Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Berkeley

Monday 10th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to support the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, on the amendment. My noble friend Lord Whitty apologises; he had to leave. Presumably he thought this would come up a little earlier in the proceedings. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, told the House a number of very useful and interesting ideas about how this issue is going to be taken forward. I shall be very interested to hear the response of the noble Lord, Lord Deighton. First, obviously, I welcome the Government’s commitment to so much new infrastructure. It is not before time. Most of it is sensible and should be good value for money. However, as the amendment seeks to point out, we need to know the effect on consumers, not just this year and next year but in the long term; some of these projects take a long time to construct. If there has been some kind of financial arrangement in the private sector to finance them, we need to know the long-term effect.

It is worth pointing out that many of the sectors mentioned in the amendment are by definition monopolies: railway infrastructure is a monopoly; water services are generally monopolies; and gas and electricity are not generally monopolies, but some of them are. I think it is true to say that all regulators have a duty to protect the interests of consumers while also ensuring that the companies they regulate are financially sound and capable of investing and delivering for the future needs of their customers.

I will take one or two examples. We have to ask how successful these industries and the regulators have been in protecting the customer’s interests. We have had much debate this year over electricity prices, resilience of supplies—are all the lights going to go out?—and people complaining that Hinkley Point EDF may be a deal that has screwed the Government. I do not know whether that is true: I am not an expert on it. Then, of course, there is the latest investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority into the big six electricity suppliers in terms of vertical integration. Where the customers come in all this is quite difficult to understand for the average payer of electricity and gas. That is something that could very usefully come as a result of discussions on the amendment.

On the railways, to take another example, the Office of Rail Regulation’s role is not directly to help the customer—it does, because the charges relating to Network Rail’s costs have come down—but it is relevant because it is regulating a monopoly. Everybody said at the beginning that Network Rail was pretty efficient but it could probably do with a tweak here or there. However, the regulator over the last 10 years has succeeded in reducing Network Rail’s costs, or efficiencies, by something like 40%. If it was 40% over what it should have been as an efficient operator, that is quite an achievement for a monopoly. Now the regulator is expecting another 20% from it in the next five years, and many people say that there is more to come. I do not think that other infrastructure managers of monopolies are probably much different, which is quite worrying. We have very efficient regulators across the sector and they have achieved a lot, but how much more is there to achieve? I just do not know.

The water industry is a different issue. We have had many debates here, some of which I have instituted, about whether the regulator has regulated Thames Water in order to ensure that it had enough assets to provide the investment it believes is necessary for its long-term operation—personally I do not believe it is necessary, but that is not the point—and whether the regulator was doing its job properly in ensuring that there was not a load of asset stripping, which appears to have gone on. More importantly, when is the regulator going to come up with some credible estimate of the effect that the Thames tideway tunnel and the other changes to the industry are going to have on the customers? There has been lots of talk about this; it would be interesting to know, but I suspect that that might require a bit of pressure.

Several newspapers today say that the Prime Minister is apparently going to announce 300 new roads. Whether they are all Highways Agency or strategic road company roads, I do not know—I suspect that the noble Baroness will tell us one day—but that is not the point, really; he is going to announce them, although I do not know how they are going to be financed. Under the Bill, which some of us think is being set up for them eventually to be privatised, the roads will probably be turned into toll roads, although the Minister has strongly denied that at every opportunity. There is still a question of how these new roads will be paid for, though, so should there not actually be some toll roads? However, we are not going to go any further on that today.

The amendment is therefore very important. Having some consistent statistics and data across all these different sectors regarding how much the consumer is going to have to pay, and over what period, would be very useful. It might also put pressure on the regulators to come up with a bit more consistency than they have shown up to now. The UK regulators network is a good idea and I think it is making progress; I have also been involved in some suggestions that there should be a European rail regulator, or an association of European rail regulators, across 26 member states, though at the moment that seems to be a step too far. Still, the concept of regulation is developing, and the question we have to ask ourselves is: is it sufficient that the regulators apply self-regulation to themselves? I have my doubts and would prefer the Treasury to do that to start with, but maybe the Minister will be able to persuade us that they are capable of doing it themselves, with a good deal of Treasury supervision. It will be interesting to see what happens. Again I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for bringing this to our attention on Report.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, this gives me the chance to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, on the assiduous way in which he has pursued this topic and the way in which he has clarified many of the issues. He did so to our great advantage in Committee and has been a great strength today, so the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, knows the nature of the opposition to which he needs to respond.

We regard the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, as entirely right to raise the key question of the costs to consumers; he is certainly right to repeat the call of the Public Accounts Committee, which argued that departments should consider very carefully the costs to consumers of the policies that they pursue on infrastructure. He is also right, of course, to raise the fundamental issue of ensuring that costs are not unfairly passed on to consumers. If we had more time, we would dwell on the number of occasions where we consider that to have been the case. It is clear that in many sectors costs to consumers have risen very significantly: one in eight households says that their water bills are unaffordable, while around one-quarter of households and 64% of the poorest households spend more than 3% of their disposable income on water bills. Those bills are 40% higher in real terms than they were in 1989. Obviously the licence agreements set a maximum price, but whether Ofwat has quite the powers that it needs to alter those agreements is still unclear. Likewise, the rise in energy bills has been very well documented. The House will of course recognise the extent to which we have been concerned about electricity bills, to the point of indicating that under the next Labour Government there will be a period of time when bills are frozen.

