Commercial Vehicles: Safety

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 19th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that commercial vehicles sold in the UK are as safe as possible and have a ‘five star’ safety rating.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, new motor vehicles, including commercial vehicles, must be approved through a broad range of rigorous safety requirements. In addition, the Department for Transport is a founding member of the Euro New Car Assessment Programme, a membership organisation providing information on the relative safety of cars and commercial vehicles beyond the regulatory minimum, typically using a one- to five-star rating system. Although it is not mandatory, it provides a market incentive for manufacturers to develop increasingly safer vehicles.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, the UK was at the forefront of developing the European Union’s general and pedestrian safety regulations—GSR—which mandate a raft of proven safety features in vehicles. Will the Government adopt GSR in the UK to ensure that we improve the safety of commercial vehicles on our roads? I also take this opportunity to wish the Minister a very happy birthday.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness, and she is absolutely right that the general safety regulations were mandated by the European Union in 2022. Prior to the United Kingdom leaving the EU, UK officials had worked on the range of 19 new vehicle technologies that she refers to. The Government have commissioned analysis to determine which of those technologies are right for Great Britain. This is under really active consideration at the moment. I will write to her about those 19. In the meantime, because the commercial vehicle manufacturing industry is international, many vehicles will already comply with GSR II.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I wish the Minister a happy birthday. There are 600,000 professional HGV drivers in the United Kingdom. We operate 400,000 HGVs. The Library tells us that only one person in Parliament has any practical experience of the operation of HGVs. Why do your Lordships want to get rid of me? To say that a Bill is going through Parliament is not a good answer.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

There is only one person here who holds a passenger-carrying vehicle licence, which is a broadly similar experience, although the payload complains more often than it does with a commercial vehicle. The noble Earl’s question has nothing to do with commercial vehicles at all. This matter is frequently debated in here, and I will leave it to the Leader of the House to answer that properly.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister enlighten me as to how many people were killed last year—or the latest date that he has—on the roads by HGVs? I have the numbers for 1929.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

The 2019 numbers! I have been here too long. There were 178 road users and 82 vulnerable road users. Surely he needs to bring in the protections that my noble friend described, ahead of waiting for some strategy, because people are dying on the roads daily.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I have those statistics somewhere and I have up-to-date ones. I will send them to her. Many of the 19 new vehicle technologies are already being applied, because the commercial vehicle industry is international. I also referred to this being under really active consideration, which means that shortly we will be able to say which of the 19 technologies this Government propose to introduce. When we do, that will be conclusive.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, we are keen on safety throughout the country. Indeed, our own drivers are very well trained, in general, but there are real concerns that foreign drivers, who seem to be involved in quite a lot of the accidents that occur with heavy goods vehicles, do not appear be trained to the same standards. Will the Minister kindly comment on that and say what we are doing in association with other countries, particularly in Europe, to make sure that their standards are maintained?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The standards of professional vocational drivers in Britain are very high. The tests that you have to pass and the continuous professional development, which is broadly similar to the continuous professional development applied in European countries, are also very strong. Enforcement activities are run by the Vehicle Inspectorate, which is part of the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency. It is much more sophisticated in targeting enforcement than perhaps it once was, including making sure that those who drive commercial vehicles from other countries on our roads are consistently to the same standard of safety as our own vehicles and drivers are. I will leave the detail of how it enforces what it does to it, but it appears to be very successful enforcement activity.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the safety rules apply to all cars and heavy goods vehicles? Do they also include vintage Army vehicles, to which the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, referred?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The safety requirements that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, asked me about are those applicable to new vehicles. The standards of safety that apply to all vehicles on the UK’s roads are the latest standards that applied at the time at which they were manufactured, of course, improved by the regular testing system. There are reasons why historic vehicles cannot always comply with modern standards. There is a silver lining in that, which is that most very ancient vehicles cannot go very fast. My experience of the vehicle testing regime is that it is rigorous but respectful of the age of vehicles and their original manufacturing condition.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on his birthday. It is a great pity that it is not being celebrated by a parade around Parliament Square featuring the noble Lord driving his bus accompanied by my noble friend Lord Attlee driving his Army truck. Perhaps that it is something to plan for next year. Broadening this out a little bit, UK motor manufacturing is in a state of crisis. Is it not time for the Government to take a lead from the Conservative Party and start to reassess their net-zero and, in particular, imposed electric vehicle targets while we still have a domestic motor manufacturing base to save?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

To the serious point that the noble Lord raises, the Government are continuing to modernise the requirements for vehicles on British roads and are continuing to insist on the trajectory to zero-emission vehicles, for obvious reasons. In fact, contrary to the implication of what he says, that was started by the previous Government. On a more jocular note, neither the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, nor I need to add to the traffic around Parliament Square, particularly in the past few days.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

The targets having been set up by the previous Government, the present Government should stick to them and give British motor manufacturers certainty about what is going to happen, rather than uncertainty of the kind that has recently been stirred up.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

We very much welcome the noble Lord’s support in this. It is inevitable that the motor manufacturing industry moves on. Contrary to a lot of the noise, there is great evidence that the translation to zero-emission vehicles and electric vehicles is proceeding. Beneath all that noise, it is quite clear that electric vehicles are catching on and that the manufacturing market needs to carry on in that direction. My own experience of introducing hybrid and electric vehicles is that the one thing that really makes a difference is the continuing purchase in larger and larger numbers, which encourages manufacturers to make the right thing at a lower cost and be successful.

Great British Railways: Industrial Action

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what role Great British Railways will have in resolving industrial action on the railways.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, when Great British Railways takes over, it will be responsible for the industrial relations of the railway. Its establishment depends, of course, on the passage of the forthcoming railways Bill through Parliament. In the meantime, as each train operation comes into public ownership, the transfer of undertakings regulations will apply, and thus the existing negotiating arrangements will apply for these operators and, of course, for Network Rail. There is currently no new industrial action on the railway network except for a projected eight-week strike on Hull Trains, which is an open-access operator and therefore not the responsibility of the Government.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, we know from what we saw only a few months ago that, under the current departmental management, the Department for Transport is very good at giving out public money to ASLEF and the RMT without securing any improvements in working practices in exchange. Why will this be different when GBR is managing the railways? What additional tools will it have that will secure the improvement in working practices on the railways that all of us want to see?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The answer to the noble Lord’s point is that it will have competent long-term management. The longest dispute in recent history on the national railway network was the one which was solved with an additional 2% pay offer last summer. That dispute lost an estimated £850 million-worth of revenue over the two years that it took place. Significantly, there were no productivity measures on the table at the time when the dispute was settled, simply because there had been a long-standing dispute between the employers—the owning groups of the train operating companies—and the department about the share of the revenue savings that they would get if productivity was applied. That meant that, in several train companies, there were no proposals whatever extant that could be implemented. Any sensible employer has in their mind the things that they need to do to make their operation more efficient and a negotiating strategy with their employees to achieve it. That was not the case last summer, but it will be the case in future.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, what steps will Great British Railways take to minimise disruption to passengers during periods of industrial action? What compensation mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that passengers are not unfairly disadvantaged when their journeys are disrupted?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The primary activity that needs to take place is good industrial relations, so that the instances of disputes that affect the train service are much reduced. A feature of good industrial relations is dialogue between the employees, their representatives and the employer, which is very much in the mind of the Government as we go forward with Great British Railways. In addition, as I have said to the House before, I want to see managers at route and train operating company level who can co-ordinate how the railway behaves and how it serves customers. By those means we will offer a better service and have less industrial action.

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the focus that the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has put on the negotiating arrangements in the railway sector. This was highlighted in the dispute that has been referred to before the general election, in which a point was reached where, after very intense and prolonged negotiations, a potential settlement had emerged that the negotiators were prepared to support from all sides. Unfortunately, that settlement was not approved because the Government Ministers decided to veto the possibility of that agreement being reached, bringing into serious concern the integrity of the whole process. Let me now turn—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)]

Does he agree that it would be better at the same time to reset relations with the workforce and the trade unions?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I agree with my noble friend, but I will add one point. The Government are responsible for the cost of the railways to the taxpayer and, because of that, Governments need to make clear before the commencement of negotiations what the envelope is for the employers to negotiate. It is most unhelpful for a Government to intervene part or nearly all of the way through.

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I remind all noble Lords that questions should consist of up to 100 words and no more than two points.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, further to my noble friend’s Question, does the Minister recall a speech that he made on 27 April 2022, when he was chairman of Network Rail, to the Rail Industry Association? He said:

“The industry will not back away from its modernisation and cost reduction drive despite the threat of strike action”.


Does that remain his policy?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I was wondering what I had said in April 2022. When I spoke to the Rail Industry Association, it was in respect of industrial relations in Network Rail, which I had the privilege to chair for nine years with 30,000-odd employees. What was very successfully concluded in the summer of 2023 was a ground-breaking deal with extensive productivity in a public sector corporation. It was not widely celebrated by the Government of the time because they did not welcome that progress, but it was very much in line with what I said in April 2022.

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my register of interests. Does my noble friend not agree that the lamentable record of the previous Government when it comes to industrial relations on the railway demonstrates the need for an independent guiding mind in the form of GBR, which we will hopefully legislate for soon? Does it not demonstrate the need to have an organisation that can take the heat and the fire—and, I might say, in some cases, the ideological approach—out of industrial relations on the railway and set a positive, modern and long-term framework for workforce relations in that sector?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Not only do I completely agree with my noble friend, but the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, might recall that, when he was deputy chair of Transport for London and I was the commissioner, we went to the ends of the earth to keep industrial relations matters away from the political leadership of the mayor and within the organisation. The right way of concluding both wages and conditions is for the employer to negotiate with the recognised trade unions of the employees, and political influence does not help much in those relationships.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Can the Minister give the House an assurance that the weekend roster has been sorted, particularly for stations along the east coast main line route, and that the excuse that there is no crew available will not be used over weekends this summer?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

So far as the long-distance operator on the east coast main line is concerned, I can very happily give that assurance: LNER is top of the performance league and is actually very popular with passengers—I hope it remains so. In respect of Northern, I just looked at it today. Northern was taken into public ownership in March 2020 because the previous owners had failed. At that time, it had a dispute about the role of the guard. That dispute was already running then and is still running after the remainder of its term of ownership under the previous Government. It is a very long-standing dispute that involves Sunday rostering, and we are working very hard to fix it. This Government inherited that dispute; it could have been resolved in any of the years from 2020 to 2024 if the Government at the time had so chosen.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, will GBR have a better plan than Network Rail for fixing the terrible damage done to Oxford by about four years of Network Rail cutting the city in two—with damage to the people, businesses and residents—or will the transition make things even worse and slower?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have apologised to the noble Baroness for the disruption at Botley Road bridge in Oxford already, and I am happy to do that again. What I am quite clear about is that the disruption caused by the bridge replacement and the associated difficulties of rebuilding the road will be finished before GBR comes into effect.

Great British Railways

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young, on securing this timely debate on an important subject. I offer him my wholehearted apologies for the omission of the letter that I sent everybody else; it was an administrative error but I it has, I believe, been rectified. I apologise to him for that.

The context of this debate is the live consultation document, A Railway Fit for Britain’s Future, which was published a few weeks ago and on which the Government welcome contributions. I hope all noble Lords here today will respond to the consultation document. It is not immediately apparent to me that everybody has ready every word of it, from what I have heard—perhaps that is reasonable—but it is important that noble Lords respond to it because it raises some of these subjects absolutely directly.

Having said that, I am not going to repeat large quantities of what is in the consultation document, for the obvious reason that it is in the public domain. People will respond to it; the Government will then consider their responses fully. It would be better if I spent my time looking at elements of the issues in front of us that noble Lords have raised.

I start with the noble Lord, Lord Young, who asked whether I share the RMT’s views. He deftly pointed out, however, that it appears to have two views that are contrary to each other at once. I can therefore say without compunction that I share some of its views but not all of them. It is entitled to its views because it represents the hard-working staff of the railways as their trade union, but they are not the determinants of future government policy.

The noble Lord expressed genuine concern about competition and asked whether I am open to listening to responses to the consultation. I am open to that; I have listened extraordinarily carefully to what noble Lords have said here today, and I believe that aspects of what they have said should influence the way we draft the legislation, following the responses to the consultation. It would be foolish and unnecessary for us to produce a consultation if we did not intend to listen to what people had to say about it.

The other thing I would say about the consultation is that it is over 30 years since a substantive railway Bill was in either House. It behoves us to do a good job this time because it may be a long time before there is another; you never know.

I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, had to say. His descriptions of some of the history were quite correct. I can correct him on only one material fact, which is that Network Rail slid into the public sector with a debt of £54 billion, rather than £34 billion; I remember remarking that it was higher than the national debt of New Zealand at the time I became the body’s chair. The noble Lord was right in describing that, in those days—at the time of the original privatisation of the railway and subsequently—there was some slack. It is true that quite a lot of additional services could be put into the timetable simply because there was plenty of room for them.

I always listen to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, extraordinarily carefully. He was a very senior railway manager when, sadly, I was still at school; he knows perfectly well how to run a busy, complex railway, and his memory is not diminished an inch by the effluxion of time since he did that. I do not think he is entirely correct to suggest that the ORR is concentrated on only one of its objectives—that would be doing it a disservice. But he is certainly entitled to a view about the extent to which it has balanced its objectives. He is indeed right about the east coast main line timetable. I had to answer a Question in the House only two days ago about the level of service at Alnmouth and Berwick. The last Government invested £4 billion to improve the capacity of the east coast main line. It has taken four years to get an agreement on that timetable, and that is because the number of people with rights on the east coast main line is so great that it required a huge meeting of railway operators. In the end, it also required the Secretary of State and I, as Ministers, to make a decision which on any normal railway would be taken by the railway administration. The noble Lord asked whether the ORR’s regulatory assumptions are sound and independently verified. They have been tested twice independently and found satisfactory at least.

