Private Crossings (Signs and Barriers) Regulations 2023

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Berkeley in his objective. It seems to me, as I suspect it does to other noble Lords taking part in this debate, that this is a typical example, if I may say so, of departmental overkill. For some reason, the regulations, which cover the national railways separately, are to be paid out of Network Rail’s budget. That will be taken care of, presumably, in the grants made to that organisation. But despite representations being made by the heritage railways sector, the regulations are now to apply to every farm track, crossing and so on across the country, as we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hayward.

These are not matters of minor expense so far as the heritage railway business is concerned. Perhaps I should rephrase that: most of these railways are not businesses, because they are run largely by volunteers. The Department for Transport consulted the HRA and was warned about the total cost of these regulations, but it went ahead anyway. The department’s own estimate of the cost is £1.5 million to £3 million. That is a substantial amount for such organisations, which, as my noble friend Lord Berkeley said, are hardly profitable under the present circumstances. Indeed, the future of some of them is under direct threat.

As my noble friend indicated, crossings, whether on the mainline railway or the heritage railway, are there to protect not the railway traveller but the motorist from the consequences of their own folly—and sometimes not particularly successfully so. It appears that a minority of motorists is prepared to ignore railway crossing signs. In those circumstances, the road network surely ought to make a proper contribution, rather than it being left to the railway industry the whole time, particularly given that, as I and my noble friend have indicated, the lower speeds of heritage railways, which are restricted to 25 mph, make the likely dangers considerably less than on the mainline railway.

I do not expect a direct reply from the Minister today, but I ask him either to write to me or to set out in the Official Report the duties of the ORR as far as the road network is concerned. It appears to be only too ready to intervene on railway safety; indeed, the last time I met the ORR, it proposed an increase in railway freight rates in a particular area of this country because, it said, the railway industry was charging less than it should. As far as I am aware, it does not intervene in—how does one diplomatically put it?—the rough and tumble of the lower end of the road haulage industry. Why, therefore, should it take such a deep interest in railway matters, which, in many cases, I do not consider it capable of doing? Will the Minister set out the ORR’s duties so far as the road network is concerned, allowing those of us who take an interest in these matters to compare the two and, in the interests of fairness, make future representations about the ORR’s involvement in the railway industry?

As the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, indicated, the extra signs that will be demanded under the regulations will apply to the smallest railway crossings. Again, this is really taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. I would like to hear from the Minister how many accidents and fatalities he thinks this provision will impact, including the number of casualties that take place because of road users on little-used roads crossing heritage railway lines. Are we prepared to stand by as 1,500 people per year are killed on our roads? Without taking any great action, thousands more will be seriously injured, yet here we are inflicting these regulations on the heritage railway industry.

While £3 million might not be a lot for the Department for Transport, it could tip many of the smaller heritage railways over into bankruptcy. I hope that it is not too late for the Minister to think again. I plead with him and his department to look again at the activities of the ORR. It appears to be more concerned with intervening in matters in the railway industry, whether heritage or mainline, than with what happens to the road network—indeed, it does not show any concern for that at all.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the South Tynedale Railway. Earlier today, in my capacity as chairman of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, I signed off on its response to the Government’s call for evidence on overregulation, which closed at 4 pm. I put it to the Minister that perhaps the best response to the close of consultation might be to withdraw this proposal and to come back with something that is a bit less mean-spirited and a bit more proportionate.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that the Minister will not just do that but will recognise that there is already far too much regulation on small railways.

I will refer to the Mid-Suffolk Light Railway, which is a very small railway because it never made any money. Previously, the Member of Parliament for Ipswich invested in it; he went bankrupt and had to resign as a result. He and the railway were foolish enough not to get the wayleave to enable them to link with another railway. Therefore, it went to Ubbeston, a place that is very difficult to find even if you are the Member of Parliament for the constituency—which I was.

I am so excited by the people who work on the railway, repairing and rebuilding engines and coaches. It is a magnificent thing to take one’s grandchildren to. Many an unpleasant afternoon has been lightened for me because we have done that. Just recently, they have managed to buy the land and extend it by some quarter of a mile. That almost doubles the length of the railway. The point I will make is, simply, that the regulations mean that the railway operators must have the same investigation into whether they can run over a quarter of mile as they would if they were running the London to Edinburgh express—that is a nonsense.

