E-scooters and E-bikes

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister referred to a trial conducted by the previous Government which has gone on rather a long time—rather too long, in my view. Would it not make sense for the Government to draw that trial now to an early conclusion and see what lessons could be learned from it before proceeding with legislation, so that it could be informed by the results of the trial? Will the Minister be able to give a commitment that that will be done? When he learns the lessons of that trial, and will he take a particular interest in the use of e-scooters in relation to crime which we see on the street, which is a cause of great concern—not least mobile phone theft?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Happy Christmas to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan.

Hammersmith Bridge

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

We know what the range of costs for a future renovation of the bridge should be. They are very significant—at least a quarter of a billion pounds. I cannot currently say how detailed that is, but I know that it is the order of magnitude of what would need to be done to move further than just stabilisation, which will be completed, as I say. It must have been quite a burden to both chair and be in those meetings, and I am interested to hear about that. I hope that my honourable friend the Minister for Local Transport, when he reconvenes the taskforce, quickly brings the meeting to a clear understanding of what the bridge is to be used for in the future, and therefore what needs to be done to it in the long term.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the Greater London Authority Act explicitly transferred the responsibility previously held by the Government Office for London to fund capital transport projects by the boroughs to the Mayor of London. It is undoubtedly the Mayor of London’s responsibility to provide funding for this. Does the Minister not agree that what we are seeing here is a failure by two Labour-run authorities that, at the expense of members of the public, are engaged in a competition to show who can be more anti-motorist?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will say two things to the noble Lord. First, the bridge has got into its current state over decades, which have seen various changes of control by the owners, the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Secondly, he will know better than most that the level of settlement afforded to the Mayor of London for transport purposes by the previous Government was frankly derisory, and therefore the current Mayor of London has not been able to allocate money to all the things he would like to. We need to establish what the use of the bridge will be in future, which is a matter for the two boroughs. In other circumstances the noble Lord would defend fiercely the right of local authorities in London to decide what to do with their local roads. That has to be established. From that, it can be worked out what to do with the bridge, how much it will cost, how long it will take and, incidentally, who should pay for it.

Train Crew Shortages

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. The lengthy disputes were damaging to passengers and to the railway’s revenue and sapped the morale of the staff—and, indeed, of the management. In particular, in relation to Northern, the number of disputes and the length of time for which they have taken place reflect the fact that no serious effort seems to have been made to resolve them in the time that the company was in the ownership of the last Government. The previous Secretary of State, the current Secretary of State and I are absolutely resolute that we have to resolve these issues. They are quite deep-seated, but as we are here today, the management and the trade unions are in discussion about how to do that, and we are strongly supporting them.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I start by commiserating with the Minister on the fact that transport does not appear to be being mentioned in the latest great reset speech today. It must be tough not being a priority. On the running of the railways, the noble Lord knows better than anybody else that, to run a railway, you need management with strong focus and a strong hand. Does he not accept that the morale of management at the train operating companies is absolutely shot to pieces as a result of the recent legislation, while it waits for the Hendy axe to fall, and that, in effect, at least over the next few years, the railways are being run by the unions—much as the Government appear to be being run by the unions?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

There is no need to reflect the Government’s policy on railways in any particular speech by any member of the Government. We have a clear direction to go in, and we are going there. On the management of the railways, I have to say, if the noble Lord opposite knew the managers as I did, he would know that many of them were in fact rather pleased that there is now a direction. Their morale, as with my own when chairing Network Rail, was significantly damaged by the promise of reform, which started after the May 2018 timetable debacle and was not fulfilled by the previous Government. This Government are going to do it.

Road Transport (International Passenger Services) (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, I have a question for the Minister about this generally positive instrument. It is about electronic travel authorisation. If a bus comes from Great Britain to the Republic and into Northern Ireland, electronic travel authorisation will be required, as I read it. Can the Minister confirm this? Many of us see this as a disincentive and an obstacle to tourism. People visiting Ireland from outside the EU and from outside Ireland need, as I read it, electronic travel authorisation to come into Northern Ireland—that is effectively a visa. Can the Minister confirm that? If he does not have the information available, he can write.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for arranging a helpful briefing with his officials this morning. This is, I imagine, one of those very rare occasions where I find myself more in sympathy with the proposal from the Minister than with the speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who seemed determined to reopen all sorts of arguments about Brexit and who did what when.

