(5 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, as I said, we absolutely are consulting Transport for the North on our funding, and we have committed that £2.9 billion to the trans-Pennine routes upgrade, which is the largest investment in existing railways at the moment. Obviously, the rail system is complex, crossing all parts of the country, and it is important that we co-ordinate it centrally, but we listen to the needs of people in the areas where we are making the investment.
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the construction of a high-speed network is critical to the provision of extra capacity for freight on the entire rail network north of London, and not just to the Midlands but to the north-west and the north-east?
I certainly agree with the noble Lord. Our railways are absolutely at capacity—we have seen a doubling of passengers—and we desperately need more space, which is what HS2 will deliver.
(6 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberI join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for securing this very interesting debate. I too welcome the Minister to her first railway debate. I am sure there will be many more and I hope she will be here to take part in those as well. There can be no one in your Lordships’ House who disagrees with the aspiration to improve the quality of Britain’s rail services. I remind the House of my railway-related interests as declared in the register, particularly my chairmanship of the Great Western Railway advisory board. I am also president of the Cotswold Line Promotion Group, and chair of the North Cotswold Line Task Force, which has been set up by Worcestershire County Council and is supported by all local authorities and local enterprise partnerships in the area to act as the catalyst for a better and more reliable train service.
As the noble Lord, Lord Patten, may remember from his days as the Member for Oxford, the principal obstacle to achieving this is the infrastructure, as there are still substantial lengths of single-track railway at both the Oxford and Worcester ends of the line. Short of closing the route altogether, which was talked about in the immediate post-Beeching era, no single decision damaged the reliability of rail services—not just on the Cotswold Line but on routes such as the noble Lord’s South Western Main Line to Exeter—as much as that to reduce a double-track main line railway to single track, because of the delays that inevitably creates at the passing points.
Apologists for the Governments at the time—both Labour and Conservative—argued that, as the railways were thought to be in terminal decline, taking out excess capacity and eliminating alternative routes were inevitable and necessary cost-cutting measures. What utter nonsense that was, and how short-sighted. While none of us who were working in the industry then could have foreseen the astonishing growth in passenger demand over the past two decades, just a small degree of foresight in the 1970s and 1980s—particularly leaving infrastructure in place rather than ripping it out—could have saved hundreds of millions of pounds today as Network Rail battles to restore capacity and reopen routes such as that from Oxford to Cambridge through Milton Keynes.
That leads me to High Speed 2, the project conceived by my noble friend Lord Adonis and supported steadfastly by all transport Ministers after him, and by an overwhelming majority of Members of this House and the other place. In my view, the argument in favour of High Speed 2 has now been comprehensively won, and we look forward to the publication of the hybrid Bill which will take the railway north from Birmingham towards the end of the next decade. When we weigh up the arguments, we should take account of what we know about High Speed 1, Britain’s first high-speed line, from London to the Channel Tunnel through Kent. As recently as last September, Visit Kent published a report to mark the 10th anniversary of the line. It found that since 2010, leisure journeys to Kent via High Speed 1 had increased ninefold, from 100,000 to 890,000 in 2016, and that the total economic impact of HS1 on the visitor economy in 2016 alone was valued at £72.7 million. For every High Speed 1 leisure journey made to Kent in 2016, £81.65 was added to the local economy. Since 2010, High Speed 1’s activity has led to the creation and support of 5,766 tourism sector jobs in Kent. These are real facts relating to a real railway, so when we hear about projections for High Speed 2 we need to take those into account and realise what the benefits to the Midlands and the north of England will be when the railway gets there.
The other really significant point to make about High Speed 1 is its astonishing reliability. In 2017, the average delay affecting all operators, including the high-speed domestic Southeastern services as well as Eurostar, is just six seconds per train—the sort of reliability figure that the Japanese railways achieve regularly with their high-speed trains. So, the lesson for High Speed 2 is that a new railway is a reliable railway. It is also a popular railway which attracts customers in greater and greater numbers and provides the capacity which our conventional main lines can no longer offer because demand has grown so much. Above all, these railways demonstrate, and provide the proof, that railways are central to economic growth and prosperity.
