E-scooters and E-bikes
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(4 days, 13 hours ago)
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Baroness Pidgeon
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to revise legislation around the use of e-scooters and e-bikes.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, resolving the long-standing problems and missed opportunities of micromobility, including e-scooters, is a priority for my department, and we will work with colleagues across government to tackle this as soon as possible. We recognise the need to ensure that dockless cycle rental schemes, including for e-cycles, work for the whole community. That is why on Monday we announced plans in the English devolution White Paper to empower local leaders to regulate these schemes.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the White Paper, with the promise to allow local regulation of micromobility schemes. However, the public continue to buy e-scooters, which are illegal on public highways and which may not be built to the highest safety specifications. When will the Government bring forward urgent legislation on the use of personal e-scooters, covering safety issues, including batteries?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I absolutely respect the noble Baroness’s view. As of December 2023, circa 1 million people aged 16 or over owned an e-scooter in England. In July 2020, e-scooter rental trials were set up to inform future regulation, and in May 2022, the last Government announced primary legislation to legalise and regulate them. This was not delivered, meaning that e-scooters are, as she implied, still illegal to use outside of the e-scooter trials, which are due to run until May 2026. That is why, as I said, it is a priority for my department. We will move to tackle this as soon as possible.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
My Lords, some agencies, such as the Safer Essex Roads Partnership, have two or three-week blitzes in which community volunteers and the police combine to stop illegal e-scooter drivers, but this enforcement is piecemeal and only partially effective. When will the Government spread this neighbourhood crackdown on illegal scooters across the country?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The Government are committed to a crime and policing Bill—I was discussing it with my noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint just before Questions—which will look at the plight of local communities being plagued by anti-social behaviour. That Bill is intended to give the police stronger powers to stop vehicles being used to bring misery to our neighbourhoods, with officers no longer required to issue a warning before seizing them. That will allow them to swiftly deal with off-road bike nuisance in public parks and dangerous e-scooters on pavements, as well as street racing and cruising.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, Spain has started a scheme to identify those riding e-scooters who are driving too fast and are not wearing helmets, and a €100 on-the-spot fine has been introduced. Should we consider that?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I have with me a summary of the way in which 22 European countries have dealt with e-scooters. One of the most striking things is that there is no consistency across Europe or across the other countries surveyed about how to deal with this. One of the challenges of the legislation opportunity that we will take is to work out what is best for this country. There are all sorts of variations: minimum ages, whether you can ride them on pavements and whether you need mandatory helmets, and one or two countries have registration schemes—though that seems as hard for e-scooters as it might be for bicycles. We will have to work through what the best scheme is for this country in order to put forward the appropriate legislation.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the Minister referred to a trial conducted by the previous Government which has gone on rather a long time—rather too long, in my view. Would it not make sense for the Government to draw that trial now to an early conclusion and see what lessons could be learned from it before proceeding with legislation, so that it could be informed by the results of the trial? Will the Minister be able to give a commitment that that will be done? When he learns the lessons of that trial, and will he take a particular interest in the use of e-scooters in relation to crime which we see on the street, which is a cause of great concern—not least mobile phone theft?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Happy Christmas to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Gosh, that is a distraction.
There is a criminal aspect to the use of e-scooters, particularly illegally, which is why legislation needs to be brought forward to regularise this. As regards the trials, it is implausible to suggest that we will curtail them, simply because they are the only e-scooters used on the public roads which are legal. However, I agree with the noble Lord that we should be learning the lessons of the trials that we have had as quickly as we can—they have been going on for five and a half years, as he recognises. Understanding what is going on in the rest of Europe and in developed countries will help us bring forward the right legislation for the United Kingdom.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, with reports of deaths on the pavements from e-bikes and e-scooters, there is a lot of worry about safety, particularly for those who are disabled or partially sighted. Can the Minister assure us that, when the consultations go ahead, charities working with people in such situations will be consulted, so that we can make sure we are offering them the maximum protection on our pavements and streets?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I absolutely recognise the risk to pedestrians from e-scooters and, for that matter, e-bikes and ordinary cycles on the footway. I can assure the right reverend Prelate that we will consider fully the needs of disabled, partially sighted and blind people in bringing forward the appropriate legislation. We want people to feel safe walking around our towns, cities and countryside; riding bikes too fast or riding e-scooters on the pavements is completely unsatisfactory for those people.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the recent meeting on the potential regulation of cyclists in the future. On the issue of e-bikes, scooters and cyclists, one of the things that none of them has is insurance, which means that they cannot compensate victims. Insurance could play the positive role of modifying human behaviour. The premiums reflect the risk; the higher the risk, the higher the premium. Can the Minister explain the argument against these people having insurance?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The dialogue with the noble Lord continues. As he said, we had a very fruitful meeting recently, following the earlier debate in the autumn on the whole question of cycling. The practical difficulty of insurance is simply that clearly people do not need a licence for these things, and a requirement for insurance would itself need enforcement—on which he is better qualified to opine than I am. There is a real difficulty with some of the propositions around licensing and insurance, which we will have to fully consider. He is right that, in the absence of insurance, if there is an accident and people are injured or worse then there is a real problem, but we have to crack this in a practical manner.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, on average, the London Fire Brigade is called to an e-bike or e-scooter fire once every two days, some of which lead to loss of life. My noble friend Lord Redesdale has a Private Member’s Bill, the Lithium-ion Battery Safety Bill, which is designed to tackle the issues of substandard battery design, unsafe battery chargers and dangerous conversion kits. Will the Minister undertake to examine that Bill in detail, with the intention of providing government support to get this legislation on to the statute book as soon as possible?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I will certainly undertake to look at that in the way that the noble Baroness suggests. In October, the Department for Business and Trade launched the Buy Safe, Be Safe campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of buying faulty and unsafe e-bikes, e-scooters and components such as batteries for the very reasons she suggests. These fires, some of which are catastrophic and have caused fatal injuries, are completely unacceptable, and the people selling these things ought to be brought to order.
Hammersmith Bridge
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(5 days, 13 hours ago)
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Lord Harries of Pentregarth
To ask His Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to re-open Hammersmith Bridge to motor traffic.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, my department is working with the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham and Transport for London on the closure of Hammersmith Bridge to traffic. The Government have provided the borough with almost £13 million of funding to date, and my honourable friend the Minister for Local Transport will reconvene the Hammersmith Bridge taskforce in the new year.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
I thank the Minister. It is good news that the taskforce is meeting on 30 January, but of course it does raise the question of why it has not met for more than three years. Hammersmith Bridge is a major entry point into London, and hundreds of thousands of commuters have been very badly inconvenienced for more than five years. During that time, Notre Dame was gutted by fire and rebuilt.
The other bit of good news is that this is a project to be considered in the spring spending review. Will the Minister use all his extensive experience and efforts to ensure that this project is adopted? At the moment, it is a stain on our national reputation as a country with the capacity and the will to get things done.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble and right reverend Lord would not expect me to account for the time elapsed since the taskforce last met and July. It is now going to meet, and the good news is that the stabilisation work, which has been beset by delays and cost increases due to skill scarcity and inflation, should be finished by April 2025. The bridge is an iconic structure—perhaps not as iconic as Notre Dame, but it is certainly useful locally. It was built in 1887 from wrought iron; it has been bombed twice by the IRA, has not been properly maintained for decades, and nearly fell down five years ago.