There is an apparent lack of connection between wholesale prices and the retail prices that hit the consumer. It seems pretty obvious to us that the consumer is often getting a bad deal. None of us underestimates the extent to which infrastructure needs to be improved. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, will dwell on that point. However, we need to ensure that increased infrastructure investment does not fall on the consumer, mainly because currently we are very badly in need of better infrastructure delivery. It is absolutely clear that, given that output has fallen by over 19% since May 2010, less than a third of the projects in the Government’s infrastructure pipeline are classed as in construction. Therefore there is a great deal to be done. The Government are rather better at indicating promise and intent than at acting in reality. The imperative is clear. We need to ensure that our infrastructure output increases; likewise, we need to ensure that the costs are not unfairly passed on to consumers, as they have been in some areas in the recent past. I hope that, just as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, indicated, the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, will guarantee that we are pointing in the right direction towards achieving the right balance and a better one than has obtained in recent years.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Berkeley

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, this amendment requires the Secretary of State to publish a report on allowing a public sector rail operator to take on lines and challenge the train operators on a genuinely level playing field in the public interest, securing value for money for passengers and taxpayers.

Many noble Lords will no doubt recall the exchanges that we had at Question Time last week on the future of east coast rail. I congratulate the Minister on her performance then in defending the Government’s position, which I regarded then, and still do regard, as indefensible, but I hope that today her response will be somewhat different. We should learn the lessons of east coast rail, where we have seen the benefits of a not-for-dividend operator running a rail line.

East coast rail was brought back into public ownership in 2009 after the private operator reneged on its commitments. It is efficient, it has returned more than £600 million to the taxpayer and it invests every penny of that profit back into the company. It provides a quality service, achieving record levels of passenger satisfaction and punctuality. The new timetable that it introduced in 2011 allows it to operate 7,000 more trains each year, and it now has 500,000 more passengers. It has also delivered for passengers. This year’s fare rise was in fact a real-terms cut—something that no private franchise was able to do. In fact, elsewhere, season tickets have risen in price by 30% since 2010—a stark contrast.

Despite that, the Government appear intent on pressing ahead with the privatisation of intercity east coast services. Will the Minister confirm that the cost to the taxpayer of reprivatising the east coast could run to £6 million? It is important that the Minister responds to this question and says what steps the Government are otherwise taking to improve the functioning of the railways. It is unacceptable that our rail lines are, according to the 2011 McNulty review, up to 40% less efficient than the best-performing European networks.

We know that the Conservative Party is unwilling to take a pragmatic approach on this issue. Its Railways Act 1993 effectively prohibits a public sector operator, except in the most restrictive circumstances. But the public do not feel this way. Only 28% of those polled support the sell-off of east coast. Can the Minister say on which side of this divide her own party finds itself? Many will recall her party’s support for a public sector operator while it was in opposition. It is time to put an end to this rigid ideological approach, which also sees the Government trying to rush through a sell-off of the 40% public stake in Eurostar before we have even seen the conclusion of my noble friend Lord Myners’s inquiry into the Royal Mail privatisation.

This amendment would give the Government the opportunity to reflect and to alter their stance. It is time to learn the lessons of east coast and legislate to allow a public sector operator to take on lines. It should be able to challenge the train operators in the public interest on a level playing field. That is the way to secure the best deal for passengers and for taxpayers. I hope that the Minister will accept this amendment so that we can move in that direction. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, it is worth reminding the House that we already have public sector operators in this country; we have lines owned by Dutch railways, French railways and German railways. They are not called that in this country—they have different names—but they are owned by those countries. On the continent, some of them operate effective, positive and well liked services; some of them are pretty awful. When you hear that Eurostar, which is still 40% owned by the British Government—although it is for sale—is allowed to bid for the east coast, but a company that is perhaps 100% owned by the British Government would not be allowed, it does seem a bit odd. I am sure that the Minister has an answer to that, but it seems to me that we are selling off our crown jewels in the shape of a piece of Eurostar and allowing the companies that buy them—perhaps from the continent, perhaps from elsewhere—to come back and provide a good service on certain occasions, but to compete a little unfairly against what our own companies might do if they existed.

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[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I will speak to one or two of the other amendments in the group, and hope that the Minister will be able to respond under the slightly odd arrangement we have.

In Clause 8, on my Amendment 33A, the Government have moved a long way in changing the name and activities of the Rail Passengers Council. The point of the amendment is to emphasise the need for them to consider not just the users of the network, but also those who do not currently use it or who cross over the network. In other words, they must look at the people who are not using it, at the potential for modal shift and at reducing the need for travel. They must look at the thing in the round before they come up with their excellent data, which I am sure they will do on the roads as they currently do for railways and, of course, buses.

