.

It seems odd to be sitting here on a Tuesday evening debating what appears to be a very small and sensible update consequent on our departure from the European Union, and specifically in relation to the devastating impact that Covid-19 has had on the whole of the aviation industry. But it is an opportunity to raise the wider context of the need to maintain capacity in the aviation industry, and the fact that so little support has been available so far in keeping that capacity available to us for the future.

I do not mean capacity just in terms of passenger travel, as important as that will be for business and leisure. There are many who feel that people will not want to fly, and that somehow there will be a major drop in people taking business or holiday trips, but I do not believe that for a minute. I think the moment will come when we can be free again to travel and enjoy sunshine and each other’s company, and take a glass on a beach somewhere, and many people who can afford to take advantage of that will do so. But they cannot do so, certainly under anything that is related to British registration, unless the capacity exists.

The most important aspect of this is the fact that so much of our airline industry, including that mainly carrying passengers, is related to freight. At Heathrow—in which I have an interest in terms of skills and employment for recovery—about 90% of its high-value freight goes out in the bellies of passenger aircraft. Of course, it does not at the moment. Maintaining the capacity to do that and maintaining our trading capacity and relationships for the future will be vital to the recovery of our economy and to our place in a very different world.

I make an appeal to the Minister—I gave her notice that I was going to broaden the issue—that the 80:20 rule is a sensible step in terms of ensuring that airlines do not lose that capacity and those air corridors, but it is a tiny gesture to maintain capacity for the future. Substantial help now needs to be given to make sure that we do not fall even further behind our European competitors in terms of airport and airline capacity. To give one example, the relief for business rates that has been made available to very successful and profitable high street stores has resulted in an £8 million contribution to airports in the UK. That is very helpful to the smaller, provincial airports but for an airport such as Heathrow, which has an annual business rate levy of £120 million, £8 million goes a very small way to compensating.

I just make an appeal that we will need our aviation industry, taking into account climate change and pollution—in terms of both fuel and noise. The capacity to be able to travel, to compete and to engage in world trade will be vital and those who pooh-pooh the aviation and air transport industry in a way that they believe is somehow improving the prospect of meeting climate change targets for the future are delusional.

Heathrow Airport Expansion

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Blunkett]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the judgment by the Supreme Court in R (on the application of Friends of the Earth Ltd and others) v Heathrow Airport Ltd on the expansion of Heathrow Airport.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I wish to ask the urgent Question standing in my name, of which I have given prior notice. I draw attention to my declaration of interests on the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, on 16 December 2020, the Supreme Court overturned the earlier Court of Appeal decision and declared that the airport’s national policy statement is lawful. We will carefully consider the court’s judgment. The Government have always been clear that Heathrow expansion is a private sector project that must meet strict criteria on air quality, noise and climate change, as well as being privately financed, affordable and delivered in the best interests of consumers.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, we all have sympathy for those affected by blight in their homes and communities. However, I should like to ask the Minister a simple question: is it not time that the Government came out fighting on behalf of aviation and, as a consequence, airports? As a global trading nation, we are absolutely dependent on our connectivity, not just in terms of passengers but of freight transport. Is it not time that those who are rightly campaigning on climate change but attacking aviation daily should instead campaign for decarbonisation and safe, comfortable and sustainable travel, which can now be undertaken by technical innovation and sustainable aviation fuel?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I agree with much of what the noble Lord has just outlined. Indeed, the Government are doing many of those things he mentioned, including our recent investments in sustainable aviation fuels. The Government are optimistic about aviation. We recognise how important it is, as a connected nation, to have a strong aviation sector, which is why we are working so hard with the sector to put together recovery plans, which will be available next year.

Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations (Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister and particularly grateful to her for allowing us to forewarn her of questions that we might want to raise, not least because I think we are all exploring our way in terms of this order. There have been times, over the five years that I have been in your Lordships’ House, when I have come into the Chamber or Committee not to pontificate or provide pearls of wisdom but actually to learn something. That is why I signed up for this Grand Committee discussion this evening.

