Payments to Train Operating Companies

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

Can the Minister draw our attention to any statistical evidence for the notion, which is counterintuitive, that a vicious circle is not developing here between cutting services and raising fares?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I do not accept that at all. It is right that we ensure that our services meet the needs of passengers and are punctual and reliable, and that the contribution from the national taxpayer is appropriate. There will be areas of duplication and areas where efficiencies can be found. The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail states that in five years’ time, savings of about £1.5 billion should be available after simplification and efficiencies. Those are the things we are trying to drive out of the system. We want passenger services to be as good as we can possibly make them because we really would like people to travel on our railways.

Integrated Rail Plan: North and Midlands

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Well, I am very happy to write to the noble Lord on the detail of his question, as I am not well versed on the tunnels et cetera in the area to which he referred. I apologise if he felt that I was condescending to the House on Thursday. It is, of course, always very funny to be asked lots of questions based on the media rather than the actual documents, which had not been published at that time—and of course the questions were about upgrading, and I could not answer them. Maybe the noble Baroness had read the documents, but I had not, so I could not answer.

Bradford will benefit from electrification of the line to Leeds, and improved journey times will mean that you can get from Bradford to Leeds in 12 minutes—that is quite some distance in 12 minutes. I wish I could get that far in London. So it will benefit, and I think that we will look at various other projects as well. Part of the whole issue we are looking is the core pipeline work, which is set out in the Integrated Rail Plan, but we will look at any other scheme and service that will offer further improvements. This is exactly what the National Infrastructure Commission suggested that we do. This is the Integrated Rail Plan, and this is the core pipeline of work and, if noble Lords have suggestions for other schemes that would be affordable, would further improve our ability to improve services, and would be deliverable, I would really appreciate it if noble Lords would forward them to us.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, is it not the case that the credibility of these proposals depends on long-term political consensus? We are not here until 2040 and 2060, sitting around this Chamber. Years ago, I did a couple of jobs for the World Bank on transport infrastructure investment, returns and so on. It is absolutely vital that you nail down the fact that it has got to have long-term political consensus. In this country we are not even trying to do that in terms of the Government opening the door to other people to try to agree on some proposals.

Does the Minister recognise what Hilary Benn said the other day, that the proposals put forward as a long-term plan—for nearly a hundred years, as the Victorians did—would have had

“Victorian railway engineers scratching their heads in disbelief”?—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/21; col. 740.]

What will the Government do to ensure there is scope for getting together proposals—including some of these—systematically to achieve a long-term cross-party consensus? That is the only way that they will not fall flat on their face.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I hope that I have just outlined to the noble Lord that we will continue to look at schemes that we can put in place in addition to the core pipeline. The RNIP will be published in due course. I hope that will reassure noble Lords that there is a programme in place, and that we will take forward some of the commitments that we have already made. As I have said, I look forward to hearing suggestions from whichever side of the House.

Covid-19: Transport

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

This is an incredibly important topic. The Rail Delivery Group—the organisation made up of the train operating companies—is finalising staff guidance, which includes suggested example questions around where a customer may have a preference in the nature of the assistance provided. It has not been finalised. There will be public communications on this in due course, so the RDG will be able to provide further information. The rail industry is currently undertaking a comprehensive review of the passenger journey to understand better the needs of those passengers who have invisible impairments because, as the noble Baroness quite rightly says, sometimes those passengers have other needs.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, what strikes me about this is that the virus is the subject of a huge amount of numerical modelling and forecasting. I am amazed at the lack of numerical modelling in passenger transport of intermodal splits on different scenarios. In the medium term—in the autumn or something like that—we will need to sustain public confidence with more information, options and explanations of the dilemmas in the trade-offs of social distancing, in this case, with the rate of growth or decline of GDP et cetera. It is very important to have a higher level of public engagement and understanding.