This is, in my view, a sensible and necessary disentangling of our laws from the pernicious effect of EU legislation, so that we stand on our own feet with our own laws, making international agreements—such as the Interbus agreement—and adhering to, and adopting, in this case, its protocol relating to these coach services, which the Minister spelled out in considerable detail, with great clarity for such a complex subject.

The impact assessment for this instrument says that it has no impact and that that is the reason for not having any consultation. I welcome that; we should have more laws that have no impact. Most of the laws that set out to have an impact seem to have only perverse impacts and do not achieve what they are intended to at all. This one is deliberately intended to have no practical impact—with one exception that I will return to—because it seeks to maintain the existing situation but translate it into domestic law. As I say, this is not only desirable but necessary because the provisions of the TCA under which it operates will effectively expire at the end of March next year, as the other foreign parties join the Interbus agreement. So, on the whole, we welcome this instrument and are happy to support it.

On cabotage, it is of course possible—as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said—that there is some diminution of immunity to British travellers as a result of that. The Minister has been asked a question, and I certainly do not know the answer to it, but he may. It is possible that certain services currently operating start in, say, Paris and go to Edinburgh, stopping along the route, collecting passengers and dropping them off. Those services will no longer be able to operate in that fashion—picking passengers up and dropping them off along the route—once these provisions come into effect, which in practice will be on 1 April next year. As I say, that could constitute a diminution in services.

However, it is interesting that the noble Baroness focused on that, because the counterpart to that is that British coach operators will not have those cabotage rights in the European Union. I would have thought and hoped that the Liberal Democrats would be more interested in promoting the interests of British coach operators travelling abroad than protecting the business model of foreign coach operators operating in the UK. However, that appears not to be the case: her focus is on the latter—she did not mention the others at all.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 20th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I do not follow the Government’s logic so far. They accepted our amendment, in the names of my noble friend Lady Brinton and others across the House, on disability access and the equality issue. That was and is a hugely challenging issue for the railway and for the Government, and a very expensive one to fulfil. Yet they reject this simple statement, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, just pointed out, is simply a statement of purpose.

We are very grateful to the Minister for the discussions and for the way he has moved to address our concerns. But, as the Government have said, nationalisation is not a silver bullet. Across the world, there are examples of both publicly and privately owned railways that provide an excellent service. Unlike both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, we on these Benches judge a railway not by its ownership but by its efficiency: how good a service provided to passengers is and putting passengers at the heart of things, always. Incidentally, we welcome the Conservative Party’s new-found enthusiasm for passenger efficiency.

This amendment would make it clear that the primary —but not the only—purpose of the Bill is to improve passenger railway services. This should be a statement of the obvious, so I am mystified as to why there is any debate about incorporating it in the Bill. I am also concerned about the points the Secretary of State made in the other place yesterday. It is unrealistic to assert that you can interpret the amendment, specifically the words

“improve the performance of passenger railway services”,

as meaning that the Secretary of State could decide to run fewer services on time, which is, in essence, what she said. I add that if the Government are not happy with the precise wording, because they believe it could be misinterpreted and misused, they could, of course, have offered to amend it.

We would have preferred the issues of ownership to be more closely linked with improvements, passenger standards and other key issues that need to change if we are to have a robust 21st-century rail service. The Government, in our view, have therefore put the vehicle ahead of the delivery. However, we accept that they have a mandate; we accept that there is more than one way to deliver these improvements. We will be listening carefully to the Minister’s response, and I hope that he will be able to be more persuasive than the Secretary of State, because his expertise and reputation are always taken very seriously in this House. If he is able, today, to commit the Government to improvements to passenger services at the core of future legislation, at the core of the responsibility of the Secretary of State, we will be able to support the Government. Passengers desperately need to see improvements, having had a decline in service for so many years under the previous Government. So let us get that commitment on the record; let us get it in legislation, if possible, as soon as possible, so that the work can start.

Very briefly on Motion B, we acknowledge the primacy of the other place on financial issues, but we hope that the Government will continue to apply the flexibility that current legislation affords them so that they will not, unnecessarily rapidly, bring to an end very successful franchises.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall endeavour to be brief. I repeat what other noble Lords have said in expressing my gratitude to the Minister, as I mentioned at Third Reading and when the Bill passed, for his courtesy and collaboration in our debates on the Bill.

