Heathrow Airport: Third Runway
Lord Moylan Excerpts(1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Moylan
To ask His Majesty’s Government what information they intend to publish about the proposals they have received for a third runway at Heathrow Airport before announcing any major decisions.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, Heathrow expansion will support UK competitiveness and economic growth. In June, the Secretary of State invited proposals; several were received, and two remain under active consideration. My department will decide on a single scheme by the end of November to inform the Airports National Policy Statement review, which was launched on 20 October. Proposals will not be published by the department, in accordance with the Secretary of State’s letter of 30 June to potential promoters, though some have independently released details of their schemes.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, Heathrow expansion is an absolutely enormous project, and there has been remarkably little public engagement. Before deciding between the two remaining bidders, will the Government agree that they should engage in public consultation, particularly on the costs that will flow through to passengers as a result of the regulatory structure, so that they are aware?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The launch of the Airports National Policy Statement review on 22 October is one of the significant steps that the Government are taking to support the expansion of Heathrow. The review has begun before final scheme selection to allow early policy and analytical work. Public consultation will, of course, take place. Round tables with key stakeholders will be held during the review and consultation phases. The further DCO process afterwards will include statutory consultation and public examination.
Heathrow: National Airports Review
Lord Moylan Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the Statement does two things: it announces a review of the Airports National Policy Statement, but gives us little idea in detail as to how it is to be revised, and it tells us that the only two credible proposals for Heathrow’s expansion are still being considered and that the more fanciful proposals have been dismissed. The two are linked because the core purpose of the current ANPS is to facilitate the expansion of Heathrow. In my view, the timing of the Statement is nakedly intended to persuade the OBR that the project is real and deliverable. I wish to test that.
First, there is the question of delivery of a revised ANPS, which I must say I think Ministers are rather reckless to embark on. The current Airports National Policy Statement was produced under the premiership of my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead and expressly favoured the expansion of Heathrow. It survived scrutiny in the High Court and was appealed to the Court of Appeal by environmental groups on no fewer than 17 grounds of challenge and fell on a single one—the legal meaning of the word “policy”. On that arcane question the whole statement fell. By then, the Government were in the hands of Mr Johnson, who was perfectly content with that outcome. But Heathrow took up the cudgels, and the case went to the Supreme Court, which restored the ANPS.
The timeline tells its own story. In 2015, the Airports Commission recommended a third runway. In 2018, Parliament approved it by 415 votes to 119, yet only by December 2020 did the Supreme Court clear the legal path for Heathrow to proceed—five years ago. Now, in October 2025, Ministers tell us rather recklessly that the policy is going to be revised and accelerated and we are going to go through the whole process again, with all the potential challenges involved. It is a brave or reckless Government who set out on this course.
The Government have an answer to this. In the Statement, the Secretary of State says:
“On judicial reviews, we have announced that we will work with the judiciary to cut the amount of time it takes for a review to move through the court system for national policy statements and nationally significant infrastructure projects”.
At present, the average time for such reviews stands at roughly 1.4 years. What is the Government’s target? How long do the Government expect it to take for the new airports national policy statement to be approved? Remember, it is the Chancellor’s ambition that this runway should open in 2035, with spades in the ground many years before that, given how much muck has to be moved in order to embrace Heathrow’s plans. I am indeed making the simplifying assumption—it may not be true—that the Heathrow proposal is the one eventually chosen by the Government in November and not the alternative scheme. I may be wrong about that, but I think my assumption is reasonable and, for the moment, simplifying. That gives us five years.
Meanwhile, public debate on the whole thing has been minimal, because we have very little information about the proposals. The projected cost of Heathrow expansion stands at £49 billion. The market value of Heathrow Airport, which we know from the last time its shares traded last year, is around £9.5 billion, even though its regulated asset base is closer to £20 billion. People are willing to pay £9.5 billion for something which has a regulated asset base of £20 billion, and they are then proposing that, despite the fact that it is heavily leveraged, much more so than it was 10 years ago when it was discussing this project, we have to reckon with the fact that it wants to spend at least £49 billion—that is the publicly quoted figure; it may be more by now—on a third runway to increase capacity by 50%. My second question is whether this is credibly financeable and whether the Government believe that it is.