Initially, will the Government institute more transparency on where the pinch points will be later in the year—information on which I am sure exists in the files of the Department for Transport—so that we can have an adult conversation, as called for by one of the Minister’s colleagues the other day? The modal split in town, country, big cities and so on will be different for rail, bus, car et cetera, but we need to make sure that we do not run into gridlock in some centres by digging up the road to put in a wider pavement, such as Piccadilly Circus et cetera being dug up at the same time as Oxford Circus. Is that not a danger? I do not know which forum might be useful, but I know that there are a lot of very well-informed and interested parties. Would this be something to look into so that we can have some numerical forecasts to scrutinise, with no skin off the Government’s nose? Public engagement will heighten public understanding.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord raises interesting issues to do with data and modelling. I reassure him that the Department for Transport has a vast amount of data and does a huge amount of modelling. However, the sort of thing that he is talking about—a very centralised, top-down approach to solving our local transport needs—is not what we are proposing at the moment. In fact, we think the right way to go is to talk to the metropolitan mayors and local authority groups and get them to refresh their local transport plans, because they are the ones who know what is going to happen in their local communities. They can really put into practice what will need to be done to support the future forecasts for the different splits on the different modes of transport.

I agree with the noble Lord that there is much to be done—much data and much modelling—and that there are things we can crack on with, but this is best done locally. The Department for Transport is very happy to help. We review these plans and have asked these groups to refresh their local plans in light of the changed circumstances.

Railways: South-eastern Franchise

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am afraid that the noble Lord has me stumped on that one, because I have not seen those press reports. I will certainly write to him if I can find out any more information.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, does not this debate reveal that there is still a contradiction in the Government’s own transport policy on the benefits of freight traffic being on rail? This extraordinary increase in charges from HS1 should be investigated. The Government have not answered the question from the noble Baroness on the Liberal Democrat Benches about whether this is compatible with the Government’s transport policy.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The Government absolutely support the movement of freight on rail. We were interested to read the report on freight by the National Infrastructure Commission. It is a very good study, and we will be taking forward further work in this area. I remind the noble Lord that we have invested £500 million through the strategic freight network fund and made very important investments at some of our ports and elsewhere. We also provide rail freight subsidy through the mode shift revenue support grants for national rail track of £15.6 million, which takes 800,000 lorries off the road.

Heathrow Airport

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I hope that I can reassure my noble friend. Heathrow is working closely with the communities around the site. I am pleased to say that the compensation being proposed is 10 times that which was proposed 10 years ago. It will amount to £2.6 billion-worth of compensation, which will also cover noise insulation and public facilities. I should also remind all noble Lords that this is being done at no cost to the taxpayer; the compensation will be funded by Heathrow.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not the case that since the Earth Summit in 1992 we have all been committed to proportionate measures to deal with the rise in sea and air temperatures? To go from that to shutting down airport capacity, which I think is the policy of the Green Party, would simply reduce Britain’s market share in airlines—and in some other industries by the same criterion—and allow other countries to have a bigger market share. We have to keep all these factors in some sort of proportion.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord is completely right. The UK has the third-largest aviation sector in the world; it is very successful indeed. The way in which we will achieve decarbonisation of the aviation sector is twofold: first, by working with all other countries around the world to reach international agreements and, secondly, by making sure that it is successful and able to put money back into innovation so that we can decarbonise aircraft and look for other sustainable fuels.

Common Rules for Access to the International Market for Coach and Bus Services (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

This SI allows EU operators to continue cabotage operations. We do not have figures on how much cabotage takes place. The new EU unilateral regulations allow cabotage for regular and special regular services in the Irish border regions until 30 September 2019, when we will have something else in place. However, other cabotage is not permitted and, as I said, the Interbus agreement does not allow cabotage.

There is little exercise of cabotage from UK operators, because services are usually hired for a group of passengers who return to the UK, such as for a school trip or tour. Regular services allow cabotage as part of an international journey, but all current UK-to-mainland-Europe timetabled services, such as Eurolines, are operated by non-UK companies, so they will not be affected by Brexit.

As we have said, cabotage forms an integral part of cross-border bus journeys on the island of Ireland. Such services are incredibly important for remote communities. We recognise that the provision within the legislation proposed by the EU offers a solution, but that solution is based on reciprocity, which is what we are doing through these SIs.

I suppose that one could say that this is an asymmetric agreement at the moment. We are allowing cabotage within the UK, but these things are of a temporary nature. When we join the Interbus agreement and have future discussions with the EU on our relationship—

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

I am sorry to ask this, because I have not been following the debate, but I am interested in the principle just enunciated. There is asymmetry but there is reciprocity. Is one way different from the other?