Some noble Lords know that I can drive a public service vehicle. I must be the only person here who has driven one over Hammersmith Bridge in traffic, and I can tell noble Lords that the forward motion of the bus was accompanied by the lateral motion of the bridge —and the vertical motion of the bridge. It is the only time driving a bus I have nearly felt seasick.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, as a resident of Hammersmith and Fulham I would like to say that, although there has been some inconvenience, there has also been much better air quality. I am interested in what the Minister has to say about the possibility of an electric shuttle service running across the bridge, to enable those who are unable to walk across it to cross with relative ease. That would be much better for the air quality for those of us in Barnes and Hammersmith and Fulham, and could be done reasonably quickly.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
It is a matter for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and indeed for the neighbouring borough on the south side, of which I declare that I am a resident, to decide what they want to do with the bridge. The stabilisation work has stopped it from literally collapsing, but the capacity of the bridge to take traffic as well as pedestrians and cyclists will cost a lot more money, and the boroughs will have to work with Transport for London to decide how the bridge is going to be used. The other really important feature of the bridge is that at least once a year it is absolutely full of pedestrians. Therefore, a job that does not allow it to bear the weight of pedestrians for the boat race and other things will not be very satisfactory. However, it is for the boroughs to decide how to deal with that.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, this is a sorry saga. The impact of the closure is significant for south-west London, particularly the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. When will a full economic and environmental evaluation be carried out on the effect of the bridge’s closure for this whole area?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
As I say, it is primarily for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which has the good fortune—or bad luck—to own this structure, and for the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on the south side to decide between them what they want to do with this bridge in the future, bearing in mind the engineering evaluation about what the structure is capable of doing. It was designed and built for horse-drawn traffic; it has never been particularly strong. Therefore, the boroughs need to work with Transport for London to work out to what use it might be put. I agree that there needs to be an economic evaluation of the effects of whatever happens permanently, but first they need to work out what the bridge is capable of doing after it has been stabilised.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I was the chair of the Hammersmith Bridge taskforce, alongside the current Transport Secretary, who was also a member. I said that the taskforce would reconvene whenever a project came forward from Hammersmith and Fulham. We have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Blower, who says that there is some doubt as to whether it really should be reopened from the Hammersmith and Fulham side. I have sensed all along that this is why Hammersmith and Fulham council has been dragging its feet. The Liberal Democrats also cannot claim glory in this. because they are remarkably silent from the south of the river. Can the Minister tell the House whether full, complete and costed proposals have been forthcoming from Hammersmith and Fulham council?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
We know what the range of costs for a future renovation of the bridge should be. They are very significant—at least a quarter of a billion pounds. I cannot currently say how detailed that is, but I know that it is the order of magnitude of what would need to be done to move further than just stabilisation, which will be completed, as I say. It must have been quite a burden to both chair and be in those meetings, and I am interested to hear about that. I hope that my honourable friend the Minister for Local Transport, when he reconvenes the taskforce, quickly brings the meeting to a clear understanding of what the bridge is to be used for in the future, and therefore what needs to be done to it in the long term.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the Greater London Authority Act explicitly transferred the responsibility previously held by the Government Office for London to fund capital transport projects by the boroughs to the Mayor of London. It is undoubtedly the Mayor of London’s responsibility to provide funding for this. Does the Minister not agree that what we are seeing here is a failure by two Labour-run authorities that, at the expense of members of the public, are engaged in a competition to show who can be more anti-motorist?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I will say two things to the noble Lord. First, the bridge has got into its current state over decades, which have seen various changes of control by the owners, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Secondly, he will know better than most that the level of settlement afforded to the Mayor of London for transport purposes by the previous Government was frankly derisory, and therefore the current Mayor of London has not been able to allocate money to all the things he would like to. We need to establish what the use of the bridge will be in future, which is a matter for the two boroughs. In other circumstances the noble Lord would defend fiercely the right of local authorities in London to decide what to do with their local roads. That has to be established. From that, it can be worked out what to do with the bridge, how much it will cost, how long it will take and, incidentally, who should pay for it.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a Barnes resident. Hammersmith Bridge is a key Thames crossing point for motor traffic in London. Its closure for over five years has greatly increased traffic congestion, delays and pollution around neighbouring bridges in Kew, Chiswick and Putney. Even the idea of a community pedicab service across the bridge has apparently been shelved—although much good it would do for motorists. What reassurance can the Minister give that he will ensure there is at least a plan in place for reopening the bridge to motor traffic before the actual reopening of the far-larger Baltimore harbour bridge, scheduled for 2028? How will he clarify who is responsible for such a plan and how it will be funded?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I am very clear that the bridge is owned by the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It is that borough’s job as the highway authority for the local road network, together with Richmond upon Thames on the other side, to decide how this bridge should be used. The mayor has responsibility for transport in London; he is part of this discussion, and the department is too, but those boroughs have to decide. They have to look at both how long it has taken and how much it has cost to stabilise the bridge, and decide what that structure is capable of doing in the future. It has never been able to take heavy vehicles of any description and, as I said, latterly it was pretty unsuitable for vehicles of seven and three-quarter tonnes. The boroughs need to decide on that, because the cost of doing it and the time it will take to finish depends on it. It is their collective job to do it, and that is why the taskforce will be reconvened.
Train Crew Shortages
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(2 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Baroness Randerson
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reasons for the shortage of train crew reported across several train operators as the explanation for the cancellation of services.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, the current level of train cancellations is dreadful for passengers, and driver, guard and train manager availability has been driving much of this. The railway we inherited has unacceptable levels of staff shortages. We have commissioned detailed work to understand train crew numbers and availability. The previous Government had no useful knowledge of staff levels, recruitment, training, overtime and planning efficiency across individual operators. That work and the Government’s commitment to wider rail reform will drive better staff numbers and more efficient utilisation of those resources and reduce cancellations in the future.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
I thank the Minister for that Answer and am glad to hear about progress. However, recently, Northern Trains, which is directly government run, and Great Western Railway, which is still in the private sector, have repeatedly given a shortage of train crew as their reason for cancellations. As a previous Secretary of State said, nationalisation is “not a silver bullet”, but it will surely lead to a more coherent approach to employment terms and, hence, a better service for passengers. When and how do the Government intend to harmonise terms and conditions for employees and, therefore, to create a modern rail industry, providing modern standards of service, particularly at weekends?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I am very happy if somebody else answers. The noble Baroness will have seen—I know she knows—that the Government’s programme of public ownership will progressively bring train operations currently in the private sector back into the public sector. At the point of transfer, the transfer of undertakings regulations of course require the pay and conditions of staff to be maintained. As we progress with Great British Railways, the consultation which will lead to the wider railway Bill will determine future employment policy, working with staff and the trade unions.
The issues with Northern have a long history. One of the disputes that we inherited there is so old that its conditions are prior to the change in law about the expiry of mandates for strike action—I think it dates from 2017. It is taking a lot of sorting out; the Government are committed to do that. The noble Baroness is right: the conditions of service, which require work on only six days a week and rest days on the seventh, are no longer appropriate for a modern railway. We will have to change that, but we will do that in discussion and consultation with the staff.
Lord Hannett of Everton (Lab)
My Lords, I think I was getting so excited by the debate. I think that all in this House would concur that the disputes of the railway industry were lengthy and to the detriment of many people, including rail users. Can the Minister give a bit more insight into what actions his department took in seeking to resolve the long-standing industrial disputes at Northern Trains during the last four years, when it has been in public ownership, and how that contrasts with the previous Administration?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his question. The lengthy disputes were damaging to passengers and to the railway’s revenue and sapped the morale of the staff—and, indeed, of the management. In particular, in relation to Northern, the number of disputes and the length of time for which they have taken place reflect the fact that no serious effort seems to have been made to resolve them in the time that the company was in the ownership of the last Government. The previous Secretary of State, the current Secretary of State and I are absolutely resolute that we have to resolve these issues. They are quite deep-seated, but as we are here today, the management and the trade unions are in discussion about how to do that, and we are strongly supporting them.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I start by commiserating with the Minister on the fact that transport does not appear to be being mentioned in the latest great reset speech today. It must be tough not being a priority. On the running of the railways, the noble Lord knows better than anybody else that, to run a railway, you need management with strong focus and a strong hand. Does he not accept that the morale of management at the train operating companies is absolutely shot to pieces as a result of the recent legislation, while it waits for the Hendy axe to fall, and that, in effect, at least over the next few years, the railways are being run by the unions—much as the Government appear to be being run by the unions?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
There is no need to reflect the Government’s policy on railways in any particular speech by any member of the Government. We have a clear direction to go in, and we are going there. On the management of the railways, I have to say, if the noble Lord opposite knew the managers as I did, he would know that many of them were in fact rather pleased that there is now a direction. Their morale, as with my own when chairing Network Rail, was significantly damaged by the promise of reform, which started after the May 2018 timetable debacle and was not fulfilled by the previous Government. This Government are going to do it.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, the shortage of train crew is indeed one of the many reasons why we have cancellation of trains, but the puzzlement is—I would like the Minister to look into this—that, if there is a shortage of train crew, surely the company should know that the day before, or at the very least at the start of the working day? Many of the cancellations are at very, very short notice. I will give the example of Euston station. On many occasions, a train is cancelled at very short notice, which has a significant impact on crowd control within the concourse. Will the Minister look into why train companies leave it to very short notice to say that the train is cancelled due to a lack of train staff—whether it is drivers or managers?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Whether the train is cancelled at a moment’s notice or 28 hours or 48 hours in advance, none of that is good enough. I myself am puzzled by the number of times an apparently competent train company does not seem to have enough staff at short notice. The House may realise that I know how to deal with this. If you have not got enough volunteers to work on Sunday, somebody senior ought to be at the train crew depot on Friday afternoon, putting their arms around the staff and saying, “Would you work on Sunday?” That is what I am expecting from railway managers. We are expecting, in the new world of a joined-up railway, that the management will concentrate on that to the benefit of passengers.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, latest statistics show that Northern Trains is the worst-performing train company across all types of cancellations, and 80% of those cancellations are caused specifically by the operator. The Minister has talked about resolving issues, but what specific action will he take to tackle this poor performance from a public sector company to ensure that passengers receive the frequent and reliable service that they deserve?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The Northern staffing and industrial relations issues are intractable and, as I said, have been there for a very long time. In the past five months or so, we have at least got to the bottom of how many disputes they have, what they are about and how they might be resolved. The management of Northern is working hard to do that. It is unacceptable—the Government are clear that it is unacceptable—but there is no point in just painting it as a public sector operation. It was brought into public ownership four years ago because the service was dire then. All I can say is that not much effort was made to sort it out in the four years until this Government took office.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, yesterday the Government announced the first transfer, of South Western Railway, to government ownership—I think next May. Can the Minister confirm that what he has told the House about the new industrial relations arrangements for rest-day working and such things will be in place, so that from May, South Western Railway will have a 100% attendance for all staff as necessary?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My noble friend knows as well as I do that actually these matters need to be resolved with staff representatives on a continuing basis. The transfer of South Western to public ownership will improve the performance of the railway, because it will be more coherently run between the track and the train. Of course, I cannot commit to perfect industrial relations from day one, but we will make sure that the resources are available for that to be done, and we shall also review, in each of the transfers, where we stand before the transfer, what needs to be done and how quickly it can be done after the point of transfer.