We have had a number of briefings for this debate. I particularly commend that of the Railway Industry Association, which points out that passenger numbers have doubled in the last 20 years, that the rail industry employs 240,000 people and contributes £11 billion gross added value to the economy, and that with a vibrant rail industry at home, we are now again able, as we did in the past, to sell our railway expertise abroad. As the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Taiwan, I have had the privilege of leading a railway industry delegation to Taiwan, where there is huge interest in buying British expertise. I anticipate that I shall do that again in January. However, you need a vibrant rail industry at home before you can be credible when you are selling your expertise abroad.
This has been a good debate, and everybody has been reasonably positive. I learned more about the railways of north-east Lancashire than perhaps it was necessary to know, but it was great all the same to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, speak about that. I support his aspiration to take the Colne line through to Skipton. Indeed, I am a member of the pressure group that is attempting to do that. I look forward very much to hearing what the Minister has to say on her first outing at the Dispatch Box.
(7 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberThe noble Lord is right: I do have an extensive list. However, I do not see that one on it, but I will write to him on that particular case.
My Lords, I remind the House of my railway interests in the register. The Minister will be struck by the support that exists all over the House for the reopening of rural railway lines. Can I draw his attention to the report by the Association of Train Operating Companies in 2009, which looked at communities with more than 15,000 inhabitants, and at the potential for reopening services where they used to exist? There were 14 lines of the highest priority where there was either an existing freight line or a disused line. No Government have yet acted on that report, so will the Minister now please have a look at it?
I will certainly have a look at the report, now that the noble Lord has drawn my attention to it.
(7 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberI intervene to remind noble Lords that this is Report. The rules of debate state:
“On report no member may speak more than once to an amendment, except the mover of the amendment in reply or a member who has obtained leave of the House”.
Will the noble Earl take the trouble to read the very wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon, who spoke a few moments ago about the consequences of accepting these amendments? If one of them were passed, the Bill would have to be re-hybridised. It would have to go back to the hybrid Bill Committee and months and months would be taken up by looking at the Bill again with these provisions in it.
I cannot believe that the House would want to do that, bearing in mind the exceptionally good job that the hybrid committee did. I see a number of its members are in the Chamber at the moment and they deserve the thanks of all of us for looking at this Bill in such detail and displaying such patience in listening to huge numbers of petitions and far too many lawyers who were presenting them on behalf of people with, in some cases, entirely spurious objections. The committee went through that very well and came up with a series of recommendations for change, and the Government, to their great credit, have accepted them all either in spirit or literally. The fact that the committee has done that job and we have a Bill to which we can give Third Reading and get work under way is very important.
Old Oak Common is a wonderful place. It is where my great-grandfather lived in a Great Western Railway house when he was a top link driver on the railway in the early years of the 20th century. But it is not a place where people want to go when they are travelling on high-speed trains from Birmingham or the north of England. Indeed, the practicality of finishing a journey there has been addressed by Transport for London. It answers the point made by my noble friend Lord Berkeley about Crossrail. Yes, Crossrail is going really well and will be a great success. But when HS2 arrives at Old Oak Common, it is estimated that about a third of the passengers will get off, get on to Crossrail and go into the City. However, if they were all required to go on to the City, the difference between these two—HS2 terminating at Euston or at Old Oak Common—would, in the words of Transport for London, be the difference between Crossrail coping and Crossrail falling down. That would be the implication of accepting this amendment.
My Lords, it is nice to be thanked for one’s work. I see several Lords from the eclectic group who served on that committee, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, whom I must congratulate on the way he handled both the hearings and the committee.
I have recently been reading a book—I hope this slight digression will be acceptable, as it relates to this amendment—called Mr Barry’s War, by Caroline Shenton, one of the archivists. The bit that I like is when she talks about an attempt by Barry and a group of architects—someone called William “Strata” Smith, a great geologist, was also involved—to find stone to build this place. They travelled all over the UK. They get to Lincoln, with its magnificent gothic minster, the Ancaster stone quarries—said to be Roman—then Grantham, Stamford and nearby Burghley House. Once they get through Kettering and Northampton by coach, they,
“made their way back to London by the novel means of Robert Stephenson’s thrilling new London and Birmingham Railway, which had opened along its whole length just five days previously on 17 September. This was the first London intercity rail line, and Euston station the first mainline terminus in a capital city anywhere in the world. Its magnificent Doric Propylaeum”—
I do not know if I pronounced that correctly—
“or entrance archway, made of millstone grit, stood for 125 years until pulled down by modernist planners in 1962”.