The Government’s problem is this: they wish to reform the railways. There is a great deal of support in your Lordships’ House, across all parties, and generally among the public for a reform of the railways. We would like to discuss what the Government are going to do on a number of issues. Had they brought forward the measure in this Bill as part of a large and comprehensive Bill introducing those reforms to the railways, we would have had the opportunity to have those discussions. We would have been able to discuss, for example, the role of freight, and the tension between the priority given to passenger services and freight services that inevitably exists in a constrained system. We would have had the chance to discuss the continuation of open access and competition on the railways. We could have discussed the devolution of the operation of train services to regional and local authorities, such as exists in London and might exist in other parts of the country. We would have been able to do all those things as part of a comprehensive reform Bill.

But the Government have decided not to bring forward a comprehensive reform Bill, of which this is part; they have decided to take this step first—that is, to seize control of the train operating companies—and the great Bill of reform is promised for the future. The Government say that it will be brought forward within 12 to 18 months—that is a challenging target. As I have said, tediously, in the past, over and over again, even after that Bill has gone through its parliamentary process and passed, it will still take several years for it to be implemented.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree that there is a substantial degree of consensus on the need for reform, which the previous Conservative Government started five years ago with the Williams review. However, when we came into office, we found that a very partial Bill had been prepared which did not cover all of the issues that needed to be included in a railway reform Bill. It is the neglect of his previous Administration that has led to this situation.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I am not here to defend the previous Government, and I was not making a tedious trivial party-political point when I said that. I will say that I suspect the previous Government were dilatory and slow in bringing forward a massive reform of the railways because it is a very complicated business, and that goes to my point: I doubt this Government will be able to bring forward a Bill within 12 to 18 months precisely because of that complexity. Because of this large gap in time, through the passage of this legislation we are creating a new situation for the railways that could endure for four to six years, with no sense of accountability or purpose that the Government have, because the answer on everything that we wish to discuss —freight, open access, devolution—has been, “We can’t discuss it now; we can’t tell you anything now; you have to trust us”, just like the Government said “Trust us” to the pensioners, to the farmers and to large businesses that are landed with business rates.

The truth of the matter is that we do not see why we should trust the Government. That is without any disrespect to the Minister, but he is just one person and, like all of us, fragile and frail. We cannot build an entire railway system and entrust it to the Government on the strength of one particular Minister because of his noted, genuine and respected skills. We need to know what the standard will be to which we can hold the Government accountable during this new and quite lengthy period.

The objective of the purpose clause is not to set an objective for the railway, as the Minister has sometimes said; it is to set an objective for this Bill, and the Bill is about seizing control of passenger railway services. All we are saying is that the standard we expect to be set is that the purpose is the improvement of passenger services. If we cannot see those improvements then at least we would have a standard to which we could hold the Government to account, and that should be in the Bill. Warm words butter no parsnips. They are nothing to which we can hold the Government accountable. So, if my noble friend Lord Gascoigne chooses to press his amendment to a Division, we on this side will support him.

I turn to Motion B. I do not think the Government realise how helpful Motion B was intended to be to them. It is after all one of those rules in life that, if something is doing well today, it is likely that tomorrow it will not be doing so well, and vice versa. What are the Government now holding out as a practical prospect? They are going to move ahead, and one of the first franchises they are going to take control of is Greater Anglia, one of the best performing and most popular. What is likely to happen to Greater Anglia? Just by random chance, it will start to deteriorate and the Government’s programme of nationalisation will be damaged in the public eye as a result, whereas if they had seized control of Avanti, which is what we were guiding them towards through Motion B, then some improvement would have carried them forward and shown how well nationalisation was working. So we were trying to be helpful to the Government, but the Commons has claimed financial privilege on this issue and, as far as we are concerned, we give way.

On Motion A, I am sorry to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, say she is going to trust the Government. She will be joining a long queue of people who have trusted the Government, but I fear she will be disappointed. But that is enough for now.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and I congratulate him on another polished speech. It ought to be well polished—he has made it at least four times during the passage of this particular legislation. He has not said anything new; we have cantered around the same course about Avanti trains and the future of the railway system.