[Baroness Sugg]

I am not sure that the noble Lord was here for my opening statement where I set that out.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I am afraid that I was not. Does that mean that I should not intervene?

[Noble Lords]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[A noble Lord]

No, you are not to intervene.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

All right. I am sorry. I was interested in what has just been said; that is all.

[Baroness Sugg]

I am very happy to explain again that this SI sets out our position in relation to EU operators coming into the UK; there is no restriction on cabotage in that regard. However, the EU regulations restrict cabotage, which is why they are asymmetric. We still need to reciprocate the access, which is what this SI does.

I hope that I have answered most of the questions raised. If I have missed any, I shall follow up in writing. This instrument is needed to allow the continued operation of international bus and coach services in the event of no deal until such time as fully reciprocal arrangements are in place.

Electric Car Ownership

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The noble Baroness makes some important points. Of course, a shiny new electric car is useless if there is nowhere to charge it up. However, I am pleased to tell her that we already have over 11,000 public charge points in the UK. We have Europe’s largest network of rapid chargers. In the Autumn Statement last year, the Chancellor announced additional funding of £80 million for charging infrastructure for the period to 2020. Alongside this, Highways England has £15 million to expand the existing rapid charge point network.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not a fallacy to say that we are using less oil? Electricity does not come from nowhere. Is it not a fact that until recently in this country electricity was produced roughly 20% from nuclear, 20% from coal, 40% from gas and oil, and 10% and rising from renewables? That is where electricity comes from. The effect that electric cars have on the streets of London is very interesting, but it has nothing to do with the generation of electricity.

[Lord Callanan]

Of course, the noble Lord is correct. The lifecycle CO₂ value of an electric car depends on where the electricity is generated. That is a statement of fact.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, after that Panglossian account, I wonder whether the noble Lord who has just spoken was knocking on the same doors as I was a couple of weeks ago. Many Labour politicians who were knocking on doors found a deep sense of insecurity right across the country, apart from in London, where the experience is generally not the same as that of the rest of the country. All the statistics show that—not least the fact that house prices in London are double the rest of the country. The rest of the country more or less moves together.

There is no easy way to fix this, but fix it we must because otherwise we will be left in the position of those people on the continent who remember the 1930s. I remember that when I was on the Bruno Kreisky commission on unemployment in Europe one wise old bird said, “Well if people don’t believe that politicians can do anything about their insecurity in employment, why do we need any politicians?”. That has dangerous implications. I do not want to exaggerate, but the malaise is not unrelated to some of the types of data that we have been hearing about. I will give two examples.

Involuntary temporary and part-time work is growing, but the actual numbers are startling. I was going to say, “Hands up who know that the ONS has shown that these categories of involuntary temporary and part-time work have risen by 66% and 103% respectively since 2008”. A new analysis by the ONS of zero-hour contracts shows the scale of insecure work. There are 1.4 million such contracts—or 2.7 million if the 1.3 million contracts for people who are reported as doing no work over the two-week time period used for the analysis are included.

There is another example of an unjustifiably satisfied gloss being put on the state of our economy at the moment. I pick up the point that arose from a remark by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, with whom I always enjoy crossing swords on these occasions. It is true, as she said, that no major advanced economy has grown as fast as we have in the past 12 months. But the explanation for that is very largely that, in the vernacular, if you dig a bigger hole, you have to grow faster to get out of it. I will give you the statistics. If we look at the total position of the British economy and the German economy from the same benchmark starting date of the same quarter of 2008, our position as of April is that we are still two thirds of 1% lower than before we fell off the cliff. We are still below the peak. Germany, from the same benchmark starting date, is now 3.83% higher than before the peak. That is the relevant statistic—not how fast we are growing in one or two quarters at the present time, welcome as that is.

[Baroness Noakes]

I am fascinated by what the noble Lord said. Could he remind noble Lords under which Government the hole was dug?