However, the airlines do not trust Heathrow, because they are expected to pay in advance off the regulated asset base. In fact, they are paying already, because the CAA has approved that some of the costs that Heathrow incurs can already be charged to the airlines and thus to the flying passengers. They think that because Heathrow is incentivised by the current regime to make its expenditure as high as possible, it is untrustworthy. They point to various things, such as a new baggage system completed in 2016, which was priced at £234 million but ended up costing £435 million, and a cargo tunnel with a budget of £44.9 million that ended up with an estimated cost of £197 million. They point, in contrast to Heathrow’s plan to spend £49 billion on a single runway, to terminals at Barcelona, Frankfurt, Madrid and Munich, that all cost half or less when taking the size of the terminals into account; the fact that Changi is expected to create a new terminal for £8 billion; and that New York’s JFK will open its new Terminal 1 in 2026, the centrepiece of a £15 billion transformation that will be completed by 2030.
What are the Government going to do about Heathrow and its regulatory structures? They say that they are going to change them. The Statement says:
“The Government will therefore work with the Civil Aviation Authority to review the framework for economic regulation for capacity expansion at Heathrow, ensuring the model provides strong incentives for cost-effective delivery”.
What has the Civil Aviation Authority, the regulator, been doing for the last 20 years in that case, if it has not been ensuring firm delivery? So my third question is: what are the Government going to do about that?
I plan to speak for eight minutes.
There is also the matter of noise, which I would like to pursue at some stage, but not at the moment. With that, I will sit down, but I believe that the Government have a lot to do to show that this project is credible, and that they are not contributing to its fast delivery by revising the airports national policy statement at this stage.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, I welcome this debate on the review of the airports national policy statement and the Government’s announcement regarding Heathrow. But let me be very clear that the Liberal Democrat Benches believe that expansion of Heathrow would be a mistake from the Government and deliver a blow to our net-zero commitments.
A reliable and safe transport system is vital for economic prosperity in all parts of the country, and improving transport is essential to combat climate change and air pollution, but we must ensure that new infrastructure supports the UK’s climate targets. Analysis from the New Economics Foundation suggests that approving the expansion of Heathrow Airport would cancel out the climate benefit of the Government’s clean power plan within five years, and expansion of Gatwick and Luton Airports would cancel out the climate benefit of the CPP by 2050, so the Government’s sudden support for airport expansion just does not stack up.
Ed Miliband, speaking at the Environmental Audit Committee on 27 January this year, said:
“Any aviation expansion must be justified within carbon budgets … If it cannot be justified it will not go ahead”.
Will the Minister confirm that the four new tests—the evidence-led approach set out by the Secretary of State—will have to be met in their entirety before this Government will give the green light to Heathrow expansion? Will the Government publish the metrics for each of these four new tests so that there is transparency in the assessment? Will the Minister confirm that they will not proceed with Heathrow expansion if the Climate Change Committee advises that the plans do not meet legal obligations on climate change, including net-zero or air-quality obligations?
Let us look at noise pollution. It is a really big issue. Around 700,000 people are impacted currently by noise from Heathrow. It is not just those who are living in places such as Richmond, Kingston, Hounslow and Surrey—around the airport site. In places such as Lambeth and Southwark, residents have the clash of Heathrow flights and City Airport flights throughout the day, causing serious nuisance. The CAA workbook has highlighted that the number of those who are overflown could double to 1.5 million under some Heathrow expansion plans. Noise is an issue which many people feel has escaped any meaningful legal control for too long, leaving overflown communities exposed to excessive noise, impacting their health and quality of life. As part of this work, will the Government adopt the World Health Organization’s recommended noise levels to address noise pollution from the operations of Heathrow Airport?
I come to the point about surface access. While we do not want to see expansion and we do not believe it stacks up economically or environmentally, the last thing the area needs is an airport expansion plan that does not address and fund fully surface transport to the airport. It is a problem now and, therefore, higher modal share for public transport must be a foundation block for the Government’s assessment. Can the Minister confirm the Government’s commitment to fully funded surface transport access as part of this work? As part of the assessment of the two options, will the Government ensure that surface rail access, including the southern and western rail links, are an integral part? Will the Government consider the future of the premium Heathrow Express line as part of its surface access assessment, and when will this be published?
I pick up particularly these points around rail surface access because the letter from the Secretary of State in June stressed
“surface access mode share targets, including elements of a surface access strategy”
and went on to talk about it covering
“public transport, and active travel”.
Yet in the letter that was published last week, on 22 October, under the heading “Surface access”, it states:
“To minimise unnecessary disruption, please provide additional information regarding the construction of road schemes”.