I could not help feeling that that was rather a propitious bit of reading prior to this debate.
We did not debate the overall cost—that was not in the committee’s remit—but we certainly debated some costings by my noble friend Lord Berkeley and his expert witnesses. I regret to say, however, that they did not stack up. Neither did Old Oak Common. I had to smile when someone said, “It’s just an interim stop”. We all know that if it finishes at Old Oak Common it will be a real stretch of the imagination to believe that that will be interim.
The noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, said that the route had not been decided. It has been decided, and we had a debate, I assure noble Lords, on whether it would be more desirable to terminate at Old Oak Common. That was not the view of the committee after listening to a range of expert witnesses and for some of the reasons cited by my noble friend Lord Faulkner.
We can all have a view, if you like, about people’s motives and intentions—I will assume that they are motivated by the best of all reasons—but one thing you cannot assume is that the process would be speedy, for either the first or the sixth amendment. This will be a lengthy process, and, as has been said, we are now seven years—I was going to say “down the track” but that is an unfortunate pun; if only we were. We have some way to go. As someone who, like the noble Lord, served on Crossrail, I remember just as many criticisms of that. Now it is all enthusiasm, but it was not at the time, I assure noble Lords; there were just as many doubters and naysayers.
My view—and you have heard from other colleagues on the committee—is that we gave this a thorough examination, and I am certain that we also debated it in Committee. I cannot remember how many times I have heard this debate. As a former Attorney-General once said, repetition does not necessarily enhance the value of your contribution. I am beginning to feel that way in this case. I hope noble Lords will not support these amendments; I do not believe they add anything to the existing analysis. As I recall, in the recent Grand Committee debate the Minister reported to us that the National Audit Office has run its calculators over this. Every time there has been a challenge on the costings done by HS2—the classic one was on the tunnel costings in Wendover, which we may unfortunately return to again—they were independently checked. The proposed tunnelling at Colne Valley was independently validated and HS2 was found to be correct in those circumstances. I listened carefully to the argument but I incline to the views expressed by so many of my fellow committee members, and by my noble friend Lord Faulkner.
My Lords, I pick up the theme of my noble friend Lord Snape and express my disappointment at the lack of ambition that some Members of this House seem to demonstrate towards our capacity as a nation to build wonderful railways. Some of the finest structures created in the 19th century were built by railway engineers, whether it was viaducts through the Peak District or magnificent railway stations. To have such a lack of ambition and to say, “Gosh, this new line must all go in tunnels because it’s going to be so obtrusive”, is very disappointing. Also, as my noble friend says, it is very expensive. I remember at one of the early briefing meetings given by Sir David Higgins I asked him, “Wouldn’t it be possible to reduce the cost of the project if we didn’t have so much tunnel in it?”. He said, “Yes, but I’m not allowed by the Government to answer that question”. I am not sure whether it was this Government or the previous one who made it impossible for him to answer, but it has undoubtedly added to the cost.
I also make a plea for the people who like travelling by train and love the Chilterns and want to be able to see them. There is no reason why we should not be able to see them rather than the inside of a tunnel from the railway. Look at the other engineering projects in the Chilterns. The M40 is a six-lane motorway which carved a swathe through the Chiltern escarpment, and probably the largest intrusion into an area of outstanding natural beauty in the south of England. There was a lot of objection. It is used by very large numbers of people, but it still causes an intrusion and environmental damage far greater than the two-track railway that we are discussing this evening. Wendover benefits from a new bypass, which is being constructed to one side of the existing Chiltern railway line and is producing a huge amount of noise and traffic. It is very nice for the town because traffic is taken out of the town, but the new railway is going to go alongside that as well. Why is that somehow unreasonable compared with the road that is already there?