I went to the trouble of looking at the regulations, which had so far eluded me, and discovered that they were nonsense. They do not take into account the fascinating and very British thing of maintaining steam railways. I hope that the Minister will not narrow his interest to those that have been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley—important though they are, and supportive of them though I am. We are now in a situation in which one of the most attractive things about our British heritage is under threat: the protection of these railways by people who give their lives to doing things that I would be totally incapable of even beginning to do. They turn absolutely destroyed engines into the most beautiful things steaming along, even though it is but half a mile, to be enjoyed by both children and adults—because most of us are like children in this situation.

The Government have an opportunity here to reform what is a necessary thing. My noble friend and I may have different views about Brexit, but I have to say to him that one of the ways of taking back control is perhaps getting rid of some of the controls which we do not need.

Railways: Trans-Pennine Express

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am sure that the Prime Minister is well aware of what is going on on our railways, because one of the key priorities of the Department for Transport is to make sure that they run reliably, and that in the future we have a reformed railway which services all passengers, not just the Prime Minister.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

Does the Minister agree that probably the single thing that could best bring forward levelling up to the north of England would be to get a decent railway system in place, operating so that people can travel on it with confidence?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Obviously, there are many strands to what is a broad levelling-up ambition, but I agree that we must focus on investing in our railways in the north. That is why HS2 is proceeding and why we are spending £44.1 billion on the traditional infrastructure. It is very important that we maintain what we have to make sure that reliability, to the north and indeed all parts of the UK, is good.

HS2: Speed Restrictions

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership. The Minister mentioned the Golborne link and threw doubt on its effectiveness. However, is it not the case that if we are to improve links to the north-west and beyond to Scotland, the Golborne link provides a very substantial improvement? As such, it is not going to assist levelling up in those areas if it is not part of the overall final scheme.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Sir Peter Hendy in his union connectivity review slightly begged to differ, and suggested that there are alternatives that would make for better journeys to Scotland. Nothing is off the table; that may mean new high-speed lines or improvements to existing infrastructure. Of course, any of the options brought forward would have to compare favourably with the Golborne link as originally planned.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, after the remarks earlier from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, it will come as no surprise to anybody that I, as chairman of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership, start by underscoring that I am in favour of levelling up. I am very pleased that the Minister in her opening remarks recognised what all of us involved have to understand—that it cannot be simply achieved by a single wave of an administrative, legislative or economic magic wand.

If you actually want to do something, the crucial starting point has to be capacity. If there is not the ability to complete the task in hand, it will fail. Capacity, I am afraid, is not universally present either in the centre of this country or across the more economically weak parts of our nation. Within this context, as the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, has just said, the business community needs to be involved and so must be involved. That is why local enterprise partnerships were established a decade or so ago. However, it was unfortunate that there was an insufficiently clear vision and idea of what they might do and how they might work.

Since I have only two more years or so to go in what is known as a level 3 area, I am not going to be affected by many of the changes which will result from the recent LEP review and be incorporated into the thinking surrounding levelling up. However, anyone in your Lordships’ Chamber who has been involved in both these activities will know that they are different in many ways; businesspeople and politicians do not look at things in quite the same way.

It is very important that the way in which the business community and its input is going to be—so we are told—incorporated into the operation of the new local authority era should not be predicated on the basis that the business voice is subordinate to the activities of the local authority members and officers. If that were to happen, collaboration would fail because the business world has plenty of things to do. Despite a great deal of underlying good will, it will not get involved fully if it is perceived to be more or less the running dog of the councils and their politicians.

As was touched on by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, we need to be clear that business has been very hard hit over the last few years. Leaving the single market has caused a lot of economic damage and so has Covid, the war in Ukraine and inflation. In the area I come from, which is very heavily dependent on agriculture, the working of the current agricultural reform is very damaging.

As has already been said, business needs confidence, certainty and encouragement. Often populism does precisely the opposite. It is open to the Government to help or hinder in these respects, and I am afraid I do not think their track record is as strong as it should have been. As has already been said, the Government have to ensure appropriate infrastructure, not least in the context of digital connectivity which is seen—as pointed out by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans—as an absolute sine qua non, especially in parts of the country which are hard to reach.