Rail seems to have been downgraded. I really want some assurance from the Minister today.
In an attempt to demonstrate growth, the Government are misguided in thinking that an expanded Heathrow can deliver for the whole country. There are many other schemes that would deliver a lot more for communities across the country. We do not support Heathrow expansion and will closely monitor every stage of this process to ensure that local communities are heard loudly and clearly.
International Maritime Organization: Net-Zero Framework
Lord Moylan Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I am afraid I am not qualified to judge whether or not flying drones over major oceans is going to work in this respect. I will certainly take that suggestion back to my department to see whether or not they can make sense of it.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, given the apparently implacable hostility of the United States Administration and the very low number of states that voted for this framework in London last week, are the Government not deluding themselves in thinking that one more heave and we will achieve it next year? As my noble friend Lord Fuller suggested, would it not be better if the IMO, guided by the Government, were to focus on the question of the dark fleet? This is being used to ship sanctioned oil around the world in a way that only benefits dictators. Would it not be sensible to get real about some of these things?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I think the noble Lord needs to recognise that a worldwide organisation such as the IMO can do more things than one at the same time. What he says about the dark fleet, and what the noble Lord previously said about it, is right, and the IMO should challenge it and do what it can about it. As the noble Lord has just heard, UK shipbuilders and designers are at the forefront of designing new low-carbon and no-carbon shipping. It would be an awful shame if the Opposition Benches were not to support a good piece of the British economy which has the potential to sell not only in Britain but around the world.
Open Access Rail Services
Lord Moylan Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I listened to my noble friend with care and respect because he has significant prior experience in running railways. He is right that we should be careful, because we are dealing with only 1% of the passengers and the rest of the network has 99%. We should be careful to allow people to innovate where innovation is a good thing and where there is space for it. We should not allow innovation where it is not a good thing, costs taxpayers money and cannot be accommodated on a very constrained network.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, a lot of people listening to this might think it quite disedifying and perplexing to hear this hate fest against open access services, which are the most popular with commuters, drive down prices where they exist and give consumers what they are looking for. Under the Government’s proposals, the decision on whether open access will be granted for new or continued services will be transferred from an independent regulator to Great British Railways, which is an interested party as a provider of competing services. Does the attitude expressed by the Minister not show how unfit for that purpose the new Great British Railways will be when it starts with such an antagonistic disposition?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord has drunk his own Kool-Aid on this. I made it quite clear that there are benefits to be provided. He also needs to do a bit of careful research, because there are very few commuters on open access services. Commuting is one of the things that has a high fixed cost and generally does not cover the cost of its operations. Open access is successful for people making long-distance journeys irregularly, and some of the operators are very good at it.
The noble Lord also referred to the future railways Bill. We have already made it quite clear that Great British Railways needs to be the body that decides who implements the timetable. Currently, there is not one. It will have to have some rules for access to the railway, which will be developed from the current rules and will be consulted on. If third parties believe that they have been disadvantaged by GBR not following its own rules, or doing something in the wrong way, our proposal will be that they have the ability to appeal to the independent regulator. I think that is perfectly fair, but I also think it is really important that your Lordships’ House recognises that nobody is currently in charge of the national railway timetable except the Secretary of State and me. Outside North Korea, that is really not a good circumstance to have.
Drink-Drive Limit
Lord Moylan Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I come back to the question of drug-driving, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. Nobody expects there to be available a roadside test for drug-driving that is as effective as a breathalyser for alcohol. However, given that figures from the department show that there are now more deaths from drug-driving than from drink-driving, what in particular is the department doing in terms of training or other equipment that would assist the police in roadside enforcement, which has been shown to be the most effective way of deterring this activity?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
There are, of course, a variety of drugs, which need to be tested in different ways. The department is very concerned about drug-driving and will look at it again in the revised road safety strategy. The noble Lord is right that detection is more difficult because of the variety of drugs, but the department is looking carefully at it because the enforcement effort has to be consistent over drugs and drink.