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

It was Lehman Brothers what dug the hole, if we want to get to that level of sophisticated debate. Gordon Brown was the most courageous statesman in the world in stopping it being even worse than it was. The noble Baroness represents the flash boys in the City and so on as part of the ideal economy, but I would say that it is those people what created the crash. Unless there are any more questions I will proceed.

We had a 7.2% fall from the peak, as I think my noble friend Lord Adonis pointed out.

One party in the coalition Government was the party of Disraeli, who famously referred to one nation. We are losing a sense of one nation and I would like to hear a little more from the Benches opposite about whether they do not think that there is a deep, chronic problem now in talking about one nation. Of course, there are three or four dimensions of it. There is the regional dimension, which I will come to, and top-down, education and social class. We all know that you can measure all the interactions until the cows come home. However, it would be foolish to deny the absolutely extraordinary change in the degree of inequality in this country over the past few years. We have now gone back to before 1945. I am holding up a graph which normally hangs on my wall. It looks like we are climbing Mount Everest, having last seen a similar peak of this ratio before the Second World War. That is not conducive to one nation or to a healthy economy.

I want to talk a little about the structural problem that is reflected in the contrast between the two economies in the United Kingdom: the London economy and the non-London economy. All the figures for the non-London economy of the UK correlate to some extent and show that the London economy is nothing like that of the rest of the UK. A brilliantly argued and well researched report by Deutsche Bank Securities published last November reached the conclusion that,

“there was less correlation in growth patterns between London and the rest of the UK than between the different members of the eurozone”.

It is hard to believe that, but it is pertinent to another point that will immediately become obvious. What are the implications of this? How many people in this House, particularly those on the Benches opposite, which have one or two more Eurosceptics than there are on the Labour Benches, have argued that the economic growth patterns seen in the eurozone mean that it is not possible to have a single monetary policy or any sort of economic governance? Based on that criterion, what if I were to say that we cannot possibly govern the United Kingdom? Would it be said in this House that we cannot possibly govern the United Kingdom?

[Lord Flight (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Is not the crucial point that within the United Kingdom there are transfer payments worth at least £70 billion per annum from the more prosperous south and south-east to the less prosperous north, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? The problem in the EU is that Germany is unwilling to make transfer payments to the less prosperous parts that are unable to compete with that country.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

If that is the reason why the noble Lord does not agree with the eurozone, I would say that over recent months Angela Merkel and her friends over there have been ready to put their hands in their pockets to do what it takes. It is all to do with the single market and having a single currency. I think that this could be a diversion; I am just drawing attention to the fact that the United Kingdom is in the same position. The transfer payments that we need now are becoming a huge challenge, given the rates of return—unless you count what might be called the external economies such as HS2, which I strongly support.

I strongly support the infrastructure proposals for our roads, but I would say to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, that she should note that the graph detailing major road expenditures over both Governments has gone up and down even more dramatically than the Blackpool Pleasure Beach attraction to which the noble Lord, Lord McNally, earlier referred with such nostalgia. We cannot have sudden switches on and off for road expenditure—I was going to say something unparliamentary—with not much in other periods.

What are the policy consequences? Someone who sits in this House but is not with us today said something about getting on your bike. Getting on your bike is fine, of course, if you want to go and work in London. But we know that there is a terrible dilemma around the green belt, town and country planning, and more growth in London relative to anywhere else. I strongly support what the Government have said about HS2 tying up with the Northern Hub. Infrastructure plans, as well as other subventions in terms of training, the labour market and so on, have to be somewhat disproportionately higher than for what might be called a private rate of return. If you were a private enterprise running education in Bolton, you would have to deal with this on a broader basis. I would ask the Government to consider whether they appreciate the scale of transfers which have to be made, which must also come with a challenge to enterprise to respond.

One nation is receding from us—hence the malaise, insecurity, lack of full-time jobs and so on. Mr Miliband has been mentioned and I will refer to him. Only Mr Miliband has the analysis that will lead to the policy with which the next Labour Government will be able to make a significant improvement to these structural problems.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, it was healthy to see that the gracious Speech put in big letters up front that the key objective was to get the economy growing. That must surely be in the interests of all people. I cannot help thinking that that is not a bad criterion against which to measure individual policies: are they going to be good or bad for economic growth? Perhaps if President Hollande had done that, he would have avoided causing the French economy so much damage.