Moving quickly, I raised a question about Amendment 48 in a previous grouping—I got it wrong—and the Secretary of State giving the Office of the Rail Regulator guidance as to the circumstances in which payments were defined. I hear what the Minister said. My question is whether that is the same guidance and instruction that the ORR currently has with the railways. If not, why not?

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 33, which asks the watchdog to look after the interests of cyclists and pedestrians. As we know, and as the department has recognised, a strategic road network can often be a barrier for pedestrians and cyclists. That means that there are many potential users of the network who may wish to use it to cycle to work but currently cannot.

The legislation would not allow Passenger Focus to consider their views. The chief executive, Anthony Smith, has been quoted as making clear his view that, given the legislation, Passenger Focus could focus only on actual users of the strategic network along with, perhaps, a second tier of fleet managers marshalling its use. While he quite understood the concerns around the remit, any change must be a matter for government and the legislative process. This is therefore our chance to effect that change, against a background in which the Government continue to respond to the increasing pressure for the use of cycles by saying that they are very much in favour of such growth.

Of course, the greatest deterrent to cycle use in our towns and cities and on connecting roads of any significance is danger. Because we do not set out to protect cyclists adequately, our present figures are dreadful in comparison to many other European countries. In the UK, 2% of journeys are made by bike, compared with 10% in Austria, 19% in Denmark and 27% in the Netherlands. Some 22% of all journeys in the UK are of less than a mile, but a fifth of these are in a car. Some people are, of course, obliged to use a car for a journey of less than a mile. However, the great deterrent to using the far more efficient and effective cycle is that people consider cycling to be dangerous.

The Government promised to support cycling but, of course, Cycling England, the pressure group for cyclists, was shut down; the body which co-ordinated policy and action on cycling, which had a £60 million annual budget, was shut down; and the Government also abandoned the cycling towns and cities initiative which we, as the previous Administration, had initiated—and it was delivering results. The proportion of people cycling at least once a month in England dropped from 15.3% to 14.7% in the year to October 2013. No one is going to say that that is a dramatic drop, but it is movement in the wrong direction when there are calls on all sides, to which the Government subscribe, for cycling to be encouraged. There was a decline in all regions in the United Kingdom.

I am therefore seeking with this amendment for the Government, who alone can take the legislative initiative on this—that is quite clear—to give a voice to cyclists and pedestrians, and to ensure that we make some progress on the aim of improving the use of cycling, and even walking over short distances. In order to achieve that, certainly with cycling, we must overcome the anxiety of the public that cycling on so many of our roads is just not safe enough.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Berkeley

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 32 is designed to probe two issues: the motivation behind the move to a strategic highways company and the extent to which the Minister will be able to affect its day-to-day operations. We are concerned about the cost implications of putting the Highways Agency at arm’s length because doing so could result in significantly increased managerial pay. In fact, there have been comments by informed individuals to suggest that that is certainly one of the attractions of the proposal. It will free the company from the constraints of Civil Service pay. We are also concerned about the issue of additional VAT payments. At present, considerable sums are returned on the basis of the role played by the Highways Agency, but as a company, of course, it will not receive such concessions and will have to meet its VAT obligations in full. We are concerned about fines because we are not at all sure about how any fines would be levied, and on whom. We are concerned about poor value cyclical investments, and we are concerned about the reduced flexibility of the Government in the area of spending in the future.

We recognise that the point of this attempt at improving the infrastructure basis of the Department for Transport as far as roads are concerned is about guaranteeing that certain sums will be spent in the future so that infrastructure projects which clearly need a long time-line of assured expense will have that guarantee. However, we also need some assurance from the Minister that the absolutely critical issue of ensuring that the necessary flexibility, either when situations change or the perspective of Ministers alters, is available. According to the transparency page on the Highways Agency website, at present the top five jobholders all make significantly more than £100,000 a year. One would have thought that in the context of pay in the public service and the other advantages of being in the public sector—the oft-quoted security of pensions, although that is becoming less advantageous as time goes by; job security, although by heavens one cannot talk to many civil servants and get the impression that they feel they enjoy job security—people on salaries of over £100,000 could be expected to discharge a significant area of responsibility. Let us consider whether the pay at the top of the strategic highways company will be boosted by any additional income streams. The Government have quite clearly indicated that these proposals have nothing to do with a long-term perspective on road pricing; we had that discussion at the end of our sitting last week. However, if there are no additional income streams, the taxpayer will be paying those potentially increased wages of the staff.