Great British Railways: Rolling Stock
Lord Moylan Excerpts(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right that there are a lot of old vehicles. The average age of vehicles on the national network is 17 years. There are 12,000 vehicles across 14 operators, and it is essential that we plan for the future, if only because several thousand jobs in the manufacturing plant in Derby and the assembly plants at Newton Aycliffe, Goole and Newport, Monmouthshire, all depend on this—as does, as she is right to say, passenger comfort and reliability for rolling stock that has reached the end of its normal life.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, when the Government nationalised the train operating companies, they said that one of the advantages was that they would no longer be paying fees to the private sector. Have the Government carried out, or do they intend to carry out, an assessment of the value for money to the taxpayer of continuing to finance rolling stock through the use of roscos in the private sector?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The Government’s policy is to continue to use the private sector to supply rolling stock to the British railway market. That has been quite clear since the manifesto before the election and nothing has changed. I think it is likely that the cost of rolling stock will be better than it has been, simply because the life of the rolling stock has been uncertain, but not sufficiently to diminish the risk taken by those companies, which is why they exist and why they should make a profit.
Aviation Safety (Amendment) Regulations 2025
Lord Moylan Excerpts(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, following on from my noble friend Lady Foster, I will touch on the second point she raised, because it is relevant. We have a situation where the CAA’s delegation and decision-making powers are being changed because of the nature of the arrangements with the European Union.
This whole set of regulations is part of a much broader project led by the CAA at the moment, which deals with, among other things, the simplification of the licensing and training of general aviation pilots—of which I am one. The issues around the changes in licensing are very important, because they bring about the ability of someone, who, like me, flies a single-engine piston aircraft, to fly an electric aircraft. I will not go into the shock-horror that the likelihood of me flying an electric aircraft is equivalent to my enthusiasm for driving an electric car, which is rather limited at the moment.
My question, which follows on from the point raised by my noble friend Lady Foster, is about the delegation of powers to the CAA. She raised a very good point on drones, but I would like the Minister to set out for us whether there were any changes as a result of these circumstances in the agencies, which can have a delegation from the CAA to make decisions, and whether that is adequate in terms of who looks into which agencies can have those delegated powers.
I will raise another point. This statutory instrument does not appear to have happened through impact assessments or anything else; it is a usual statutory instrument where nothing seems to have been necessary to draw to anyone’s attention. To what extent are the resources of the CAA being tested, as a result of these regulations or of ones that have been envisaged? As I think we are all aware, the CAA is short of cash. It is already doing a considerable number of functions, including coming up to date on the things that I have referred to: technology, licensing, the training of pilots and so on.
There is also the question of safety, which develops inexorably as we go along due to the rise of new-generation aircraft. There is also the issue around airports, including the changes in the control zone basis of airports, which must be costing the CAA considerable sums of money. Can the Minister also confirm that there are adequate resources for the operation of the CAA to pay agencies or others to which it delegates powers, and that he is satisfied that we will not need to go back to the Treasury and ask it for more cash? Safety in the air—the safety of training and the other uses of pilots et cetera—must be paramount if our skies are to be secure.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I express my gratitude to the Minister for arranging a very helpful briefing by officials.
Like my noble friend Lady Foster of Oxton, I had some concern about the abandonment of the use of Form 1 for certain non-safety critical parts. We can rely only on the personal assurance of the Minister that, in proceeding in this route, he and his department will take full responsibility for the consequences of that decision. As my noble friend pointed out, the notion of a non-safety critical part can be deceptive because of the close integration of every working part on an aircraft. We cannot challenge the statutory instrument on that basis; we have to accept that the Minister and his department know what they are doing and that they are willing to accept the responsibility that falls on them from pursuing this proposal.
I also share the caution expressed by my noble friend Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate about the delegation of Civil Aviation Authority powers, and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that. Beyond that, and with those reservations, the Official Opposition have no objection to this instrument, which consists largely of consolidation and clarification. We have no objection to it, but we would like to hear the Minister’s response on those areas that cause us some potential concern.
National Policy Statement for Ports
Lord Moylan Excerpts(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Moylan (Con)
We have had a pretty devastating critique of all sides of this document in this debate. The revisions were initiated by the previous Government with a view to promoting a thriving, modern port sector, but it has emerged under this Government as something of a damp squib. Even the Minister does not seem to think that it has much content. I listened to his speech carefully, and he delivered the preamble very well, telling us all about the procedural history of the document—including even the dates on which the Select Committee in the other place had taken evidence. I expected him to go on to tell us about what the document actually said, the main changes that it was going to make and how it was going to achieve the Government’s growth agenda—but he just sat down at that point. That is because the document is wholly inadequate to the challenges and opportunities.