The Chilterns are beautiful. The environment of the Chilterns will be enhanced by the building of the railway, and many more people will be able to enjoy them. There is no need for these amendments.
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their participation and contributions to the debate. I am minded to start with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Snape. Certainly when he suggested that I should not be tempted by these amendments, I was reminded that we start proceedings in the House every day with the Lord’s Prayer, which says:
“Lead us not into temptation”.
I will fulfil that prayer’s requirements in my response this afternoon.
We have already touched, even this afternoon, on the cost of HS2. I say again to all noble Lords that the costs of HS2 have been the subject of intense analysis and review over several years, as we have already heard. As I indicated earlier this afternoon, we will continue to review costs for years to come. Let me once again praise the incredible work done collectively by the two Select Committees of both Houses. Let us put this into perspective: it is a combined period of two years of hearing evidence, considering all aspects of the proposed Bill, and on many occasions reviewing the costs for elements of the phase 1 scheme when asked to consider potential alternative options. It is sometimes suggested, and has been suggested again, that somehow there has not been an exhaustive examination; I challenge that. The best way to do so is to read the detailed analysis, recommendations and reports of both Select Committees. I recommend that to all noble Lords who have not yet had the pleasure.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green. As he noted in Committee, and as he has reminded us, the Select Committee considered all options that were presented for additional lengths of tunnelling in the Chilterns and in Wendover. It was not convinced of the need to recommend any further work on any of these options. As I have already said, these were exhaustive discussions, and I believe that that decision should be respected.
The Select Committees of both Houses also considered in detail the provision of additional environmental mitigation measures. It pains me to say it, but I disagree with my noble friend Lady Pidding that the Government have not published details of how certain things have been considered during the process of the Bill. It is worth noting, as I hope my noble friend will acknowledge, that many assurances have been given to the areas covered by the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty, including the provision of a £3 million fund for additional environmental mitigation measures.
My noble friend raised the issue of publishing tunnelling costs. The information used to assess the decision on whether it is appropriate to undertake a bore tunnel past Wendover and an extended bore tunnel through the Chilterns was published as part of the exhibits placed before both Select Committees that were used to establish the Government’s position regarding the decision not to provide any additional tunnelling. It was that information that the Select Committee—I refer to the Commons Select Committee here—used to recommend an extended tunnel in the Chilterns and an extension to the tunnel in Wendover. The exhibits included figures for several Chiltern tunnel options, which I mentioned in Committee. They range from £82 million to £485 million. The additional extension of 2.6 kilometres to the Chilterns tunnel, which I hope my noble friend acknowledges, was agreed following a specific recommendation from the Select Committee in the other place. That was at a cost of £47 million.
Turning to the costs more generally, an updated cost estimate for the project is published, as I said earlier this afternoon, at every iteration of the business case. I repeat that the next iteration is due for publication in the summer of 2017. The project as a whole, including its cost estimate and business case, is subject to regular independent review from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority—
(7 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberThe noble Lord raises an important point about the regulator. The regulator will remain the same as on other networks. On the issue of the pricing structure, again, that will feed into the development of this new working arrangement. Let me assure the noble Lord that on issues of health and safety, which the regulator also oversees, there shall be no compromise and the regulator will continue to have the same role.
My Lords, I remind the House of my railway interests, as declared in the register. On the east-west route, the Oxford to Cambridge line, the Minister will know that it was the most inexplicable of all the post-Beeching closures. It was not even listed for closure in the Beeching report. It closed in 1967 at exactly the time that Milton Keynes was designated as a new city capable of taking 250,000 people. The East West Rail consortium has been campaigning for 47 years to reopen the line. Can he give an assurance that the announcement he has made today will not delay that a day longer than necessary.
The noble Lord is right to point out the history behind this line. Indeed, it predates my life. Nevertheless, it is an important issue and today’s announcement underlines the Government’s commitment to ensuring delivery. We hope the new arrangement will, if anything, bring forward the construction that I have outlined today.
