Electric Vehicles: Supporting Access

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government feel that the take-up of electric vehicles should be countrywide. The key thing about rural areas is making sure that they have appropriate access to charge points. We are aware that rural areas are more poorly served than their urban equivalents, which is why we are looking carefully at the amount of support we can give to local authorities. For example, so far, 157 local authorities have applied to the On-Street Residential Chargepoint Scheme—I wish it were more—and we expect 11,000 charge points to be rolled out with this scheme. I really do think that there is an opportunity for rural local authorities to grasp the financial support that the Government have made available.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, quite apart from the cost of electricity, does my noble friend accept that many people in this country are reliant on cars with a price point of roughly £15,000? That would not buy you an electric battery, let alone an electric car. Are the Government not in danger of pricing large numbers of people out of car ownership altogether?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend is right that many people do not buy any vehicle. Indeed, fleet operator businesses represent around half of the new vehicles purchased in this country. It is important that those vehicles then come into the secondary used car market once they have ended their useful life within businesses. That happens after around three years, so we expect a number of zero-emission vehicles to come into the used car market in due course. We recognise that there are probably not enough of them there now, but that is just a function of time. We can work with fleet operator businesses and get them to buy new zero-emission vehicles, which will then come into the used car market.

Payments to Train Operating Companies

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

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

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend have a view on the level of unionisation on the railways and what are the consequences of it for the cost of staff and pay?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very important point. All noble Lords will have seen that there is a level of unrest among the unions that represent those working on the railways. Sometimes I feel that their behaviour might be potentially counterproductive in the long term. For example, we have strikes at the moment on the London Underground where, because of the pay deal that was reached a couple of years ago, the staff will be getting a pay increase of 8%.

Global Traffic Scorecard: London

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Moylan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the report by INRIX 2021 Global Traffic Scorecard, published on 6 December; and in particular, its findings (1) regarding the number of hours UK drivers spent in traffic, and (2) that London is the most congested city in the world in terms of traffic congestion.

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

My Lords, although officials have noted the INRIX report, the department makes its own assessment of congestion using the metric of average delay based on seconds of delay per vehicle per mile. This is generally a more accurate way of estimating congestion in contrast to grossing up the total hours lost from a small sample to total driver population, as INRIX has done.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I assume the implication of that Answer from my noble friend is that there is no congestion for us to worry about. I was going to ask her whether the Department for Transport still holds to the assumption that vehicular traffic congestion has an economic cost, or whether it has, since Covid began, altered the methodology by which it applies that assumption, so that it is much less concerned about it.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I reassure my noble friend that we still believe that vehicular congestion has an economic cost; this can be a personal economic cost and a national economic cost. But we do not estimate a total cost of congestion on the road network as a whole; that is not routinely assessed by the department. We look at things such as journey time savings on road schemes appraisal, alongside many other impacts, be they economic, social or environmental, to make the right decisions.

Extraordinary Funding and Financing Agreement for Transport for London

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I live in London. I have a 60-plus Oyster card. I was a TfL board member for eight years and deputy chairman for half that time. I have great affection for Transport for London. Nobody wants to see a long-term settlement for it more than I do, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, just explained, it is impossible to put one in place at the moment.

A comparison is sometimes drawn with the train operating companies, which have been funded. Politically, constitutionally and legally, they are agents of the Government. The difference is that, politically, constitutionally and legally, TfL is an agent of the mayor. To understand the Government’s anxiety about entering into a long-term settlement with the mayor, one needs a forensic understanding of his financial responsibility over the past four years. He was elected in May 2016. The pandemic hit in March 2020, almost exactly four years later. I want to concentrate on those four years.

Before the pandemic hit, the mayor came into office with two dangerous pledges. One was a fare freeze at a time when public transport was heaving with people and there was money for him to collect. As he has accepted, the cost of that fare freeze over a four-year period was £600 million; that is £600 million forgone. He added to that the Hopper fare on buses, allowing people two rides in an hour. TfL budgeted £35 million per annum to fund that, only to find after a year that there were 100 million usages at £1.50 a pop. That is a top figure; TfL will not give an estimate. It is a bit complicated—some people might have hit the daily cap, for example—so let us be generous and say that this represented only £130 million forgone per year. That means another £600 million forgone over four years, adding up to £1.2 billion left on the table by the mayor in the fat years. The result was a subsidy for the buses, which hit £600 million under Ken Livingstone. Under Boris Johnson, that was brought down to £450 million with no loss in bus mileage. Under Sadiq Khan, before the pandemic, it rose to £750 million a year, with a 7% cut in bus mileage to go with it.