My noble friend Lord Moynihan spoke about the grid connections and the need to increase them, and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, spoke about rail and road connectivity and other matters of that sort. I am not summarising the whole debate—but my noble friends Lord Mountevans and Lord Fuller added devastatingly to her critique, on the basis of very considerable knowledge. My noble friend Lady Maclean of Redditch pointed out that the NPSP lives in a sort of parallel universe, with no connection to the Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which we are debating in a different forum at this very moment—from day to day, in the course of this week. It does not seem to do the job.
Ports are central to the economy of this country; they handle the overwhelming majority of our trade and act as gateways for energy and manufacturing, providing employment and opportunities in coastal communities. They are strategic national infrastructure without which growth, resilience and security cannot be delivered. What marks out the United Kingdom port sector is the environment in which it operates. It is unsubsidised, competitive and dynamic—well, reasonably dynamic if one believes what my noble friend Lord Fuller said; perhaps some parts of it need a little shaking up.
When a port expands, develops a new terminal or invests in green technology, it does so with private capital and at its own risk, which means that the framework set by the Government must not disincentivise investment. We support that approach to the provision of ports in this country; we do not want to go back to the disaster of nationalised ports—and the mention of the dock labour scheme by the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, reminds one of the horrors that existed on those occasions. But to be successful and invest, the ports need some sort of certainty.
The current planning system is, frankly, far too complex. Ports have to navigate local planning authorities, marine licensing regimes, environmental regulators and in some cases the national infrastructure planning process; the result is fragmentation, duplication and delay. We could look to a document like this to start removing those problems, but it does nothing—it changes nothing of any real significance at all. Time and again, applicants face the uncertainty of competing judgments from different authorities.
This is no small matter—every delay in planning ties up capital, weakens competitiveness and deters future proposals. In a sector where operators already carry full commercial risk, that uncertainty is corrosive. If an operator is prepared to risk its own capital within the bounds of environmental and safety law, that willingness should be taken as compelling evidence of need. That principle is acknowledged in the draft statement, but it must be made stronger and clearer. Forecasts have a role in setting context, but they must never be allowed to become shackled or allow the planning system to be used to constrain investment.
The draft statement includes national freight forecasts. As background, they are useful, but they are no more useful than if anybody else commissioned a national freight forecast from a reputable body. There is nothing particularly insightful about them simply because they are published by the Government, but they must not be allowed to become constraints. To treat them as in some ways binding would be to undermine the very responsiveness that has been a defining feature of the port sector in this country.
Somebody a moment ago—forgive me if I forget which noble Lord—said that to have competition you need some surplus capacity. Tying the system to forecasts would be fatal in that regard. Ports operate in fast-moving competitive markets; they must be able to respond to emerging opportunities, such as hydrogen, carbon shipping and storage, offshore renewables and international redistribution. But they must continue simply to feed us and provide us with the goods that we depend on day to day. All these wonderful, environmental, green things are very important, but we fundamentally depend on this: 40% of our food is imported into this country and a lot of it comes on ships. A lot of other heavy goods also come here. This cannot be captured adequately on backward-looking models by this sort of forecast. If every scheme is required to prove its case against centrally produced forecasts, we will miss opportunities that are vital to the future of the economy.
The draft statement acknowledges that it is for each port to take its own commercial view of demand and to bear its own risks. That is the correct principle, and it must be reinforced clearly throughout the final document. Building capacity and resilience ahead of demand is not speculative extravagance; it is a strategic necessity if the UK is to withstand shocks to supply chains and maintain competitiveness. I was horrified by the figures quoted by my noble friend Lord Fuller on the costs of landing goods at different ports in this country compared with a serious network of major ports facing us across the North Sea.
We come then to energy. Ports stand ready to enable cleaner growth from shore power, electrification and new fuels, but cannot do this while electricity prices in the United Kingdom remain among the highest in Europe. They are not among the highest actually; they are the highest—driven in part by layers of environmental regulations. Nor can they deliver if grid connections are delayed year after year. The outcome is perverse: a policy environment that speaks of net zero with urgency but in practice deters the very investment needed to achieve it.
I put three questions to the Minister. First, will he confirm that the forecasts in the final statement will be contextual only and not determinative nor taken by the planning system as being determinative, and that promoters will be free to take their own view of need? Secondly, what steps will the Government take to bring down electricity costs and accelerate grid connections so that ports can invest in green infrastructure rather than being held back by policy-driven costs? Thirdly, how does this document fit in with the Chancellor’s ambition, which she stated in a Written Statement on 17 March this year? I quote:
“To reset the UK’s regulatory landscape and achieve this vision, the government will implement a package of reforms over the Parliament that focus on … tackling complexity and reducing the burden of regulation, including that the government will commit to reducing the administrative costs of regulation for businesses by 25% by the end of this Parliament”.