Road Transport (International Passenger Services) (Amendment) Regulations 2024
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 28 October be approved.
Relevant document: 7th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 2 December.
Road Transport (International Passenger Services) (Amendment) Regulations 2024
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(3 weeks ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
That the Grand Committee do consider the Road Transport (International Passenger Services) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 7th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, these draft regulations will amend existing domestic legislation to underpin the UK’s intended ratification of the regular and special regular protocol—I shall refer to it in future as the RSR protocol—to the Interbus agreement.
The Interbus agreement is a multilateral agreement that outlines the market access rules for bus and coach operators running occasional services, for example one-off holiday coach tours to, from, through and between its contracting parties. The UK became a contracting party to the Interbus agreement in 2021, having previously been a member when part of the European Union. In addition to the UK and the European Union, there are nine other Interbus contracting parties, including Ukraine, Moldova, Turkey and certain Balkan states.
The regular and special regular protocol—the RSR protocol—extends the Interbus agreement to cover both regular and special regular coach services. Regular services are timetabled routes while special regular services are timetabled routes for a specific category of people, for example school buses. I will refer to these types of journeys as RSR services. The RSR protocol was laid before Parliament as a Command Paper on 24 October this year. The International Agreements Committee welcomed the ratification of the protocol in its report of 20 November 2024.
These amending regulations are necessary to replace the temporary market access arrangements for RSR services between the UK and the European Union, which currently sit within the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, or TCA. These will expire after 31 March 2025 as a consequence of the protocol having come into force for the EU, Moldova, and Bosnia and Herzegovina on 1 October 2024.
If this instrument is approved, the UK will be able to ratify the RSR protocol in early 2025 in order to bring it into effect for the UK from 1 April 2025. Without ratification, UK bus and coach operators would lose the right to run RSR services to the EU. They would also not be able to benefit from the right to run RSR services to other Interbus contracting parties that have ratified the protocol.
The instrument and our ratification of the RSR protocol will thereby allow UK coach and bus operators to continue to run RSR services to the EU without interruption. The key difference is that the treaty basis of these UK-EU arrangements will shift from the TCA to the RSR protocol. That requires consequential changes to UK legislation, which the instrument will implement. Ratification of the protocol will also enable UK operators to run RSR services to other non-EU Interbus countries that have also ratified the RSR protocol, the number of which is expected to grow over time.
The amendments will apply to legislation in both Great Britain and Northern Ireland to enable operators from all parts of the United Kingdom to continue running these coach and bus services internationally. The instrument includes amendments to the journey authorisation process for RSR services, as well as to offences to enable enforcement by the relevant authorities.
This instrument will revoke certain assimilated EU regulations from UK law, aligning entitlements of EU passenger service operators in the UK with those of UK operators in the EU. This instrument does not, however, affect the four additional rights secured under the TCA, including, most notably, rights that enable cross-border bus and coach services on the island of Ireland, which will continue.
The following provisions will remain even when the temporary TCA provisions expire. First, occasional services will still be permitted where they transit through one party to reach a non-contracting party to Interbus. An example of this is UK coaches that transit through the EU to reach Switzerland. Secondly, RSR services will still be permitted to start in one party and transit through the other party to reach a different part of the first party—in this case, Great Britain to Ireland to Northern Ireland.
Two important enduring provisions specifically relating to the island of Ireland will also remain. These will allow operators in one party to operate occasional services on the island of Ireland, picking up and setting down passengers on the territory of the other party. An example of this is a UK operator running a coach tour picking up and setting down passengers in either Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. This instrument will also allow an operator from one party to undertake cabotage in the other party for RSR services running between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Approval of this instrument will enable the UK’s bus and coach operators to continue their international RSR journeys as they currently do, without a gap in market access provisions. Such a gap would be particularly sensitive on the island of Ireland. If approved, this legislation will ensure that the UK meets the required timescales outlined in the TCA, thus contributing to our positive and co-operative relationship with the European Union.
I turn to a summary of the instrument’s content. There are five key changes resulting from this instrument to note. First, it updates Great Britain and Northern Ireland law by including new references to the RSR protocol. These will replace references to the temporary RSR provisions in the TCA from 1 April 2025.
Secondly, the instrument updates existing references so that the other market access provisions of both the Interbus agreement and the TCA concerning international bus and coach services are retained. This will ensure that the range of additional access rights between the UK and EU will remain in effect. These include the right for occasional services to transit the EU to reach non-Interbus contracting parties, such as Switzerland, and, most notably, the special arrangements for cross-border services on the island of Ireland.
Thirdly, the instrument includes updates to transfer the treaty basis from the TCA to the RSR protocol for the authorisation process and documentation that operators must hold to run RSR services. This will allow current processes to continue once the RSR protocol comes into force.
Fourthly, the instrument updates existing offences and creates new ones to align them with the requirements of the market access arrangements of the RSR protocol. This will enable enforcement agencies in Great Britain and Northern Ireland to continue to take action against non-compliant international operators that breach these market access requirements when driving in the UK. Enforcement action includes the issuing of fixed penalty notices. In more serious cases, operators may be prosecuted and subject to fines if found guilty. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency has confirmed that it issued 32 on the spot fines to non-GB passenger service operators in 2023, including EU operators. These penalties will have been issued for enforceable offences, such as breaches of the drivers’ hours rules.
Finally, the instrument revokes assimilated EU Regulation (EC) 1073/2009 and assimilated Commission Regulation (EU) 361/2014 from UK law. These regulations governed the market access arrangements for international public transport services in the UK while the UK was part of the European Union. The practical effect of revoking these assimilated regulations is the removal of existing passenger transport cabotage rights for EU operators. This means that, from 1 April 2025, EU operators will no longer be able to use EU-registered vehicles to run coach services that both start and end in the United Kingdom. This will level the playing field for UK passenger transport operators, who are not able to undertake cabotage in the EU. It may also create opportunities for UK operators to provide such services domestically. However, the special provisions for the island of Ireland, including cabotage rights for passenger transport, provided under the TCA will not be impacted.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
First, I thank noble Lords and the noble Baroness for their contributions. I will attempt to deal, either now or subsequently, with each of their points.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said that it was good news on the ability to travel to states beyond the European Union and asked whether there are more examples. The only information that I have is that Ukraine indicated in December 2023, at the last committee meeting of the Interbus contracting parties, that it was preparing to ratify the protocol. Of course, one hopes that the clarity these new regulations give will encourage other parties beyond the European Union’s geography to be interested.
The department has no information about the current level of EU operators using cabotage in the UK, which will cease, if these regulations are accepted, from 31 March 2025. I suspect that, in non-quantifiable terms, it does not occur very often but, as I know from my past life, this matter has been a subject of some concern for UK coach operators in terms of the imbalance of opportunity. I will come back to that.
The noble Baroness mentioned consultation. The Confederation of Passenger Transport, which is the bus and coach operators’ trade body in the UK, is aware of this matter and has no comments on it, which I think is satisfactory. Officials tell me that they will continue to be in touch with the CPT, as we call it, in order that they are fully abreast of what is going on. Of course, the noble Baroness is absolutely right that the principal effect is in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. I can well believe that there are occasional, regular or special regular services that cross the border numerous times, because of the border’s nature.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, asked about electronic travel authorisation. I will write to him on that subject so that we are absolutely clear on whether it will still be required.
I was delighted to discover that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has some sympathy with me—long may that continue. He mentioned the impact assessment. He is right that the instrument will have little impact, but it is important that UK bus and coach operators have some certainty about their future. As I just pointed out, the forthcoming ban on performing cabotage in the UK being passed to EU operators is a matter that has exercised some of their minds. They will welcome this instrument; there is no doubt about that. There might be some dislocation to UK passengers as a consequence, but I say to UK operators that, if they welcome the correction of this imbalance, it will be up to them to make the effort to capture some of the traffic that might otherwise be lost.
Lastly, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to enforcement. I did not say how many checks the 32 on-the-spot fines applied to because I did not know at the time I read the speech. I will look at that further and ask officials to speak to the DVSA so that it and its vehicle inspectors can take an informed view about this change and look out for these operators. It is not hard to understand that there are some obvious places to do that. These operators will enter the country through ports, and I think that enforcement operations are thoughtfully devised so that inspectors catch the right people, at the right time, in the right way.