I confess that I was unaware of the technicalities and substantial impact that this programme has had since 2007 on carbon emissions and the way in which trade and the buy-out system works. So I have given notice to the Minister of my simple—or even simplistic—question: are we talking here about providing incentives to expand and develop this critical market for the future, or are we providing a balancing disincentive for market failure? Although I have read the Explanatory Note to which the Minister referred, I am still completely confused by it, and sometimes I do not mind admitting it.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

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

On behalf of many people and businesses to whom I have spoken along the eastern leg, I say to the Minister that it is time to stop the warm words and the false promises. Today we seek firm action and firm commitments, and that is exactly what the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, gives us. That is why, when the Minister comes to speak, I hope that she will give us not only warm words or future promises, but a commitment to support this amendment and allow all of the north to be treated equally and get the HS2 system it requires to bring about the economic and social benefits that we know it can bring.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am very pleased to lend my support to my noble friend Lord Adonis and his well-crafted amendment, and to follow the noble Lord, Lord Curry, and—yes—the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. On a number of occasions this year, he and I have found ourselves in agreement: I am not sure whether that is bad for him or bad for me, but on this occasion we are wholeheartedly as one. That is because we have seen what has happened over the years. He mentioned electrification of the Midland main line. Christopher Grayling promised it, and within months he withdrew that promise. It is similar to the picture painted by George Orwell of promising, withdrawing and promising again until people were completely bamboozled and befuddled as to what they had been promised and what had been taken away. I counsel my noble friend Lord Adonis to be very careful in hearing, as I am sure that he will be, the words of the Minister, for whom we have the greatest respect but who has been given a government brief. If the brief is not to say, “Yes, of course we intend to go ahead with this and we will, therefore, be quite happy to publish our legislation,” then I hope we will move this to a Division.

There are three sets of people who helped the Government. One set are those who were against HS2 from the start. I understand why: they believe that the money should be redeployed elsewhere. There is a second set who say: “We do not mind you doing the north-west, but we are quite happy for you to give us the money for infrastructure work and other investment in Yorkshire and the north-east.” The third set says, “Do not rock the boat, because we do not want to be seen to be undermining phase 2a and the subsequent leg to Manchester because it would be grossly unfair.” All three are just so naive that it is breath-taking. It is breath-taking to suggest that money that would not be spent on HS2 would, in any way, be spent on other forms of infrastructure in the two decades to come. It is naive to believe that, if you give a fair wind to someone else, they will back you when they got what they wanted and you failed to get what you needed. It is naive to believe that a Government who will not commit to what they originally promised have somehow just mislaid the necessary words and are not intent on changing policy or their programme.

My great fear—and I have had it all along—is that we will, of course, get Crewe to Manchester, and we will get the fast HS2 line from Manchester to Leeds, so that the Leeds leg will be an extremely rapid cross-Pennine addition, but it will not be from Birmingham through the east Midlands and Yorkshire with the spur to the east coast main line and to the north-east. I worry about MPs from the north-east—many of them very new, and this is true of the east Midlands as well—who seem to live in a parallel universe where they believe that words do not say what they actually say, as Alice would have said in Wonderland. Unless you get it on paper and it is absolutely unequivocal, it is not going to happen. The east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east will lose out all over again.

The briefing notes sent out were very interesting. The noble Lord, Lord Curry, talked about people from London and the south thinking that the world stopped at Sheffield. I wish that they did believe that, but they think it stops at Watford. When they use terms, as were included in this briefing note, such as “the north” or “the northern powerhouse,” what they clearly mean is the north-west or Greater Manchester and the surrounding areas. That is what George Osborne believed, which was understandable from his point of view because at the time he represented a seat in the north-west.

It is time for the leaders of councils, the elected mayors and the Members of Parliament of every party from the east Midlands, Yorkshire and the north-east to start collaborating in order to have their voice heard; otherwise, they will find themselves conned. Once again, they will be seen as losers and I am sick of us being losers on the east of the Pennines: I want the north and the northern powerhouse to be right across what is the north of England. I want that promise of 30 million people benefiting to be not some sort of artificial myth: I want it to be a reality. It can be a reality only if we actually get this additional leg, promised from the beginning, through the east Midlands, which has a high density of passenger usage, which will then be accommodated by freeing up the existing services. That is the argument in Stoke and Macclesfield in the north-west; it works just as well for the east Midlands and Yorkshire, where there is high-density passenger mileage in this particular corridor. Let us unite in wanting to do something that at last will put the nation in better balance—not only the levelling up that is so often talked about but levelling up between the north-west and north-east of the Pennines as well.