The impact assessment lists pay and remuneration under the heading “Institutional constraints under central controls”. I want to know what central controls those are, or yet again is a model being followed that we know all too well, in fair weather and in foul, of creating a non-governmental body and seeing its salaries inflate so that they match the private sector, which can always be relied upon to have a significant differential between the top few and the very many who do a great deal of the work and are responsible to them? Is that what we are going to see again prior to privatisation? I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friends on this amendment. It may well be that in her reply the Minister will refer to more than one of the five documents that she referred to in last week’s Committee sitting and kindly e-mailed to us the next day. I have now read them but they do not tell me a lot about the questions that we were asking. I hope that before we get to Report we will have the detail—I think that the Minister suggested that more would be forthcoming—of the relationship between a strategy, if there is to be one, a licence for this company, directions and guidance, articles, duties, governance and things such as that. However, in the case of this amendment, who is going to decide how much the staff of the new company are paid unless it is the Secretary of State?

As my noble friend said, it is beginning to look as though the only reason for making this change is so that the staff can be paid more than they are at the moment. It may be that the people who proposed this looked longingly at the remuneration and bonuses received by the senior staff at Network Rail in recent years without seeing that that is changing quite dramatically to a lower figure. Of course, once Network Rail is fully owned by the state, it may change even further. It would be interesting to hear how we are going to know who is in charge of remuneration, management, financial arrangements and staffing if it is not the Secretary of State. Therefore, I think that this is a very good amendment and I fully support it.

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[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I, too, have memories of motorways. The M25 went around the north of the constituency that I represented, in Enfield. The only tunnel constructed on the M25 was there, in order to protect the interests of my constituents. Subsequently there was an additional tunnel in order to protect a great deal of Epping Forest, which I also greatly supported. However, our negotiations and discussions were nothing to do with planning authorities; we had to deal with the Department of Transport and the excessive, terrifying costs of what is involved in tunnelling. That is why the M25 is a circular route 125 miles long but has only one tunnel, which is constructed as far as the immediate neighbourhood’s interests are concerned. It was nothing to do with planning; the Department of Transport had to answer.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I do not want to prolong this discussion for much longer, but some of us, in setting out a role for the Passengers’ Council, are trying to ensure that it produces the right data and looks at alternative options before the company goes ahead and develops new roads. With regard to the planning system, I do not believe that the Passengers’ Council should have a role at all, but I believe that it has a role in producing the data to justify—or not—what gets done and to look at alternatives.

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[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I have amendments grouped with those of my noble friend Lord Whitty, and I agree with a great deal of what he has just said.

Amendment 54 is my chief amendment and is designed to ensure that the monitor focuses not simply on the financial cost of the strategic highways company’s activities—that is, the bill to the taxpayer for the SHC—but on its wider non-monetisation impacts such as landscape, biodiversity and social distribution. We need breadth to the monitor’s analysis of the performance of the company. The text is based on guidance in the Treasury Green Book on appraisal, so I am merely suggesting that where the Treasury thinks that the proper appraisal of an activity should include these features, I want them to be included when considering the SHC.

The other amendment in the group is a minor one about removing all exemptions in documents. We do not see why these powers should be restricted in the documents that are made available, but that is a relatively minor aspect. Amendment 54, however, is of considerable import.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I have tabled two amendments in this group, but I shall speak to the whole group because all the amendments consider the role of the monitor—the Office of Rail Regulation or whatever it may be. I get the feeling that Ministers are rejecting any comment that might enable the SHC, or the government policy that surrounds it, to climb out of its roads silo. There is probably a rail silo because that is the way the railways work. There is also clearly a road silo, so what these and several previous amendments are trying to achieve is the ability to look at cross-modal choice and to consider the issue of sustainability, which seems to be forgotten about for much of the time. The ORR would have the opportunity and the capability to look at the alternatives and it would be able to consider the costs, which of course it is meant to be monitoring.

Monitoring something is not quite the same as pushing for greater efficiencies, a point I made when speaking to a series of amendments that we considered last Thursday. What the ORR has achieved with Network Rail is a reduction in its costs by 60%. If the new construction and maintenance costs of the highways were to be reduced by 60% in a period of 10 years, either we would have quite a few more roads that were in better condition or the Treasury would be very happy—or both. It is an opportunity that will be missed unless the regulator is given more powers. That is the point of Amendment 57. The compromise would be that the ORR would report to the Secretary of State within three years with ideas on how it might do its job properly.

There are several other issues. My noble friend Lord Whitty mentioned safety. During a Question for Oral Answer earlier today a noble Lord talked about road safety and the issue of HGVs. Safety on the roads may have got better, but it is still disastrous compared with safety rates on the railways. It is not just about people being run over; it covers a multitude of different issues for which I believe the ORR could come up with some new ideas. I have separated out two amendments related to level crossings so that they will be considered later, though I am not sure when. However, level crossings are a major safety issue for the railways. There is really no reason that I can see for not putting all these together under one safety rule—based, in my book, on the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. I know that that was being debated in the Deregulation Bill yesterday and some rather distressing issues were brought to the fore.

Safety is one thing but pollution is another. Recently we were told that the pollution measurements in Oxford Street are three times the EU limits. There would not be any harm if the ORR were able to look at that as well.