The approval of this statutory instrument will ensure that the UK’s bus and coach operators can continue running services internationally, as they currently do and, most importantly, without any disruption or interruption from 1 April 2025. It will enable the UK to fulfil its international obligations under the TCA by enabling the UK’s ratification of the RSR protocol, which will contribute to our co-operative and close relationship with the European Union. The statutory instrument is, of course, required now to ensure that we can ratify the RSR protocol in January 2025 to bring it into force so that it is ready after the temporary provisions of the TCA expire on 31 March 2025.
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill ExcerptsWednesday 20th November 2024
(1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 View all Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 50-I Marshalled list for Consideration of Commons Reasons - (20 Nov 2024)
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 1, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 1A.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, in moving Motion A I will speak also to Motion B. I am grateful for the collaboration and engagement up to this point on the Bill, which is a critical step towards our manifesto commitment of reforming our fragmented railway system. This system has cost taxpayers and passengers dearly in huge fees paid to private operators and in the delays, cancellations, overcrowding and poor service that passengers have endured for far too long. There is a strong public desire for public ownership. In September, a YouGov survey found that 66% of people nationally agreed that railway operations should be run by the public sector and only 12% favoured private operation. I hope that the House can agree that we need to pass this Bill and move on to the critical work of the next one.
Motion A is about the purpose clause proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Gascoigne and Lord Moylan. I completely agree that public ownership and wider reform should be guided by a clear purpose, with users of the railway placed at the heart of that purpose. Turning specifically to Motion A1, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, I was disappointed to see that the noble Lords were insisting on this, despite the overwhelming majority against it in the other place. This is not in keeping with the collaborative approach that I hoped we were taking to the Bill in this House—and quite an unusual approach for this House to take as well.
The Government have already set out the purpose of public ownership and wider reform in our policy document Getting Britain Moving. This identified six objectives. People can see what they are and can hold the Government to account on delivering against them. These objectives are already at the heart of our decision-making. For example, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and I have met the worst-performing train operating companies and their Network Rail counterparts and have demanded that they do better for passengers, right now. We have brought to an end long-running industrial disputes that inflicted misery on passengers. We have convened Network Rail and train operators to work together to tackle overcrowding at Euston and provide a better service for passengers. We have made new commitments about accessibility, following debates in this House, and we have pledged to increase transparency by publishing train performance data at stations. So there is no need to place a purpose on the face of the Bill—especially one that tells only part of the story.
I also remind noble Lords that during the previous Government’s 14 years in office, they never felt the need to legislate to impose this new statutory purpose on the Secretary of State, either in relation to the privatised railway or to the train operations that they chose to keep in public ownership for years—one now for six years—with no sign of a plan to return them to the private sector. However, I agree with noble Lords on all sides of the House that we must ensure that the future Great British Railways will have a clear purpose. In consulting on our wider reform plans, we will restate our objectives for the railway and its purpose. I assure noble Lords that delivering a reliable, punctual train services will be a prominent part of that purpose, as it already is.
I urge the House to support Motion A for two reasons. First, the purpose clause is unnecessary: we have already set out our objectives for the railway; we are already acting to achieve those objectives; and we are ready to be held to account for whether or not we deliver against them. Secondly, we will ensure that we set out a similarly clear purpose for Great British Railways in the forthcoming consultation.
Regarding Motion B, this House will be aware that Amendment 2 was rejected in the other place on the grounds of financial privilege. The Government understand the calls for the worst-performing services to be brought into public ownership first. But Amendment 2 was not the right approach. Its effect would be to delay the transfer of services into public ownership and so require taxpayers to continue to foot the bill for millions of pounds in fees for longer than necessary. Instead, the Government’s approach is the right one, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and her noble friends for recognising this in previous debates.
We have made it clear that where the contracts we have inherited from the previous Government allow it, we will bring failing operators’ services into public ownership as soon as we can. There is sufficient flexibility in the existing contract expiry dates to allow us to do that without overwhelming the public sector operator. Beyond that, we will bring services in-house as existing contracts end. This will avoid paying compensation for early termination and will avoid delaying the benefits of public ownership, as Amendment 2 would have done.
I urge the House to support Motion B so that the Government can get on with delivering the benefits of public ownership in accordance with the very clear mandate on which they were elected. I beg to move.
Motion A1 (as an amendment to Motion A)
Lord Snape (Lab)
And perhaps learned; that is another point.
The fact is that these are delaying tactics by the party opposite. I am amazed that the Liberal Party should want to be associated with this amendment. It is contrary to custom and practice in this place—not that I am a great one for adhering to the rules, necessarily.
This is a meaningless amendment, putting a duty on the Secretary of State which he already has. What Secretary of State wants to do anything other than improve the railway system? I mean, he did not always succeed, though it might have been well-meant during the time of the party opposite, but certainly the Secretary of State’s intention at that time—at any time—would be to improve the railway system. It really is not necessary to add such a clause to this Bill. I would be grateful if my noble friend treated it with the contempt it deserved.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. I will address just a few points.
I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and his description of the previous Government as being dilatory. It is six and half years since the timetable went wrong in the north-west of England and on Thameslink, in May 2018, and nothing really has been done. The railway is suffering and its passengers are suffering, and something needs to be done about it. I have referred to this before but, at some speed, we will be consulting shortly about the content of the wider Bill to reform the railway. I think that differentiates this Government and the speed at which they choose to operate.
On Motion A, I want there to be no doubt that this Government will undertake reform with a clear purpose and direction. As published in Getting Britain Moving, our objectives are set and are more ambitious and wide-ranging than the proposed purpose clause. We want to see reliability, affordability, efficiency, quality, accessibility and safe travel as the DNA of our railways—the foundational values that drive reform and deliver on what passengers expect. Public ownership will be the first step in ensuring better services, by placing the passenger front and centre as we rebuild public confidence, trust and pride in our railway.
I listened carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on the commitment that passengers should be at the core of the future of the railway. In that respect, the wider railways Bill is a different matter. It will establish Great British Railways as a new body at arm’s length from government, which will not be directly accountable to the electorate in the same way as the Government are. In that context, it is essential that the railways Bill should clearly set out two things.
The first of those is the functions of Great British Railways—what it is actually going to do. The second is what Great British Railways is supposed to achieve by exercising those functions—in other words, its purpose. I can absolutely confirm to your Lordships’ House today that the forthcoming railways Bill will set out both of those things, and that delivering improvements for passengers and maintaining high standards of performance will be a crucial part of its purpose. I will be more than happy to engage with the noble Baroness on how we express that in the Bill.
I urge your Lordships’ House to support the Government’s Motion A and to reject the amendment in Motion A1, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, for two reasons. First, it is unnecessary, because the Government have already set out our objectives for the railway, we are already acting to achieve those objectives, and we are ready to be held to account on whether we deliver against them as we transfer the services to public ownership under this Bill. Secondly, as I have just assured the House, we will ensure that the railways Bill sets out a clear purpose for Great British Railways.
With regard to Motion B, the Government simply cannot accept an amendment that would delay reform, therefore going against the wishes of the electorate, and which would place additional cost on the taxpayer. We will use every tool at our disposal to resolve poor performance, including contractual termination rights, where they are triggered.
On the Bill itself, public ownership is not only the will of the voters but the right step towards bringing an end to years of fragmentation. Tens of millions of pounds in fees will be saved each year due to public ownership and, with the new direction and focus that this Government are now providing, current in-house operations are already seeing a reduction in cancellations. The evidence that public ownership is the way forward is clear.
On top of this, poorly performing train operators are being held to account, as I described earlier, and with Great British Railways coming further down the line, this Government have shown that we are serious about reform. None the less, improvements are needed now, and the Bill starts that process.
Lord Gascoigne (Con)
My Lords, I thank everyone who spoke in this brief debate, particularly the two Opposition Front-Benchers. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for Lib Dem support up to now; I hope that will continue. I am especially grateful to my very good friend, the noble Lord, Lord Snape. It is always a pleasure to hear from him. Before I came into this House, I was told repeatedly that everyone is very friendly, very compassionate, very polite and respectful. Yet, there we are.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
That this House do not insist on its Amendment 2, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 2A.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I have already spoken to Motion B. I beg to move.
Aviation Safety (Amendment) Regulations 2024
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 23 October be approved.
Relevant document: 6th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 18 November.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Lord Trefgarne (Con)
I apologise if I did not make myself clear, but I am hoping to have a chance to talk about these regulations on another occasion. Is that possible?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, this lengthy and comprehensive statutory instrument was debated on Monday in Grand Committee and approved. This afternoon is the appropriate opportunity to move this Motion.
Bus Funding
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I am pleased to welcome the Statement made by the Secretary of State in the other place. Bus services outside London have been allowed to atrophy and die for far too long. They are vital to society and our economy. They are used by the poorest, the oldest and the youngest. Although we love to talk about trains here, buses are the most used form of public transport.
The funding information in the Statement, as far as it goes, is welcome, as are the commitments to reform. The situation with buses has been too complex, too fragmented, too short-term and too competitive. In practice, the competition has led to money going to, in effect, the councils that are best at filling in the forms rather than those most in need.