I add my congratulations to the Chancellor on having got our economy back to decent growth. I well remember that not long ago the IMF was rapping us over the knuckles, saying that we had not got it right. In a sense, you cannot blame the Labour Party for offering criticism; it is its job to oppose. However, three years ago I predicted that growth in the UK would be 3% by the time of the 2015 election. At that time people thought that I was not being particularly sensible, but that is about what it will be. As has been pointed out, this has been achieved while inflation remains healthily under 2%.

In essence, the Chancellor has taught Hayek but mostly done Keynes by printing £180 billion of money and continuing to run a budgetary deficit of well over £100 billion. If that is not Keynes, I am not sure what is, but it is fair to say that that was needed after a 7% crash in the British economy, just as Keynes was needed and was successful in the 1930s. The issue is when you turn down the Keynesian gas and revert to more standard economic management.

I also particularly welcomed in the gracious Speech the incentives for shale gas exploitation, the new collective defined contributions pension schemes and the proposals for streamlining planning approvals. Two of my children and I have been involved in the planning process over the past year. It is a complete nightmare and extremely expensive, involving environmental this and planning that—all for fairly simple and straightforward things. It is blindingly obvious that the problem is lack of supply because of the extent to which our planning system has become so complicated.

I have only one reservation for the near term: I hope that the Bank of England does not leave it too late to start to nudge up interest rates, particularly given that the economy has returned to normal, because the obvious risk is that when rates are increased they will have to be put up by a greater quantum, which would have more of a shock effect on the economy at the time.

However, we are not adequately talking about two big issues. One is that, taken together, health spending and the totality of welfare expenditure are now running at around £350 billion per annum—close to half of all government spending. As Mrs Merkel said in a different way, that expenditure is growing much faster than tax revenues or the economy. It is simply not sustainable in the long term, and it is particularly in the areas of welfare spending and the unfunded costs of ageing that Governments are going to have to think again. If they do not, there will be major economic problems in the future.

This is also reflected by the fact that we currently have a structural deficit of around £100 billion per annum. Although some of that can be addressed—as much as possible, we hope by economic growth and rising tax revenues, I do not think it will all be dealt with thus. We have reached the stage of economic recovery where those issues need to be thought about in a little greater depth and the can cannot be kicked down the road.

The second issue is savings and productivity performance. We need a savings rate of around 10%; it is more like 3%. Productivity growth since 2005 has been virtually zero overall. Manufacturing productivity has grown reasonably, but in the service industry—unbelievably—it has declined. The two obviously interrelate, in part because savings equals investment: if we have low savings we are likely to get low investment. However, that is not the only cause. Low levels of saving have been a major cause of poor productivity growth for over a decade. One cannot but observe that this goes back to the introduction of tax credits around 2004. I remember when the Heath Government brought in similar proposals to subsidise employment with their negative income tax proposals. The then leadership of the Labour Party—I use their arguments from 2004-05—warned that, if we do subsidise employment, we run the risk of having excessive employment in areas that are not growing, of discouraging people from getting skilled up, and of damaging productivity growth, just as the Speenhamland system did in the early part of the 19th century. The whole equation of savings, productivity growth and tax credits needs to be looked at in a little more depth.

Since 1997, the savings rate has also been driven down by the destruction of what was the best pension system in Europe. That destruction has been caused partly by overburdening final salary schemes, partly by the 1997 tax rate and partly by continuous tinkering with the rules. I very much hope that the gracious Speech will mark much more constructive thinking by the Government about pensions and retirement saving. That is how we can practically get the savings rate back up and generate the funds we need for investment in this country.

Again, a by-product of the inadequate savings rate has been, as I think was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, a current account deficit that has now risen to over 5%. For nearly 20 years we have financed that by selling off companies and the family silver. I will not say that that is running out, but there may come a time when it will not be in the national interest to keep on selling assets to pay for current consumption.