The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, mentioned freight. The propositions about open access, whatever they are, do not apply to freight where the Government have already stated that they intend to have a target to increase freight. I believe we have also heard here that freight operators are apparently more comfortable with the regime proposed in the consultation paper.

I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, very carefully. I too want to see more trains on HS1 and through the Channel Tunnel, and the department is working as hard as it can to see that there are more trains and that any obstacles to further competition on the routes through the Channel Tunnel to Europe are removed. There are some things we can do, and we are proposing to do them.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, talked about what was in the King’s Speech and what, effectively, the Secretary of State wrote subsequently to the chair of the Office of Rail and Road. Opinions vary on this letter, but I think she and I are clear that what she said in the letter was not that there should be no open access. It did not say that we disagree with it; in fact, the consultation paper says that in the right circumstances, open access has a valuable part to play. But it would be negligent of her, and certainly negligent of me, not to reflect the fact that the railway post-Covid is costing the taxpayer an enormous amount of money. All of us in this Room, whatever political side we are on, cannot celebrate a railway that consumes twice as much public subsidy as before Covid. We need to do something about it. It is proper for the Secretary of State to reflect on the fact that one of the legitimate concerns of both the Secretary of State and, indeed, the ORR ought to be the whole cost of the railway to taxpayers. She talks about a balance: on the one hand, opening up new markets, driving innovation and offering choice to passengers, but also a balance that is mindful of the abstraction of revenue to taxpayers, as well as the charging mechanism. That letter sets out her views, which I do not think are anti-open access; it makes clear the role that the Government believe open access ought to have and the basis on which we are consulting.

The concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, were principally about freight, which I have already covered.

The noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, said that the private sector was under threat. I say to him that, in fact, four-fifths of railway expenditure is in the private sector and, very largely, that will continue. The Government’s proposals to take passenger services into public ownership are not the same as taking the private sector out of the railway. Network Rail spends a huge amount of money with many private sector organisations to maintain and improve the railway and that will continue, as will freight operations and so forth.

The noble Lord also talked about the costs of GBR as a potentially large public body—I prefer that word to “quango”, having chaired two such public bodies. There is a considerable saving to the public purse from managing the railway better. The fact that every meeting on the railway needs 20 people in it to decide anything, because of the proliferation of different contracts, is a huge cost and a huge barrier to effective management of the railway.

As chair of Network Rail, I had a difficulty with the ORR, because we were told at one stage that there was a belief that the law suggested that there were only two dates on which you could change the national railway timetable a year. That is completely inflexible and militates against the public getting a good service from the railways, simply by baking some arthritic processes into what ought to be a dynamic situation to deliver better services to passengers and freight.

The noble Lord, Lord Mann, talked with considerable passion about Hull Trains, and I respect his passion about that because it is clear that Hull Trains has produced a huge benefit for the city of Hull over the years it has been working. His observations about Worksop are probably more difficult, both for him and for me, but one of the issues with some proposals that the department has seen, but which will currently at least be considered by the ORR, is that the department at least considers that they will abstract from other services. The danger, of course, is that you offer a better service to a small number of people and the result of it is a higher cost to taxpayers and/or a reduction in services to others. Those are balances that railway administrations have had on their minds since 1830 or so, and they are considerations that GBR will have to have.

One thing that is obvious to me is that, in the course of further setting out how the new railway will work, you need a really comprehensive access and use policy. The consultation document says that GBR will have to have such a policy, that it will have to behave in accordance with it and, at the end of it, if people believe that it has not behaved in accordance with it, that will be appealable. In certain circumstances, the ORR will continue to be able to direct GBR to do something different.

I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, that it is the passengers in the end—well, it is the passengers to start with—who ought to be the real consideration of the railway. One reason I am passionate about the case for reform is that passengers are not well served by the current circumstances. The railway costs too much to run, it is arthritic and it is slow—as I said, every decision needs huge numbers of people involved. When the east coast main line timetable is put in, it will justify the £4 billion of public investment put into the line because there will be a third train to Newcastle as a consequence. That is good for passengers. It will not affect Lumo, because Lumo will still run and its access rights will continue. Open access can of course add value.

I listened carefully to what the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, said. I must have read most of it before somewhere, in a number of documents principally put out by FirstGroup. The only thing I would say to him is that he is of course right about some of that. There is no doubt that Lumo, which did get open access provision, has made a real difference in the air competition to Edinburgh and it is to be absolutely commended for that. The number of routes on the railway where that is true is very limited, but it behoves us to want open access where it adds to the railway—and to be careful about it where it adds to the total taxpayer subsidy and would otherwise make the railway more congested and less reliable for passengers.

I close by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Young, again for his debate. I apologise once more that everybody else got a letter addressed to him before he did—I am really sorry about that. I thank him for raising the subject and allowing me to respond.

North Sea Vessel Collision

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, the scenes that we have witnessed in news reports are deeply concerning and our thoughts are with all those affected, particularly the family of the crew member who is presumed dead. The situation has moved on considerably since Monday. It is not even the front page of the news. I also pay tribute to the Humberside Local Resilience Forum, the emergency services, the Royal Navy, Border Force, the Environment Agency and all others who are working tirelessly to manage this crisis. Their swift response has been vital in minimising loss of life and limiting environmental damage, and we owe them a great debt of gratitude.

This event is a stark reminder of the immense risks faced by those in the maritime sector—men and women who work long, demanding hours to keep our country moving, often without recognition. While investigations are ongoing and the internet is awash with different theories, from technical faults to human error and worse, urgent government action is required to reassure local communities and mitigate the wider impact. My right honourable friend in the other place, Alistair Carmichael, Member for Orkney and Shetland, highlighted the devastating impact of the MV “Braer” disaster off Shetland back in 1993, underscoring the justified fears that are now felt by communities along the North Sea coastline, which will be hoping for reassurance that the incident can be contained.

This incident also raises serious concerns about maritime safety, regulation and enforcement. Reports indicate that one of the vessels involved may have had failed multiple elements of routine safety inspections, including unreadable emergency steering communications, inadequate alarms, poorly maintained survival craft and improperly marked lifebuoys. Given these alarming deficiencies, will the Government review the effectiveness of port state control measures and enforcement procedures to prevent substandard vessels from continuing to operate in UK waters? What is the timescale for any such review?

Beyond safety concerns, as we have already heard, the environmental impact of this disaster could be severe. I welcome the formation of a tactical co-ordination group and its engagement with key agencies, but greater clarity is needed on how the Government intend to address the environmental challenges arising from this incident and supporting affected communities.

What immediate measures are being taken to protect the east coast marine life and fragile ecosystems from potential pollution? Furthermore, can the Minister provide assurances that financial support will be made available to cover the economic and environmental losses, particularly for those whose livelihoods depend on these waters?

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, for their responses and their commendations of those involved, which I echo. I offer my sincere thanks, and, I am sure, the thanks of your Lordships’ House, to all those who have responded to this incident on the front line, from His Majesty’s Coastguard to the local emergency services, merchant vessels in the vicinity and those who crew them, and the RNLI, which is a wonderful institution.

This is a challenging and ever-changing situation, and I hope that I speak for everyone in this House when I say that the continuing efforts are both brave and hugely appreciated. I also thank our international partners for their many offers of assistance to the United Kingdom, and for the support from the maritime community. Finally, I thank civil servants from across government in several departments working on the response. Their efforts are also greatly appreciated.

Following the collision of the motor vessels “Solong” and “Stena Immaculate” in the North Sea on the morning of 10 March, my department and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency have co-ordinated a government-wide response. The current position is that salvors are assessing the condition of the vehicles to plan the next steps of salvage operations. Concurrently, the Government are conducting environmental assessments to ensure that all risks are appropriately mitigated and that the effects of the incident are effectively addressed. There is currently no evidence to suggest that there are national security implications, but as the investigation continues that possibility will be constantly borne in mind. Both vessels now appear to be relatively stable and salvors are assessing their condition. There is no suggestion that, apart from what has been widely shown on the media, there is any substantial pollution. The aviation fuel which did not combust appears to have evaporated. I have read suggestions this morning that containers have fallen off the “Solong”, but that does not appear to be the case.

I turn to the noble Lord’s questions. We need a proper investigation to assess how this occurred. One might be able to draw some conclusions from the fact that one of the two ships was at anchor, but it would be wise to wait for the Marine Accident Investigation Branch to conclude its investigations. Although one of the ships is US-badged and the other is Portuguese, both those maritime agencies have rightly concurred that the MAIB should have precedence. The noble Lord referred to the arrest of the captain of one of the vessels, which renders that subject sub judice.

Will lessons be learned? Yes, indeed they will. One of the purposes of a thorough investigation is to ensure that lessons are learned. As with every accident investigation, some of them you might conclude immediately while some will take a great deal of research to work out what happened, why it happened and how you stop it from happening again.

The current environmental impact is mercifully small, and we are very lucky for that. There does not appear to be any significant spillage of either the jet fuel from the “Stena Immaculate” or any of the fuel or oil from the bunkers of either of the vessels concerned. Consequently, the current effect on marine and bird life does not appear to be significant, but I can confirm to the House that everything is ready in case that subsequently proves not to be the case. There is a lot of activity, including activity across nations, to make sure that we are ready in case anything like that should happen.

For example, the German coastguard has provided the support of a specialist counterpollution vessel, “Mellum”, which can operate in toxic environments, as well as additional surveillance aircraft. That vessel has been tasked to stand by and undertake air monitoring of the “Stena Immaculate”. However, no air quality measures have been reported, and it looks as though currently—due to the wind direction and distance from the coast—there is a very low risk to public health from either the plume or the spill.

I can assure both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness that we seek to ensure that every possibility is considered, both looking backward from the time of the accident and from now looking forward. This includes keeping the local community in general, and those who use the sea and care about marine and bird life, fully informed about this so that they can gain confidence from the actions of this Government and the other nations involved. As would normally happen, we will seek for the cost of all of this to be recovered from the insurers of the vessel or vessels found to be at fault. I hope I have covered all the points that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness raised, but if I have not, no doubt they will come up in further questions.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Statement. He said, correctly, that we have been very lucky on this occasion, in the midst of what is a tragic misfortune, in the sense that the fuel dispersed was aviation fuel, which has a propensity to evaporate compared with other fuels that would have been a real disaster for the environment. On a separate issue, has it been necessary to take any measures to ensure the openness and safety of shipping lanes or routes, and if so, what measures have been taken?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I omitted to say, which was entirely my fault, that we must all be extraordinarily sad about the plight of the missing seaman from one of the vessels, who is now unfortunately presumed no longer alive, despite the massive and brave attempts of the maritime community—the RNLI and others—to seek to rescue them. I am sure the House will join me in great sorrow about that.

The shipping lanes are now open again; there has been no need to take any measures to reopen them. One of the vessels is still where it was moored, and the position of the other is being constantly monitored to make sure that it is not a hazard to more shipping and that it is under control. There is a tug with the “Solong” that is able to control the latter’s position. The shipping lanes in and out of one of Britain’s most important ports are open and functioning.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I am very happy that the Minister reported that there does not appear to have been much environmental damage. However, we see again and again that these cargo ships are often quite badly maintained. When crashes happen, the spillage and the environmental damage from them is very severe, but the ships’ insurance can never cover all the impact on marine life and coastal areas. Are stronger regulations part of the Government’s thinking so that, when this sort of thing happens next time, the insurance companies bleed through the nose for the cost of keeping an inadequate ship afloat?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will say two things. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, referred to the previous defects on the motor vessel “Solong”. Although those defects were identified in an inspection made in Dublin in July last year, we also know that a more recent inspection of that ship in Grangemouth last October showed that those defects were rectified. That is a good reassurance; it does not completely answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about whether the ships are perfectly maintained at all times, but it does show that the inspection regime appears to demonstrate some characteristics that I am sure the House would welcome.

On the noble Baroness’s point about insurance, this will not, we hope, be the incident that bears out her theory. Of course we should be concerned that maritime insurance is capable of covering all of the consequences of an incident such as this. I will reflect on what she said and talk to my honourable friend the Maritime and Aviation Minister about whether there is anything the Government feel they need to do as a consequence of this incident in respect of insurance.

[Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (CB)]

My Lords, would the Minister comment on the role of professional salvors in a situation such as this?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

All I can say is that they are a completely necessary set of organisations and have some pretty brave people who assess on a continuing basis what can be done. They are an essential part of the maritime community, if only demonstrated by an event like this.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, it is very disturbing to see the visual displays of the Portuguese-registered vessel heading directly to the tanker. One sees this and, having a little knowledge of aviation, it would seem that someone in authority must be watching the movements of maritime traffic in a similar way to avoid this sort of collision taking place. Was anybody or any authority watching a screen as the Portuguese ship closed on the tanker? That seems to be very alarming, particularly in our own waters.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord’s observation is very reasonable in the circumstances. However, I am not tempted, and I do not think your Lordships’ House should be tempted, to draw any conclusions about how the accident occurred, nor what might be put in place to stop something like this happening again. Clearly, if you are the master of either of these vessels, or of any other vessel in the ocean, you are responsible for the conduct of the vessel and the way it is navigated. We should leave this for the Marine Accident Investigation Branch to properly investigate and draw some conclusions. If there are conclusions that need action from any government body, your Lordships’ House can be reassured that the Government will take that action.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I served on the board of the Harwich Haven Authority for six years. During that time, we had a lot of difficulty with local authorities that, for financial reasons, were reluctant to run robust emergency planning exercises, but what has happened really demonstrates their value. Could the Minister do some checking to find out what the current position is with the emergency planning and local resilience fora?