This is a small Bill designed to create an overall body to be responsible for running the railway system. It was an idea conceived by the party opposite.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

With respect, this Bill does not do that. If this Bill created Great British Railways, that would be another story altogether. This Bill does not create a body; it simply is the Government seizing control of existing railway companies.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

That is absolute nonsense. This Bill is designed to implement a body, as a result of an inquiry into the railway system set up by the party opposite. Indeed, that party was so impressed when in government by the Williams report that the then Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps, added his name to it. He did not actually do anything about implementing it because the backwoodsmen opposite felt it was a bit too much like nationalisation to have an overarching body responsible for the railway system.

We could have disposed of this particular amendment late at night during the course of the Committee stage of the Bill, but the noble Lord who leads for the Opposition refused to sit after 10 pm. There might have been a good reason for it—perhaps it was past the bedtime of the noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, or the equivalent, but he and his party were not prepared for a proper debate on this issue, and they still are not.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the amendment which we did not debate late at night was about the management of the railways in London; it had nothing whatever to do with what the noble Lord says. I see him giggle in the corner now; he knows he is having fun at the House’s expense.

The fact is that this Bill does not do what the noble Lord says it does. The other fact is that the Williams review did not envisage the nationalisation of train operating services in this country but rather the use of the private sector on what is referred to as a concession basis, rather than a franchise basis, the technical differences between which I shall not bore the House with now.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I am neither giggling, nor am I in a corner. I find the noble Lord’s contribution to be as specious and inaccurate as most of the contributions he has made during the course of this debate. He keeps repeating the same tedious stuff.

Bus Funding

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, another week and another highly operatic Statement from the person in the other place who wishes to be known as the passenger-in-chief. But, unlike the Statement we had last week, this one has some substance. Its purpose is to announce how the Government are going to spend on buses the approximately £1 billion allocated for that purpose by the Chancellor in her Budget a few weeks ago. About £750 million is to be given to local authorities and the other quarter to bus companies.

There is an important methodological change in this that I would like to explore with the Minister, which is that the Secretary of State announced that previously councils had to compete for funding—wasting resources and delaying decisions. In making that statement she puts her finger on something that has come to the attention of quite a number of noble Lords, not least those who are members of the Built Environment Select Committee of your Lordships’ House, which I have the privilege to chair, which is that the widespread use of bidding by local authorities is time consuming, costs money and is particularly wasteful for local authorities that bid and receive nothing at the end of the process.

Perhaps there is a case for something being done about this—perhaps. I also understand that Governments want to know that the money they are allocating will go to good projects that stand up to scrutiny, so there is a balance to be struck. None the less, the right honourable Lady has made a point of interest. She has said that funding will be allocated based on a “formula”, saying:

“We are taking a fundamentally different approach. We have allocated funding based on local need, population, the distance that buses travel, and levels of deprivation”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/24; col. 43.]


I know what a formula looks like: it has pluses and minuses, multipliers and weightings, and it shows how money is to be allocated according to certain criteria. I would love to explore this formula and know more about it, but it has not been published. That is the most astonishing thing. We do not know what the formula is or how these criteria have been melded together to produce an outcome. Indeed, what do these criteria mean? Local needs—how many Governments are going to allocate money that is not related to local needs? Population—does that mean that areas with higher populations get more or less money? If it means they get more money, what is that saying to rural areas, which are very dependent on buses? The distance that buses travel—what does that mean? Again, in rural areas buses may travel very long distances. Does that mean that they get more money or less because it is the shorter distances that are being rewarded? Levels of deprivation—I think we have a reasonable idea what that means.

What does it all mean? Was it consulted on? I think we should know. Local authorities might have wanted to have a say in how this money was allocated and how a formula was developed. Was an independent assessment made of what its effects and impacts would be? Were alternatives considered by Department for Transport officials before this particular formula was alighted on? How crucially does it relate to what the Deputy Prime Minister might do when she comes to allocate money to local authorities? It is very likely that she too will say that the bidding system is discredited and she wants to move to a more formulaic allocation of funding. As I say, there is an argument for doing that but it depends fundamentally on the credibility of the formula used, which means that it has to be exposed to light.

