High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill
Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate, which has been quite interesting for me as well. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, that I am absolutely thrilled to be left holding the baby. It is a beautiful baby and I am honoured to do so.
I found the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, to be appalling. I was quite staggered to hear him say things like we must not be held prisoners of the past. Images came to mind of students pulling down statues of slave owners and I wonder if he supports those as well. It is absolutely fantastic if he does. He made comments about how the railway must be straight. It does if trains are going at 250 miles an hour, which is the planned speed for it. Of course, the railway will not do that at first—it will be 225 mph or something—but is still exponentially far less environmentally friendly at that sort of speed. Yes, it has to be a straight railway line because it cannot go around corners, which means that the line will go through a lot of extremely valuable land.
Both the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, talked about replacement trees. I congratulate them on wanting replacement trees, but there is also the fact that in the drought of summer 2018, tens of thousands of trees that HS2 Ltd had planted died. It said that it was cheaper to replace them than to water then, which means that 89,000 trees died and were replaced with, again, small trees. What is needed as a replacement is large trees; if you have to keep replacing them, you will keep on getting small trees. I would argue that HS2 is not entirely reliable about planting its trees.
As usual, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, was extremely kind to me, apart from the comment about my short fuse, which is sadly true. I am glad that he likes Amendment 10, which is a credit from him and I thank him for it. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, on planting hardwoods instead of pines. I am not sure that I liked his description of Amendment 10 as “well intentioned and harmless”. I would like to think it is tough and radical. I also congratulate him on pronouncing my name correctly, which many Peers do not.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, talked about the rich ecosystem that exists in ancient woods. That is the whole point: it is difficult, if not impossible, to replicate that when such biospheres are very precious. This is not just about preserving the past; it is about making sure that our whole environment stays healthy. Sometimes we do not know, until we have lost them, what the precious things we have do overall. I am also glad that she talked about wetlands and meadows, which of course are just as important. Had there been amendments concerning them, I would have supported them fully.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, congratulated the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on her incredibly important work on this. I thank the Minister. It was good that she talked about direct and indirect impacts. That was valuable, but I am not clear how the lessons learned will be dealt with by the Government and am not sure if the Minister is able to let us know. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 10.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
Would the Minister care to respond at this point? She will do so later.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
We come to the group consisting of Amendment 12. I remind noble Lords that Members, other than the mover and the Minister, may speak only once and that short questions of elucidation are discouraged. Anyone wishing to press this amendment to a Division should make that clear in the debate.
Amendment 12
Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings on Public Transport) (England) Regulations 2020
Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Rennard (LD) [V]
My Lords, face coverings have been mandatory on public transport since 15 June, but since then I have seen people on buses not wearing them and removing them to make phone calls, have a drink or, in one case, floss their teeth. How can the travelling public be persuaded to keep masks on throughout their journey?
Can more be done to assist people with disabilities, who should not have to remove their masks to explain their need to occupy a seat? Special freedom passes are issued in London to extremely vulnerable people with disabilities. Could special face masks not also be issued to these people, displaying a request to “Please offer me a seat”, to avoid them having to remove their masks to request this?
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
The next speaker is the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. No? We may return to her later in the proceedings. I will move on to the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann.
Civil Aviation (Insurance) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020
Lord Duncan of Springbank Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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The Deputy Speaker (Lord Duncan of Springbank) (Con)
Now, where were we? Let us begin. The Motion is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Vere of Norbiton. I remind noble Lords that the time limit for this debate is one and a half hours.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]
My Lords, I apologise for the technical issues. I blame them on the weather.
These draft regulations will be made under the powers conferred by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and will be needed at the end of the transition period. As noble Lords are aware, the Government are committed to ensuring that the UK has a functioning statute book at the end of the transition period while we continue to work to achieve a positive future relationship with the EU. We have therefore conducted particularly intensive work to ensure that there continues to be a well-functioning legislative and regulatory regime for aviation, including for insurance.
These regulations are the second in a series to address deficiencies in a recent EU regulation relating to minimum insurance requirements for air carriers and aircraft operators in respect of passengers, baggage, cargo and third parties. I will give noble Lords some background. EU Regulation 785/2004 requires air carriers and aircraft operators to be insured in respect of passengers, baggage, cargo and third parties and against other risks such as acts of war, terrorism, hijacking, acts of sabotage, unlawful seizure of aircraft and civil commotion. The amounts for which carriers and operators are required to be insured are measured in special drawing rights, an international reserve asset created by the International Monetary Fund. The EU regulation also requires air carriers and aircraft operators to demonstrate their compliance with the minimum insurance requirements set out in the regulation.
The withdrawal Act will retain Regulation 785/2004 in UK law in its entirety at the end of the transition period. In practical terms, the same minimum insurance requirements for air carriers and aircraft operators that apply today will continue to apply after the transition period.
The first SI relating to this area, the Civil Aviation (Insurance) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018—I will call them “the 2018 regulations”—was made in October 2018. It made changes to the retained regulation so that it continues to function correctly after EU exit. The need for today’s SI has arisen after the EU adopted Regulation 2019/1243, which amended Regulation 785/2004 after the 2018 regulations were made. The purpose of this SI is to fix further deficiencies introduced by those amendments.
The amendments made by this SI are minor and technical in nature. This instrument makes no changes to the policy intent. Regulation 785/2004 includes powers for the Commission to adjust minimum required levels of insurance where international treaties make this necessary. The 2018 regulations converted these into powers for the Secretary of State to do the same via regulations. However, since the 2018 regulations were made, the EU’s amendments to Regulation 785/2004 have replaced the Commission powers with new versions more closely aligned to the legal framework established by the treaty of Lisbon. These regulations take the same approach used in the 2018 regulations for the previous versions of the Commission powers. They replace them with powers for the Secretary of State to amend the minimum insurance requirements by regulations. That is all that this SI does.
In summary, no change in policy is made by these regulations. They make only minor technical and consequential changes to ensure that UK legislation on aviation insurance continues to function effectively after the end of the transition period.
I commend these regulations to the House.