West Coast Main Line

Lord Jordan Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Yes, I know that the noble Viscount is a great champion of freight. The west coast main line is a key corridor for rail freight, particularly between the deep seaports and the distribution hubs both in the Midlands and across the country. Indeed, the industry estimates that about 90% of all intermodal trains use the west coast main line for part of their journey—that is, 90,000 trains a year—so that is also great for emissions reduction. We want to keep rail freight moving. We understand that this can be challenging when there are engineering works, and we take that into consideration. Where there is strike action, we do our best to communicate with the freight sector to ensure that it can plan accordingly.

[Lord Jordan (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

It is the turn of this side; noble Lords from other parties have had three questions on the trot.

Can the Minister be brought back to the here and now? There should have been a national strike tomorrow; it has been transferred to next week, which is the run-up to Remembrance Sunday. On Monday, there is rail strike and a Tube strike; on Tuesday, there are no tickets for sale for the north on Avanti trains; and on Wednesday, there is a national strike. I spoke to the manager of the Union Jack Club this morning, who told me that this is going to have devasting effects on bookings by people trying to come down for Remembrance Sunday. So what can the Government do to stop this indiscriminate guerrilla strike action that is bringing misery to hundreds of thousands of people at the very time of remembrance? This is a time when people want to remember the freedoms we got from people who died in the First and Second World Wars and other conflicts throughout the world: freedom to move, freedom to associate with each other and freedom to come to remembrances. These union barons must be held to account for at a whim changing these strikes to make it more difficult for people to travel at times when they need to travel—it has to stop.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right: there are capacity constraints on the west coast main line that impact both passengers and freight. It is also the case that the west coast main line is fairly old, and therefore engineering works are necessary; that caused some disruption between 22 and 30 October. So he is absolutely right that we must continue to invest in our railways, and that is what the Government are doing.

[Lord Jordan (Lab)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the promises made by Avanti to run three trains an hour from London to Birmingham have not been honoured, and, worse still, that it is now running only one train an hour between two of the country’s largest cities? Could she tell us why—despite making surely the understatement of the year that the performance of Avanti trains was dreadful—its contract was extended?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not entirely sure where the noble Lord gets those figures from, because my understanding is that on weekdays between 7 am and 9 am—for example, between Birmingham and London—the services are actually at pre-pandemic levels. Of course, there have been changes to the timetable at some other points, but that is very much down to changes in travel habits, such that the system needs to have a demand-led timetable so that we can ensure that people can travel when they need to.

Smart Motorways

Lord Jordan Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jordan (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, on the way in which she has introduced this subject. I declare an interest as deputy president of RoSPA. When the first smart motorway experiment opened on the M42 in 2006, it showed great potential for improving the situation caused by the growing congestion on Britain’s motorways. Using technology, new techniques were developed to better manage the increasing volumes of traffic. Warning systems eased and even averted traffic jams, alerted motorists to congestion points and proved invaluable in emergency situations.

These improvements led Sir Mike Penning, former government Minister and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Roadside Rescue and Recovery, to approve the 2010 rollout of the smart motorway programme. But the developers of the system allowed their quest for more speed and more capacity to eclipse the need for safety by giving the go-ahead to permanently converting the hard shoulder into running lanes on around 300 miles of motorway. The all-lane-running motorway had arrived.

The consequences of that ill-thought-out decision were vividly illustrated in the BBC’s recent “Panorama” programme, which revealed—as the noble Baroness has said—that 38 people have been killed in the past five years on the UK’s smart motorway network. The all-lane-running policy is the fatal flaw in the smart motorway system. The Minister will hear this theme running through many of the contributions. It has made the job of the emergency rescue services infinitely more difficult. It increases the risk of breaking down in a live lane and, as we have heard, even the police have branded the scheme a death-trap.

All motorists who have ever driven on a motorway fear the possibility of their vehicle suddenly losing power, but reassure themselves that they have a good chance of reaching the safe haven of the hard shoulder. Unfortunately, all four types of smart motorway that have been introduced have, in varying degrees, removed that haven of the hard shoulder for a motorist in distress. In an RAC survey last November, 68% of drivers in England thought removing the hard shoulder put people whose vehicle breaks down at greater risk. These fears are well founded, as a freedom of information request sent by “Panorama” to Highways England revealed that on one section of the M25 the number of near-misses has risen twentyfold since the hard shoulder was removed in April 2014.

While we in the safety industry think the Government’s decision not to open the M20 and other stretches of road as smart motorways is a step in the right direction, 38 avoidable deaths tell us that this is not enough. Regrettably, unless further remedial action is taken, more people will die. We are told by the Government that an imminent review is expected to recommend a major overhaul of the smart motorways scheme. That is welcome. In that exercise I ask the Government to reach out and embrace the expertise and experience of the road safety industry. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents can and will play its part. We should remember that lives are in danger on more than 200 miles of smart motorway in the UK now, so I ask the Minister to urge her colleagues in the Government to take time to bring in the things that will make our motorways safer and more effective, but to lose no time in removing the things that are making our motorways kill.