Courtesy of the Campaign for Better Transport, I have some illustrative statistics. Why should Swindon get £3.98 per head for buses and Reading, just down the road and not dissimilar in size, get £168.68 per head? No formula would explain that. Of course, Reading has extremely good buses as a result of extremely good funding.
There are currently six different funding pots. We need one single integrated fund with “long-term” written all over it, so can the Minister explain in more detail exactly how the current six funds will be amalgamated and repurposed?
I turn to the £3 bus fare cap and its impact. It is, of course, effectively a 50% fare increase in an industry that has already seen fares rise by 59% since 2015, so it will have a huge impact. Yet there were reports at the weekend that the Secretary of State had said that maybe it would be linked in some way to the rate of inflation. Will the £3 cap be applied in the same way as the £2 cap, or will it be amended in some way? What analysis have the Government made to lead them to abandon the £2 cap, which appeared to be working well?
In many areas, particularly rural areas, demand-responsive and Dial-a-Ride services are vital. I ask the Minister, because this is not mentioned in the Statement: what will the Government do to encourage these services to ensure proper co-ordination between local authorities, bus operators and other bodies, such as NHS trusts, so that rural areas get a better deal from the providers at various levels in their area and a structure that local people can rely on?
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for their comments on this Statement, which was made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport in the other place yesterday.
I turn first to the noble Lord’s comments. He correctly identifies a methodological change in the way this money has been allocated. The formula used is simple but, the Government think, fair. It relates equally, in thirds, to the level of population, so the greater the population of the local transport authority the more money; to bus mileage, so the greater the bus mileage, the more money; and to the index of multiple deprivation, published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which is the official measure of relative deprivation in England. That is a much fairer method of allocating money for a service that, as the noble Baroness said, is disproportionately used by people on lower incomes, women, the young and old, and is the mainstay of public transport in Great Britain.
The Government are entitled to make decisions about how they wish to spend money, but the point I most want to make is that the previous competitive system has all the disbenefits the noble Lord referred to—the time spent bidding, the costs, the use of consultants and the uncertain outcomes—whereas this method provides a much more certain way of allocating this money and is much fairer across the whole of England. Of course this money is not loose change; it is a substantial amount for a vital public service in Britain, but use of this formula is a much fairer way of allocating this money. In fact, a competition arbitrated by nameless officials on criteria that, frankly, have not been clear to the local authorities in the past is a much more likely source of rewarding “your mates”, as he refers to them, than this formula.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, welcomed the Statement, and I thank her for that. There are, of course, differences in the allocations to local transport authorities, and I can probably account afterwards for the difference between Swindon and Reading. I will attempt to do so to her in due course. The allocations have been allocated by this formula and represent, in the Government’s view, a fair method of distributing a considerable amount of money. While there are some headings in the allocation—capital, revenue, some money for helping source officer help and so on—local authorities that receive the money are free to use it in the way they want. The principle the Government are delighted to have is that the capital sums can be used for new vehicles, bus stops, information systems or bus stations and the revenue can either support fares initiatives, in particular for the young—some combined authorities have kept the maximum fare at £2—or support services to enable a fair distribution of bus mileage throughout their towns and areas.
The reference the noble Baroness made to the £3 fare and the 50% fare increase is, of course, not so. Most bus journeys are short and are carried out in urban areas. With the £3 maximum, there are many fares that will not go up at all. The reference to inflation has been made by the Government to ensure that fares under £3 rise only by the rate of inflation, whereas the previous £2 limit encouraged some operators to put up their fares by far more than inflation to the £2 limit. The analysis of the effect of the maximum bus fare will be published by the department in due course.
Finally, the noble Baroness referred to demand-responsive transport and dial-a-ride. Local transport authorities that receive this money are able to spend it on bus services in the way that they want, so they are able to support demand-responsive services if those are the right way of dealing with their area. The principle is that local transport authorities know much better than government how the money is best spent. Therefore, this money has been distributed with great freedom to allow them to spend it in the right way for their area, to create economic growth and to support jobs and housing in the way that local transport does.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord is right to refer to the innovation by the Harrogate Bus Company. There are two ways in which this formula, which I think is serviceable rather than rough and ready, works in operators’ favour. One is that it is proportionate to bus mileage, so places in which the present bus operator has done well will have more bus mileage, which is a good measure of saying roughly how much bus service there is. The other is that local authorities will get a capital allocation that can be and normally is used to support the purchase of vehicles. This formula works for good bus companies as it works for good local authorities, and I think it will be self-evident that the innovations that the noble Lord referred to will be replicated elsewhere.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, in a diocese such as mine, which covers Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, where many people look outside the county for services—for example, many people in Bedfordshire go to hospitals in and work in Milton Keynes, in another county—lack of integration of the bus services is causing quite a lot of problems. How is the new system going to lead to more and better integration? Secondly, what consideration has been given to finding, I hope, free bus passes for school children, since our towns are absolutely gridlocked at rush hour, at a time when we need children to get on the buses, get exercise and learn independence rather than being driven one by one in cars causing huge jams?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the right reverend Prelate for his question. The question of cross-border bus services is not altered, at least by this settlement, compared with previous settlements. But it is a question that the Government intend to address through the wider buses Bill, which will come before this House shortly. To some extent, you rely on local transport authorities to collaborate with each other, because the movement of passengers is quite often across local authority boundaries. We will have something more to say about that in due course.
The congestion caused by children travelling to school is a very common phenomenon in towns and cities throughout Great Britain. It is open to local transport authorities with the revenue element of this funding to devise schemes for cheaper bus fares for children and the Government will, of course, encourage them to do so, providing it is the right thing for their local area.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, on this side of the House I am sure there is a very warm welcome for these proposals. Under the previous Government, when Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, a White Paper was produced which, if I remember correctly, was called Bus Back Better. At the time, I was a Cumbria county councillor and we had to put forward plans to see whether the Department for Transport would give us the money. We did not get any money, despite the problems of rural bus services in such a widespread geographical area as Cumbria. Frankly, the reason we did not get any money was that Cumbria was run by a Labour and Liberal Democrat joint administration. It was politics that decided it, not any attempt at objectivity. Does the Minister agree that a far better system is one where there is some rough and ready objectivity for some years ahead, which gives transport authorities an opportunity to plan?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I very much agree with my noble friend that a serviceable formula for the allocation of this money is a better thing to do, and to allocate some money to every local transport authority in England. The most damaging feature of all to bus services—which is a feature of the previous methodology of funding—is to have some money one year and no money the next. What happens in those circumstances is that supported services are withdrawn, the passengers disappear—either they cannot travel or they find some other method of travel—and it becomes much harder to re-establish those services. I will not bore the House with details, but I can find many examples across England of perfectly good services forced to be withdrawn because of the inadequate distribution of the previous funding. They are far more difficult to re-establish when funding turns up. The best thing you can have with a bus service is certainty of service over a long time.
Viscount Hailsham (Con)
My Lords, I go back to the question of increasing the cap to £3. In rural areas, such as I live, for a couple going shopping—for example, in Lincoln—several times a week, the cost would be quite challenging. Would the Minister reconsider limiting the uplift in the cap to, say, £2.50? It is a challenge for people in low-salary areas.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The raising of the cap from £2 to £3 was entirely necessary because of the fiscal position that this Government inherited. A cap of £3 is actually a pretty good cap in rural areas with long bus journeys compared with the previous fare structures. We know that many fares have gone down by 60%, 70% or 80% for passengers. Of course, there will be some who have to pay more under this system. The subject in question—the distribution of local bus funding for the next year—is designed to make sure that there are services to travel on. It is not just bus fares that matter. What matters equally is that there are buses to travel on. This distribution will ensure that there are buses across the whole of England, in local transport authority areas, to do so.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the Statement and the fact that we are talking about buses in the House, but in some parts of our country, including rural areas, bus services have not only been reduced but have vanished completely. What special support will the Government be providing to help rural authorities rebuild their bus services, including an integrated fund to support the switch to zero-emission buses? Can the Minister clarify, following the discussion we have just had, over what period this funding is being provided? As he has already outlined, single-year funding settlements and stop-start pots of funding will not reinvigorate our bus services across the country.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The funding provided by what is effectively a £1 billion settlement will allow local transport authorities in all areas to spend this money in the best possible way. I am very sympathetic to rural areas, where services have disappeared in the past, and I have explained some of the reasons why recently that might be the case. There is capital funding in this settlement for zero-emission vehicles, as there should be. It is for one year, but the spending review in the spring will no doubt give direction for future years. The equitable distribution of this through this serviceable formula is much more likely to result in service patterns across both rural and urban areas, which will be sustainable into the future.
Lord Hampton (CB)
My Lords, on 5 November, London bus drivers marched on Westminster to complain about their working conditions, including that most routes now have toilet facilities only at one end, meaning that drivers have three hours between toilet breaks, that the headway driving system sometimes requires drivers to break the speed limit, and that conditions within cabs can become unbearably hot or cold. In all this talk about funding, could the Minister assure us that drivers will not be forgotten?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord might know that, for some years I was responsible for the London bus service. I am not any longer; the Mayor of London is. I would question some of the things the noble Lord has asserted, simply because I know through prior knowledge that we spent an awful lot of time and money providing far more toilet facilities for bus drivers in London than anybody had done before. I would question whether any responsible operator licensed by the traffic commissioners would commission schedules which expected buses to exceed the speed limit.