Is the port sector going to benefit from that pledge and why does it not appear in this document as a driving consideration?
The port sector needs a framework that provides clarity, consistency and proportion. If the national policy statement delivers these qualities, ports will invest boldly, they will innovate and they will support the growth and resilience that this country needs. But if the statement leaves ambiguity, lacks ambition, constrains investments or piles systemic obligations onto individual schemes, we will deter the very capital on which future prosperity depends.
Looked at as a narrow planning document, this might just work—but as a vision of the ports system that we want to see in this country, it fails systematically and comprehensively. I do not think I am going too far in saying that the tenor of this debate is that the Government should take this away, start again and come back with something that sets a real vision for ports that will serve us well into the future.
Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]
Lord Moylan ExcerptsMonday 13th October 2025
(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Bus Services Act 2025 View all Bus Services Act 2025 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 132-I Marshalled list for Consideration of Commons Amendments - (10 Oct 2025)
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, in moving Motion 1A, I will speak to the other Motion that I have tabled in this group. I hope noble Lords will forgive me for being distressingly frank. The background to the Bill is the Government’s payment of the Danegeld, if you like, to their friends in the trade unions and in a network of left-wing local authorities, who have seethed with resentment for many years at the success of the private sector and want to see it effectively eliminated from the provision of public transport services in this country—the same motivation that lay behind the passenger railway services Bill, which we passed before Christmas.
That is why the Conservative group and the House as a whole supported amending the Bill on Report to include a purpose to which the Government could be held to account as to its effect, putting passengers and their needs at the heart of the Bill from the outset. The Government, using their majority in the other place, have deleted that purpose. There is no standard, no accountability, no measure to which we can turn from the Bill itself and say to the Government, “You promised you would achieve this by these measures. You promised that this was the purpose you were setting out to effect and we can hold you to it”. None of that is there. The Bill simply stands on its own, a great experiment with the provision of public transport but with no accountability for the Government behind it. That is the simple fact behind Motion 1A but, as it happens, I do not propose to test the opinion of the House on it.
I turn, then, to Motion 8A, which covers two subsections that have been removed from the Bill, Clause 14(5) and (6), which your Lordships added on Report for a very good reason. The first, subsection (5), related to the £2 bus fare cap. The fact is that the Conservatives pledged to keep this going for another year. The Government removed it. Of course putting the fare cap up by 50% had an effect on the most vulnerable people, because it is the most vulnerable people—those who are low-paid workers—who depend most on buses for getting to work, for example. Yet the Government say, “We don’t need to consider that. We’re going to look at the effect of the £3 fare cap, so we don’t need to consider the effect of the £2 fare cap”. What is the point of looking at the effect of the £3 fare cap unless you can compare it with the effect of the £2 fare cap? Comparison is the very purpose of that study. The Government having made no concession on that—they could easily have said, “We will do something on the £2 fare cap as part of our review of the £3 fare cap”—and I will, when the time comes, test the opinion of the House.
Finally, on the SEND review, we talk about vulnerability. I remind noble Lords of the fragile structure of the services on which SEND pupils depend. It may be that the Government will resolve all this in the long term and there will not be any distinct SEND pupils because, as the Minister said, they are all going to be mainstreamed somehow, so they will not need to travel, but the fact is that today they do. They rely on a network of small providers, engaged by local authorities, that depend on part-time workers, many of whom earned less in each year than was required to be eligible for national insurance contributions. Because of the drop in the threshold from roughly £10,000 to £5,000, they are now caught by those national insurance contributions, which is having a devastating effect on the cash flow of those small operators, many of which now refuse contracts or are withdrawing from them where they are permitted to do so by their terms. The only result of that will be higher costs for local authorities, with fewer providers—the worst possible outcome.
The Government say they have provided money to local authorities to cover those costs—which, of course, they have. I do not doubt what the Government say as a matter of fact; they have provided money to local authorities. So what is the problem with a review that will actually identify whether that provision has been directed towards those local providers, is working and has been effective, and that the sum involved is correct? There can be no problem with such a review—except that the Government are keen to hide something. Again, when we come to Motion 8A, which captures both those subjects—I ask noble Lords to bear in mind that it has two parts to it: SEND and the £2 fare cap are both comprised in that Motion—I will test the opinion of the House.
