Railways: Fares

Debate between Lord Dykes and Earl Attlee

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, on another item of major annoyance to rail users, will the Government encourage the installation of more quiet coaches on all long routes, to follow the excellent example of Virgin Trains, which bans mobile phones in the quiet coaches?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, this is largely a matter for the train operating companies. The difficulty for them is enforcing the quiet carriage rules. I like a quiet carriage, but some people do not adhere to the rules.

Aviation: Hand-luggage Restrictions

Debate between Lord Dykes and Earl Attlee

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, if an airline disagrees with itself then it will acquire some very bad publicity. We have seen that in the press on several occasions recently as regards not only musical instruments but other problems associated with check-in as well.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, on behalf of non-musical as well as musical travellers perhaps I may ask the Minister whether he is confident that it will not be too long before the electronic security check-in machines that we all have to go through at airports will allow us not to have to take off our shoes, belts and other articles of clothing, because this machinery is more efficient.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, considerable progress is being made on the development of screening equipment. I hope we will see significant improvements in the coming months.

Roads: Charging

Debate between Lord Dykes and Earl Attlee

Thursday 18th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord makes an important point. We are looking very closely at what our European partners are doing. It is important to remember that their problems are slightly different from ours. European states have a lot of through traffic. We do not have so much through traffic, but we do have lots of foreign vehicles coming to deliver to the UK.

[Lord Dykes]

Will the Minister confirm that the plans will include a close look at the prepaid plastic card system for distance travelling, which is likely to be gradually and increasingly adopted in all European member states and will create a single market in road haulage costs?

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. It is one of the obvious options to look at.

Railways: Network Rail

Debate between Lord Dykes and Earl Attlee

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, when I was in opposition I could never get to the bottom of why the party opposite created the Strategic Rail Authority and then abolished it.

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, will my noble friend also discuss with Network Rail the very worrying appearance of extra-heavy costs in their operations and the infrastructure costs? In comparison with other European countries, they seem to be strangely and unusually high.