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, the VTS systems have sight of the entire seaway but operate within their own zones. This incident happened outside the Humber authority’s zone, but it would have had sight of it—perhaps there is another question there for the Minister. Finally, on the point from noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about port state control, it is always worth remembering that these are international matters carried out by the International Maritime Organization. Perhaps the Government can have a conversation with it to ensure that, where defects are picked up, they are constantly monitored to having been rectified.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I defer to the noble Baroness’s knowledge, which in this area—the latter part of what she just said—is greater than mine. The information I currently have is that the Humber Local Resilience Forum was stood up very quickly and has held a strategic control group. The membership is widespread and includes the police, fire and rescue, local authorities, the Red Cross, the health service, MHCLG, His Majesty’s Coastguard, the Royal Navy and other organisations. By all accounts, this seems to have worked very well in this circumstance, and there cannot be any criticism of the bodies that have come together and worked extremely hard—and are still doing so, because this event is not over yet.

[Lord Mountevans (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for his update, but we seem to have been extremely fortunate in this incident. From a lifetime in shipping, I know that a conflagration involving a cargo of jet fuel is one of the most serious things that can happen at sea, so we have been extraordinarily successful and probably fortunate. It is early to be congratulating anybody, but it appears that all the emergency agencies—the MCA, the coastguard, the RNLI and the local environmental resilience plan—all seem to have functioned extraordinarily well, so we are very grateful for that. But this points to the dangers to so many ports around the UK of potential grey action. Will the Minister be thinking about that following these events?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I concur with the noble Lord, and I will.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, these vessels have massive momentum due to their huge size. Can the Minister please inform the House whether there are speed limits of any kind in these shipping lanes, particularly off the coast or near ports such as Hull?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am not aware of the answer to the noble Lord’s question, so I will write to him.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, first, can the Minister confirm that the SOSREP system instigated in the report by Lord Donaldson of Lymington, Safer Ships, Cleaner Seas, is in place?

Secondly, in addition to the noble Lord, Lord West, we have at least three maritime experts in the House of Lords. The noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, was a Royal Navy submarine commander; the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, recently retired as chairman of the Baltic Exchange; and the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, is an Elder Brother of Trinity House. Can the Minister explain why the Government want to get rid of them?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Secretary of State’s representative for maritime salvage and intervention convened a salvage co-ordination unit yesterday morning to oversee the salvage response to this incident, working alongside the vehicles’ owners, insurers and salvors. Following the separation of the two vessels, an operational decision has been taken to form two salvage co-ordination units, one for each vessel. I believe that competently answers the noble Earl’s first question.

The second question is being discussed in this place most days of this week, next week and the week after, and I will defer to the Leader of the House on that one.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, I would not dream of adding my name to those my noble friend Lord Attlee just mentioned, but I did spend all my commercial life in the shipping industry, so I may have a slight knowledge in this subject. Can the Minister confirm that the inquiry will look into the question of negligence, be it on the part of the owners—he referred to the state of the vessel—or the captain, because either could have been negligent in this context?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have every confidence that the inquiry will look at all the relevant aspects of this really significant incident and will include all the parties, including the two that the noble Lord describes.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, further to the question from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will the Minister confirm that he can take advice from every source and all the experts? They do not have to be Members of this House to give advice.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. The answer is that a significant number of experienced bodies and people are involved in making sure that the consequences of this incident are fully investigated, and that the safety of the environment, the two ships and their remaining cargoes are looked after. I do not think there is any doubt that the nation is served well by a number of the bodies I have mentioned and that they are working professionally and extremely hard to resolve this incident with no damage to the environment and no—or, sadly, at least no further—loss of life.

[Viscount Thurso (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend on the Front Bench mentioned the “Braer” incident, and I remember well the “Ascania” incident off the coast of Caithness. Both events led Alistair Carmichael and me to lobby for a tug to be based at Kirkwall. Can I follow up with the Minister on an answer he gave earlier? Like many who live on the coast, I follow the shipping, and I see it on the horizon or one of many radar apps. Is it not now time to look, in busy shipping lanes such as the channel, the North Sea and the Pentland Firth, at some form of equivalent to air traffic control, so that somebody has an eye out and some form of warning can be given based on that?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

It is very tempting, in an age when so much is instantly available on every sort of media, including social media, to draw some conclusions about not only how this incident occurred but what should be done to make sure that such a thing never happens again. It is really important for us all to be continent and to allow the Marine Accident Investigation Branch to do its investigation, draw all the necessary conclusions and follow through on the actions required from those.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, this was a never event: it really should not have happened if the AIS was working properly. I am conscious that the MAIB will be investigating this carefully, but from what the Minister has said I hope that the Nairobi convention has now been triggered and that a wreck removal notice will be applied so that the costs can be fully recovered. Going further back to the points made about the assessment in Grangemouth, it is concerning that the safety of seafarers was not rectified before MV “Solong” left that port. As a consequence, one crew member from that boat is now assumed dead. Will the Minister consider working with the Minister responsible for maritime to re-evaluate the criteria on which boats will be released when the safety of crew is at risk?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

As I have said, we should wait for the investigation to draw conclusions, because that is the proper and only way of dealing with this. On the defects of the motor vessel “Solong”, I did not say that the defects identified in the inspection made in July last year in Dublin were not rectified until the more recent inspection; I said they had all been rectified by the time of a more recent inspection. Again, we should not draw conclusions. The investigation will look widely at all the causes of this and the conditions of these vessels. Speculation on some of this is, frankly, very unhelpful. We need to leave all the professional and brave people to deal with this incident as it is occurring, and we need to leave the Marine Accident Investigation Branch the time and space to carry out the proper investigation so that we learn all the things that need to be done as a consequence of this incident.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, as the Minister has rightly said, we should not leap to any conclusions or make any speculative changes right now, but these two maritime ships surely would have contained black box recorders. Where are we on finding those recorders to mitigate these disasters in the future?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My understanding is that vessels such as these have such a thing, but currently neither has any crew on board, clearly, and the activities are primarily based on keeping the vessels floating and preventing the terrible consequences of any part of what is on them or in them polluting the environment. Of course, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch will look for those as a matter of urgency, will hopefully find them intact and will therefore be able to have a really good understanding of what went on on each vessel in the hours and days leading up to the incident.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

Following on from the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, on the issue of emergency planning exercises, there has been a long gap since the last disaster in the North Sea, but we had the “Herald of Free Enterprise” disaster, which was catastrophic, and then the fire on board a DFDS ferry as well. The level at which these emergency exercises are taking place seems to be fairly patchy. Is there a role for the Emergency Planning College at Easingwold to co-ordinate these activities to ensure that they are happening across the country?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I do not have information in front of me about how long it has been since there was such an emergency planning exercise and how often they have taken place. I am sure that, in general, there must be a role for the college at Easingwold, which has a very high reputation both nationally and internationally. The Government will of course look at that, but I hope your Lordships’ House will take some considerable comfort from the fact that, actually, the deployment of all the people who needed to be deployed to deal with this was very immediate and appears, at least so far, to have been very successful.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister has confirmed that the “Stena Immaculate” was at anchor, and it seems clear that it was. We know that a lot of large ships are often at anchor off estuaries. Can the Minister at least confirm that the “Stena Immaculate” was anchored in a normal place, or was its place of anchor rather abnormal?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am not sure that I can confirm that without leafing through the vast amount of information in front of me. I believe that what the noble Viscount says is true, but why do we not leave all the detail of this to the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, so it can properly assess all the factors that have gone into the incident occurring and what has happened since then? That would be absolutely the right thing to do, because the more speculation there is at this stage, the harder it is for it to distinguish the facts from the speculation.

East Coast Main Line

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beith]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what consultation will take place with rail users on the latest version of the proposed East Coast Main Line timetable.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, the east coast main line timetable change is putting into effect the fruits of a £4 billion investment into the route since 2019. The timetable was consulted on in 2021, and feedback from that was incorporated. After a lengthy period, and following an industry task force review, the Secretary of State and I have agreed to the delivery of the timetable in December 2025.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, what in the consultation process was done about the fact that the most savage cut anywhere on the network applies to people from the Scottish Borders and Northumberland? They use Berwick-upon-Tweed station, where LNER’s hourly service will be reduced to a two-hourly service. Passengers will also probably find that, if they try to use any of the other operators, LNER tickets will not be accepted by them.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Constructing a railway timetable on one of the busiest routes in Britain is very difficult indeed. The benefits of the east coast main line modernisation are significantly faster journeys between London and Scotland, and an extra hourly London to Newcastle service. There are other improvements all the way up and down the line from King’s Cross to Edinburgh. In total—including CrossCountry and TransPennine services—the number of trains calling at Berwick and Alnmouth stations are the highest they have ever been. The noble Lord is right that there is some reduction in through trains from Berwick, but it is offset by an increase in CrossCountry, which has already taken place, and a further increase will take place on TransPennine in December 2025.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister give the House a commitment that the new timetable will remain as it is now, that the same number of direct trains from Northallerton and Darlington as at present will be maintained and that it will not follow the 2021 timetable? There are a number of businesses that rely on taking the trains from Northallerton and Darlington and having a direct service.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I understand—and I am sure that people who run the railway also understand —that there are some trade-offs to be made in the execution of the east coast main line upgrade. I know that there have been some improvements in the proposition of services in Northallerton as a result of local representations. I am very happy to write to the noble Baroness to explain what they are and what the pattern of service will be from December 2025.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, as a regular user of the east coast main line—and acknowledging the fact that it is already in national hands—and despite the comments of other noble Lords, I take this opportunity to congratulate David Horne, the chief executive of LNER, on providing, in general, a very good service on that line. Can the Minister confirm that, in the Great British Railways development, no extra impediments, regulations or obstacles will be placed in the way of a business such as LNER in developing that business on the east coast?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I welcome the noble Lord’s favourable views about the management of LNER and I agree entirely with him that the direction of that company under public ownership has been very good.

The instigation of Great British Railways, following the successful passage through this House and the other place, is definitely not intended to impede those people managing the railway on a route-operating and train-operating company basis. I say to the noble Lord that the whole point of Great British Railways is to give those people some real power in delivering better services for passengers than the fragmented railway does now. After all, it took four years to institute this timetable because it was so difficult to get agreement between all the parties, and this shows, more than ever before, that a guiding mind for the railway is absolutely what is needed to institute improvements for both passengers and freight.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, in the spirit of railway consultation, I met with the noble Lords, Lord Snape and Lord Bradley, and we are inviting the managing director of Avanti trains, Andy Mellors, for lunch. So my question is, would the Minister like to join us?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Colloquially, “you’re on your own with that one”. I meet the managing director of Avanti trains more often than I should have to, and the fact remains that Avanti’s performance, in stark contrast to that of LNER, still needs improvement. Actually, the service on the west coast ought to emulate the service on the east coast.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, as a regular passenger, along with the noble Lord, Lord Beith, on the 9.30 from Edinburgh on the publicly owned LNER, I can say that it is a regularly efficient service. Unfortunately, yesterday, I had to travel on the west coast, on Avanti, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Curran, who will confirm that the 9.36 train was cancelled without any explanation. So when are we going to bring Avanti into public ownership so we can have a decent service on the west coast as well?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am afraid that I do not have the time or facilities to give each Member of this House the train information that they need on their daily journeys, although I will do my best if they ask me. Of course, there is a serious point to this. The House will have heard before that, actually, Avanti has not breached the contract that it was awarded when the original contract was extended. That is why I meet Mr Mellors and his management team on a regular basis, because I am exhorting them to perform the contract that the Government contracted them to do. The noble Lord is right that sometimes the service is not very good.

[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that, as well as the detail of the timetable, its accuracy is at least as important?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I certainly would agree. It is a real skill on today’s railway to fit so many trains in, with so many different station calls. There is a serious point to the original question that the noble Lord asked, which is that there are some compromises to be made. The strange position that I find myself in after four years of saying, “Where is this timetable?” and “How are we going to put it in?” is that it had to come to the Minister for agreement to do it. I think there are probably only two other countries in the world where Ministers decide the times of trains: North Korea and Russia.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, open-access operators on the east coast main line have delivered significant benefits to passengers through increased competition, lower fares and additional journey options. So why have His Majesty’s Government rejected eight out of the last nine applications for new open-access services?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have two points to make to the noble Earl. First, the improvements in journey time between London and Scotland—particularly between King’s Cross and Edinburgh—apply equally to LNER and to LUMO, which is the open-access operator. Of course, the Government have not rejected eight out of nine applications. They have analysed the effect of those applications both on the reliability of the railway and on the revenue of the railway, and hence the effect on taxpayers’ subsidy. Their recommendation to the ORR, which currently decides open-access applications, is that those should be refused; but it is the ORR’s independent decision and we await its decision on all those nine applications and others.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

My Lords, since the train drivers were given a very substantial pay increase, what has happened to train drivers’ productivity and train punctuality?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The increase in pay given to both train drivers and other railway staff last summer was not very different from the offer made by the previous Government, which was not sufficient to settle the dispute. The additional 2% that was paid last July stopped the dispute, which had cost the nation nearly £1 billion-worth of lost revenue on the railways. The result is that passenger numbers are steadily growing. The productivity of train drivers is, of course, a function of the timetable. The more services you run, the more likely it is that they will be more productive. That is a matter for their current employers, whether they are publicly owned or not.

It is interesting that, even if it had been decided by the Government last summer that they wanted to see productivity improvements for train drivers, in fact there were no extant proposals to allow that to happen, because many of the employers had withheld them pending the resolution of a dispute not about what the benefits of their productivity were but about who made the money out of the productivity, whether it was them or the Government.

Airport Expansion

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they intend to consult the Committee on Climate Change before taking decisions on airport expansion.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

The Government published their report on the Climate Change Committee’s latest progress report in December last year. The response makes it clear that we recognise the role for airport expansion where it provides economic growth and is compatible with our net-zero target and strict environmental standards. As part of the Airports National Policy Statement review, referred to by the Chancellor in her recent Statement, we will engage with stakeholders on how aviation expansion can be made consistent with our net-zero framework.