What I would say to the noble Lord is that it is very important that bus drivers are paid properly and looked after properly, and that their scheduled and actual hours comply with the law. To that end, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency will inspect those operations, whether in London or elsewhere. The traffic commissioners will take action against operators that do not comply with the legislation in respect of the operation of urban bus services.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, reliability of services is as important as fare levels to bus users. Many folk in my patch in west Yorkshire tell me that they were at risk of losing their jobs because they could not get to work on time because the bus failed to turn up. I can confirm that. I had decided to travel from my hometown to Leeds on the bus, and the first two buses were cancelled going, and, on the way back, three were cancelled. This was in the middle of a Friday afternoon. Reliability is absolutely key to encouraging people to use buses. What will this new funding formula do to penalise the providers of bus services if they cannot provide a reliable service?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The reliability of bus services is terribly important to the people who use them and to the local economies of the places where they operate. This funding formula of itself will not affect the reliability of services, other than to give local authorities more resources for the officers and skills to be able to manage local bus services that they procure. The real penalty for unreliable operation of bus services outside London lies, currently at least, with the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the traffic commissioners, which can bring operators in front of them when they fail to operate the services that they have registered.
One reason why conurbations, led by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, are looking at franchising bus services is so that they can have greater control. In those cases where operations are franchised, there is a different way in which to penalise operators. In fact, one of the successes in Manchester has been a much higher level of reliability, not only because there is more direct control over the provision of the bus service but because the Mayor of Greater Manchester is taking a much stronger interest than previously in the ability of the road network to enable reliable bus operation. I would expect that to be replicated in other combined authority areas that choose to go down the route of bus franchising.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on this Statement. It is not before time, and it is really good that we have a much longer-term commitment to the provision of cost-effective buses—which is, after all, what a very large proportion of the population need for their everyday use. As my noble friend said, buses are needed for going to work, school, college and so on, and I am sure that this will be very welcome around the country.
There is one group of conurbations that cannot be helped by this bus Statement, because there are no roads. I refer to the Isle of Wight, which does not have any roads to the mainland, and which has a population of over 100,000. Where I live, in the Isles of Scilly, the population is a bit smaller, at 2,500, but it certainly does not have any roads to the mainland. The people who live in those places still need access for everyday use—for visits to hospitals, schools and so on. Would my noble friend consider meeting some of the people involved to see whether there is not a similar formula that could be adapted for the sea routes, rather than the air routes, to give the residents of these island groups a fairer bite of the cherry, as is now going to be delivered to the rest of the country?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My noble friend has raised this subject before, certainly with respect to the Isles of Scilly, and I am also familiar with the issues raised by the two Members of Parliament there are now for the Isle of Wight at a recent meeting with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport and me. Of course, there is a very comprehensive bus service on the Isle of Wight and it will be supported by payments to the local transport authority there. I am not sure whether the rather smaller bus service on the Isles of Scilly is supported in that manner, but if the noble Lord would like me to find out I will do so.
Ferry services are very different. I know that the issues with the Isle of Wight, in particular, have been raised with the Secretary of State for Transport, and I will write to the noble Lord on where we are with that.
Aviation Safety (Amendment) Regulations 2024
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill
That the Grand Committee do consider the Aviation Safety (Amendment) Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 6th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, these regulations were laid in draft before this House on 23 October 2024. They amend existing aviation safety regulations to update certain provisions, and cover matters including: new requirements for altimeter checks; modernising fuel schemes and fuel planning; all-weather operations; improvements to flight crew training and checking; and safety management systems. These regulations will bring UK law into alignment with amendments to international law, upholding our international obligations, as well as making corrections and amendments to assimilated law.
I start by providing some background information about these regulations. As a member state of the International Civil Aviation Organization, or ICAO, the UK has agreed to implement international standards and recommended practices—SARPs—in domestic law. SARPs are technical specifications for aviation safety contained in annexes to the Convention on International Civil Aviation and adopted by the ICAO. As a member state, we are obliged to implement any amendments made to SARPs in domestic law unless impracticable to comply or not relevant to our system. Where this is the case, member states must file a difference notifying the ICAO that there are discrepancies between SARPs and domestic law. The majority of differences filed by the UK are either because legislative changes are yet to be undertaken or are in progress, are legacy differences inherited from assimilated EU regulations that we will incorporate over time, or, as mentioned, they are not appropriate for the UK system.
The draft regulations will bring UK law into alignment with amendments to Annexes 6 and 14 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. Annexes 6 and 14 contain SARPs relating to the operation of aircraft and aerodromes respectively. The updates pertain to: enhancing fuel planning systems; widening all-weather operations—the ability of aircraft to take off and land under low-visibility conditions; improving flight crew training and checking; and updates to new and continuing airworthiness requirements around safety management systems. It also corrects and supplements amendments to assimilated law made by the Aviation Safety (Amendment) Regulations 2023. The regulations also reinstate two provisions erroneously removed by the Aviation Safety (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020. These draft regulations were supported by the previous Government and were due to be laid in July this year. However, due to the general election, they were laid in October.
On the detail of the regulations, the draft regulations introduce the concept of fuel schemes for commercial air transport which requires fuel planning both pre and in-flight to ensure the minimum fuel level required for an aircraft to remain airborne and land safely, and provides greater flexibility for operators by moving these requirements to guidance published by the Civil Aviation Authority. It also clarifies the rules for helicopter fuel planning, including safety-related issues around refuelling with rotors running. The regulations also allow for the use of advanced technologies available to pilots, such as enhanced flight vision systems, when flying under low-visibility conditions, and improves existing mandatory crew training and checking requirements for air operators.
The draft regulations also correct errors arising from, and make further amendments to support those made by, the Aviation Safety (Amendment) Regulations 2023, which were made to implement international standards relating to safety management systems. Although the irregularities and inconsistencies in the regulations introduced by the errors have not caused a safety issue, the department acknowledges that the errors could impact the ease of use of the regulations by industry. The draft regulations therefore correct the errors to avoid any confusion that could lead to a safety issue in the future.
Turning to scrutiny from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, I am pleased to say the draft regulations were cleared by the Joint Committee. At the request of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, a revised Explanatory Memorandum has been laid, which now includes a link to the Civil Aviation Authority’s consultation response document on all-weather operations, fuel planning and management.
Before turning to my closing comments, I bring attention to some minor typographical errors identified within the draft regulations since they were laid. A correction slip has been issued to amend these errors, and the corrections have been incorporated into the draft regulations.
We should continue to ensure that aviation remains among the safest forms of travel, as the safety of aviation and the travelling public is a priority to the Government. These draft regulations represent a further step in ensuring this remains the case. Some of the provisions in the draft regulations introduce new ways of using pre-existing technology, which are done with the aim of further improving aviation safety. They also correct errors to make certain the regulations are clear. Moreover, by upholding our commitments to implement international aviation safety law, we maintain not only high aviation safety standards but our reputation as a world leader in aviation safety. I beg to move.
Lord Glenarthur (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his explanation of this fairly deep document and all that it contains. I should declare an interest because I have many years’ experience, both as a military helicopter pilot in the 1970s and 1980 and in the late 1970s and 1980s with British Airways Helicopters, as they were. I have been for many years involved with the British Helicopter Association. It used to be the British Helicopter Advisory Board, of which I was chairman—I forget for how long but for about 12 to 15 years—and I have been president of the association for about 14 years.
Can the Minister confirm that the BHA, the British Helicopter Association, was consulted on these matters? Can he also expand on what is in these regulations about the potential viability of point-in-space operations, which apply particularly to aircraft conducting emergency service work, often in the Highlands and Islands or out to sea? Because of the unavailability of the European satellite system—which we were able to use but, now we are out of the EU, we cannot—the facility and flexibility for helicopters, and no doubt other aircraft as well, to use these particular forms of approach is now put in peril. I know consideration has been given to this, but I very much hope that something can be done. One of the last points I should like to make is that the flexibility of the helicopter to undertake operations in that sort of way is unique. Those of us who have been involved with the emergency services and other areas would hate to see that diminished in any way, because science has moved on enormously since I became involved in it all in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I hope that the Minister can give some comfort to me on that.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I shall be disappointingly brief. I thank the Minister for arranging a briefing with his officials, and I thank those officials for the time that they gave. Various pertinent questions have been raised in the course of this short debate, and I look forward to hearing the Minister answer them. I had one question that I raised with his officials, relating to the extent and effectiveness of the consultation exercise with the smaller operators in particular. I understand that, if the Minister is unable to give an answer to that this afternoon, his officials are preparing to give a written answer to that question later.