Finally, on funding, the Office of Rail Regulation is funded by the industry: 50% by Network Rail and 50% by the train operators. I cannot see why the ORR’s monitoring of road activities should not be funded partly by the company running the infrastructure and partly by the users. That would be a good balance. There is absolutely no reason why that should not happen except, I suppose, that Ministers would be frightened of the road lobby. However, there would be a consistency between road and rail, and there is an opportunity here for at least getting the funding for the ORR on a consistent basis between the two.

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[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I also support my noble friend’s amendment. The situation is a classic case of restrictive practices or protectionism—whatever we would like to call it. I thought that this Government were against restrictive practices and protectionism—after all, they have several deregulation Bills—but, as ever, it seems that the Home Office is exempt.

During my Question on HGVs today, the Minister mentioned in reply the work being done in London between VOSA and the police to stop lorries that might be thought to be contravening some regulation or other. In fact, I was invited to witness one of these events a few weeks ago. They do it every day in different parts of London, and it works well; the number of vehicles that are stopped and the number of charges that the Minister told the House about are very impressive. However, there is one thing that has not happened. I said to the Metropolitan Police people and VOSA, “You’re doing all these things, but do you have one common database so that you can work out how to catch these people and do something with them?”. Very politely, the answer was, “Well, no we don’t, because the Met doesn’t allow it”.

The issue of whether the Met is above the law is a debate that we can have on a different day, but it is the same issue as the restrictive practice of saying, “Don’t set foot on my patch, otherwise—although I will not shoot you—I shall make sure that there is trouble”. Surely we should all be working on the same databases and sharing things. VOSA has made major progress here and it is about time that the Met caught up. If an amendment comes back on Report, either from the Minister or from my noble friend, it would be nice to think that a Home Office Minister could be here to answer on this issue and make a proposal.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, I have heard my noble friend Lord Faulkner wax lyrical persuasively on this issue, and I have heard the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw talk about it on many occasions. It is clear that the case stands—and stands mightily proud. We have had this argument long enough for a Government to see sense on this. All that I can say to the Minister at this moment of decision is that I shall be showing the utmost loyalty and commitment to my noble friend. The Minister has a noble friend on her side arguing the same case. I advise her to follow my example.

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[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I bow to the expertise of previous speakers because I am no great expert in species. The previous three speeches have demonstrated that it will be quite a challenge to decide what is in and what is out. The issue seems to be very subjective and no one is fighting tonight, but I expect that the experts will fight in the future.

I have two examples—and I do not know whether they are in or out; perhaps the noble Baroness can help me. I have a quote from the Western Morning News last week, under the headline:

“UK ladybirds are being eaten by their invading cannibal cousins”.

Ladybirds are now cannibals that are eating either the five-spot or two-spot ones—I could go on—and invade at the speed of 200 kilometres a year. Even though they came in 20 years ago, I do not know whether they have reached Cornwall yet. Maybe the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, will know. Are they included? Have they been here before? Where would it be?

My other example is from three or four years ago when a friend of mine discovered that the Duchy of Cornwall was introducing Japanese oysters into the Helford River in Cornwall—we seem to have been in Cornwall a lot, but I cannot help that—without doing an environmental study or getting permission. Oysters were put in the cages, which all looked very nice, and some people liked them and some did not. However, after a year they all died, which may have served right those who introduced them, but it killed every other oyster in the river—the native oysters. I do not know whether those Japanese oysters would come within the context of this part of the Bill. Those that came from Japan certainly killed all the local ones, and it was of some comfort when my friend took the duchy to court. Its defence was that it believed that, for all practical purposes, it was above the law. I do not know whether that was why the court found against the duchy because the matter is still sub judice. That is an example of someone bringing in a species and perhaps not following it through to see if it was the right one to bring in.

That is why I tabled my Amendment 71. When I was researching it, I thought, “What is a species?”. I looked it up on some web dictionaries, and the best definition seems to be the wording that I have put in the amendment. Does it cover things in the air, be they birds, insects or whatever? Does it cover animals, birds or whatever that walk on the ground? Does it cover things in the water? That is a pretty important place from which we should start. It would be very good if someone could give a definitive answer so that we knew what the context was and where we might go from here.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the main outline of the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. I was a little less keen on the pasty that was identified as being available in Cornwall. I recall my brother-in-law, who is an expert on birds, arriving in Cornwall in the early 1990s and seeing a chough, which I did not see. He was certainly well versed in the significance of choughs to the Cornish position.

The purpose of the amendment that I have tabled is to get some sharpness of definition in the crucial area that we are concerned with. We all know that the issue of invasive species is of great significance. It is one of the causes of the loss of biodiversity and much of the world, and we have seen indications in this country of the extent to which that occurs. The annual cost of invasive non-native species to the economy is put at £1.3 billion, so we are not talking peanuts here.