The mayor’s second pledge was that there would be no strikes on the Underground. That is an easy, but expensive, pledge to fulfil: you just give in to the unions. Until recently, that is exactly what he did. One consequence of that has been a considerable growth in the number of Tube drivers. The system needs about 3,000 as a minimum to run. When I last looked, before the pandemic hit, there were in excess of 4,000. Let us say that there are 1,000 excess posts at roughly £50,000—possibly £60,000 now—a year. That is £200 million over four years, which brings us up to £1.4 billion forgone. To his credit, the mayor embarked on a reduction in the management head count but, given the generous severance packages negotiated by the unions, it will take several years for TfL to see the cash-flow benefits of that come through.

There is little to say on Crossrail, given the time. According to the mayor’s own account, he was totally surprised and shocked when it blew up in his face—presumably because he had taken no interest in it up to that point.

Of course, from his own resources, the mayor could not have coped with the pandemic. Nobody is suggesting that, even if that £1.5 billion or so was in the bank waiting to help him through, he could have got through a pandemic of the length we have seen without government subvention. However, it is hard to discern how he has faced up to the hard choices that this sudden, possibly continuing, loss of income has made for TfL. There is a lot of pleading for money from him but very little leadership; this is consistent with his behaviour in the fat years.

My noble friend the Minister will have her own view but, having myself struck long-term deals for TfL with, among other people, Conservative Governments and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who just spoke, I well understand the difficulties that the current Government have in doing so now.

Insulate Britain

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Moylan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the costs to (1) public services, and (2) the wider economy, of the recent campaign by Insulate Britain of obstructing motorways and major roads.

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

My Lords, Insulate Britain’s irresponsible actions have disrupted thousands of people’s lives. National Highways estimates that the financial impact on drivers from time lost during just three days of disruption totals £559,946. This does not include the costs of missed appointments or of managing the incidents, disruption to manufacturing or retail, or the impact of disruption on other days. These costs would have been even higher without prompt action by the police to remove protesters and free up traffic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, according to the Observer at the weekend, Insulate Britain activists are baffled as to why they are not in jail already. They thought that their campaign would be over in two days, rather than being allowed to go on for five weeks. I think that the rest of the country rather shares their bafflement. As they resume their very expensive campaign of disrupting ordinary people’s lives, can my noble friend say that the Government both have and will deploy the necessary legal powers to bring them before a court of law?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

We are investigating all possible legal avenues to bring these people to justice. National Highways and Transport for London have both rapidly put in place injunctions to deter these sort of dangerous actions. Only yesterday, the High Court granted National Highways an interim injunction banning activities which obstruct traffic and access on any part of the strategic road network—that is, all motorways and major A roads. Last Friday, National Highways applied for committal for contempt of court in respect of nine individuals suspected of breaching injunctions. If found to be in breach, these individuals could face an unlimited fine and/or imprisonment.

North of England: Rapid Mass Transport System

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Moylan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have given to the construction of an underground Maglev rapid mass transport system between cities in the north of England.

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

My Lords, the Government have thoroughly investigated whether our forthcoming major investment in connectivity between northern cities should be maglev rather than rail. We concluded that rail remains the best option for a number of reasons, the most important being that new conventional rail infrastructure can better be integrated into the existing network.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, maglev is a great British invention increasingly deployed in Asia for high-speed travel. As our world-beating British tunnelling engineers have shown, constructing railways in-tunnel can be cheaper than constructing them on the surface, provided that it stays in-tunnel. However, it seems that every proposal for maglev that comes from the Department for Transport is rebuffed. Can my noble friend explain why her department is so wedded to a 200 year-old technology that, when constructed on the surface, can both cost more and be very annoying for local voters?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am sure all noble Lords will agree that, just because something is old, that does not mean it is useless. We must look at all technologies, and that is precisely what we do. My noble friend makes an important point in saying that systems around the world use this, but just one operational high-speed system does so at the moment: the Shanghai City maglev. There are many others operating at lower speeds—that is, less than 100 mph—and obviously, there is one in construction in Japan, but it is coming up against some cost pressures.