[Earl Russell (LD)]

This level of airport expansion is always going to be incompatible with our climate change commitments. It would undo all our work on climate change in under five years. When just 15% of the population is responsible for 70% of all flights, the Government must do more to curb demand. No economy in the world has grown from building runways alone. Meanwhile, in 2024, the green economy grew by 10%, adding £83 billion. Does the Minister agree that what is needed more than anything else are clear and consistent government policies on climate change and green growth, not this damaging policy confusion?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I certainly do not agree with the noble Earl’s assertion about the incompatibility of this. The Government have been clear that any airport expansion proposals need to demonstrate that they contribute to economic growth, can be delivered in line with the UK’s legally binding climate change commitments, and meet strict environmental requirements on air quality and noise pollution. The work of the department has shown that we can achieve aviation net zero by 2050 under a range of assumptions about future technology development without the Government needing to intervene directly to limit airport expansion.

[Lord Sharma (Con)]

My Lords, when it comes to airport expansion and more flights, one of the key measures that can be used to reduce emissions is the increased use of sustainable aviation fuels. I welcome the SAF mandate but, when it comes to job creation and energy security, it is important that the SAF we are using in the UK is manufactured in the UK. Will the Minister set out what plans the Government have to support SAF production in the UK? Will he tell me how many jobs he expects to have been created in that sector specifically under those plans by 2030?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that sustainable aviation fuel is important in reducing the carbon footprint of air traffic. This Government have taken forward the SAF mandate, which came into force in January, which progressively increases the percentage of sustainable jet fuel used from this year onwards. It is also important, as the noble Lord says, that the UK is a supplier, and the actions of the Government are to make sure that there are jobs in Britain and that Britain is a leading supplier of this. On 29 January, the Government announced £63 million of funding for the advanced fuels fund in the next financial year to support SAF producers based across the United Kingdom. I do not have a jobs figure to hand for SAF, but I will willingly write to the noble Lord and tell him what we know about it.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, on the subject of airport expansion, there are airports around the country that are under capacity currently, including Cardiff Airport. What consideration have the Government given to working with the Welsh Government on driving more business in the direction of airports such as Cardiff Airport?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Government recognise the importance of regional airports. I do not have in front of me what the Government are doing about the expansion of Cardiff Airport, but I will willingly write to my noble friend and tell him exactly what we know about Cardiff’s expansion and the Government’s role in helping it.

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, when we did the Airports Commission review, the UK’s 2050 target was only an 80% emissions reduction, yet the third runway at Heathrow still required reduced growth at regional airports to keep within our carbon budgets. Has this analysis been redone and are the conclusions the same? Should we not wait for the seventh carbon budget, which is being published tomorrow?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I stand by the earlier figures I mentioned on achieving aviation net zero by 2050. The noble Baroness is right that the seventh report will be published tomorrow. The proposals from Heathrow, or any other promoter’s proposals, for a third runway have not yet been received. They will have to be followed by an application for a development consent order, which will have to be properly processed. It is not incompatible with the forthcoming publication for the Chancellor to express her enthusiasm for a third runway and the economic growth that it will produce.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, by 2040 aviation will be responsible for 27% of the UK’s carbon emissions. Given that most people in Britain—and in fact the world—do not get on a flight in any given year, is it not time to see that aviation is a luxury and not a human right, and to bring in a frequent flyer levy?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

While I respect the noble Baroness’s view, the fact remains that a decent analysis suggests a third runway will create economic growth of measurable proportions to the British economy. This Government are extraordinarily keen on economic growth, for the obvious reason that the legacy of the previous Government left the economy in a really bad place. We need to use every means of economic growth that we have got to grow the economy and make the country more prosperous.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, when Heathrow was previously promoting this runway some eight or nine years ago, the estimated cost was £18 billion. Because of the regulated asset-based model on which it is funded, this cost will fall on the airlines and then further, consequently, on the passengers of airlines. Should not the Government be consulting passengers about whether they want this runway, as much as anything else? What plans do the Government have to consult them, and indeed the airlines?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

As soon as the noble Lord got up, I was reminded that he was one of the principal promoters of the Thames estuary airport. That was a good, innovative and brave proposal, but would have cost the country far more than the figures he is quoting for the expansion of Heathrow. We have to wait for the proposals from Heathrow, or any other promoter, for the third runway and see what they look like. We can then see what the application for a DCO actually consists of, how much it is said to cost and what else needs to be done in order to achieve it. That will clearly be work in progress, considering that a proposal is expected only early in the summer.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

My Lords, the Government—the Minister referred to this a moment ago—based their pronouncements on Heathrow on a report by Frontier Economics, but I recognise the key graph. It looks like a forecast for high demand for air travel, which is then met by Heathrow runway 3, but it is actually a graph of how much more air travel could be induced by runway 3 if a company applied an aggressive marketing strategy. How does a strategy based on inducing more air travel fit with the Government’s statements on climate change?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The next process is that the Government are committed to reviewing the Airports National Policy Statement, which is a government action. Then, as I say, this summer we will receive proposals from Heathrow, or from any other promoter, about a third runway, followed by an application for a development consent order. The matters that the noble Baroness refers to will no doubt be set out in Heathrow’s proposals and those of any other promoter, and then set out in detail in the DCO. We have to wait until then to see what they say about the demand, how it should be paid for—which was the subject of the previous question—and the Government’s view about what it will do for the economy.

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, where there are major changes to large airports, will the Government take into account the needs of smaller aircraft such as air taxis, which are very often subject to changes in wind speed and direction, for example?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I cannot say whether a third runway at Heathrow will materially affect the ability of the airport to accept air taxis. There is clearly a limit to what size of aircraft can be landed, not only at the moment but in the future, but we will bear the noble Lord’s suggestion in mind.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

I know that the Minister is a great supporter of UK connectivity; indeed, I would recommend his report on the same to the House. Given that that is the case, could he confirm that, for some of us, flight is essential?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. She will know that I spent a large portion of lockdown looking at connectivity in the United Kingdom. I entirely agree with her that the economy of Northern Ireland is utterly dependent on good flights to and from London and other places in mainland Britain. One of the opportunities that a third runway would give is better connectivity to Heathrow, the UK’s only hub airport, especially for Northern Ireland and places in Scotland, to make that economy grow, as well as mainland Britain’s economy.

Stockton and Darlington Railway: 200th Anniversary

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare a lifelong interest in railways.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world’s first railway to use steam locomotives to transport passengers, shaped modern railways. To mark its 200th anniversary, Railway 200—a national celebration—is supporting the Stockton and Darlington bicentenary festival. That festival will highlight its impact on the local and regional industry, communities and innovation. My department is supportive of these events and of ensuring that the Stockton and Darlington Railway is rightly honoured for transforming transport and Britain’s and the world’s economy.

[Lord Houchen of High Leven (Con)]

My Lords—

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. There are clearly many activities to which we can look forward. May I ask three quick questions? First, can he say a little bit more about the so-called Greatest Gathering, which I understand is going to take place in August in Derby, and which will bring together an unprecedentedly wide range of trains illustrating 200 years? Secondly, what hopes do the Government have that this anniversary will help the heritage railway industry, on which so much of our historical culture and tourism depends? Finally, will it look ahead to the future of railways, particularly the exciting new direct journeys from London to places in Europe and beyond?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. The celebration in Derby is from 1 to 3 August. It will be a huge gathering of historic and current railway equipment. It is entirely put on by Alstom, which occupies Britain’s oldest train manufacturing plant, and it will be a great occasion. The heritage railways movement is worth £600 million a year to the economy and has 4,000 employees and 22,000 volunteers. It has had a hard time since Covid, and one of the purposes of Railway 200 is to give it a bit of a hand in survival and growth. In respect of the present and the future, the real reason why this Government should support this celebration so much is that the railway is extraordinarily relevant to the modern economy: connectivity drives growth, jobs and housing, and, on the future, the technological change that the railways are presently going through is an eminently marketable resource. He is also right, of course, that European connectivity is important. My department is working as hard as it can to increase the number of European destinations accessible through Eurotunnel.

[Lord Houchen of High Leven (Con)]

My Lords, I hope noble Lords can already sense my excitement at this Question, so I appreciate the time. It is an extremely important celebration—I declare an interest as the regional mayor for the Darlington and Stockton area—which will go down as a point in history for a key piece of infrastructure that hopefully will shape not just our past but our future. Along those lines, I ask the Minister: what is the department’s and the Government’s position on the CRSTS2 budget, which is still under review ahead of the spending review, and what representations is he making to the Treasury to make sure we protect that capital investment, to make sure that we can invest it not just in general transport but specifically within our rail infrastructure, to make sure we have a rail infrastructure fit for the 21st century?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Well, it is not much of a leap to funding in the spending review, so the noble Lord has answered his own question—the CRSTS2 budget is in process, there will be a spending review, and my department is extraordinarily active in making sure that the position of transport is well represented to the Chancellor in the Budget. But he will have to wait, as everybody else will, for the outcome of the spending review in due course.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not worth reflecting that, 200 years ago, British engineering designed and built the first steam locomotives, built a phenomenal network of railways across our country, most of which is still intact and used today, exported all over the world and built railways in pretty well every continent? Fast forward to today and we have a situation where, while large numbers of countries across the world are building new railways and new high-speed lines, the last Tory Government took the absurd and costly decision to cancel HS2 north of Birmingham. Would not it be a wonderful way of celebrating 200 years of railway history if the Minister could come to this Dispatch Box and say, “We are going to clear up the Tory mess and build HS2”?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that. The first priority of this Government is to get the present phase 1 of HS2 back under control. This Government inherited a situation where they could predict neither the cost nor the timescale of completion of the line between London and Birmingham. The Chancellor has taken the brave but right decision of restarting the tunnels to Euston, without which the railway would have no proper end, and our job is to make that work. Our job is also to put forward a plan for railway infrastructure for the rest of the country, particularly the Midlands and the north, and a lot of effort is going on in my department to do that logically, properly and in a properly costed and prioritised way.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, given this Question is about commemorating the railway, can the Minister confirm what plans the Government have to mark the first rail franchise coming into public ownership this May? Could it be commemorated with the provision of a basic catering service for passengers on the Waterloo to Exeter line, and perhaps even some seat reservations?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The first publicly run South Western Railway train will be at an extraordinarily early hour on 20 May. I fear I will have the doubtful privilege of traveling on it. I doubt it will have catering, because I suspect it is a suburban service from Strawberry Hill to Waterloo. The more serious answer about the Waterloo to Exeter line is that it could be more reliable, and a lot of effort is being put into making it more reliable. South Western, like most other current franchises, has a shortage of drivers, and I am working extremely hard with the department to make sure that it works better for the passengers both prior to and post the operation coming back into public ownership. We will look at catering, but the first priority is to make the train service reliable.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, in joining the good people of Stockton in celebrating the 200th anniversary, will the Minister recall that the first steam engine ran a decade earlier in Merthyr Tydfil, designed by the outstanding Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick? That was a reflection of the industrial greatness of those valleys at that time. Looking at HS2, which was mentioned a moment ago, will the Government now ensure that the Barnett consequentials come through to the Welsh Government in order for them to build a future for the railways in Wales that Wales most certainly deserves?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

There is a Celtic competition between the Penydarren tramway of, I think, 1814 and its originator, Trevithick, who came from Camborne. Personally, I side on the Cornish side of that argument. The more serious point the noble Lord raised is of course a matter of national finance and one for my Treasury colleagues and the Chancellor.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, will the Minister recall that the steam engine was invented by a Scot, James Watt? I declare my interest as chairman of the Steam Boat Association and raise the serious point that we are very dependent on heritage railway in our country for tourism. The decision to close the last remaining coal mines means that coal has to be imported at great expense for that purpose. What are the Government going to do about it? Is this not an example of net-zero ideology harming our economy?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am certainly willing to give credit to another Celtic nation for the invention of the steam engine. The matter of coal is, of course, a much wider question than coal for heritage railways. I would ask the noble Lord to look at an aerial photograph of the last Welsh opencast coal mine and the hideous blot on the landscape that it represents, and also at the huge damage that coal and the coal-fired equipment has done to the environment and the atmosphere. It is a factor in the continued provision of heritage railways and, as he says, steamboats, that there should be some coal. There is some coal, and I can write to him, if he wants, about the means by which coal substitutes can be procured rather than reopening coal mines.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, returning to the Question, Parliament, particularly your Lordships’ House, played a crucial role in the creation of the railways. Over a period of 200 years, noble Lords have toiled at the coalface of the hybrid Bills and other legislation without which the railways would not exist at all today. Can the Minister say that Parliament will feature prominently in the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the railways? Might there even be an opportunity for noble Lords to fulfil some childhood dreams and drive a steam train?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I can certainly ensure that the noble Lord is able to drive a steam train, but it will not be on a railway line near Parliament. Parliament will have a unique opportunity this year to contribute to the future of Britain’s railways by considering and then passing the forthcoming railways Bill, which will put the railway back into a state where it can generate revenue, run better and reduce its costs. I think that will be an excellent contribution of Parliament to the future of the railway.

Violence Against Women and Girls on Trains

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, following the passing of the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024, what discussions the Department for Transport has had with the Home Office about the prevention of violence against women and girls on trains.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, tackling violence against women and girls on the railway network is a priority for the department, with my honourable friend the Minister for Local Transport and officials meeting their counterparts in the Home Office regularly. These meetings have been to co-ordinate and develop plans for tackling violence against women and girls on public transport, including trains, which will be a significant contributor to the success of the safer streets mission, part of the Government’s plan for change.