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to address the House on what I believe is a very important infrastructure project, one of the biggest undertaken by any Government in recent years. I have a slight worry about the amendment as tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, which is that it would put too much of a straitjacket on the Government regarding the future proposals that need to be ironed out. However, I find myself with a lot of sympathy for it.

I myself as Secretary of State for Transport made many changes to the plans put forward by the noble Lord when he did his initial scoping project, which was then carried on. Not the least of those changes is in the Bill before us. This part of the Bill came about as a result of the review done for me by David Higgins about how we could get it to the north faster, because there was a lot of concern that we would build up to Birmingham and then it would stop there. So I am delighted to be able to partake in these proceedings in this House on this section of the project that I think I started off.

I was fascinated to hear the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, talk about the end of the Pacer trains. It reminded me of my time as Secretary of State: it was I who issued the instruction to the Permanent Secretary to override the advice of the department, which said that we could not possibly get rid of the Pacer trains as there was no financial case. I am very pleased that that has been done. It has been delayed slightly, but these things take a bit of time. Still, at long last those trains, which were brought in 40 years ago on a temporary basis, will cease to exist. I have to say I was surprised that there was no “Save the Pacer train” movement, because the rail industry can sometimes become very nostalgic, keeping everything in the past. As far as I know, there has been no such movement.

I did not get the exact wording of the Minister’s answer to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, but she said it was time to get on with the Bill and not accept any more delays. I reinforce that to her: it is time to get on with the whole project in so far as it goes at the moment, because even the line up to Leeds and Manchester is not really the full project. It is only the start of the project of modernising our railway network. I find it ironic that I can get a high-speed train from London to Paris or Brussels, but not to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh or Glasgow. That is the dream; we have to ensure that future generations get their own high-speed rail.

I regret the words “high-speed rail”. It is not about high speed, but about high capacity. One of the things that this railway does is release a lot of the capacity on other railway lines to fulfil some of the more desirable things that areas want. We have seen a modern revolution in rail travel in this country. At the time of privatisation, 700 million people a year were using our railways. Last year, before the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, the figure was something like 1.8 billion people. Railways have become a much more important part of our nation and of our cities. I believe that the Bill and the Government committing to going as far as Crewe is essential, but there is more about it that is essential. The line was always planned to be a Y shape. The most expensive part of the railway was actually building it from London to Birmingham and then its costs fall away a little, although I fully accept that it is still a very expensive project.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings on Public Transport) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, obviously we are confirming reality but also reinforcing the importance of these regulations to prevent ill health and to persuade people to get back on public transport, rather than have the upsurge now occurring in the private use of cars.

In the half-minute I have left, I will draw attention to the importance of people being extremely sensitive, and of operators and those operating in the public transport system looking out for two elements. One is people who lipread, who obviously will not be able to do so. The second is those who cannot see and rely on hearing. In the first case people obviously will be wearing face coverings and cannot be lipread. In the other, people will be wearing face coverings and will be difficult to hear. I am putting a word out for tolerance and perhaps some public information on public transport that says “Look out for those who do not have the facility you have.”

Civil Aviation (Insurance) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. I, too, had problems with my technology.

In the brief time available, I want to acknowledge that this is a narrow and technical statutory instrument—I appreciate that—but it would be remiss of me, in declaring a non-pecuniary interest in the register, if I did not raise issues that are pertinent to the moment. I know that other noble Lords will probably want to contribute on the current difficulties that our people have in relation to insurance arising from the pandemic. It is one of those twists of fate that we are debating regulations relating to insurance covering war, terrorism, sabotage and the like when we are in the middle of a crisis that is affecting the whole of the aviation industry and, catastrophically, airlines and airports.

I ask the Minister, who knows of my interest in this, to write to me if she cannot respond at the end of the debate to my comments about those who are described as “passengers with restricted mobility”. Most people are not aware of the problems that these passengers have with insurance cover for baggage; nor are they aware of the difficulties for those with wheelchairs carrying either dry or wet batteries and those who find that their equipment is severely damaged, whether in catastrophic occurrences as outlined in these regulations or on a day-to-day basis. These difficulties make travelling a virtual nightmare for many people. They involve the interface between the airport and the airline and the contractors for baggage recovery. People often have great difficulty in getting compensation as well as immediate action to facilitate their continuation in travelling. I hope therefore that, although this is technically out of scope, the Minister will recognise—as I know she does—the importance of this issue for literally hundreds of thousands of travellers each year.