I repeat that there has not been in economic policy an adequate focus on the two key areas of savings and productivity growth, but there are three good news territories that I will focus on which I see in the commercial bit of my life. One is a wonderful explosion in entrepreneurship and a new-technology industrial revolution that is going on. I have to admit that a lot of the latter is in London—I will come back to that point—but I do not believe that the figure of 4.5 million self-employed is a reflection on people not being able to get contractual work; I think that a lot of it is voluntary. Something like one-third of young people now want to be entrepreneurs. In my generation everyone wanted to be a civil servant or work for a large corporation. Now, people are much bolder and much more imaginative, and this country, more than any other, is really exploiting the new technology that is coming up. Therefore, I think that there is very good news for the future beneath the surface.

Secondly, I think that we should welcome and not resent the success of London. Jobs in London are reckoned to be 39% more productive than jobs in the rest of the UK. It has more people employed in highly skilled, knowledge-based industries than any capital anywhere in the world. At the end of the day, this is generating the tax revenues that will help stimulate other parts of the country. I find it disappointing when people talk almost in terms of being jealous of London’s success because it is not matched at present by parallel success in other parts of the country. Let us remember that in the 19th century Manchester and Birmingham were doing brilliantly and London was not doing so well. Therefore, things swing to and fro.

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

I do not recall anybody saying that they resented the success of London. We have two economies in the United Kingdom that are getting further and further apart, and it is going to be very hard not only in economic terms but in terms of social cohesion if that continues. Many people made that argument but I did not hear anybody say that they resented London’s success.

[Lord Flight]

If the noble Lords thinks about it, that is just what he has implied. Effectively, he is saying that if London were not so successful the UK would be more homogeneous and that would be better. I am saying that we should use London’s success to earn the money to help pay for new investment in other parts of the country and the transfer payments that are needed. That is what is actually happening. I think that we should take a positive view of London’s success and not a negative view because other parts of the country are not doing as well at present.

I close with my third area of good news. When I looked at the Government’s infrastructure plan back in about 1911—I am sorry, 2011; I am much older than I look—I asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury when these things were going to happen but he could not give me an answer. I am delighted to hear today from my noble friend Lord Deighton about all that is now happening, and I congratulate him on having really got things going. The plans were there but we had all manner of burdens and hurdles to get over to make things happen. It is good news that they are now happening, as those infrastructure investments are badly needed. Therefore, I end on what I view as three very positive things for this economy.

Eurotunnel: Structure and Charges

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

I can see that this is a wide-ranging question. Perhaps I may just say that, as a Londoner and as a true Brit, I find living in this country to be exceedingly attractive. I am not at all surprised that it is highly attractive to the French, especially those with an entrepreneurial turn of mind.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that the real moral of this story is that strong EU rules are needed to make the single market work in the interests of the customer?

[Baroness Kramer]

I very much agree that a single market can exist only when there is effective regulation. The UK would have said that the prior arrangements had the necessary stamina, but we are very welcoming of the new shape of economic regulation that will have an impact on the Channel Tunnel as we go forward.

Shipping: Passenger Safety

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, there is clearly some confusion. The EU directive was designed for the large, steel ferries that I think noble Lords are referring to. These are small craft. Existing small craft already have this exemption; it is simply as they are replaced that newer craft can have the same exemption. The rationale is simply that on a very small boat there is very little space for adding one additional life raft, which is what would be required by the directive. You would have to take off passengers. These are usually small, family operations operating on a tight financial margin and, as I say, it is within five miles of the coast so that if something untoward were to happen, modern life rafts are very reliable and air-sea rescue is very close at hand. Therefore, the marginal benefit is considered very marginal.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, I am rather exercised by the fact that Britain over the past 100 years has had the reputation of giving leadership in the International Maritime Organisation, which is across the road there, with the highest standards in world shipping. I am trying to think of the read-across of this to the Philippines archipelago, to Indonesia and so on. Two very brilliant new books on seafaring that have just come out show that many safety standards are now deteriorating. Will the Minister give an assurance that, within the IMO and elsewhere, the British Government will continue to listen to the problems of workers on seagoing ships and that the Government’s contacts with the employers will be equally matched by their contacts with the trade unions?

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, the UK has been an absolute leader in marine safety and I can guarantee that this Government will continue to be. I will ask about various discussions that are taking place with the IMO and other stakeholders, and make sure that we write back to the noble Lord.