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Non-Afl)]

I thank the Minister very much for his Answer. Will the forthcoming Bill relating to the creation of Great British Railways contain a clear statement of the Government’s responsibility after nationalisation for the prevention of violence against women and girls on trains? Does the Minister agree that the potential for violence against women and girls on our railways needs to be prevented by measures such as decent lighting and the better design of trains and stations, rather than being dealt with by the British Transport Police after the event?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Taking the noble Baroness’s second point first, I completely agree that it is highly desirable to design out those features of railway travel which might contribute to any opportunity for violence against women and girls. My belief is that we do not need to wait for the railways Bill to do that, only to note that Great British Railways will have increasing control over the design of trains and, in particular, standards of lighting and closed-circuit television, which I think she is referring to. That will be very welcome, because it is quite clear that, although the British Transport Police is absolutely committed to tackling violence against women and girls, designing out opportunities for such violence to happen is a real priority.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, the British Transport Police has a key role in ensuring our public transport remains safe. Its funding comes, in part, from train operating companies. What discussions has the Minister had with the Treasury to ensure the British Transport Police is properly resourced as the railway moves into public ownership?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The British Transport Police is governed by the British Transport Police Authority, which is independent. There are no statutory powers that I or the Government have to intervene. Nevertheless, the authority decided that the budgetary increase for 2025-26 would be 5.9%, which is significant. Ten days ago, I met the authority and the British Transport Police—including the chief constable—along with train operators, Network Rail and Transport for London to ensure that the BTP’s independent operational plans maximise the best use of the budget in those circumstances and, in particular, contribute to reducing violence against women and girls.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords, the slogan “See it. Say it. Sorted.” works best when, you having seen it and said it, there is someone qualified on the train to sort it. Does the Minister agree that there should be an increase—indeed, a guarantee—of people who are properly trained, on every train, so that there is a reduction in crime?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The opportunity for railway travellers to report crime through the 61016 phone number is not limited to what is happening on the train but includes what travellers see from the time they enter the network to the time they leave it. Many trains have one such person or more on them. Equally, in the case of trains that do not generally stop frequently, there is the opportunity of summoning police or other aid to the train.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, two policies would help to tackle violence against women and girls on trains: first, a ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol on public transport; and, secondly, ensuring that railway staff are present on platforms during scheduled train services. If the Minister agrees, when can we expect to see these changes implemented?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. It was quite a long time ago, but I was responsible for the original drink ban on the London Underground, which was enacted by the second Mayor of London. It was, by and large, successful—and it still is, although enforcement is always an issue. It is not practicable to have somebody in attendance on a railway platform for every station in Great Britain. Many of them have very few travellers, and those which are busy generally do have someone. I agree with the sentiment that it is desirable to have somebody on the platform. In fact, to be frank, it is better to have somebody around the station than it is to have them in a booking office, but those are discussions that the previous Government did not manage very well. This Government will think about how to best staff stations in order to make sure that all passengers feel comfortable and safe when travelling by train.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I appreciate that the British Transport Police is responsible to an independent authority, but when one looks at its annual report, one sees many pages devoted to net zero and diversity and inclusion but nothing that I can find specifically about how it is tackling operationally violence against women and girls. Does the Minister think that the British Transport Police has got the balance right, or is there scope for improvement?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I assure the noble Lord that tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for the British Transport Police. At the meeting I previously referred to with the authority and the BTP, the chief constable was vigorous in making sure that everybody knew that a significant proportion of the total resources of the British Transport Police is devoted to tackling violence against women and girls. I should be only too happy to ask the chief constable to brief the noble Lord personally about how much effort is being put into this subject. I hope he will take me up on that offer.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, made a good point about alcohol control—as the Minister said, he introduced it on the Underground—but I do not think that it needs someone at every station to prevent people taking it on-board. There are staff on many trains who could stop people drinking alcohol, and there are other people who could intervene, so I think that a ban could be effective. Furthermore, we should keep an open mind about the possibility of this suggestion. Many of the people committing these offences are recidivists, but they seem to have an unrestricted right to book a ticket on a train. I wonder what restrictions might be placed on their access to a public transport system, to prevent victims suffering as they do quite regularly.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his observations about alcohol. Travel on the railway means many different things to different people; a 15 or 20-minute journey is certainly tolerable—and probably preferable—without alcohol, but a five-hour journey, from one end of the country to the other, is probably not. There are provisions to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol on trains going to and from football matches, for example, so it has been thought through. However, it is rather draconian to prevent people on long journeys relaxing. The behaviour to which the noble Lord refers and the sorts of people he is talking about are behaviours and people that should be closely monitored in our society. I am not sure that I can easily see how one could prevent such people buying tickets, but it might be that the advent of modern technology makes their presence easier to identify, and certainly easier to identify if they commit offences, including terrible offences against women and girls.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister inform the House how the railway police and the national police service work together to co-ordinate activities to stop this on trains?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. The British Transport Police covers the whole country, so its liaison is necessarily diverse across all the Home Office police forces and those in Scotland and Wales. It does a good job. A previous Question this afternoon referred to county lines drug trafficking. In recognition of the national function of the British Transport Police, it has been given £4.3 million for the next financial year by the Home Office to fund its county lines task force, which works with the Home Office police forces in the seamless identification of people travelling across what would otherwise be police boundaries, and in catching and convicting criminals for county lines and other offences.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, I am old enough to remember a phenomenon called the “ladies only compartment”—and I am not alone in that, I gather. I was required to travel in that compartment as a schoolgirl. Is the creation of a safety zone for women and girls on our trains something that perhaps might be considered under the “design out” approach to which the Minister referred earlier?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

With modern railway rolling stock, it is far more difficult to partition off relatively small spaces. I too am old enough to remember women-only compartments, but compartment trains were undesirable in a whole pile of ways, including due to the relative isolation of people in different compartments. These days, while open carriages might not always be welcome if you are reading a good novel, they at least allow people to be in relatively open circumstances—and, hence, you would like to think that they would discourage people. The noble Baroness’s suggestion is a difficult one, given the configuration of modern railway rolling stock. To go back to the original point of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, to design out those nooks and crannies in railway compartments and those dimly lit places on railway stations is where we ought to go to reduce the opportunities for terrible violence against women and girls.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 13th February 2025 Grand Committee

Those points are not very exciting in themselves; they are three fairly common-sense points—and, as I say, there are others that noble Lords might wish to add. But a sense of direction from the Government about where their guidance will take us is really important. As with the railways, “Trust us” should not be enough for this Committee.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 49 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pidgeon and Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and Amendment 78 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, seek to place a statutory requirement on reviewing the Bill’s impact on rural areas and villages. I also heard clearly the point from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans—and, incidentally, I agree with him about the need for cross-subsidy to help bus routes that are not in themselves profitable.

I note and understand the importance of serving villages and rural areas. Indeed, the Government intend the choices available to local transport authorities in the Bill to address just those points—including, for the avoidance of doubt, as we discussed this on a previous day, the appropriate use of demand-responsive transport.

The monitoring and evaluation of the Bill, which include the impact on rural services, will be completed as part of a wider evidence review of bus franchising. It will take several years—up to five years—for local authorities to transition to a franchised network or to form local authority bus companies, so any review prior to this would not be able to consider the full impact of any such transition. I listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and I have very high regard for the work that he did in both south Wales and north Wales; he made elegantly that very point. In addition, the full impact of franchising is not expected to be seen until franchising schemes have been operating for some time. Therefore, the timing of a full assessment of impacts on local services needs to reflect that timeline.

I say to my noble friend Lord Snape that while a dose of realism is always a good thing in a discussion about the future, the evidence from the stages of franchising in Manchester is that a remarkable change in both the reliability of the bus service and the volumes of patronage and revenue has been seen as a consequence of the introduction of franchising in various phases.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

I respectfully point out that Manchester is scarcely a rural area, and the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, specifies rural areas. It might be a bit more difficult to run cross-country services in rural areas than it is to run a franchising operation in cities such as Greater Manchester.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Indeed. I am grateful to my noble friend for that observation. I should have also mentioned the situation in Cornwall, which is more or less franchising and in an area that can be called rural, where the consequence of a decent set of organised services in a rural area has been a considerable increase in patronage. My noble friend’s point about realism is right, and I think the real point of what he was saying is that these things take some time to mature and come into effect.

On rural areas, there is no doubt that considerable damage has been done to public transport by an approach necessitated by the previous Government’s funding mechanisms, which have reintroduced routes that were withdrawn, withdrawn again routes that were reintroduced and given a lack of continuity to services that need it in order for people to rely on them.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for bringing forward Amendment 53 about statutory changes to local council powers. The Government believe that such changes will be wholly beneficial to communities in the United Kingdom. There may be legislation in this Session that alters the powers of local councils to provide them further powers on transport. Given the proximity in timing of any such legislation to this Bill, it would not be appropriate to provide such a review, as the powers would not have had sufficient time to be in force.

I appreciate that this Bill and the English devolution Bill, as well as the forthcoming railway reform Bill, will or may have related provisions to enhance the role of local councils, and we will work closely across and between departments to ensure that they most effectively give local councils control over their own transport networks. In respect of buses, the extensive guidance already available on enhanced partnerships in franchising from government, and the Bus Centre of Excellence, which has been referred to previously, will be available.

Amendment 62 in the name of my noble friend Lord Berkeley would introduce a statutory requirement for the Secretary of State to review within six months the Bill’s impact on certain local transport services. I refer to the remarks I have already made about the length of time it would take to take a good view about changes. I know that my noble friend is a long-standing campaigner on ferry services and the important role they play in connecting communities. I also note his description of the ferry service to the Isles of Scilly as “bumpy”, which is undoubtedly true. I agree that these services provide a crucial lifeline for many communities and ensure that people can access essential services, as he says.

The noble Lord also asked at Second Reading about tram services. Again, they are an important part. However, the meaning of this Bill is clear: it is focused on the provision of local bus services and a tram is clearly not a bus—a ferry is even less so. On ferries, though, I understand that the Isles of Scilly Council has been in touch with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government regarding both this matter and broader support for the islands. I hope that the noble Lord will note that I have said that.

Turning to Amendment 73, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, for bringing it forward. The Committee will have heard the noble Lord’s remarks about the handling of passenger complaints. The Government remain committed to ensuring that services are continuously improved with passengers. This amendment is consistent with our approach to rail, for which guidance on how to resolve complaints already exists. I agree with the noble Lords that it is important to deal with complaints properly, but it is my view that, apart from the handling of the original complaint, the resolution role sits with passenger watchdogs. The department is in the process of undertaking work with existing passenger watchdogs—Transport Focus and London TravelWatch—and bus stakeholders to identify issues and make recommendations on embedding standardised complaint-handling processes, ensuring that passengers have clear escalation. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord that the way to deal with complaints is not to file them in the waste-paper basket, but I do not wish to cut across the engagement that is currently under way.

I shall now address the points from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, about help for local transport authorities in route planning and fare setting. Of course, he has missed the fact that virtually every local transport authority in Britain has existing experience in both since, for the past 40 years, they have had to tender services that have not been found by commercial bus services to be worth running. I cannot believe that there is a local transport authority in the country that does not have some experience of both route planning and fare setting.

Amendment 79B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, seeks to impose new requirements on the provision of real-time passenger information. I absolutely agree with the noble Lord that ensuring that passengers can access high-quality, real-time information about their services is critical, but he will, I hope, be aware that there are existing obligations on bus operators. The Public Service Vehicles (Open Data) (England) Regulations 2020 provide the foundation for those obligations and, from these regulations, the Bus Open Data Service was launched in 2020 to facilitate the provision of high-quality, accurate and up-to-date passenger information across England, outside London. The Government will continue to work with local authorities and the sector to help drive improvements in real-time information.

I know that the noble Lord will have noted the part of our earlier discussion about the requirement in this Bill to ensure that real-time information is available on an accurate basis; the worst thing you can have is inaccurate real-time information. However, this Bill is also about empowering local areas. Part of that is trusting them to take decisions on what is best for the communities that they serve and working with them constructively, particularly in areas where there are existing regulations to ensure that services are improved. This is why I believe that the noble Lord’s Amendment 79B is not necessary.

Turning to Amendment 79D, again I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for bringing it forward. As he said, it is about working with local transport authorities and airport operators, but I do not believe that the amendment is necessary. My department is currently carrying out a call for ideas for the integrated national transport strategy, which will set out a single national vision. This will have people who use transport and their needs at its heart and will empower local leaders to develop integrated transport solutions. As part of the Bill, we want better links across modes—links that connect people and businesses and support the economy. We are working with operators, local authorities and passengers in that way to deliver more reliable public transport networks in general. The noble Lord will, I hope, understand that I do not wish to cut across the engagement on the integrated national transport strategy that is currently under way.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his remarks in response to my amendment. He said in passing that a tram is not a bus, which is of course true, but it often fulfils the same role as a bus by moving lots of people in relative comfort. A lightweight tram scheme is now being built in Coventry, which I hope will be working in the next few years. It is very much cheaper to build, which is excellent, because it needs lighter track work. However, the question of who decides the timetable and fares of that tram and any bus service that Coventry City Council might wish to encourage will need looking at in future. Has the Minister’s department thought about that?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention. First, the ultra-light tram development in Coventry is still a tram—it has steel wheels on steel rails, so it is still a tram. Secondly, all those schemes, even ones that will, I hope, produce a relative reduction in capital cost, have to be considered through the Transport and Works Act orders and other mechanisms for building infrastructure. The consequence of that is that those schemes are generally under the control of public authorities and are almost always in urban areas. One of the consequences of the freedoms that this Bill will give to local transport authorities will be the introduction of franchising, binding together all the public transport services in those conurbations, including both timetables and fares, to give an integrated service to citizens who live in those towns and cities.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

The Minister has clearly heard the strength of feeling from across the Committee about rural communities and the importance of connectivity and access to bus services. The comments of the noble Lord, Lord Snape, about funding are important, because funding is always the elephant in the room. But what we are discussing are new measures, including franchising, which will be the new tool to help local government and local transport authorities to address some of these socially necessary routes—not profitable routes—as part of bus route packages. Our amendments simply try to improve this legislation; we are very supportive, overall, of its aims. I am reassured to have heard from the Minister about this wider review and ensuring that rural communities and areas are part of that, so I am happy to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

What my noble friend Lord Effingham is suggesting is a very relevant exercise. The Government are changing the bus fare cap from £2 to £3. I think everyone would agree that it is a significant change—a 50% uplift—and my noble friend is calling for a proper study of that. It would give us a case study of what is happening in the next few months, in real time. If we do not take advantage of such opportunities, where we see dramatic shifts in fare levels that we can time and study before and after, we will not learn what we want to know about the effect of fares on passenger demand. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, suggests that it is not a priority for passengers and that there are other, more important things. He has experience and he may be right, but other studies may show that it really is determinative. This is one thing that the Minister should agree to, because we could all learn a great deal from it, and these difficult discussions for politicians would be very much better informed.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, Amendment 51 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, would require local transport authorities to review the impact of bus fares on patronage. Where a local transport authority has delivered fare interventions to encourage patronage, such as Cornwall’s bus fares pilot and the West Yorkshire Combined Authority Mayor’s fare intervention, they have already commissioned independent evaluation reports to measure their success. Bus service improvement plans already in place also include measures addressing bus fares to encourage greater use of buses. We must recognise that changes to fares are usually delivered at the same time as other transport interventions that support and improve bus services. It would therefore be challenging to attribute any change in patronage solely to a change in the fare charged to passengers.