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberI am perfectly satisfied with what the Minister has said in so far as it concerns bus franchising, but the bus and rail industries are very much linked together. I am trying to bring to his attention the fact that the work of the CMA in the latest case has probably been fruitless. It has been very expensive and, in future, rail franchising should be subject to the same discipline now proposed for bus services. With that, I should like to withdraw the amendment.
It may be for the convenience of noble Lords if I remind the House that we are debating government Amendment 1, and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has been speaking to Amendments 4 and 5, which are grouped with that amendment.
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing his amendment, which closely mirrors one that I brought forward in Committee what seems like quite a long time ago. The success of the Bill will to a very large extent be determined by the attitude of the Competition and Markets Authority. In its advice to government, it has made it clear that it sees this form of franchising very much as an inferior form of competition compared to on-road competition. That is an attitude I find extraordinary. After all, we do not have on-road bin collection competition, with companies whizzing around fighting over who collects the bins. We accept that, under those circumstances, it is a perfectly rational thing to do—and there is absolutely a case to be made with buses. The problem is with the insistence that it must be the only way, which is likely to prove a hurdle that most local authorities will simply not be able to reach. I am very keen that this amendment should go through, not because it can do anything to halt the CMA but because if it is cited at an early stage and then has a problem, at least it will become clear to the franchising authority very quickly. That authority would not spend a huge amount of money on developing a scheme that is likely to fall foul of the CMA later.
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, it is absolutely important that as a Minister in the Department for Transport I make sure that the commission is always recognised as having full integrity and independence. Therefore, even when pressed with this question at my own party conference, I have always refused to give any answer other than that the Government will comment after the final report is submitted in 2015.
My Lords, in view of the improbability of any new runway capacity being constructed in the south-east during the lifetime of most Members of your Lordships’ House, does the Minister not agree that this is the time to look very seriously at the role of regional airports such as Birmingham, which will be only 47 minutes from central London by High Speed 2?
My Lords, I think that under all circumstances it is important to look at the potential for regional airports, Birmingham being one. There are numerous others across the country with ambitions.
(9 years, 9 months ago)
Lords Chamber My Lords, in moving Amendment 53A, which is in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Bradshaw and Lord Jenkin of Roding, whom I am delighted to see in his place at this late hour, I shall speak also to the other amendments in this group, which were tabled by the Minister and by the same group of four of us.
I start by expressing my very genuine thanks to the Minister for listening so closely to the arguments which were put forward in Grand Committee and for accepting the principle that the Infrastructure Bill is an appropriate vehicle to put right the anomalies surrounding the jurisdiction and powers of the British Transport Police. That is why I was happy to add my name to her Amendment 53. I shall not repeat the arguments that I made in Committee on 8 July, not least because the Minister has accepted many of those points.
However, there remains the one unresolved issue, to which the Minister referred, and that concerns Section 100(3)(b) of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. The Minister said that she wants to keep that in being and the purpose of our amendment is to take it out. In effect, subsection (3)(b) states that when a BTP officer is off-jurisdiction he or she has to decide whether to act and use the power of arrest. That involves a judgment call—indeed, the Minister used those words. This aspect has been addressed very directly by the chair of the British Transport Police Authority, Millie Banerjee, who wrote to the Minister about subsection (3)(b) last Friday. She wrote:
“This subsection requires BTP officers to work through a complex legal test, often in quick time, which can result in uncertainty, challenge and delays in responding to the public.
I illustrate the problem with subsection (3)(b) with a practical example on metal theft. BTP is the ACPO Lead Force for metal theft and officers regularly conduct visits to scrap metal dealers’ yards, which are outwith BTP jurisdiction, to inspect their record keeping. This enforcement activity has a proven deterrent and detection function which has been a critical factor in the substantial reductions in metal theft crime on the railways and other sectors across the UK.
Although BTP officers exploit intelligence to target their visits, there will often be an absence of specific grounds to suspect that stolen railway metal will be at the yard. In the strictest sense of the current legislation, under subsection (3)(b), BTP officers should arguably call upon local Home Office colleagues to attend the yard and exercise any relevant powers. This would be duplication of effort and is hard to justify to a public who understand the pressure on police resources. In reality BTP officers exercise the relevant powers but are having to make their action fit the complex provisions of this subsection. This is not in the view of the Authority satisfactory and introduces risk of legal challenge where none should exist. It is to the detriment of the fight against metal theft”.