The previous Government prepared these regulations. At their heart is not a question about alignment of texts or legality but the question of safety in practice. We are all agreed that we want aviation to be, as the Minister said, one of the safest modes of travel. It has been for a very long time, and we want it to continue to be so. The Minister has assured us that these regulations represent a further step in ensuring safety in aviation and, on that basis, this side is more than happy to support them.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I shall attempt to deal with the questions from noble Lords who have spoken. I will do my best, but some of them will have to be answered in writing, I am afraid. I shall answer in order.
The noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, asked whether the British Helicopter Association had been consulted. An email went to all UK parties, plus the SkyWise notification for the consultation, and all interested parties had the opportunity to participate in the public consultation. As noble Lords can work out from that answer, I cannot say whether the British Helicopter Association replied, but I am happy to write to the noble Lord subsequently. I will come on to the EU satellite issue in a moment.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, asked about the shortage of facilities for training pilots. I will have to write to the noble Lord to state the position on that. He also asked about general aviation. I am assured that this is aimed at commercial operators. I will write to the noble Lord about whether we believe there is a gap and, if so, how it should be filled.
The noble Lord, Lord Young, asked principally about sustainable aviation fuels. We discussed the statutory instrument about sustainable aviation fuel with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, only a few days ago. The Government intend it to be used as part of the airline industry’s move to net zero. My understanding is that sustainable aviation fuel is not made legal by these regulations but can already be used. I will write to him with pleasure to confirm that that is the case. The references to fuel or energy sources are about making sure that these regulations are fit for the future and for the alternative energy sources that might be used to fuel aeroplanes.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, spoke about the grey area relating to the dreadful incident to which she referred. These regulations do not apply to what she described as the “grey area”. Again, if there is a case to write to her to say how that grey area is being addressed, I am happy to do so.
The noble Baroness also referred to issues about getting up to date. I am informed that we need to adhere to international standards and recommended practices and that we have not been aligned to the standards referred to in the draft regulations for between four and 12 years, that we filed differences against all of them with ICAO and that no risks to safety have arisen from that period of misalignment. However, UK operators were at a competitive disadvantage compared with EU member states because regulations similar to those in these draft regulations were implemented there in October 2022. This now brings us up to date.
I cannot deal with the issues that were raised about the EU satellite system, so I will write to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord about them.
Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, asked whether this applies to aircraft not licensed in the UK. It does.
I welcome the recognition by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, of the desirability of ensuring that our airline industry and aircraft are as safe as they can be. I am grateful to him for his assurance that he is as keen on that as we are.
I again thank all noble Lords for attending the debate and for their input. I will write to noble Lords who have raised questions that I cannot answer on this statutory instrument.
Lord Moylan (Con)
Will the Minister send copies of those letters to all of us who have participated in the debate?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his interjection. Yes, I will do that.
I conclude by saying—as I already have, actually—that the safety of aviation and the travelling public is a priority for the Government. The department is committed to ensuring that aviation remains safe. As part of this, the draft regulations form part of an important legislative programme that implements international aviation safety standards in domestic law. The implementation of international law ensures that the UK remains a world leader in maintaining high aviation standards and meeting our international obligations.
Rail Performance
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that this is a real time filler of a Statement, and I will not waste the time of this House by repeating some of the points he has just made that I had picked up on. Instead, I will ask the Minister some questions that flow from the rather superficial things in the Statement.
The Statement refers to ticket simplification but that is obviously still a long way off and what is being offered is a very modest measure. What passengers want to see is some kind of outward sign that the Government are taking seriously the fact that they are getting a very poor service at a very high price.
Fares went up by 5% this year and are scheduled to go up by a similar amount in March. I urge the Government to look at that again. Indeed, I challenge them to look at it again and to freeze fares in March at the current levels in recognition of the fact that rail services are not good enough to justify fare increases.
The Statement includes an update on LNER and refers to improvements in driver availability on the line. Unfortunately, that is not a general picture. Both Great Western Railway and Northern Trains regularly cite non-availability of drivers and train crew as a reason for cancellation. Can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing, across all train operators, to deal with failures of recruitment and training? That is clearly what must be happening at the moment. I fear this situation could get worse as train operators come towards the end of their franchises. I am interested in the Government’s strategy to stop this system, which is bad and getting worse.
Finally, the Statement references an improvement in industrial relations, but the Government face a big challenge as the nationalised train operator moves to one harmonised set of terms and conditions. What are the Government intending to do to ensure that the inevitable levelling up of terms and conditions properly modernises the industry and does so at a cost that taxpayers and passengers can afford, and when will they do it?
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their comments. I start by saying that I could not disagree more with either of their descriptions of the Secretary of State’s Statement in the other place. All my experience as a public transport operator is that people really care about the service that they are offered on a daily basis, and I think that we should welcome the Secretary of State making a Statement about things that are happening on the railway for the service of passengers. It is really very welcome. It is very important that it is recognised as a Statement by the Secretary of State for passengers, about what is going on.
I disagree with the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that these things are trivial. It is absurd, frankly, that on many journeys in northern England which are served by two companies—both owned by the Government—tickets are valid only on one of them and passengers might get fined for getting on the wrong-coloured train. Ticket acceptance, both in normal times and when services are disrupted, ought to be completely obvious, but the railway does not allow it, not even when the companies have the same owner—it is just extraordinary.
The noble Lord referred to CrossCountry cancellations being reduced. The reason they and the timetable are reduced—much to my irritation and that of the Secretary of State—was that the company which ran it suddenly found that it did not have enough drivers available. It appeared to be extraordinarily sudden, and I will come back to that in due course. The noble Lord mentioned delay minutes on TPE, but sadly his counterpart in the other place had not looked in a sufficiently granular manner at the statistics. In the last 12 months, as well as cancellations going down on TPE, delays have reduced; the statistics that were quoted were four-year statistics. I do agree with the noble Lord that it is more than this, and that is why we have said consistently—and I have been able to say consistently in discussing the Bill on which we have just had Third Reading—that there will be a much bigger Bill. But it is really important that things happen now, because people are travelling on the railway every day and they care about the service they are offered. They are offended by the stupidity of some of the existing rules which are the result of the balkanisation of the railways, and we should fix them.
Of course, the major ticket simplification that the noble Baroness referred to is a long way off, but it is one of the purposes of the Bill that has just had its Third Reading. Until we can control the fares structure and the information about fares and ticketing, it will not be possible to reform the fares system in the way that people want. The noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, has reminded me several times of his ambition to do that in his time as Secretary of State for Transport and his frustration from not being able to do it. The fact is that we will not be able to do it until we have got hold of information that is currently commercially confidential, even though it is on a risk that has been taken wholly by the public sector since Covid.
The driver availability issues are legion, so it is worth talking about them briefly. LNER has improved because we have solved the industrial dispute. Drivers are now working rest days and cancellations are now virtually zero. However, there are cancellations on other train companies, which are caused by a railway-wide shortage of drivers—a shortage of people and a shortage of the knowledge to drive all the routes and knowledge of the tracks on which they drive. It seems astonishing, but we have had to commission work to find out how many drivers the railway is short of, because no previous Government collected that information in order to deal with it.
The Government are doing a huge amount. In the business plans of all the train operators next year, one of the inputs that I want to see is how many drivers are being trained and the availability of those drivers. I can tell your Lordships that, over my nearly 50-year career in public transport, the first thing you want to understand is how many staff you have, what they do and where they are. The fact that we cannot account for that over the railway as a whole demonstrates that we do not have workforce planning in anything like the way that we would want.
The noble Baroness made some assumptions about the future of terms and conditions on the railway. In Committee and in other discussions on the Bill, we have not made our minds up yet about what to do. However, she is right that we need a modernisation of those conditions. I used to feel uncomfortable with the pay and conditions of Tube drivers when I ran Transport for London, but it took me some time to realise that at least they were rostered for seven-day weeks. Most of the railway asks people to cover work on Sundays on a voluntary basis, which is, if not Edwardian, Victorian. Nobody sought to change it, but we must change it, because it is unacceptable both to ask the staff to give up their work rest days and to ask the passengers to tolerate a service where people are not rostered to cover what is in the timetable.
My response to both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness is that these things are important. I welcome the Secretary of State making the Statement in the other place, because people want to know not only that we have a great plan to reform the railway but that we are doing something about it now. She said what we were doing and some of it is good news.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, I have twice invited the Minister to come to see the shambles and chaos in Oxford caused by Network Rail, but he has not so far taken up my invitation. Patients and doctors who need to get to hospital have not been able to get through the blockage caused by Network Rail for nearly two years, with no end in sight. The project has failed; it is bogged down in mud and a lack of resources. All the residents of west Oxford are blocked from accessing the station unless they can afford a £50 taxi fare around the ring road. I have appealed to the Minister and the Secretary of State to do something about it, but I hereby repeat my invitation: come and see the businesses that have closed, the people who are limping towards the station and the children who cannot get to school. It is a real disaster—please see it and sort it out.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I absolutely understand the noble Baroness’s discontent and irritation with the situation in Oxford. What I have promised her, and indeed other important stakeholders, is that when we understand what the solution to this issue is, and that will be soon, I will come very willingly and will bring with me the chief executive of Network Rail, who is equally embarrassed—in fact, it is now his job rather than mine directly—and we will talk directly with everybody about the situation. It is very unfortunate and unsatisfactory. In the meantime, I have said to the noble Baroness and others who have written to me that, if they think that we can do any more to alleviate the position of the people in west Oxford, all she needs to do is to write to me and we will do everything we can.