Finally, I do not mean to be rude about anybody, certainly not the Minister or his Government, and I also know that £1 billion is just loose change for a Government who are determined to spend their way to growth. But we on this side of the House would still like to be assured about a formula that nobody can see, which depends on criteria that need to be interpreted and are not in any sense plain, and which could simply be a way of spending money to reward your mates. Is that what is going on here? There is every reason to think that it might be.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to welcome the Statement made by the Secretary of State in the other place. Bus services outside London have been allowed to atrophy and die for far too long. They are vital to society and our economy. They are used by the poorest, the oldest and the youngest. Although we love to talk about trains here, buses are the most used form of public transport.

The funding information in the Statement, as far as it goes, is welcome, as are the commitments to reform. The situation with buses has been too complex, too fragmented, too short-term and too competitive. In practice, the competition has led to money going to, in effect, the councils that are best at filling in the forms rather than those most in need.

Courtesy of the Campaign for Better Transport, I have some illustrative statistics. Why should Swindon get £3.98 per head for buses and Reading, just down the road and not dissimilar in size, get £168.68 per head? No formula would explain that. Of course, Reading has extremely good buses as a result of extremely good funding.

There are currently six different funding pots. We need one single integrated fund with “long-term” written all over it, so can the Minister explain in more detail exactly how the current six funds will be amalgamated and repurposed?

I turn to the £3 bus fare cap and its impact. It is, of course, effectively a 50% fare increase in an industry that has already seen fares rise by 59% since 2015, so it will have a huge impact. Yet there were reports at the weekend that the Secretary of State had said that maybe it would be linked in some way to the rate of inflation. Will the £3 cap be applied in the same way as the £2 cap, or will it be amended in some way? What analysis have the Government made to lead them to abandon the £2 cap, which appeared to be working well?

In many areas, particularly rural areas, demand-responsive and Dial-a-Ride services are vital. I ask the Minister, because this is not mentioned in the Statement: what will the Government do to encourage these services to ensure proper co-ordination between local authorities, bus operators and other bodies, such as NHS trusts, so that rural areas get a better deal from the providers at various levels in their area and a structure that local people can rely on?

Aviation Safety (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for his useful introduction. I stress that I perceive this SI as important because it introduces amendments to bring the UK into line with ICAO standards and practices. It will allow commercial operators to use more advanced and efficient fuel-planning systems, which will lead to the saving of fuel and lower emissions, which is in itself very important indeed, and will lead to significant savings for those operating in the business.

Secondly, this SI will also permit the use of new technology and procedures at take-off and landing in what you or I would call poor visibility but what the aviation sector calls “all-weather operations”—that is a masterful understatement—which will, of course, mean much safer aviation.

Thirdly, this SI will introduce improvements to mandatory crew training and safety checks. I have a question for the Minister: does that tightening up on safety deal in practice with the grey area between commercial pilots and leisure pilots in general aviation? I am sure that those in the aviation industry knew all about this issue, but it first became publicly known after the air crash that led to the death of Emiliano Sala, a player at Cardiff Football Club. It involved a pilot who was not qualified for commercial aviation and not licensed to fly at night. It turned out, according to the news stories, that this was a frequent blurring of the edges; there was general agreement in the House that that should be dealt with. If this SI goes as far as dealing with that blurring of the edges, I would very much welcome that.

There is a general concern that the Department for Transport may have fallen behind on updating aviation legislation, just as it did with maritime legislation, because, according to the report by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee—I am a member of that committee, although I did not attend the particular meeting that produced the report—we have been out of step with the ICAO requirements for anything from four to 12 years. According to that report, the Department for Transport says that this time lapse has not posed a safety risk. That may be questioned, I think: if one is updating safety legislation in a whole series of bits of legislation, one assumes that one is doing it to make things safer. In any event, this has put UK operators at a competitive disadvantage because, for example, the EU implemented it nearly three years ago.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee also states that the UK has filed differences—that means that we are not in alignment with ICAO standards and regulations—in 9% of cases. That is a significant minority. The Department for Transport also told the committee that it was up to date with other international agreements. I am delighted to hear that, and I invite the Minister to confirm it here today. Maybe the department has now had time to look more thoroughly. My concern is the waste of precious time in improving fuel efficiency, but I am also concerned that the UK is not fully up to date with the latest safety techniques, especially in relation to helicopters, which are notoriously complex to fly.