I shall mention my own experience of this. I heard someone—I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Teverson—suggest that we could not mention Japanese knotweed. I am going to mention Japanese knotweed quite often. My acquaintance with the problem of Japanese knotweed was to see a person lose the value of their house, in an ordinary suburban area with absolutely no suggestion of any threat at all except of Japanese knotweed. The plant effectively reduced the price of their house from £350,000 to £50,000 in value. They simply had to get out of that house as they did not think that they could afford the costs of controlling the knotweed.

That was my introduction to local difficulties, but when I was in the department I became acutely aware, and I am sure that the Minister is well versed in this, that whenever a group of people come together to discuss Japanese knotweed, the railway industry is going to be there in force, as indeed it was on every occasion when we discussed it, simply because of the sheer cost to the railway system in this country of keeping the wretched plant at bay.

We are not talking about trivial issues as far as the nation is concerned when it comes to certain aspects of non-native species in this country. For agriculture alone, the cost in England and Wales seems to be getting on for £1 billion. That is an awful lot of money being spent in seeking to control a plant. In the European Union, the annual cost of non-native species is €12 billion. We were gratified to hear at the Defra briefing this morning of the extent to which there was international movement and action on this, and that the European community was playing its full role in this. There were one or two interesting exceptions that we heard about, which raised an eyebrow or two; many of us thought that the Danish scarcely merited the kind of exemptions that we in this country could hardly get for particular products and local parts of the economy; nevertheless, the Danes had obviously put up a good case.

However, I want to emphasise that we have to get this right. I know when I say those words that it is not possible to get it right, because it is a continual battle against change, some of it produced by climate change, which accelerates the difficulties.

We support the clause. The reason we want to probe the Minister is obvious enough; the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, did the task for me. Red kites were reintroduced at Woburn, not far from where I live. The first arrival of a red kite on a tree, resting and then taking off in all its glory is something that I treasure. Of course I applaud the reintroduction of certain species, but I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, said about his anxiety about beavers. That shows the differences there can be between different parts of the community. People I have been talking to thought that beavers might help to restrict floods because they build dams to do so, whereas the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, thought that beaver dams might accelerate the problems. There you are, you pays your money and you takes your choice on that.

Before the Olympic Games, an absolute fortune was spent on clearing the site of my dear friend knotweed. The site had to be cleared of a lot of other very noxious things indeed. One of the great expenses of the Olympic Games was getting the site clear, but Japanese knotweed featured in that and cost £70 million to remove.

We must not underestimate the challenges which such species present. My amendment is tabled in order to get, and I am certain that the Minister will oblige the Committee by giving, a clearer definition of what the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, asked for in the first place.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, we start on quite a fundamental point, on which even the Minister on occasions has not been too secure in the position that she has adopted. When I was asked last night to prepare a short summation of this part of the Bill for wider circulation, I wanted to get things as accurate as I conceivably could, but I found myself wrestling with whether I was referring to one company or companies. Every time that I used the word “companies”, it looked singularly ill placed with the surrounding arguments as far as the Bill is concerned. Therefore, Amendment 1 asks the Minister to clarify what is, after all, a pretty fundamental point, and we would not want to continue our deliberations without having cleared it up.

At Second Reading, the Minister certainly said:

“Yes, it is the Government’s intention to set up just one company. It is standard template language in legislation, I understand, to create the option of further entities. It has no sinister meaning at all behind it. The intention is for a single company, but of course the lawyers always think about what-ifs in the most extraordinary way”—

she did not sound too convinced by the argument herself. However, she went on:

“I guess we did not really kick back against that but, yes, it is one company”.—[Official Report, 18/6/14; col. 896.]

I congratulate her on putting up a pretty stout defence of her position, but even in that stout defence there is a certain ambivalence, as there is in the Bill. That is why Amendment 5 in my name would remove a provision from Schedule 1 that makes rules for when two different strategic highways companies interact, which certainly suggests that the Government are planning for more than one strategic highways company.

It looks a fairly limited argument to say, “The lawyers guard against every development and therefore we may need more than one”. The debate about the Bill will be coloured very significantly indeed if we must take on board the fact that there may be two strategic highways companies. To make the most obvious point, we will want to know how they will interact, and we have amendments down that relate to that. If the Minister is able to clarify the issue and state that, as it is the Government’s intention to establish just one company, she will look at the Bill again to ensure that it is framed in that way, I am quite sure that that would set a lot of minds at rest and make for a much more straightforward discussion.

I assure the Minister that whether there is one or more than one strategic highways company has quite a conditional effect upon the legislation. Our concern is not just about one passing fancy of the lawyers but about something that may be of real substance. Some of my more prophetic colleagues say, “Why don’t you come to terms with the fact that this is all about setting up the strategic highways authority for privatisation? Of course, you will want more than one, and this will neatly fit in with privatisation plans in the not-so-distant future”. Well, I am not a cynical person and I accept what the Government put in the Bill at face value.

It is on that basis that I move this amendment, which would delete “one or more companies” and insert “a company”. In addition, as I said, Amendment 5 would delete sub-paragraph (3) in Schedule 1, which suggests that the existence of more than one potential strategic highways company is not a legal oddity caused by standard drafting—lawyers always make life so much more interesting for us all when they turn to drafting—but a scenario actively envisaged by the drafters of the Bill. It clearly makes provision for what should happen in the event that one strategic highways company should wish to build a bridge connecting to another. One and one still make two and therefore this problem could arise only if there is more than one strategic highways company.