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
My Lords, the new Avanti trains on the west coast north Wales line are very welcome, but access to those trains is sometimes difficult, with large gaps between the train and some platforms. Can any remedial action be taken to ensure the safety of passengers, especially those with limited mobility?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness raises a subject that I feel that I should know more about than I do. I know the general issue, and one of the benefits of a coherent, integrated railway ought to be that Great British Railways should be considering level boarding far more deeply than anybody on the railways has generally done. That criticism can be levelled at most parts of the British railway system, with some notable exceptions.
I will now go and look at the compatibility or incompatibility of the trains and the platforms in north Wales. You have to remember that the platforms were largely built in that case in the 1840s, and not much has happened to them since. However, I recognise that it is a huge problem and I recognise the access issue, which always or nearly always calls for ramps and people to deploy them. It is unsatisfactory. Sadly, the infrastructure lasts for a very long time indeed, and the trains last for a long time, and it is a subject on which Great British Railways will have to do better than the railway has done for the last 50 years.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I am not a current active user of Euston Station but, in the course of my lifetime, I know well enough what experience you can have at that station, and it has often been quite dismal. However, I am encouraged by the Statement, which refers to “a 100-day plan of rapid improvements”. Can my noble friend the Minister outline a little more what he hopes will be the situation that will make the business of using Euston a more pleasurable experience for passengers?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that question. I was at Euston a week last Monday, hearing about the details of the plan. The station itself was very modern in 1968; it is no longer very modern. As a previous chair of Network Rail, I can tell your Lordships that if you look closely at the columns in the station, there are bands around the marble because it would fall off without them. The station is no longer in a fit condition. I would like to take some modest credit for having reincluded the concourse at Euston in the overall plan for the redevelopment of Euston and, now that the tunnels for HS2 will go there, I am very hopeful that all parts of the station will be fit for passenger usage in the future.
However, in the meantime, the most important parts of the 100-day plan are the following. The concourse is too small, so the logical thing to do on the concourse is to load the trains earlier, yet the position up until very recently was that neither of the train companies routinely managed to do that. However, they are now changing. So, a significant proportion of Avanti trains will be loaded at least 20 minutes before departure and, for the more local services on the London Northwestern trains, the platforms will be full of passengers even before the train has arrived. That will make a huge difference. There is a bookshop there currently that will not be there shortly, to create some space. I recall that we got criticism for removing Boots, but too many shops and not enough concourse space is the wrong answer. There will also be some further improvements to signage and visibility. When the last signage was done, it was hoped that it was the right job, but I am afraid it turned out not to be.
I hope that that is sufficient granular detail, but, if my noble friend would like to make himself available, either I or somebody else will show him around Euston Station, and I can get them to show him what is going to happen.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, I am grateful for what we have just heard. As somebody who frequently travels between Manchester and London Euston, I know that, at Manchester, I can often get on the train 20 minutes before it is due to leave and settle down, but at Euston it is a mad dash. It has still been like that, even in recent weeks. I want to focus on more local rail services. When I last spoke in this House on that subject, I asked the Minister whether there was any progress on allowing Greater Manchester—which now has control of the buses and the metro system—to take control of local rail as well. Integrating the transport system in a major city, as happens in London, is absolutely crucial. I can get to Manchester and then it takes me an hour to get home, out of the city, even though it is only two miles away. Is the Minister able to give us a progress report on that?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My previous statement about Euston could be added to only by saying that it would be very good if Avanti would like to run all the train services.
As far as the local rail services in Manchester go, I was with the Mayor of Greater Manchester last Thursday—six days ago—and there have been a lot of discussions between Transport for Greater Manchester and the department about a package of measures so that the mayor can replicate the success of his Bee Network for buses and the Metrolink with the railway service. Indeed, some of the discussion with the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and her colleagues about the Bill that had its Third Reading earlier was about greater devolution. The mayor has an aspiration to have much more control over the local railway service, and I think we have a plan coming together to achieve that. The substantive railway Bill will give combined authority mayors a statutory role in that. In advance of that, we are making significant progress on fares, ticketing and service levels.
My final point is that the service, particularly with Northern, has been ravaged by driver shortages and industrial disputes. I referred earlier to an industrial dispute on Northern that has been going on for nine years and has not improved either the morale of the staff, customer service, or the reliability of the train service. We have resolved a dispute with Northern drivers and we are on the cusp of resolving a dispute with its conductors. That would be much to the benefit of all local rail travellers in Manchester and north-west England.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, I brought this up a few weeks ago. Apart from passengers—and the noble Lord knows more than anybody else on this subject—the main thing about the railway system is trade. I talked then about when I wanted to buy a trade line. At the time, P&O—or the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, if noble Lords really want its full name—controlled well over 25% of all transport in this country, and I wanted to buy a freight line. At that time, a huge number of trucks—thousands of them—were going up and down the main roads. We wanted to take all that freight on to the railway system. We controlled only about 3% of trade in continental Europe, but we wanted to take freight right the way through to Istanbul—2,500 miles and further. We are where we are today. The Minister knows much more about this than almost anybody else in this House, but there are thousands of vehicles going up and down the trunk lines. In practice, they could be taken off the roads, as is done in China and other great nations, particularly America, where the railway systems move all freight and heavy freight. At a time when we really want to make this much cleaner in this country, I suggest that that is something of great importance that should be considered.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The Government are committed to growing railway freight. I made a commitment during the passage of the Bill, the Third Reading of which we had today, that the Government would institute a growth target to increase freight traffic by rail in this country. The companies that do it are, for the most part, privately owned; they are commercial businesses and the terms on which they deal with the freight that they run are largely for them. However, the Government have some schemes to assist new freight flows and we will continue to look to do so in the future.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister. After 13 or 14 years of a Government who seemed committed to keeping a dispute with the rail unions going for as long as they could and doing nothing to solve the problems of the railway, today we are hearing of all the problems that still exist, but they are historic. I am very pleased that the Minister is doing a root-and-branch attack on all the issues that need to be addressed if we are to have a modern railway system. Does he agree that we need to move as quickly as we can?
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, further to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, on the condition of the platforms along the north Wales line, if the Government can find £100 million for bat runs relative to HS2, surely they can find a fraction of that money to help disabled people along the north Wales coast.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The provision in HS2 for bats is a whole other subject, but I sympathise with the drift of the noble Lord’s argument. We should be doing as much as we can to enable access to the railway system by everyone. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who is in her place, knows that we have not been very good at it so far. I made a commitment to the House during the passage of the Bill of which we had the Third Reading today that we would do more. Level access, which I have already referred to, is an important subject. It is hard to crack but we should start, because if we do not start then we will never finish.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
Regarding HS2 and Old Oak Common, what is going to happen to services from Wales and the West Country over the next number of years with the effective semi-closure of Paddington station?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that question. I met, I think, every Member of Parliament west of Bristol two days ago, and they all had the same question. The work at Old Oak Common for the HS2 station and the construction of an interchange station on the Great Western main line, which also serves the Elizabeth line, is a big undertaking. I agreed then, and say again now, that one of the questions is whether it needs to be so disruptive, and so disruptive now. To answer that I am going to meet all the parties involved in the next few days. It is a big job at Old Oak Common, but I understand the views of those who use the Great Western main line. I will attempt to answer those questions and see what can be done to alleviate the delay during building and its effects after construction.
Baroness Morris of Bolton (Con)
My Lords, can I take the Minister back to Manchester and the Northern line, which I use every week? Not only are the trains regularly cancelled but, when you are waiting at the station for the next train for either Blackpool North or Barrow, it regularly has only three of its six coaches. Can the Minister explain why that is?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I am not sure that I can explain that, but the too-frequent short formation of trains on the national railway system is wholly unsatisfactory. It is one of the things that the Government need to deal with. Part of it is a shortage of rolling stock, some of which is due to the complexity of the arrangements for their procurement, lease and operation. One of the reasons for the reform process, which I deeply care about, is that, in the end, somebody should be in charge of demonstrable parts of the railway system. They should have under their control the staff who operate the system, the rolling stock and the infrastructure, so that there is nowhere to go for an excuse.
Everybody on the railway blames everybody else; even in Network Rail, I found myself reading the morning’s performance and thinking, “Thank goodness that’s not my fault”. That is entirely the wrong way to think about it. When I ran Transport for London, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, knows, everything was my fault, and it was our job as the management to fix it. That is what we want out of a revised structure for the railway. I want to see somebody who says to themselves every morning as they get up, “That train service is mine. Why does it not run properly? How are we going to fix it so that yesterday’s problems do not occur tomorrow?” I am absolutely passionate about that, because I did it for nine and a half years at Transport for London; if you can do it in one of the world’s great cities, you can do it on defined parts of this railway network.