Your Lordships will have noted that the Government are in the process of negotiating the outcomes for which local transport authorities will be held accountable in respect of buses, as part of their recent respective comprehensive funding settlements. In addition to outcome monitoring at a local level, we will continue to monitor fare impacts at a national level to inform future fare cap decisions.

In passing, I note the noble Baroness’s observations about whether Shropshire adopted the £2 fare cap. I am informed that all except six bus services in Shropshire were covered, although I would not say that the bus network in Shropshire was either adequate or satisfactory. One of the effects of the Bill, when it becomes an Act, will be to enable local transport authorities to do better by the various means embraced within it. I therefore submit that the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, is unnecessary because of the actions already taking place.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, for Amendment 63, which seeks to examine the impact of ending the £2 national bus fare cap. The department has prepared a full monitoring and evaluation report of the £2 national bus fare cap, which has just been published. The report is available to read and I will make sure that noble Lords present have the link to it. It suggests that urban populations are more likely to have used the scheme, where of course journeys are shorter and fares are more likely to be £2 or less. In fact, the average fare payable on buses prior to the scheme’s introduction was between £2 and £3. The Government’s adoption of a £3 cap, and the added safeguard of increases above £2 being limited to the rate of inflation, do a great deal, at the cost of £150 million, to continue to ensure that millions can access better opportunities and get greater bus use.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

A study of the effect of the £2 bus cap would be very valuable—let us remember that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, said that in her rural part of Dorset it was transformative; I think that was the word she used about it having a significant effect in that part of the world—and we look forward to reading it. But my noble friend Lord Effingham was also asking for a study of what the effect of increasing it would be when that is introduced, which would be equally valuable and show the other part of the equation, if noble Lords see what I mean. I press the Minister because I do not want him to miss the point inadvertently. Is a similar study of the effect of increasing the cap to £3 after an appropriate period—six months or a year—something to which he can commit himself today to illuminate that picture for us?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that. I will certainly think about whether, and at what stage, the department would look at that further. I am certainly not going to commit to it today, because we are looking at wide-ranging legislation about bus services in general, but I wanted to inform the Committee that the work on the £2 bus fare cap is now published.

Amendments 74 and 80 from the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, also concern the £2 bus fare cap, which I have just addressed. They are clearly intended to seek its reintroduction. Bearing in mind what the average bus fare is, that the Government are proposing to continue with a £3 cap and that fares between £2 and £3 will go up only by the rate of inflation, I hope she will agree that those amendments are unnecessary. However, the noble Baroness referred to the wider retailing of bus tickets, which is obviously a good idea; from time to time, I find myself agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. Access to bus services should be widely available, and not understanding the fare structure or being able to buy a bus ticket are the worst reasons for not using the service.

In my view, and in the Government’s view, the provisions in this Bill that allow local transport authorities a choice of enhanced partnerships or franchising, or even their own bus companies, will enable local transport authorities to look at wider retailing. Of course, the ultimate aim is not to sell bus tickets at all but for people to use credit cards or bank cards directly as means of payment. We want the bus industry and bus services to move towards that, and I believe that this Bill will facilitate it.

Amendment 77 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, looks for a review of the English national concessionary travel scheme. The Government want everybody who needs it to have access to public transport and are committed to improving the system. The English national concessionary travel scheme costs about £700 million annually, and any changes to the statutory obligations, such as the hours in which the pass can be used being extended, would need to be carefully considered. As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on a previous occasion in the Chamber, the Government are not considering changes to the scheme at the moment.

However, local authorities in England already have the power to offer concessions in addition to their statutory obligations. We see this in London, where individuals aged 60 and over are eligible for the 60+ Oyster card, and similar schemes already exist in other parts of the country, where local authorities have chosen to provide specific support to their communities through offers that go beyond their statutory obligation. That ability for local transport authorities will continue, and no part of this Bill will restrict it. A review into the English national concessionary travel scheme concluded in 2024, and my department is currently considering the next steps.

Amendment 79 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, would require the Secretary of State to review the impact of making buses free for children. The Government remain committed to exploring targeted solutions that deliver value for money to taxpayers while ensuring affordable bus travel for those who need it most, particularly young people. Bus operators can choose to offer concessions to children and young people. In fact, youth concessions are currently offered by at least one commercial bus operator in 73 out of the 85 local authority areas in England outside London. Local authorities also have powers to introduce concessions or discounts for young people. Since buses are local and the Government are committed to devolution, that is where we believe that such choices should be made in respect of free and reduced-rate travel for children.

Finally, I note the observations by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, about demanding or wanting reports following my noble friend Lord Snape’s helpful intervention. This Bill has been carefully thought through. The first requirement when it becomes an Act of Parliament will be that it works for local authorities, communities and bus passengers. No doubt there will be reports in due course but, frankly, I am not looking for any of them to be carried out now or in the immediate future because, as my noble friend observed, our efforts ought to be concentrated on running the bus service better rather than writing reports about why it does not work.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

I thank the Minister. I am reassured by him saying that the Government ought to continue to monitor the fare impact at a national level and will circulate the link to the review of the £2 cap. That is to be welcomed. I hope that he will drive forward the point about ticketing and modernisation because it is important for passengers.

However, I go back to the comments that I made earlier. The hefty report that I have here, the final-stage impact assessment, says:

“There may also be benefits associated with increasing bus usage through lowering fares”.


We have heard today about Cornwall’s hugely successful pilot but, if you read the trade press, it is clear that there are concerns about it continuing, and this goes back to the funding point that we discussed earlier. Probably for the first time in this Committee, I strongly disagree with the Minister about the £2 bus cap. We think that it is essential. The Minister described my amendment as unnecessary. We do not agree with that, we think that it is very necessary, but, at this stage, I will withdraw it. I am sure that we will come back to it at a future stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to those who have spoken in this short debate. I have great sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said, as she knows. We will support her in her continuing campaign, and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, to put the case on behalf of disabled people for proper consideration in relation to public transport services.

I was mildly tickled by the proposal from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. One of my deep concerns, which I have tried to express in as gentle a way as possible throughout this Committee, has been the adequacy and competence of local councillors to take on the role envisaged for them by this Bill. I had not imagined that a vice-chairman of the LGA should give such ringing endorsement to my concerns, to the point where she actually said that training should be mandated by statute for those who will take part in making those decisions. We are at one on this in our concern.

None the less, I am not entirely sure—here I suspect that I will sound a bit like the Minister, and I speak as a former local councillor—that the idea of a statutory training programme in this area would be appropriate. There is a false analogy with training for the exercise of planning and licensing functions, because those are almost invariably what are referred to as quasi-judicial functions that relate to individuals making applications relating to their property, business, premises or whatever. They need to be taken in an appropriate legal framework, rather than a political framework. It is appropriate that councillors are given training in that legal background where they are called on to make those decisions.

The sort of decisions that will be made here are not in that category, so I wonder whether this approach is necessary. In fact, even it were appropriate to have statutory training, I would not have training on the provisions of this Bill, which is what the amendment calls for but, rather, training of the sort that perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Snape, could provide: training in how to run a bus company and make the hard, crunchy decisions that you will be confronted with about how to manage your resources in a way that maximises your revenue while allowing you to provide as many, but not necessarily all, of the socially important services that you would like to provide. Those are the hard, crunchy things that people will need to be trained in, rather than understanding the legal background provided by this Bill.

In a way, I am delighted to find myself holding hands with the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on this topic, but I am not sure that I can support her on the wording of this amendment.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I will address Amendments 54 and 55 together. I listened carefully, as I hope that I always do, to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who talked about her real experience of travelling by bus. Anything less than 100% accessibility is unacceptable, and I completely agree with her.

The Government are determined that power over local bus services is put back in the hands of local leaders across England. That is why the department recently allocated over £700 million of bus grant for local transport authorities in 2025-26 by formula. Funding for bus services is also provided through the local government finance settlement. In fact, specifically, the 2025-26 funding included money for additional officer capability, for either additional officers or help equivalent to additional officers, to help each local transport authority in the choices that this Bill will give them.

The Government have also established the Bus Centre of Excellence, which I am sure we will continue to return to. Work is also under way to provide even more active support to local transport authorities that wish to explore franchising. I take this opportunity to make noble Lords aware of the Government’s plans to pilot different franchising models particularly suited to more rural areas. This funding, along with potential local transport authority bus funding in future financial years, is available to support implementation of the Bill’s measures.

It is, of course, wholly reasonable to expect the people who deliver policies and support services that help disabled people to understand their legal rights, needs and expectations. This afternoon, we will come on to the primary training needs of bus drivers, who are the visible front line of the bus service. The Government are clearly committed to helping authorities deliver the service improvements that we all want to see, whether it is through tailored assistance, the additional funding to which I have referred or the Bus Centre of Excellence.

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, with his amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, has opened up one of the most important and least discussed areas to do with bus operations in a way that presents many of us who have experience of responsibility, one way or another, for bus services—in my case, a non-executive responsibility for a number of years—with real challenges and difficulty. The question we must ask ourselves is whether bus operators have the right mentality about safety. I say that in the light of what has been achieved in the construction industry, for example, over the past 20 years, where a focus on zero accidents and injuries has transformed the way of working. Of course, zero is never quite achieved, but very close to zero is now achieved on construction sites. A deliberate programme and a deliberate change in mentality has brought that about. On the railways, there is a strong focus on that mentality, and I wonder whether it exists on the buses: are we, in fact, way out of date in our attitudes towards safety?

I want to mention that I have just become an officer of the newly reconstituted APPG on Women in Transport. The relevance is that many of these issues to do with safety are women’s issues. There is the obvious question of violence against women and girls on buses; the APPG will look at that, but there is the broader issue of safety in general. I do not have up-to-date statistics, but it used to be the case, admittedly some years ago, that a very large percentage of women over the age of 65 presenting at A&E were there because they had suffered an injury inside a bus—not from a bus collision but inside a bus, very often because of aggressive or inappropriate braking on modern buses, which have very sharp brakes. The safety regulators, of course, think, “Yes, we must have the sharpest and most modern brakes, just as for a motor car”, but in a motor car you are sitting down and strapped in, whereas on a bus you are frequently standing up, because buses are designed to carry standing passengers. Sharp braking results in people falling over. Very often, proportionally, it is elderly women who are falling over and being injured. Do we take proper account of that? Are we recording it? Are we thinking actively about what we should do about it? The situation has not improved in the 20 years or so that I have been making this point about elderly women inside buses.

Then there is the question, which is very pertinent to the Bill, of the way in which franchise contracts operate. My experience is somewhat out of date, but it is a London-based experience where franchising is used, and to some extent the London model is the basis for the Bill and is being rolled out elsewhere. The emphasis in the contracts is on keeping to the timetable, and that is very difficult in urban areas because of congestion and unpredictable events, including roadworks and so forth. Very often, drivers are under pressure—they have a clock and are in direct communication with their control—to make up time because gaps in the service have arisen, and they can do that only by going faster and braking more sharply. Quite apart from the potential effects on passengers inside the bus, which I have already mentioned, the risk of knocking into something, often with very serious effect if that something happens to be a human body walking in the street, is increased.

We are all here saying how wonderful it is—not all of us are saying it with the same level of enthusiasm, admittedly, but there are people in the Room saying how wonderful it is—that we are extending a franchise model, but the structure of the contract on which those franchises will be based needs to be looked at carefully in the light of safety considerations. We should all be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, for bringing up this issue.

In relation to Amendment 60, I am not persuaded that we should have a new and separate statutory provision about working time in the Bill, when we already have quite extensive and elaborate working time legislation elsewhere. There is a lot to be said in favour of Amendments 58 and 59. I have a suspicion that they will reappear on Report; if they do, they will deserve very serious consideration indeed.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Pidgeon, for Amendment 58. It seeks to require local authorities to ensure that bus operators provide their drivers with access to the Confidential Incident Reporting and Analysis System, which I will refer to as CIRAS.

The Government are always concerned, as they should be, about any safety incidents in the bus sector, or indeed any other public transport sector. That is why a number of official routes exist to allow anyone to provide confidential, anonymous reporting on safety and standards in the sector, backed up by enforcement. Anyone may anonymously report a lack of safety or conformation to standards in the bus sector to the DVSA intelligence unit, which may use this information to investigate the situation, including by working with other government departments and agencies, as well as police forces.