I think it is time that the Government listened to what this House says. When it sends modest amendments, simply calling for reviews, to the other place, the Government should start listening and not simply turn everything down as a matter of course, which increasingly seems to be the way in which they want to conduct themselves. I beg to move Motion 1A.
Lord Harper (Con)
My Lords, I want to say a few words on this issue as the introducer of the £2 bus fare cap and the person who wrote the relevant sections of our manifesto, which committed to keep it for the duration of the Parliament and fund it, importantly, from savings that we were going to make in rail services. We do not spend enough time in this country talking about buses. Two and a half times more journeys are made by bus than by the national rail network. You would not know that from the national press, which is very London-centric on this subject, but in most parts of the country buses are critical, so I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate.
I shall say a word or two about my noble friend Lord Moylan’s purpose clause and his remarks on that. He talked about the Government trying to help their friends in local authorities. What is interesting about this legislation is that, if you look at what has happened to bus services, the real challenge, and one of the problems, is that what happened during the pandemic is that a significant number of people stopped using buses for rather obvious reasons and never returned. That caused a huge financial problem for the bus network and has caused lots of routes that were previously profitable not to be profitable. The thing that is missing in the legislation is that you can offer local authorities the powers to franchise services all you like, but unless the Treasury is going to give local authorities the money to pay for those bus services, all you do is take loss-making services that are being reduced by private sector operators or by local authorities that cannot pay for them, and the local authority ends up having to take them away because it has no ability to pay for them.
When this legislation gets on to the statute book, I will be interested to see whether the Government fund the powers to the level that you would have to in order to deliver an improvement to bus services. I suspect, given the dog’s breakfast the Chancellor is making of the economy and the fact that there is less rather than more money available for public services, that that is not going to happen, but we will see how that develops in the future. I think my noble friend Lord Moylan does not have to worry in one sense, because I do not think this cunning plan that the Government have implemented to help local authorities is going to help them at all.
Specifically on the cap, the Minister talked about the review of the £2 bus fare and said that it was not good value for money. What he missed out was that the Government decided, without having concluded the review of the £2 bus fare cap, to have a £3 bus fare cap, which suggests that they like the principle, but introduced it and picked a number without having done the review on the £2 bus fare cap in the first place. That demonstrates not sensible, evidence-based policy-making but a Treasury-driven “Let’s just reduce the cost of the policy and not look at the impact it was having”.
When I talked to bus companies, I found there were two issues relating to the bus fare cap that were important in driving up bus ridership. One was the obvious one, which is that it reduced the cost. Particularly in rural areas—as has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords—where you often have to take a number of parts of a journey with a number of fares, it drove down the cost of those journeys. That is really important for people going to work or accessing education, so that had a big impact.
The other thing was the clarity and the consistency that it provided in communicating the level of bus fare to people, which had, I have to confess, a rather surprising impact. When talking to bus companies, I asked the question, “If we were to take this away, what would you do to your pricing structure?” What was interesting was that they all said having a round-number bus fare had a surprisingly powerful effect on their ability to market services to consumers, rather than people not knowing what a bus fare was going to be and a whole range of complexity. I think it needed a bit more time to bed in, and that is why I support a proper review having been carried out.
To go back to the point I made about funding, what we suggested—to take savings from the reforms that we were going to put in place for rail services and use some of that to fund the bus services—would have rebalanced where people chose to take their journeys. More people depend on bus services for important local journeys. Whether to access education, to access the health service or to access employment, far more people across the whole of the country use bus services to do that than use the rail network.
The Government have done the reverse. The first thing they did was come in and give railway drivers—some of the best-paid public servants—a pay rise and ask for nothing in return; they got no productivity improvements for the rail user. That money could have been spent on improving the quality of bus services across the country. That would have been the right decision, and it is the decision that we were going to make. When we do not see increases to funding for bus services—when we simply give local authorities the powers to franchise but with no money to deliver that—then people on all sides of your Lordships’ House will think that making savings in the rail network and putting the money into buses would have been the right decision. I am sorry the Government chose not to do so.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Harper for reminding us of the importance of funding and the fact that the Bill is almost meaningless unless large amounts of funding are attached to it for local authorities. That is not an original point; it is one that was made forcefully by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, at an earlier stage of debate on the Bill, but we have still heard nothing about the large amounts of funding that the Government are going to have to put into buses in order to make the Bill a reality.