Can the Minister update us on where the new Government stand on our previous withdrawal from the EGNOS satellite system operated by the EU? That is something that we have discussed in this Room on several occasions. The withdrawal from EGNOS has undoubtedly put smaller airports, such as Bournemouth and the Isles of Scilly, at a disadvantage, because they have been unable to operate safely in poor visibility. I would welcome it if the new Government were looking again at that costly decision for the aviation industry. I believe that the problems with training for commercial pilots also involved the issue of access to EGNOS. If the new Government have not addressed that issue yet, I urge them to look at it in detail.

Finally, paragraph 4.9 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that the instrument

“applies to aircraft registered in the UK wherever they are”.

Can the Minister confirm the flip side of that, if I can put it that way—that if an aircraft is operated in the UK, wherever it is registered, it will be subject to the same safety criteria? The same accident to which I referred earlier also revealed, as a result of CAA investigations, that there was a gap between the safety of those aircraft registered in the UK and the standards, for example, of those registered in the USA. Those are legitimate issues of concern.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I shall be disappointingly brief. I thank the Minister for arranging a briefing with his officials, and I thank those officials for the time that they gave. Various pertinent questions have been raised in the course of this short debate, and I look forward to hearing the Minister answer them. I had one question that I raised with his officials, relating to the extent and effectiveness of the consultation exercise with the smaller operators in particular. I understand that, if the Minister is unable to give an answer to that this afternoon, his officials are preparing to give a written answer to that question later.

The previous Government prepared these regulations. At their heart is not a question about alignment of texts or legality but the question of safety in practice. We are all agreed that we want aviation to be, as the Minister said, one of the safest modes of travel. It has been for a very long time, and we want it to continue to be so. The Minister has assured us that these regulations represent a further step in ensuring safety in aviation and, on that basis, this side is more than happy to support them.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall attempt to deal with the questions from noble Lords who have spoken. I will do my best, but some of them will have to be answered in writing, I am afraid. I shall answer in order.

The noble Lord, Lord Glenarthur, asked whether the British Helicopter Association had been consulted. An email went to all UK parties, plus the SkyWise notification for the consultation, and all interested parties had the opportunity to participate in the public consultation. As noble Lords can work out from that answer, I cannot say whether the British Helicopter Association replied, but I am happy to write to the noble Lord subsequently. I will come on to the EU satellite issue in a moment.

The noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, asked about the shortage of facilities for training pilots. I will have to write to the noble Lord to state the position on that. He also asked about general aviation. I am assured that this is aimed at commercial operators. I will write to the noble Lord about whether we believe there is a gap and, if so, how it should be filled.

The noble Lord, Lord Young, asked principally about sustainable aviation fuels. We discussed the statutory instrument about sustainable aviation fuel with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, only a few days ago. The Government intend it to be used as part of the airline industry’s move to net zero. My understanding is that sustainable aviation fuel is not made legal by these regulations but can already be used. I will write to him with pleasure to confirm that that is the case. The references to fuel or energy sources are about making sure that these regulations are fit for the future and for the alternative energy sources that might be used to fuel aeroplanes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, spoke about the grey area relating to the dreadful incident to which she referred. These regulations do not apply to what she described as the “grey area”. Again, if there is a case to write to her to say how that grey area is being addressed, I am happy to do so.

The noble Baroness also referred to issues about getting up to date. I am informed that we need to adhere to international standards and recommended practices and that we have not been aligned to the standards referred to in the draft regulations for between four and 12 years, that we filed differences against all of them with ICAO and that no risks to safety have arisen from that period of misalignment. However, UK operators were at a competitive disadvantage compared with EU member states because regulations similar to those in these draft regulations were implemented there in October 2022. This now brings us up to date.

I cannot deal with the issues that were raised about the EU satellite system, so I will write to the noble Baroness and the noble Lord about them.

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, asked whether this applies to aircraft not licensed in the UK. It does.

I welcome the recognition by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, of the desirability of ensuring that our airline industry and aircraft are as safe as they can be. I am grateful to him for his assurance that he is as keen on that as we are.

I again thank all noble Lords for attending the debate and for their input. I will write to noble Lords who have raised questions that I cannot answer on this statutory instrument.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

Will the Minister send copies of those letters to all of us who have participated in the debate?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his interjection. Yes, I will do that.