Great British Railway Plans

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

As it happens, I had a conversation yesterday with all the northern leaders when we met as the northern transport acceleration council. They raised this issue, which is of course one of capacity because there are more services, for example, between Newcastle and London. We have heard the pleas from various areas of the north on the timetabling. We are taking that away and doing what we can, but this is one of the reasons why we need Great British Railways. Timetabling is fiendishly complicated and we need to ensure that local areas are heard and get the services they deserve.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, will my noble friend take this opportunity to rebut the current rumours that Northern Powerhouse Rail is going to be scrapped?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend should not read too much into media reports on the front page of—I think it was—the Yorkshire Post. The Government continue to consider all options for Northern Powerhouse Rail as part of the integrated rail plan. Once that plan is published, we will work with Transport for the North to finalise a business case for Northern Powerhouse Rail. This will need to be consistent with the IRP’s policy and the funding framework.

Britain’s Railways

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, there will not be two types of passenger service contract. There will be many types because the noble Lord is right. Some may incorporate revenue risk in due course to encourage innovation and get passengers back on to the railways.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, rail fare income is closely correlated with the economic cycle. The new arrangements involve a complete transfer of fare risk from the train operating companies to the taxpayer. This means that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to have to be very indulgent towards Great British Railways, especially in an economic downturn, if falling fare income is not to cannibalise the investment programme. Has my noble friend reached a specific agreement with Her Majesty’s Treasury on its approach to this aspect of funding Great British Railways? If so, will it be in the public domain?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The five-year business plan that will be developed by Great British Railways will be in the public domain and it will set out the capital and revenue funding over that period. I agree with my noble friend that passenger demand is challenging to predict as we move out of the pandemic. Evidently there will be risks for the Government as the holder of the revenue risk. The Government have supported the railways to the tune of £8.5 billion in the last financial year. However, on a positive note for the Treasury, we expect that the reform package will deliver savings of around £1.5 billion per year after about five years. That is 15% of pre-pandemic income.

Transport for London: Financial Settlement

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Moylan]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in discussions with Transport for London on a financial settlement (1) for 2021/22, and (2) beyond.

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

My Lords, the Government are committed to providing Transport for London with a financial deal that is sustainable, supports London’s recovery and keeps the capital moving. Any deal must be fair to the UK tax- payer. On 11 January, TfL provided us with a financial sustainability plan, which sets out its plans to achieve financial sustainability by April 2023. The Government hope to announce further Covid-related financial support for TfL shortly.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, TfL has suffered a double blow to its income from the pandemic and from years of irresponsible fare setting by the Mayor of London. While my noble friend grapples with that temporary challenge, will she also bear in mind that a railway needs steady capital investment too, and that there are parts of London Underground operating with signalling and rolling stock that is over 50 years old and is creaking at the seams. Will she, in support of the Government’s infrastructure objectives, seek to ensure that TfL is allowed a medium-term investment programme—however modest—to address these problems?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend is quite right: there have been some quite interesting fare increases—or not—from the mayor over recent years. We estimate that over the past four years his fares freeze has cost £640 million, which could otherwise have been spent on capital expenditure. But, as my noble friend knows, transport in London is devolved and it is up to the mayor and TfL to assess the merits of capital projects that they might want to invest in. However, it is absolutely clear that the Mayor of London must set a robust budget, demonstrate that TfL is on a clear path to achieving financial sustainability, and prioritise his capital expenditure. He will have to make difficult choices.

Rail Fares: Flexi-season Tickets

Lord Moylan Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Baroness is quite right; the one thing we are going to have to do to get people back on to the railways—indeed, the public transport system as a whole—is to improve passenger confidence in the system. One way to do that is to be at the forefront of being able to provide the most up-to-date air filtration systems and secure the best enhanced cleaning contracts.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, noble Lords may have wonderful, imaginative ideas for playing around with fares, and there may indeed be a commercial case for flexible season tickets, but does my noble friend agree that the future of the railways is best secured if they maximise their own revenues and that the fundamental purpose of commuter fares and season tickets must therefore always be, as with airlines, to increase yields to the railways, thus saving expense for the taxpayer?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I somewhat agree with my noble friend in that, if this were being done in purely commercial terms, that would be the case, and we certainly want to minimise the amount of subsidy from the taxpayer where appropriate. However, the state might also want to intervene for other reasons and use pricing levers; for example, to encourage modal shift and get people out of their cars and on to the rail, particularly for certain types of journeys, and that might include commuting.