I turn to the Motion by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who happens today to be sitting behind me, and who is apparently my new best friend. I understand—I hope I am not traducing her here—that she is not intending to divide the House on her Motion, but if she did then we would stick loyally with her as we did before. The Conservative Party is and always has been the party of villages, and whoever speaks up for villages in your Lordships’ House will have our support. It is a tragedy that the Government are willing to defer for a whole five years—into a new Parliament, when there is no doubt that they will not be the Government—a commitment to look at the effect of their policies on villages.
None the less, I have made it clear that I do not intend to divide the House on Motion 1A, so at this stage I beg leave to withdraw Motion 1A.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, on Vision Zero, rightly put safety on buses at the heart of this Bill. Who can argue with the aim of zero fatalities on our roads and a culture in the bus industry of safety throughout? The Government’s clear response in taking this forward, including best practice internationally and the new road safety strategy—I think the Minister said it is the first since 2011—really does show action is taking place in this safety space. It is a great assurance to our Benches.
On collecting data on violence on the bus network, we are in absolutely no doubt about the Government’s commitment to this, especially given the awaited VAWG strategy. Given the clear acknowledgement that this data is already collected by the police across the country, and that this new strategy is due, we are satisfied that this concern is being properly addressed, so the amendment is not needed. What is needed is more resources for our police, but that is a debate for another day.
As this Bill seeks to improve bus services across the country, safety in every aspect will be key. We are pleased to hear the way forward to address safety outlined by the Minister.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I was depressed by the remarks of the Minister, but I have been depressed further into almost silence by the astonishing remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. The complacency they both show on these two really important issues is staggering.
Since we last debated this, there has been an appalling crash at Victoria bus station, and what is going to change? Nothing. We will have a road safety strategy that will encompass all modes of transport by road, including foot, bicycle and whatever. That is a good thing, and we should have it, but for buses changes are needed in operator mentality and practice. We see no sign of those happening. They will not emerge from a strategy, but only if the Government say, “This is our objective and we will make this happen”. That is what the Minister is not saying. I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, did not hear him not saying it clearly enough.
As for my noble friend Lord Moynihan and all this nonsense about what was discussed when, none of that matters. What matters is what my noble friend Lady Owen said—the actual experience of women and girls travelling on buses. They do not feel safe. The Government again come forward with astonishing complacency about this, saying that it is already being done and there is nothing to be added. It really is not good enough. If the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, and my noble friend Lord Moynihan choose to divide the House on these matters—I make the point clearly to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, that that is their choice; I have known my noble friend for what must be nearly 50 years now, and he has never been my glove puppet during all that time—then we will support them, because we think these issues are very important.
Finally, as far as dark influence within the Labour Party is concerned, it is astonishing that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, should make his naive remarks on the day on which Mr Paul Holden’s book The Fraud is published, a tract dedicated to exposing the conspiracy behind the Starmer Government, the undeclared funding and the actions of Mr Morgan McSweeney in destroying Jeremy Corbyn and inserting Sir Keir Starmer as his substitute as leader of the Labour Party. I realise that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, is a byword for naive credulity among his colleagues, but I suggest that he should get hold of a copy of the book published today and sit down, perhaps this evening, with a stiff whisky by his hand so that he can prepare to anaesthetise himself against the shocks that will be revealed to him. Then he will realise what nonsense he has just said about my noble friend’s amendment.
Rail Fares
Lord Moylan Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness highlights that the number of discount cards has grown over the years. Some of them have different conditions from others, so it is quite hard to understand, if you do not have one, which one might be applicable. We are mindful that, when GBR is up and running, it addresses consistency and examines what else can be done to encourage people to travel by train.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, fare simplification, by definition, means that there will be fewer fares options. Can the Government guarantee that, under their simplification programme, no individual fare will go up purely because of fare simplification?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord has some background in this, because he was deputy chair of Transport for London and, I think, the Deputy Mayor for Transport. He knows perfectly well that, when we rationalised the fare structure on the Tube, some fares did go up while others went down. We made sure that the fares that went up were generally ones that a lot of people did not pay for and that the benefits were found across the system. If we have 50 million fares, we inevitably need to reduce that number and ensure that they are balanced. The noble Lord has some experience of balancing them within an overall fare rise, so he should use that knowledge to his own advantage, because I do not particularly want to tell him this again.