The Minister is apparently concerned that if this provision were removed the BTP would go off-piste, as it were, and not dedicate their time to railway duties. That is simply not true. Indeed, Ms Banerjee answers that point directly:
“Should you feel able to support the removal of subsection (3)(b) I can allay any fears that BTP will stray from its clear focus on the railways. Chief Constable Paul Crowther has committed to reducing crime and disruption on the railways by 20% by 2019. This focus, reinforced by the oversight of the Authority and the requirement to satisfy BTP stakeholders, will ensure that strong control will be exercised with regard to any wider jurisdictional power granted for BTP”.
Very similar points have been made in letters and e-mails to me from Dame Shirley Pearce and Chief Constable Alex Marshall, the chair and chief executive officer respectively of the College of Policing, and by Roger Randall, the general secretary of the British Transport Police Federation. They all say that our original amendment should be supported because it removes the whole of Section 100(3) of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. Dame Shirley Pearce, in her letter to me, says:
“The general public expect the police to act and behave consistently and to work to consistently high standards. It is in the public interest that a parity is sought in the way in which police officers are able to discharge their duties and that, wherever practical, obstacles to consistency are identified and removed”.
We know that legal challenges are occasionally made on the issue of jurisdiction. I shall share with your Lordships an extraordinary case from Scotland. On 21 May 2011, there was a disturbance—a fight—at a car boot sale in the car park of a primary school in Glasgow. A BTP sergeant, who was off-duty and not carrying his warrant card, happened to be there and made an arrest for breach of the peace. The arrested person made a legal challenge stating that it was an unlawful arrest because the officer did not have his warrant card on him. BTP had to pay £1,000 in damages and £240 in costs—not a good use of public money when all the officer was doing was acting in the public interest and conscientiously doing his duty when not on jurisdiction.
In conclusion, I am genuinely grateful to the Minister for moving such a long distance since we debated this in Grand Committee. Indeed, her amendment relating to level crossings in Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act is an improvement on ours, since it does not restrict the wording to railway offences. This is good news because road traffic offences occur on service roads and railway property and it is important for the BTP to deal with offences such as drink-driving or dangerous driving on those roads. Our only area of disagreement is subsection (3). I urge the Minister, please, to take account of the views of Members in all parts of this House, of the chair of the British Transport Police Authority, of the chair and chief executive officer of the College of Policing and of the general secretary of the BTP Federation, and agree with our amendment to remove it. I beg to move.
I echo the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, in my thanks to the Minister for having gone so far to meet the case made very forcefully in Committee last July. As I said briefly then—I shall not be any longer tonight, I assure the House—I found the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, advanced on that occasion to be absolutely incontrovertible. Like him, I am disappointed that the Minister has not gone the whole way.
I listened with great care to what the Minister said about why the Government have found it necessary to retain those restrictions, as they indeed are, on the British Transport Police’s activities in Section 100(3)(b) of the 2001 Act. Frankly, I find the suggestion that a British Transport Police officer will somehow be distracted from his primary duty of policing the railways because he finds it more exciting to do things, as it were, off his main beat to be a frivolous argument. I am sorry to sound a bit condemnatory, but I simply cannot see how it could conceivably happen.
I have not seen any of the correspondence that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has had and from which he quoted a few moments ago. However, one of those letters made it absolutely clear that the writer, a very senior officer in the British Transport Police, regarded this as so unlikely that it ought not to be seriously considered. That is exactly my view and I am very sorry to hear my noble friend advance that as an argument.