There is understandable concern that the Government are considering a model where the SHC might be franchised out in some not-too-distant future. If that is the intention, it reinforces our many concerns about this measure, but I venture to suggest that this concern is as great as any. Therefore, I ask for reassurance from the Minister that, when I next write about the Bill and try to communicate intelligently with a wider audience, I am able to refer to one company in the singular the whole time and make some coherent sense out of this measure. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment because there are already precedents for having a multiple infrastructure. One is the M6 toll road. I believe that the company running it was given a 90-year lease to maintain and operate it and charge whatever it liked as tolls for the next 90 years, or whatever it was. If, in the future, there is a plan for road tolling, as appears more likely with this Bill—I certainly welcome that and will be talking about it in later amendments—whatever tolling the Government of the day propose, the M6 toll road will not be part of it. Whether that will increase or decrease its traffic, I do not have a clue; it depends on what the charges are. It is a particularly bad example because most of the freight goes on the existing road and damages it quite dramatically—the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has an amendment down on road damage—but this is just one example of what can happen if there is no co-ordination over the whole country.

A second example is that, just after the last election, there were various plans and threats from the then Secretary of State that Network Rail would be broken up into other regions or zones because it was not performing properly. The idea presumably was that there would be competition between those zones for quality, capacity and charging, and for anything else that you come across. Luckily, that did not go ahead. I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group. The idea of having a different charge for whichever way you go between A and B would be just ridiculous; the business would not work.

The problem here is that, as the Bill stands, you could have more than one infrastructure company. Wales might well choose to be different. I do not think Scotland is part of this legislation, so the charges will be different there. Then there will be all the arguments about doing one thing one way and then leaving the rest of it and coming along and doing something else that is slightly different. There would also be the interfaces and the knock-on and consequential effects, which might be quite serious. I think that my noble friend is quite right in tabling this amendment and speaking so eloquently in favour of it. I do not know why we need more than one infrastructure company to run the trunk roads—there are not that many of them, actually—and why we cannot leave it as a singular company.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

I support my noble friend’s amendment. I am glad that he is here, because I am not sure that any other of us could have moved it. He did it very well. I want to compare this situation with what is happening to Network Rail, of which I declare an interest as being a member.

I have just come from a meeting with Network Rail where we have been told what is going to happen by 1 September, when it comes under government ownership. That sounds as if it is going to be quite easy, apart from changing all the memoranda and articles and allowing the Secretary of State or the accounting officer in a department to make certain appointments and control things. However, that is being done without much, if any, parliamentary scrutiny, because I do not think that anybody is particularly worried about it. Network Rail has been in the private sector up to now, but it has had £4 billion or so a year from public funds. It has managed to work and not cause trouble; otherwise, this would probably have happened sooner. However, there still have to be changes. I worry about it going in the other direction. As my noble friend Lord Whitty said, the consequences need some public debate, because there might be many more people who are worried about it, not least the people who work for the new company while it is government owned. It is reasonable to have some parliamentary scrutiny of a change. Therefore, I support the amendment in his name.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I imagine that the Minister will have little difficulty in responding to this amendment. She is obviously going to continue to deny that privatisation is anywhere on the horizon as far as the Government are concerned—so that is one defence. Secondly, I hope that she recognises that there would need to be significant parliamentary action if privatisation of a significant company such as this were carried out. I am therefore anticipating the Minister quite enjoying responding to this amendment, which I am glad my noble friend has aired.

Civil Aviation Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Berkeley

Monday 2nd July 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I do not think that the issue of payment is likely to arise with members of the Royal Family or diplomatic staff because the arrangements for how they should be treated are agreed with the airport authorities. That is very different from saying that you can enhance the value of your ticket with extra money to get through the queue quickly. That is the practice to which I object. I am not saying that the Royal Family fit into that category. I imagine that it is also not the case for diplomats. We also have control over the process of entry to the country for air crews, but we do not expect them to take their turn in the queue because we recognise that special arrangements should be made for them. I do not want to exclude some special arrangements; I object to a scheme that enables those who are wealthy enough to purchase privilege.

[Lord Berkeley]

I suppose my noble friend is thinking in particular about those bankers who are now all over the press for possibly having committed criminal acts to fiddle the LIBOR. They are probably the only people who could afford to spend an extra £2,000 or so to save five or 10 minutes—or maybe several hours—coming into the country. There is just one thing that I would add to this. There is some benefit in having famous people who are prepared to speak out going through the same process as everyone else. Occasionally, they get so fed up that they go to the media and complain about it. I suspect that part of the reason why things are getting better at immigration in airports is that one or two people have had the guts to speak out and say, “This is iniquitous”. If these people were tempted to jump the queue by paying £1,000 or £2,000, we would lose that. My noble friend has made a very strong argument for having this in legislation on the basis that people should not pay extra for special treatment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

On the latter category, we are shortly to debate the arrangements for the disabled, and I hope to provide reassurance. I accept what the noble Lord is saying; of course there are special arrangements for the disabled. We all know why it is necessary for the law to be strengthened in that area, and I shall be proposing an amendment to deal with that matter.

