Railways: East Anglia Network

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord Berkeley

Thursday 10th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the chance to say a few words in the gap. When I was a schoolboy after the war, living in Suffolk, we had a wonderful stopping service. It was a direct line between Liverpool Street and Lowestoft. I would get out at Wickham Market and change to a little steam train that went to Framlingham. I would get out at Marlesford. Sometimes I was allowed to stand on the footplate, and I would be met by my mother with a pony and cart at Marlesford station.

My next real experience of rail was that for five years I was on the board of British Rail Anglia. It was the worst commercial experience I have ever had; it was so frustrating. The quality of the management was just not there—and the key is management. There has been talk about producing good franchises. When considering who you should give a franchise to, it is necessary to look at the management and the targets that they are prepared to set themselves. Let them be judged by those targets. Interview the management. We all know that if you are in the advertising world and you decide to hire an advertising agent, you do not just see the agency, you see the person who is going to handle the account, so insist on that. It is a matter of buying a good franchise by doing it properly, and that has not been done.

In the old days when you had the wonderful non-stop service from London to Ipswich and Norwich, you could guarantee an hour between London and Ipswich. Now, however, it is different. One of the things that I had as a non-executive on the board was a first-class free ticket to wherever I wanted to go, but I virtually never used it on my own line if a journey was time-sensitive. As has been said, reliability is crucial. Trains are about reliability. You cannot blame someone else when you are in a car, but you jolly well can when you are on a train. That is another factor which should be properly taken into account.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was absolutely right to say that something has to be done about Felixstowe. We should have a new target for the amount of freight that is carried; I think that it is only about 20% at present.

[Lord Berkeley]

I think it is about 30% now. It is one of the best in the country.

[Lord Marlesford]

Well, it wants to have a new long-term target, maybe 50%, and in my view let us forget about HS2.

I shall end on a positive note because I am allowed only two or three minutes in which to speak. At least the difficult communications that we have to East Anglia have kept Norfolk and Suffolk the very beautiful counties that they are, and I proudly declare an interest as president of Suffolk Preservation Society.

Localism Bill

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Lord Berkeley

Monday 31st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend for her comments. I am most grateful for the support that I got from all sides of the House. I would like to answer the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, straight away. First, I am not creating a new offence as such. All I am trying to do is to make the 1990 Act, which has failed for the reasons we have discussed, work better. How many prosecutions there have been or how many there will be is completely unknowable. I suppose we could know how many there have been, but the point is that at the moment the thing cannot be enforced. In my book, unenforceable law is bad law. You should not have laws which put obligations and requirements which cannot be, and therefore are not, enforced. That is the way to bring the law into contempt.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. The Act applies to more offences than throwing things out of motor cars, so have there been any convictions for other litter offences without this problem of motor cars?

[Lord Marlesford]

I am talking about the problem, not of motor cars but of motor vehicles—a little wider than motor cars but not as wide as the noble Lord seeks to draw me. I am not concerned with other things that the Act does. I am sure there are lots of bits of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 which work extremely well. What I cannot accept is the suggestion of my noble friend that it is not necessary. It is necessary for us to do something about litter. This is one thing we could do. It is a simple thing. It is an enabling power. It is a power which gives local authorities the opportunity, as my noble friend Lord Jenkin explained, to do what is being done in London. Therefore, it is wholly appropriate to the Bill. All too often one has found that the Government talk one thing and either do nothing or do something quite different. I would like to feel that this House will give a signal that it basically believes that something should be done and that something can be done. I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.