The Government must get on and do things. For example, I understand that the idea, floated in the context of HS2, of cutting the Golborne link would actually reduce services to London from Scotland and northern England, on the western side, in a post-HS2 world. That seems absolutely crazy. If that kind of thing happens, levelling up cannot be taken any more seriously than it can in the agricultural context, if the effect of the new trade agreements that we will enter into will discriminate positively in favour of farmers outside this country in respect of the environmental, welfare and husbandry standards required of food put into the UK marketplace. Discriminating in favour of foreigners cannot be a good component of levelling up.

Again, one of the greatest contributions of the part of England that I come from to the well-being of the UK economy is public goods, of which frankly no apparent recognition is properly made, in terms of their economic contribution to the local income. After all, we supply and manage the Lake District world heritage site, a large number of important environmental and landscape areas—which are enjoyed by everyone—and supply a huge amount of cultural and other goods to the rest of the country. Currently, quantities of carbon emitted elsewhere are sequestrated there, and there will no doubt be more in the future, but no payments are made or planned in respect of what is being done for free for richer neighbours now. Indeed, much of the water used in Manchester and north-west England comes from our lakes. Whenever a lavatory is flushed in Manchester, this is done with Cumbrian water. If we were Aboriginals in Australia, we would doubtless demand and get massive subventions.

It has been said that skills are very important, perhaps more so than ever before. Certainly, one of the things that puzzles us in the Cumbrian Local Enterprise Partnership is that we are told that we will not be allowed to bid for skills provision in the future. Over the past few years, we were told that this was at the heart of our remit. After all, two-thirds of local enterprise partnerships’ members are from the private sector and understand what is needed in business. In my and a lot of other people’s view, one of the great weaknesses of skills training in the past has been that it has been led by the suppliers of the training too much, with insufficient regard paid to what is actually required in the economy outside.

Equally, we have heard reference to housing. One of the attributes of areas such as Cumbria—it is equally true of Devon and Cornwall—is that shortages of housing are a serious inhibitor of the development of the local economy. But the problem is not solved by building more and more houses. There are plenty of houses in these places; the problem is that the people who actually serve the local economy cannot afford to rent or buy them. We need to think differently about these things and take a leaf out of the book of building preservation trusts and their rolling funds, and things like that. For that matter, the Lakeland Housing Trust, for example—a body of which I have the good fortune to be president—acquires property that exists and then lets it at appropriate levels to local occupants. You can also put an occupancy restriction on an existing house, sell it on and roll it over.

Another thing that is important in the context of levelling up is the fact that we have to avoid the economic consequences of what I might call the branch plant phenomenon, where real profits generated are then expatriated to the head office, which may even be in a different country, and not reinvested in the places where the money has been generated in the first place. This may well have suited the United Kingdom in the great days of the British Empire, but it does not help left-behind areas in England today.

Finally, one important thing that we need to understand is that public goods can be supplied by philanthropic individuals, companies and community organisations, and the good they do has little to do with the ownership and everything to do with the outcomes that are brought about. If the focus of levelling up is solely on who does things rather than on what is achieved, the result will be that the overall outcome will be less satisfactory than would otherwise be the case. Equally, when judging what things to support, the kind of quasi-automatic, ticking-the-box approach that seems to be a characteristic of public evaluation of projects means that, in reality, many small applicants will simply not bother to apply because it is too expensive, too onerous, and takes too much time. As has already been mentioned, it does not follow that competition automatically delivers the best quality, value-for-money outcomes. Indeed, they are and frequently may be suboptimal.

I am sure that we all agree that levelling up is good, but it is not good if it becomes a mere slogan. It has to be a coherent, thought-through and integrated approach which delivers long-term improvements rather than sexy-sounding headlines in the media. It is as simple as that.

Hauliers

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, my brief remarks are based on having spent 10 years in the European Parliament as a foot soldier in the creation of the single market. I was on the EU Goods Sub-Committee and am now chairman of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership.

The point of the single market and the customs union is frictionless trade, which eases business and creates wealth. If you leave them, as we have done, it is an inevitable and direct consequence that grit gets in the engine, as we have already heard this afternoon from speaker after speaker. In reality, unlike almost all other sectors, the international road haulage industry cannot, for reasons of geography, exploit possible promised trading opportunities elsewhere around the globe. The sector is therefore inevitably collateral damage of Brexit. The Government have imposed that on the industry. What, if anything, do they propose to do both for the industry and, equally importantly, for its customers in the unhappy circumstances in which we currently find ourselves?