I conclude by saying—as I already have, actually—that the safety of aviation and the travelling public is a priority for the Government. The department is committed to ensuring that aviation remains safe. As part of this, the draft regulations form part of an important legislative programme that implements international aviation safety standards in domestic law. The implementation of international law ensures that the UK remains a world leader in maintaining high aviation standards and meeting our international obligations.

Rail Performance

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, when a Secretary of State comes to the House of Commons to make a Statement, I have always imagined it to be a rather portentous matter; something serious must be afoot. I note that the Minister has not exercised his right to read this Statement to the House and I can understand why, because it is almost completely vacuous. There is nothing in it at all, really. They must be having a very quiet time in the House of Commons if they want to sit and listen to this.

We learn of a few modest but welcome improvements. We learn that there are going to be new signboards at Euston. We know that people will have their tickets accepted across publicly owned train operating companies in the event of disruption. We are even told that there are “green shoots emerging” at LNER—I thought that that phrase had rather been cast into history, but possibly it is better than “leaves on the line”. But the performance improvements that the Secretary of State claims credit for in the Statement are not all what they seem.

Cancellations on CrossCountry have been reduced but the Secretary of State does not reveal—or she does slightly reveal if you read it carefully—that this has been achieved largely by reducing the number of time- tabled trains. Cancellations have also improved on TransPennine Express, we learn in the Statement, but she does not mention that, according to the Office of Rail and Road, delays have increased. The passenger-in-chief, as she wishes to be known, claims great progress as a result of her “getting around the table with unions”. Those of us who remember her first encounter with the unions recall that she barely stayed long enough, I imagine, even to sit at the table before she conceded all their demands.

This is not serious stuff from the Government about the railways. The serious stuff was put very squarely by the Minister earlier this week, and it is that the railways cost as much as they did before Covid but they have only 80% of the revenues. That is the problem, that is how he summarised it, and that is what the Secretary of State should be coming to the Commons to talk about, not green shoots at LNER and possible improvements in cancellations on TransPennine Express. She said, as the Minister himself said earlier this week, that there is to be a consultation on the Government’s plans. He said he hoped it would be published before Christmas. She says it will be soon. We look forward to it. We will be judging it according to the standard of whether or not it addresses the problem. The railways do not have enough revenue. We want to know what the Government are doing about it. Statements such as this are merely faffing around.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that this is a real time filler of a Statement, and I will not waste the time of this House by repeating some of the points he has just made that I had picked up on. Instead, I will ask the Minister some questions that flow from the rather superficial things in the Statement.

The Statement refers to ticket simplification but that is obviously still a long way off and what is being offered is a very modest measure. What passengers want to see is some kind of outward sign that the Government are taking seriously the fact that they are getting a very poor service at a very high price.

Fares went up by 5% this year and are scheduled to go up by a similar amount in March. I urge the Government to look at that again. Indeed, I challenge them to look at it again and to freeze fares in March at the current levels in recognition of the fact that rail services are not good enough to justify fare increases.

The Statement includes an update on LNER and refers to improvements in driver availability on the line. Unfortunately, that is not a general picture. Both Great Western Railway and Northern Trains regularly cite non-availability of drivers and train crew as a reason for cancellation. Can the Minister tell us what the Government are doing, across all train operators, to deal with failures of recruitment and training? That is clearly what must be happening at the moment. I fear this situation could get worse as train operators come towards the end of their franchises. I am interested in the Government’s strategy to stop this system, which is bad and getting worse.

Finally, the Statement references an improvement in industrial relations, but the Government face a big challenge as the nationalised train operator moves to one harmonised set of terms and conditions. What are the Government intending to do to ensure that the inevitable levelling up of terms and conditions properly modernises the industry and does so at a cost that taxpayers and passengers can afford, and when will they do it?

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Moylan Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 13th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and his team, who have been exceptionally generous with their time in offering advice and assistance on the Bill. The Minister has been willing to give many of the details that we sought about the much-anticipated big Bill that we expect next year.

In addition, the Minister offered an important amendment to the Bill, which he has just referred to, on disability access. That was in response to an amendment in the names of my noble friend Lady Brinton, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Holmes. These new legal obligations will have significant implications for train operators and the rail network generally, and we are very grateful for that commitment, which will make a real difference to the lives of people with disabilities.