The situation that I have identified is not concerned with people going through different routes according to their ticket, but the question of how one goes through the state’s immigration controls. The contention that you are less of a security risk because you are wealthy is dubious. After all, I seem to remember Bin Laden did not come from a totally impecunious family. It is not the case that those who have a great deal of money are better security risks. Why on earth should everyone else, for the necessary security of the nation, be obliged to suffer some of the privations that occur from time to time? I fail to understand how one can market a package that guarantees that one is whisked through security.

[Lord Berkeley]

Does my noble friend agree that the key to the amendment is the word, “buying”. There is nothing to stop the provision of different queues for first-class passengers or others at check-in or security. The question is: have they paid extra to go through that facility rather than for the facilities on the flight?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am aware that a similarly worded amendment was tabled in Committee in the House of Commons, but that related to Clause 83, on provision of:

“Information for the benefit of users of air transport services”.

The stated aim of that amendment was to close a perceived gap in the information that will be published under that clause on what passengers can expect to experience when departing or arriving at an airport, especially in relation to how long they should expect to wait to have their passport checked. The Government supported the broad intention of that amendment. Giving consumers more information on the quality of service provided by airports and airlines will help to maximise the benefits that markets deliver to passengers. However, the Minister of State ultimately resisted the amendment on the basis that the Bill already enables the CAA to require the collection and publication of information on check-in, baggage handling and security queues. He further explained that the UK border force, the authority responsible for border controls relating to arriving and departing passengers and goods, is responsible to Ministers and Parliament, and said that this is a more effective and appropriate means to hold the UK border force to account than giving the CAA power to oversee its activities.

The amendment today goes further than the previous one by seeking to prevent users from buying preferential access to check-in, security, immigration control and baggage reclaim processes. In considering the amendment, the Committee should note the distinction between check-in and baggage reclaim processes, and aviation security and border-control processes—the latter being subject to exacting standards enshrined in legislation. For example, airports are required, pursuant to international standards and EU and domestic regulatory requirements, to ensure that all passengers undergo security screening to specified levels. This is subject to monitoring and enforcement through security inspections and tests by the regulator. Legislation also requires full travel document checks to be conducted on all passengers, including all British citizens, arriving at the UK border. As the Minister of State made clear in the House of Commons, the security of our borders and the checks that need to be undertaken to protect us from those who would enter our country to do us harm are treated with paramount importance.

I am aware that the BAA runs a VIP suite scheme at Heathrow. The UK border force does not charge BAA or the VIPs any money for the provision of this service, nor does the BAA cover any border force costs. I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, with full details of the number of years that these arrangements have been in place. As long as standards of security and immigration are maintained at all times and in respect of all passengers, the Government do not wish to prevent the market offering access to these services, which are tailored to the needs of passengers. However, there is no question of reduced security, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Davies.

Your Lordships will no doubt be aware that a number of airlines offer faster check-in services to premium travellers who are willing to pay a premium for the service. The Government do not wish to prevent passengers benefiting from such products. If the concern is that the purchase of preferential access to check-in or baggage control processes would be an impediment to competition, the Bill already provides the CAA with the necessary powers to address that.

In summary, aviation security and immigration processes at UK airports must comply with exacting standards that are enshrined in legislation. There is no scope for passengers to pay to avoid these processes. The Government believe that the amendment goes too far in attempting to prevent the market offering access to these and other services that are tailored to the specific needs of users. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will consider withdrawing the amendment.

Civil Aviation Bill

Debate between Lord Davies of Oldham and Lord Berkeley

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to the noble Earl for that explanation. I have a couple of very simple and quick questions. I assume that when he says there is an issue about being subject to price control, he is talking about baggage handling, car parking and things like that rather than the price of slots, which I think he said is outside everything. I would be grateful for his confirmation of that.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

The Minister will, no doubt, give an answer to that in just a moment. I am grateful to him for these amendments. As he said, there was considerable anxiety in the other place when discussing the concept of the dominant market. I am still trying to get my head round the position in respect of baggage at Heathrow being a dominant market, but will take the Minister’s word for that. I certainly accept the other extreme he put forward: all the airports in the south-east. We appreciate that, with these amendments, the Minister has helped to reassure us over the anxieties that were expressed in the other place. We all appreciate that it is not easy to get to this definition and that considerable efforts have been made. At first, I thought the cross-reference to the European Commission looked a bit like overkill, but the Minister is making sure he has belt and braces with regard to this, in response to the challenges that were made in the other place. I am quite sure my colleagues there will join me in thanking him for these amendments and accepting that they go a considerable way to allaying past anxieties and help the Bill.