One knows that behind this is the long-standing argument between my noble friend’s department and the Home Office, which is responsible for the constables in the rest of the country, except of course in London. However, to try to compromise with that department on this issue is something that no noble Lord in this House or Member of Parliament in another place would feel was reasonable. For that reason, I very much hope that my noble friend—I recognise that we are not going to vote tonight; it would be a slightly weird Division—will reconsider this between now and Third Reading and bring forward another amendment, or, as the Bill was first introduced in this House, consider with her colleagues whether she might put this nonsense right in another place. Having got this far with something for which Parliament has argued and waited over many years, falling at the last fence would be very sad indeed. I beg my noble friend to recognise that her argument does not carry much weight and she should face up to the Home Secretary and say, “I’m sorry, we are going the whole way. We are going to repeal paragraph (b) also”.
My Lords, I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that his Government failed to change any of these clauses and we are now getting to grips with a long-standing issue.
I first pick up on the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, who described a case that obviously outraged the House. That is exactly a situation that can no longer stand, given the amendments that the Government are bringing forward. An officer would not be in the position in which, in the absence of a warrant card, he would be vulnerable. The amendments that we have brought forward would precisely deal with that issue for an officer in plain clothes using a warrant card who was attempting to prevent an injury. That incident is clearly covered.
I suppose that I have been in the department for only a year, but I am conscious of the constant attempts to raid the BTP for many other services, and the view of a lot of the forces across the country that the BTP ought to be an available resource. We are absolutely clear that changing the language in the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, suggested would make this a far easier task. It is crucial for the future of rail transport that there is a genuinely dedicated force. I point out again that it is paid for by the railway industry, which adds to its concern that its force would be available to operate in any neighbourhood on any issue. I ask it to make a judgment; police forces make judgments the whole time, and the judgment that we are asking the force to make is well within the scope of its competence on the few such occasions that arise, without the general change that has been requested. I think we have gone as far as we can on this and I also ask your Lordships to rethink the position they are taking, because it is genuinely important that we keep the British Transport Police dedicated to the railways in the way that it is at present.
My Lords, I naturally accept the Minister’s point. Nobody is a greater defender of the BTP’s role in policing our railways than I am. For her to say that none of this was undertaken during the years of the previous Government is a bit unfair to those of us who have been raising the issue of the role and jurisdiction of the BTP since, in my case, 2001. Putting that to one side, the officer in the punch-up in the school playground would still have had to make the judgment call required in subsection (3)(b). A clever lawyer could easily say he acted without thinking properly. That would not have applied to any other officer and subsection (3)(b) is unacceptable because it treats BTP officers differently from civil police officers and puts them on a different level. As public policy, that is not in anybody’s interest.
I am obviously not going to invite the House to come to a decision on this tonight and I will ask permission to withdraw the amendment to the Government’s amendment. However, I very much reinforce the arguments made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding—I thank him for them—which were very persuasive, particularly in suggesting to the Minister that she might use the few weeks between now and Third Reading to consider whether the Government can come back.
There is one other matter to which I did not refer in my speech because I was a little taken aback by what the Minister said in hers in relation to Scotland and its attitude to the Bill. Will she be kind enough to write to me about that decision, which I had not heard about before and which came as a bit of a bombshell tonight? Could she explain what that piece of legislation means in terms of BTP operation in Scotland? Obviously, the law relating to level crossings is fine and we have no disagreement on that. However, it strikes me as very odd indeed that Scotland may not be willing to accept such a simple change as the one we are proposing.
In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
(9 years, 10 months ago)
Grand CommitteeI have to advise the Committee that if Amendment 98AZA is approved, I shall not be able to call Amendment 98AB for reason of pre-emption.
Amendment 98AZA
(10 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I know my noble friend’s interest in the Calder Valley so I can say generically that we have been investing very heavily in transport schemes in the north. Some £554 million for schemes outside London was announced in the 2012 Autumn Statement, of which £378 million—more than half—was for the north. As for the Calder Valley, the northern electrification task force has been set up to recommend lines for electrification, in which I know the noble Baroness is interested. We would expect it to consider this line alongside other scheme proposals. The task force expects to submit its interim report in February 2015.
My Lords, while it is generally understood that the Chancellor’s announcement about HS3 came as a complete surprise to the Department for Transport, is the noble Baroness aware that the Government’s commitment to the extension of high speed rail is very welcome and can she confirm that no country in the world that has embarked on a programme of high speed rail construction has regretted it?