From these Benches, we have made it clear that we would not have adopted the same approach as the Government. We would not have divided the issue of ownership from the details of how the system will be organised and how the parts will fit together. The Secretary of State stated on Monday, absolutely correctly, that nationalisation is no silver bullet. In essence, most of the amendments that were put forward, both from our Benches and from the Conservative Benches, simply sought more information on how it would work and where the powers would lie.

As Liberal Democrats, beyond our concern about disabled access, we wanted assurances that passengers would be at the heart of the reforms and that devolution would not just be tolerated but be allowed to grow. We appreciate that the Minister did his best to reassure us on those issues; in particular, he moved some way on devolution. We therefore look forward with enthusiasm to the big Bill, when we can promise him very thorough scrutiny.

I remain sceptical that the Government have the answers to everything; for instance, whether they will genuinely be able to accept private sector operators under a public/private partnership scheme within devolution. I also have reservations about the cost to passengers of the harmonisation of terms and conditions for staff. But I always accept that the Minister understands his brief comprehensively and is absolutely in good faith in his assurances.

We send this Bill back to the other place with the amendments that were passed against the wishes of the Government and are strongly aware of the Government’s majority in the other place. We are realistic about what will happen, but I say to the Government that it would do their cause no harm to accept the good intentions of the first amendment that passed here, which simply stated that it is the duty of the Secretary of State to improve passenger standards. That is, or should be, a statement of the obvious. I hope they might consider bringing forward an amendment of their own on that.

Finally, I thank my colleagues on these Benches for their support and contributions: the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton, Lady Pidgeon and Lady Scott, and the noble Lords, Lord Bradshaw and Lord Teverson. Finally, I must thank Elizabeth Plummer, our legislative adviser, who was responsible—as always—for excellent advice and for amendments from these Benches.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, before I turn to the substance of the Bill, and in response to what the Minister said, I remind noble Lords who may have forgotten that the remarkable thing about election night in 2010 was that it initiated a period of approximately a week in which, in effect, the country had no Government at all. Labour had lost and the victors were locked in some room in Whitehall trying to work out terms of their agreement. In those circumstances, there was nobody to stop us doing what we did to Tube lines; it shows that you can move fast and fix things when you get the opportunity.

I am very grateful to the Minister for the courtesy he has shown me outside the Chamber as he has given me assistance in relation to this Bill and for the patience he has shown inside the Chamber. It is always difficult for a new Minister when dealing with a Bill which is open to such criticism, but he has handled it with great good grace.

I am also grateful to the Minister’s officials whom I have met and who have offered me advice and briefings. On our own side, I received support in our Opposition Whips’ Office from Abid Hussain and Henry Mitson, and I am very grateful to them. I am also grateful to all noble Lords who spoke in debate in considering this Bill. I shall not attempt to name them; the Minister has already mentioned their names. We had a very good series of debates on this Bill.

None the less, it is not a good Bill. Everyone agrees that the railways need reform. The privatisation model has produced record growth in passenger numbers. There has been a true rail renaissance over the last 25 or 30 years in this country, but the railway has not recovered from the effects of Covid on its operations and reform is definitely needed. The basis of that reform appeared to be the Williams review, which gained a wide measure of cross-party support. It envisaged an important role for private train operating companies but on a different financial and operational model from the existing privatisation model.

Labour has broken that consensus. Why? It is hard to tell, but it is noticeable that the rail unions have been pushing hard for full nationalisation, which will of course increase their power and leverage over the travelling public. Labour now owns the train set and can call the shots. I suspect it will fall to the Conservatives to fix it again when it all goes wrong, as in 2010, on election night, it fell to a Conservative mayor to fix the problems created for London Underground by Labour’s disastrous PPP.

However, the Bill now goes forward to the Commons greatly improved. As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, it would be churlish and wrong of the Government to refuse to accept those amendments or some variation on them. If we see it back here at all, I hope it will be rather different from how it was when it first came to us.

Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.

Transport Infrastructure: North of England

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have no doubt that digital infrastructure across the whole of England is very necessary. I do not have any information on that to hand, but I will write to the noble Baroness with as much information as I can muster about it.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, everyone acknowledges that regional airports throughout the country are struggling. How do the Government think that putting up air passenger duty is going to help them?