Road Safety

Lord Jordan Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Jordan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to include road safety targets for England as part of their road safety statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, there is no robust academic evidence to indicate that the setting of targets would contribute to progress in road casualty reduction. As announced in the road safety statement published last Friday, the department will be conducting research into the efficacy of targets. However, local authorities, the police and other bodies are free to set their own targets, should they wish.

[Lord Jordan (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a deputy president of RoSPA. I thank the Minister for her reply and welcome the Department for Transport’s road safety statement released last week. However, it is extremely disappointing that in an otherwise positive and constructive policy the Government failed to commit to safety targets for England. There were over 170,000 road traffic casualties in the UK in 2017, 1,793 of them fatal. Our road safety improvement trend stagnates, while the best in Europe—countries such as Norway, Ireland and even our own Scotland—all use targets and are seeing continuing improvement. Do not the Government agree that the case for the implementation of targets for England has already been comprehensively made?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The Government do not agree that the case has comprehensively been made. However, as I have already stated, we will be conducting research into this area and will consider the results. I thank the noble Lord for his welcome of the road safety statement. It is fine work and will see us through the next two years, with numerous action plans for our four key user groups.

Mobile Phone Use: Motorists

Lord Jordan Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Jordan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce the incidence of mobile phone use whilst driving.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are introducing legislation increasing the penalties for using a hand-held mobile phone while driving from three to six penalty points, and from £100 to £200 when a driver is issued with a fixed penalty notice. We will be running a THINK! campaign when these higher penalties are introduced to alert drivers to the changes and raise awareness. Drivers also need to understand that it is unacceptable to put lives in danger.

[Lord Jordan (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and I declare an interest as a vice-president of RoSPA. We all welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to make this dangerous and potentially devastating practice socially unacceptable. The increased penalties and the proposals that drivers who kill while using a mobile phone could face a life sentence should be a real deterrent to this growing and seemingly obsessive addiction. But previous increases in penalties—

[Noble Lords]

Question.

[Lord Jordan]

I need to make this point. Previous increases in penalties have not had a lasting impact. What plans do the Government have to ensure adequate enforcement of their new measures?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord makes an important point about enforcement. Laws are only as good as their enforcement. We have seen a rising tide in the use of mobile phones by drivers in vehicles; they have admitted it themselves through various reports. We will be working closely with the police and crime commissioners, as well as the police forces, to ensure much more effective enforcement.

Cyclists: Safety

Lord Jordan Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Jordan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the findings of the YouGov survey on cycling safety commissioned by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)]

My Lords, I received the top lines of the YouGov report only late last week. The YouGov survey asked many useful and interesting questions about attitudes to cycling and is sufficiently data rich to stand more detailed analysis. One key finding, which we are pleased to note, is the evidence of considerable latent willingness to engage in more cycling, which justifies the Government’s strategy on supporting cycling provision.

[Lord Jordan (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her reply and declare an interest as a vice-president of RoSPA. The RoSPA-commissioned YouGov poll has given us some compelling insights into the need for greater provision for cyclists. One-third of people think that cycling safety is one of the biggest transport issues we face; two-thirds back the idea of a network of cycle routes; and 78% say they would like to see separate cycle lanes. The Government have given money to certain cities, but with more than 100 cyclists a year being killed, what will the Government do now, given these findings, to accelerate the introduction of safe cycling provisions for all our roads?

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, one death from cycling is one death too many, so obviously we are very concerned with safety. Your Lordships will be aware that we launched a THINK! Cyclist campaign in 2012, and a third round of this is planned to run in 12 cities in March 2015—the original five cities and seven additional ones. We have made it easier for councils to introduce 20 miles per hour zones and 40 miles per hour zones in rural areas, and Trixi mirrors. The Deputy Prime Minister announced £100 million to improve conditions for cyclists and walkers, alongside and crossing the strategic road network. We have set up a task force with Transport for London to raise awareness of safety among HGV drivers and to take targeted enforcement against the minority of potentially dangerous operators, drivers and vehicles. We are always looking at more ways to make cycling safe.

Roads: Young Drivers

Lord Jordan Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Jordan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to produce a Green Paper to address the incidence of vehicle accidents involving young drivers.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)]

My Lords, Britain has some of the safest roads in the world. However, young drivers are disproportionately involved in collisions. There is a difficult balance to strike between promoting young drivers’ safety and their freedom to access work and education. We will not rule out further measures, but at present we are focusing our efforts on technological solutions. We recently commissioned research into how telematics can reduce accident rates among young drivers and the findings will help to shape future road safety policy.

[Lord Jordan (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that reply. Young drivers account for about 20% of all road deaths, yet they represent only 7% of all fully licensed drivers and have less mileage than older drivers. Measures have been tried for many years, and all have failed. It is now time for this issue to be grasped. I believe the time has come for an all-party commitment, before the next election, to a Green Paper on young drivers that is prepared to see more radical solutions than we have seen so far. This will not only harness those who want to support this but will certainly give some relief to all the parents in Britain who are terrified of the statistics I have quoted. Is the Minister prepared to be part of an all-party commitment to a new Green Paper?

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, the Government are not ruling out any programme that safeguards young drivers, but at the moment we are focusing our efforts on technological solutions, such as the telematics I described. We think they offer great potential and will help to get the right balance between safety and the freedom to use a car, which is so important to many young people.