Comprehensive standards bridge all aspects of bus operation, across the roadworthiness of vehicles, operation of services and driver standards. As I said, they are enforced by a number of organisations, principally the DVSA. The operators of the vehicles are licensed by the traffic commissioners, who consider non-compliance issues seriously and ensure that operators are effectively regulated. The judicial process of the traffic commissioners can and does result in depriving people of operators’ licences and depriving managers of their certificate to run bus operations.

CIRAS provides another route for employees to report concerns. Both Transport for London and Transport for Greater Manchester are members of CIRAS. Being able to report such concerns in a confidential manner is clearly important, and I would encourage employees of member organisations to consider using this service where appropriate. But CIRAS is a third-party service, and it would not be appropriate to include it within the scope of the Bill.

However, I did a bit of personal research on this, and I will say that if we are asking people to report bus safety issues to the DVSA intelligence unit, it would make a lot of sense for access to it to be freely available. When I looked at it, it was quite difficult to find, which is really unhelpful, so I commit that we will see what needs to be done to make sure that the route to report directly to the government agency responsible for safety on buses is as efficient and easy as possible.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for bringing forward Amendment 59. Road safety is a priority for the Government, of course, and we expect bus operators, as I hope I have just said, to adhere to the highest standards of safety. Buses are one of the safest modes of road transport in Great Britain, and my department remains committed to improving safety with appropriate vehicle construction standards and ensuring the safe operation of vehicles. As we have heard, franchising authorities report safety in detail, and I expect that a consequence of this Bill, as it enables other franchising authorities to be established, will be to enable them to report safety in a similar way to how London and Manchester already do. In effect, the franchising authority is taking responsibility for procuring and delivering a bus service.

In respect of operations that are not part of franchise bus services, we have heard this afternoon that this is carried out through the STATS19 framework, which relies on reports from the police. These reports are based on locations identified by geographical co-ordinates. This is a role that cannot be delegated to local transport authorities and ought to stay with the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency because it relates to PSV operator licensing requirements. However, I note the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, in respect of accidents away from public roads, which I will go away and have a close look at. I am not familiar with that nuance, but it is clearly important. Trying to divide any sorts of accidents into fault and no fault is fraught with difficulty. In fact, it must be subjective, and therefore I am not sure that we would want to go down that road. I understand his point about recording accidents on public service vehicles wherever they occur, and I will go away and see what can be done about that.

Amendment 60 from the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, seeks to change long-established rules about daily driving time on regular bus services. There are two sorts of driving time rules: one for services that do not go beyond 50 kilometres and one for services that do. These daily limits are well and long established, and I think the gist of my conversation with the noble Lord was that he was looking for an ability for people to report scheduling requirements on bus drivers that make drivers feel that they are not safe. That is a matter that could well be drawn to the attention of the DVSA because it goes to the heart of the repute of the operator. I understand that there may well be drivers who feel that what they are being asked to do is potentially or actually unsafe. That goes back to the process that I have referred to and the ability to report it to either CIRAS, if the people responsible for the operation are members of it, or the DVSA if they are not. I note what he said about this amendment seeking to draw to our attention this important matter.

The noble Lords, Lord Hampton and Lord Moylan, talked about the timetable. No bus timetable in Britain should have any requirement for people to drive unsafely or exceed the speed limit. As a seasoned operator with some background in this, I say to them that very often, certainly in urban areas, what you are in fact looking for is not the timetable to be operated but the reliability of the bus service to be as good as it can be. My experience is that drivers should not feel under pressure to return to the timetable. In many cases, any substantial delay makes that impossible. The training given to bus drivers is about driving safely, having absolute regard to the safety of passengers and, in practice, maintaining the regularity of the service rather than the timetable.

If there are cases where drivers feel that they are being asked to drive unsafely, either by schedule or in practice, it is the reporting mechanism that we need to address because there are people trained in this stuff who can address those issues.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

With the Minister’s permission, I do not think that we are disagreeing and, therefore, I do not think that what he just said about timetables is quite the answer to my point. It may be my fault for expressing it in the way I did. I am sure that I talked about adhering to the timetable—I will look back at it—but he has cast it differently. He said that reliability—that is, the frequency between buses arriving—is what operators seek to maintain, but that is precisely what can lead to the sort of pressure on drivers where a controller says, “Hurry up because the gap between you and the bus ahead has got too large”. That is really what I was talking about and what I meant to express, although I used the language of timetabling.

The key question that the Minister will need to address is to what extent does the contract reward that behaviour? To what extent is reliability rewarded in the contract? In many cases, companies and people behave according to financial incentives. If your narrow margins as a bus operator or a franchise depend on maintaining certain levels of reliability and certain gaps between buses along the service, that is what you will be pushing your staff to do. It comes back to this question of what the contract says and what it rewards.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. Before I got to the railway, I spent most of my adult life trying to encourage people who control bus services not to rely on the timetable but to adhere to a regular frequency. Of course, the truth is that in most urban areas, once you have lost time, the chances of ever regaining it are, frankly, pretty small, and they are even smaller with the increasing use of speed limits of 20 miles per hour. I take the noble Lord’s point but, in the end, this is about people either being required to drive unsafely or believing that they are required to do so. It is certainly possible, and I have seen it done to encourage people to attempt to make time up but, in my experience over the 50 years I have been driving buses—now and again, more recently—it is very difficult to do so.

Let us go back to the safety aspect of this. Where the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, is going rightly concerns finding a way for bus drivers to express that they are being either expected to drive unsafely or encouraged to do it. I take his point about that very clearly. As I said before, there are all these requirements on franchised authorities, which will report on safety because they are procuring the service. CIRAS is available, where people have chosen to join that third-party organisation, but, where they have not done so, it is about making the route to complaining clearer and more available. I very much hope that that answers the noble Lord’s points. I will leave it there.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who took part in this debate. I genuinely thought that this was this place at its best, and I realise that I have trespassed on a landscape of real expertise, but I think we got some cross-party consensus that we really need to push safety to the front of the Bill if it is not there already. I think the implication was there, but it is not in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, talked about zero injuries in the construction industry which was very interesting, and we need to take that on board. Once again, we have got back to this: we need a really good reporting mechanism that people can use, and we need to publish what data is coming out as much as possible. I trust the Minister when he says that he will go away and think about this a lot. In that case, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord Burns (CB)]

My Lords, can I use this opportunity to point out that one of the great benefits of the contactless system is the ability to have integrated fares across a region? One of the things that I discovered in North Wales was the frustration of many people—again, particularly in rural areas—when they were taking several journeys to get to their destination. The ability to have this all taken care of within one transaction is of enormous benefit. Of course, as we know from London, it gives also you the opportunity to have daily caps on the prices of tickets and a great deal of improvement in the experience of people who are making complicated journeys, often across different modes but certainly across different bus journeys.

I see this as an important part of the future. If we are to have an integrated public transport system, we need an integrated fare structure as well. The contactless system is an important step on the way to achieving that important part of the pricing mechanism for the future. Despite the issue that we heard about earlier in terms of the £2 fare cap, my own view is that having an integrated system of the kind we enjoy in London is one of the most important things for the future usage of buses.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for their amendments; I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Burns, for his remarks just now. The Government know how important affordable and reliable bus services are in enabling people to access education, work and vital services. We also know that buses are particularly important for people in the lowest-income households, who make nearly twice as many bus trips as the average, and for younger people, who are much more likely to use buses than other age groups.

The Government also understand the importance of making payment methods on buses accessible and available to all. This is why we have provided guidance to local transport authorities and bus operators on developing their bus service improvement plans, which encourages both parties to work in partnership on improving the provision of fares and ticketing to ensure that the needs of all local bus users are taken into account. To this end, local transport authorities are also encouraged to capture local information about cash usage and electronic payments to inform the development of their bus service improvement plans. The bus franchising powers in the Bill will also give local authorities greater control over fares and ticketing while, through their enhanced partnership arrangements, they can work closely with bus operators to ensure that fares and ticketing policies are inclusive for passengers.

I should just add that, from my own experience as the person who was at the time responsible for the removal of cash payments from buses in London, contrary to the belief of the then mayor that it was the poorest people in London who habitually paid cash, it was completely the reverse: the poorest people in London had already worked out the value of Oyster cards and of daily, weekly and monthly ticketing. In fact, it was the ABC1 males who insisted on trying to pay the enhanced cash fare. When we withdrew it, they immediately moved to Oyster cards themselves. We have already discussed better ticketing once this afternoon, of course.

Amendment 71 looks to have integrated ticketing across the bus network; I note that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, largely took Amendments 71 and 72 together. His sentiments are right: it is good for passengers, as well as for the bus network, its operators and franchising authorities, to have the most modern methods of payment with the lowest possible transaction costs. I completely agree with him.

What we do not want is to try to force people to do things that they cannot currently do while the work in progress that the noble Earl described is going on, to make payment methods as easy as possible. He asked me for a timetable, which I am not sure I can give him, but the multiplicity of back offices across the bus and railway networks in Britain needs to be untangled, and substantial work is going on within the department to enable multimodal ticketing, particularly in Manchester and the West Midlands, outside London. The consequence of that will be—I hope in time, and as quickly as possible—to allow the back office, in the way that he wants and as the noble Lord, Lord Burns, described, to provide seamless ticketing across bus networks. That work continues, and will take some time. He is, of course, right that in London the volume of transactions was so great that the credit card companies were willing to come to the table very easily. Outside London, it is a bit different, but the department is working very hard to do it.

Since the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, rightly says that the Government are moving quite well in that direction—and he also observes, as I can confirm from observation just now, that the English national concessionary pass has the English rose on it, because mine has it on—I submit, on his own assurance that the Government are moving quite fast, that neither amendment is necessary.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

I thank my noble friend Lord Moylan, the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and the Minister, who have all contributed to this short debate. It really is critical that we ensure financial inclusion for everyone. Based on what the Minister has just said, we will look at this issue further, but for now I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I heartily endorse the comments made by my noble friend Lord Effingham and the support given by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. To be crystal clear, the fundamental issue is not the increase in national insurance rates as such, but the reduction in the threshold at which national insurance becomes payable.

Many of the people who drive special educational needs buses are part-time semi-volunteers. They may be working a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon, and their overall salary, as things currently stand, brings them in below the level at which national insurance contributions are payable. That is approximately £10,000 a year; I am using a very rough figure there, as I do not have the actual figures at hand. The Government’s proposal is a reduction to £5,000 a year of the point at which national insurance contributions become payable—again, an approximate figure. It is that reduction which brings these people within scope of national insurance contributions, which is potentially fatal to the operation of many of these services. They will simply not continue. The best that can be hoped for would be a more expensive service, after a lengthy period of retendering and disruption, in which maybe the same or maybe different operators are providing a more expensive service to the local education authority in many cases.

Separately, there is also the question of private schools and putting VAT on the bus services they provide, which would be bizarre because no other form of transport is subject to VAT, as far as I am aware. It is one of the consequences of the Government’s vindictive action against private schools. But the SEND issue is not simply about private schools; it is about the whole range of schools, and it is crucial that it is resolved soon.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Before I address the amendments in this group in turn, I wish to say that I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Pidgeon and Lady Harris of Richmond—who raised her concerns at Second Reading—for raising the importance of home-to-school travel for children with special educational needs. Although this is not directly within my department, my officials continue to work with the Department for Education to understand the issues and how they are best addressed. No child should struggle to get to school because of a lack of suitable transport.

Your Lordships may already be aware that the Government are clear that the system for educating children with special educational needs and disability—SEND—requires reform. The Department for Education will work with families, schools, local authorities and other partners to deliver improvements so that children and young people can access the support that they deserve. It acknowledges that challenges in the SEND system extend to the arrangements for home-to-school travel and has committed to ensuring that more children can receive the support they need in a local mainstream school. This will mean fewer children needing to rely on long and complex journeys to access education.

Turning to Amendment 65, home-to-school transport is the responsibility of local authorities with education functions, not local transport authorities. For example, Transport for Greater Manchester is the local transport authority for the Greater Manchester region but responsibility for home-to-school travel rests with the 10 local councils within the region. The Education Act 1996 places a statutory duty on local authorities to arrange free home-to-school travel for eligible children. A child is eligible if they are of compulsory school age, attend their nearest suitable school and would not be able to walk there because of the distance, their special educational needs, a disability, a mobility problem, or because the route is not safe.

It is for local authorities to decide what travel arrangements they make for eligible children. For example, they might provide them with a pass for free travel on public transport or arrange a dedicated bus, minibus or taxi. However, to meet their duty, the travel that they arrange must be suitable for the needs of the child concerned. The Department for Education provides comprehensive statutory guidance to help local authorities meet this duty.

The Government already expect local transport authorities to take account of the needs of all people travelling, including children travelling to school. Effective collaboration between local transport authorities and local authorities delivering home-to-school transport may bring benefits, but it would not be appropriate to place a duty relating to home-to-school transport on local transport authorities when statutory responsibility for that service rests elsewhere. For these reasons, Amendment 65 is unnecessary.

Amendment 66 relates to children travelling outside their local authority boundary to access a suitable school place. The statutory duty that requires local authorities with education functions to arrange free travel for all eligible children applies regardless of whether a child’s school is outside the council’s boundary. Where a child with special educational needs has an education, health and care plan, the school named in that plan will almost always be considered to be their nearest suitable school for the purposes of assessing their eligibility for free travel. It is already commonplace for local authorities to arrange free travel. For this reason, this amendment is unnecessary.

Amendment 67 concerns the application of VAT to transport for pupils with special educational needs who attend private schools. These services may already be exempt from VAT; for example, passenger transport in a vehicle with 10 or more seats does not pay any VAT, and operating a vehicle that has been constructed or modified to cater for the special needs of people with disabilities may also not pay any VAT. The Government’s ambition is a state-funded school place for every child who wants one, whether they have special educational needs or not. The Department for Education’s reforms, which I have already mentioned, will deliver an inclusive mainstream system that meets the needs of as many children and young people as possible in their local community.

I also draw the noble Lord’s attention to the consultation on the national insurance contributions Bill, which says at paragraph 2.13:

“The policy intention is to only capture education services and vocational training supplied by a private school, or a ‘closely connected person’, and closely related boarding services. The government recognises that other goods and services ‘closely related’ to education, such as school meals, transport, and books and stationery, are integral to children accessing education. As a result, other ‘closely related’ goods and services other than boarding (i.e. goods and services that are provided by a private school for the direct use of their pupils and that are necessary for delivering the education to their pupils) will remain exempt from VAT”.


I therefore consider this amendment unnecessary.

Finally, Amendment 68 concerns the impact that the increase in employer national insurance contributions will have on bus services for children with special educational needs. The Government recognise that the increase to employer national insurance contribution will have a varying impact across sectors but had to make difficult decisions to help restore economic stability.

As I have remarked already, local authorities are responsible for arranging home-to-school travel and deliver this through a range of providers. Department for Education officials engage regularly with local authorities to understand the challenges that they face and will continue to monitor this situation. It is expected that private sector organisations that contract with local authorities will take the impact of national insurance changes into account, along with other changes to their cost base, in the usual way through contract negotiations.

My noble friend Lord Livermore, at Second Reading of the NIC Bill on 6 January, said in response to a question about NICs and special educational needs transport:

“The right reverend Prelate also asked about SEN transport. In the Budget, the Government announced £2 billion of new grant funding for local government in 2025-26. This includes £515 million to support councils with the increase in employer national insurance contributions, which covers special educational needs home-to-school transport schemes”.—[Official Report, 6/1/25; col. 601.]

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that that is true for special educational transport needs provided directly by local education authorities using their own employees but not for contracted services, which are very widely used?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I was referring to support to local authorities for home-to-school transport schemes. I will take that away and come back to him with the clarification that he seeks in this respect. I can say that the Government do not expect the changes to national insurance to have a significant impact on home-to-school travel for children with special educational needs, so it would not be proportionate to conduct the assessment as the amendment suggests. I do not think that it is required.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, my noble friend Lord Moylan, and the Minister for their contributions in this debate. We have heard so much in the Chamber about how SEND pupils may be adversely affected by various new government policies, so we feel that a review, or an impact assessment as per these assessments, is a fair and reasonable request. For now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment in my name.

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[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I might briefly address one of the suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Goddard. I was present in the Chamber, as I frequently am, during the Football Governance Bill. I appreciate that he might not be that interested in the difference between the crests and the arms, but the College of Arms is run by my noble kinsman His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, and I can tell him that the argument put forward as between crest and arms is relevant and has implications. It is important to realise that. He may well want to look into it; I am happy to explain to him why it is important, if he is interested.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, the imminence of the recess suggests to me that I should not challenge the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, in his knowledge of the history of the traffic commissioners, but I will do that over a drink some time. I am less interested in the development of the Road Traffic Act 1930, or indeed the Transport Act 1985, than I am in the future of the bus service in the 2020s.

Traffic commissioners play an important and strategic role in the transport sector and, these days—principally but not wholly—in road use safety. I certainly refute completely any suggestion that there is an absence of enforcement; the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency does that. Traffic commissioners are an admirably economic and cost-effective way of dispensing justice to bus operators and bus drivers—those who are licensed to provide these important and, indeed, safe services—in a way that is widely celebrated in the industry and regarded as far more effective than any other solution. Indeed, the independent review of the traffic commissioner function undertaken by the Ministry of Justice, published in May 2023, found that

“the Traffic Commissioner function generally operates effectively”

and noted a strong level of support from the industry for functions continuing to sit with the traffic commissioner. The truth is that for a regulatory arrangement to be so widely celebrated by the industry it regulates is something to be celebrated, rather than abolished.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister not rather concerned that the regulator is so widely celebrated by the industry it regulates?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

One of the reasons why is because it is not in the industry’s interest to have poor-quality operations competing with it; that is true in respect of both the goods sector and the passenger transport sector. When the traffic commissioners take enforcement action, including depriving drivers or operators of their licences or curtailing them, it is widely celebrated by those operators who do take account of the law and operate safely. That is what is important.

On our earlier discussion about the safety of bus operations and bus drivers, finding a mechanism that is effective for disciplining those drivers and operators who transgress the law—sometimes with no intention of complying with it—is very effective. I encourage noble Lords to consider the alternative mechanism of taking taxi drivers in front of magistrates’ courts, which are often found by everybody looking at the actions of the magistrates to be excessively lenient and persuaded by drivers’ explanations of their behaviour that would never pass muster with the traffic commissioner. It is a very important judicial function, and the commissioners need to be supported.

Returning to the Bill, your Lordships will have noticed that some limited changes are proposed to the functions of the commissioners. These include changes to services operating under service permits with enfranchised areas and powers to act against bus operators who breach the mandatory training requirement. The Bill is about empowering local leaders to take decisions on how best to run bus services in their areas. The presence of traffic commissioners across the regions of England—and, for that matter, Scotland and Wales—is complementary to this Bill’s objectives. They are well placed to use local knowledge to take the decisions they do in the execution of their powers, and I certainly do not believe that the noble Lord has made any case for change in the way that this amendment suggests.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill]

81: Clause 30, page 31, line 1, leave out subsection (2)
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides for Clause 21 of the Bill to be brought into force by regulations instead of coming into force two months after Royal Assent. This is to allow sufficient time for guidance under new section 144D of the Transport Act 2000 (inserted by Clause 21 of the Bill) to be prepared.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, I am aware that we have already discussed various aspects of this amendment in the debates, so I will be brief. Before we move forward with significant changes to our bus services, we think it very important to pause and ask: what will this mean for rural communities? That is precisely why this amendment is so important. It would ensure that before Clauses 1 to 15 of the Bill take effect, the Secretary of State must publish a report assessing the impact on rural areas.

This report is not about delaying progress; it is about ensuring informed progress. We need to understand whether these reforms will improve rural connectivity or unintentionally make services even harder to access. Will funding be allocated fairly? Will small operators that serve rural routes still be viable? Will local authorities have the powers and resources needed to support these services? These are critical questions that must be answered before the Bill comes into force. I beg to move.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, for his remarks on Amendment 82. I also thank him, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and all other noble Lords for the issues they have raised in Committee. I have found the exchanges useful in discussing the purpose of the Bill and considering issues raised across your Lordships’ Committee. The Bill reflects how important it is to improve local buses for passengers across the country, including those who are woefully underserved in rural areas. Throughout this process, the needs of people living and working in and visiting rural areas have been integral to policy development.

Government officials have worked hard to publish a thorough and comprehensive impact assessment that has been rated green by the independent Regulatory Policy Committee. The assessment covers every one of the Bill’s measures in detail, including in the context of rural areas, so I am afraid I would struggle to justify why a further duplicate assessment is required. Although the noble Earl says this is not about delay, the amendment would have the potential to delay progress on the Bill and therefore to delay its introduction in areas that need its provisions.

It is important to remember that the freedoms allowed by the Bill to franchise and set up a local authority bus company are entirely optional. These powers simply give local transport authorities more choices in how their bus networks are operated. If a rural authority decides to establish a local authority bus company, it will have the flexibility to scale the company to match the needs of its local passengers, its ambitions for the network and the available funding. Additionally, it is important to highlight that the Government have allocated funding to build LTA capacity and capability on buses, including, but not limited to, the Bus Centre of Excellence. They also plan to pilot different franchising models that may be particularly suited to rural areas.

I conclude my remarks there, and once again thank all noble Lords for the excellent debates across the days we have shared in Grand Committee. I look forward to further debate on Report.

Passenger Standards Authority

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in establishing the Passenger Standards Authority.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

As part of the Government’s plan for change, the creation of Great British Railways will unify track and train to deliver better services for passengers, increase revenue and reduce the cost of the railway. While GBR will lead in delivering a customer-focused experience for passengers, we are committed to establishing a powerful passenger watchdog alongside it to champion their interests. My department will publish a consultation on the railways Bill imminently, which will provide detail on our plans to establish a passenger standards authority.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, passengers have faced fewer, shorter and overcrowded trains and increased fares for too long. Will the new passenger standards authority have enforcement powers and oversee a new charter for passengers confirming the minimum level of service that all new publicly owned lines will guarantee?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

We have been working hard to ensure that the new PSA will be a powerful watchdog, making sure that passengers have an independent voice in the industry which stands up for them. It will have increased powers, enabling it to become a strong advocate through holding GBR to account for improving the passenger experience, and particularly for disabled people, as discussed during the passage of the public ownership Bill. The public consultation I referred to will seek the views of the public and industry on the proposed scope and functions of the PSA. After the consultation is published, I will be happy to meet the noble Baroness and other interested noble Lords to discuss it.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are establishing a passenger standards authority, but Network Rail says that the industry should not use the word “passenger”. Who is right?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The document that the noble Lord refers to was actually published during the time he was the Secretary of State for Transport—by Network Rail, I should say—so it is not a recent document. It is advice about writing letters using words of fewer than four syllables, and it is in fact good advice. Much of the correspondence that the noble Lord must have been given in his time as Secretary of State, which I am given as the Minister and which I was given as the chair of Network Rail, was indigestible in practical terms, so a guide for people about how to write letters in simple English is a really good thing.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the previous Government introduced changes which led to reduced services and a higher cost for the passenger. Can the Minister say what that has cost the taxpayer? Does he have any estimates about the changes the previous Government brought about—the failed railway reorganisation?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I cannot easily find that number my noble friend refers to. But it is true that, for example, the failure to resolve the wages issues with the principal trade unions led to the most prolonged national dispute in railway history and cost the taxpayer and the customers about £800 million.

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

Can the Minister just remind the House—I am sure he knows the figure—what the passenger numbers were before privatisation and what they were just before the outbreak of Covid? What was the rise in passenger numbers over that time?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am sure that if I cannot remember, the noble Lord will be able to. But he is right: roughly, the numbers doubled, and they did so because at the time of privatisation there was a huge amount of white space in the timetable. It is an acknowledged fact that the early years of privatisation in particular produced more trains and a better train service, partly because the old British Rail was starved of investment. But we are not dealing with a railway in that position now; we are dealing with a railway that does not have the numbers or the revenue it had before Covid but still has all the costs.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister reflect on the fact that the increase in traffic was driven substantially by the economic boom under the last Labour Government, as well as by the increase in population?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that, too. He is of course right: it is quite hard to distinguish what is going on on the railway from the general economy, principally because connectivity drives growth, jobs and housing, and he is right about both the features he mentions. In respect of the railway itself, the principal feature I would draw attention to is the one I did in my response to the previous question, which is to say that if you have a lot of white space in the timetable, you can run more trains at relatively marginal cost. That white space, on many parts of the railway, no longer exists.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, you wait a long time for one Secretary of State for Transport and then three come along at once. Will the Minister confirm that the Government remain totally committed to the principle of open access on the railways?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to see so many ex-Secretaries of State on the other side of the House—all of whom I have respect for and at least one of whom appointed me to my previous job. The Secretary of State’s recent letter, which was made public, sets out the precise conditions in which open access is an asset to the railway, not a detraction. One thing we have to be very careful about is that if, inadvertently, revenue that would otherwise accrue to the public purse and reduce the subsidy is diverted, that may not be a good deal for the taxpayer. I am sure the noble Lord has read that letter, and I would refer him to it as a very accurate description of the conditions under which open access is a good thing, and the conditions under which it is not.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, will the passenger standards authority have any ability to engage with the companies about the new east coast main line timetable, given that it involves halving number of services to London from Berwick-upon-Tweed and making the journey time longer?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

We will see when the time comes whether the new passenger standards authority is set up in time to deal with that question, but I am glad the noble Lord raised the east coast main line timetable, because it is one of the justifications for having a guiding mind for the railway. Our nation invested over £4 billion in upgrading the east coast main line, and it has taken several years to achieve a situation where a timetable which is remotely acceptable to all the operators and passengers, even though it has detractions in some places, was capable of being put into effect. It is a startling exposition of the fact that there is no controlling mind that the person who in the end took the decision to put that timetable in was me.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister persuaded that when the consultation document on the future of the railways is published, which I hear might even be this week, it will have a convincing explanation of how Great British Railways is going to reconcile the inherent conflict of interest that exists between its role as a passenger service operator on the one hand and its position as a strategic authority, allocating paths and resources to freight, open access operators and others, some of them in direct competition with it, on the other—or is that the issue that has been holding up its publication for so long?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right: I promised him it would be ready in December. I was advised by a colleague here that I did not say which December, of course, but, as I said, it is imminent. The question that he asks is germane in a mixed-use railway, and not a question unique to this network at all. It is a question which in various forms has been a question for all railway operators for as long as there has been freight, express passengers and so on. It is clear that a controlling mind will have to have some criteria to allocate access, and those criteria will have to form the basis of decision-making. It is also clear that because there are third parties on the railway, they should have a right of appeal. The document that I am referring to, which will be published imminently, will deliver a proposed solution to those issues.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, the last thing I would want to do is create problems for one of our Ministers—particularly this Minister—but he will recall the good days of the old Caledonian Sleepers, including one that came from Stranraer all the way down to London. It was used by many of our colleagues from Northern Ireland, and very effectively so. Recently, under the unfortunate auspices of the Scottish Government, the Caledonian Sleepers are really terrible and are making a huge loss. What advice would the Minister give to the Scottish Government, and would he perhaps even consider taking over the Caledonian Sleepers and integrating them into Great British Railways?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I would not propose to take over anything from the Scottish Government. They are quite capable of running their railway themselves. The sleeper from Stranraer was abandoned some 15 years ago; it was also a sleeper from Barrow-in-Furness and other places. The purpose of sleeper trains is to enable overnight travel. Actually, the Caledonian Sleeper, now operated by ScotRail, does rather well at it. I doubt that it is particularly profitable but it must be worth running—certainly in the view of the Scottish Government, because they run it.