Railways Bill

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege, though one tinged with sadness, to follow the valedictory speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, who has just reminded us of the great, gentle wisdom and huge experience that he has brought to your Lordships’ House and which we are set to lose in September when he retires.

Our association, our friendship, goes back not just over the seven years that we have overlapped in your Lordships’ House but nearly a quarter of a century, for it was in 2002 that he came to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where I was an undergraduate, as our 27th master, and a hugely popular one at that. Emma prides itself on being the friendliest college in Cambridge; it became friendlier still when the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, was our master. Within weeks of arriving, he seemed to know everybody by first name, a feat that he repeated over the 10 years of his stewardship of the college. He did that at the same time as we managed to top the Tompkins Table, the league table for the best degree results, in five of the 10 years that he was master—not, I should say, helped by my own meagre 2:1.

Behind his genuine, friendly exterior is, as we have just heard again, a forensic mind and a wealth of experience. My noble friends Lady Berridge and Lady Blackwood of North Oxford are among those in this House who know what it is like to stand at the Dispatch Box and worry about a probing question coming from their former master. My noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne is among those who look at a man who was Permanent Secretary in not one but two departments when he was in the Cabinet. Noble Lords from across the House, I am sure, feel the same about the man that they sat around the Cabinet table with during his time as Cabinet Secretary.

The noble Lord’s advice, as today, is always offered with great kindness, great tact and in a constructive spirit. If we fail to heed it, then the fault is ours. One particularly precocious undergraduate seeking a career in politics was sternly advised not to do it straight after graduation—noble Lords may think perhaps I should have listened a bit more carefully.

But even after that advice was disregarded, the noble Lord was very generous and has always been very supportive. He was master in the time when noble Lords could choose to receive Hansard in hard copy. I do not know if he remembers, but he very kindly offered a few volumes of it to go on the bookshelves in my rooms that probably should have been full of history books and lecture notes. I took him up on the offer. I turned up at the Master’s Lodge to find some 60 or 70 volumes, each the size of a telephone directory, waiting for me. I had to borrow a shopping trolley to bring them back to my room. My advice to any noble Lords who are helping him move out of his office here is to be very careful what they get into.

We shall miss him greatly, but I hope that he will not be a stranger here, as he is not to his former college. We look forward to breaking bread with him at the Long Table, just as at high table. After a lifetime of political service, we wish him and Caro and the family a long, well-deserved and happy retirement.

I turn to the Bill at hand and do so in my capacity as the chairman of the Heritage Railway Association. It is an unremunerated position, so it does not need declaring, but, as the Minister knows, it is a richly rewarding one, because he was my immediate predecessor —he had to give it up to become our Rail Minister. In that capacity and in his time at Network Rail, he did a huge amount to make sure that the celebrations last year for the 200th anniversary of the railways were so richly marked. And, of course, this year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of heritage railways with the celebrations at Talyllyn in Wales, the first of the preserved railways.

Across the United Kingdom, our heritage railways welcome more than 13 million visitors each year and generate upward of £600 million for our economy. They do so against great challenges. We have made great strides, not least with the Government’s support and the long-running campaign of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, to make it easier for young volunteers to help out on our heritage railways—that was clarified in the Employment Rights Act last year—but there are many challenges still.

The Government’s support this year through the Great British Summer Savings scheme, alas, does not help most heritage railways. As transport is zero-rated for VAT, they are unable to pass on any savings, because they do not get any from the scheme the Government have announced. If they are holding a static event, they often do so with an external provider and if that provider, often a large multinational, sells the ticket, it is the provider that accrues the benefits in VAT. I know that the Heritage Railway Association has written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on these matters but has not yet had an answer. I hope that the Minister can encourage his colleagues at the Treasury to do so on these detailed points.

I want to touch on three areas in looking at the Bill with a heritage lens. The first, I hope, is the easiest to deal with. It is in Clause 32, on the potential powers over rail assets. The wording at Clause 32(4) describes an “additional railway asset” as

“any network, station or light maintenance depot”.

I am not certain, nor are many in the heritage sector, whether that also covers assets which are not part of the main line. If the Minister is able to clarify that, whether today at Second Reading or in later stages of the Bill, it would be a helpful reassurance.

The second area concerns mainline access. Most heritage railways operate on preserved stretches of line, but a large number do so also on the mainline network, including Vintage Trains, LSL and West Coast Railways. The Minister will know of the “Polar Express”, the “Jacobite” and many more. He will be aware of the potential implications for those such as the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, the North Norfolk Railway and the Swanage Railway. The granting of licences is covered in the Bill, but the onus is now placed on the Secretary of State rather than on the Office of Rail and Road. A number of mainline steam operators therefore worry that this removes the certainty that they have enjoyed regarding access for heritage operations.

In particular, they look at Clause 59, which means that GBR will be in the intolerable position of having to decide on the allocation of capacity while being a major operator itself. The architecture of the Bill sets up a tension that is different from the situation we have under the 1993 Act. There are no checks and balances written in. In the later stages of the Bill, Parliament should look at how it might give guidance on how these priorities should be applied. I hope, whether within the Bill or in the discussions we have, that we will be able to talk about the importance of leisure travel and heritage operations to our visitor economy and to inspiring the rail employees of the future and that we will be able to give some certainty to those who run those operations.

The third issue was touched on in another place at Second Reading by Liz Saville Roberts MP, who chairs the All-Party Group on Heritage Rail. It is the possibility of a heritage rail safety and standards board. The Minister will know that many examples of the progress we have made in driving up standards and safety on the railways have, sadly, followed tragic incidents. In June 2018, in the wake of the Croydon tram accident at Sandilands, the consequent Rail Accident Investigation Branch report led to a recommendation that there should be a safety and standards board dedicated to heritage rail. There is a Light Rail Safety and Standards Board, which was set up after that accident and is publicly funded. There is a Rail Safety and Standards Board for the national network, established following the public inquiry into the Ladbroke Grove disaster, which is also publicly funded. I hope to explore through the Bill whether we can make some progress on safety and standards for the heritage sector itself. The Heritage Railway Association at the moment fills that gap on a voluntary basis through the provision of volunteer-run safety and standards boards and consultation across the sector, but that is a burdensome and slow process for volunteers to run. The Bill, I hope, presents an opportunity to build on the work that they do to establish a professional and publicly funded safety and standards board for the heritage rail sector, and to follow up a recommendation that has been outstanding since 2018. I look forward to discussing all this and more with the Minister over the course of the Bill.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I am very glad to speak to my Amendment 55 and in support of the noble Baroness’s Amendment 54. Clause 41 provides for the “Disapplication of heritage regimes”. I declare an interest as the owner of a two-star listed property and a member of the Listed Property Owners’ Club. As this is my first substantive contribution on the Bill in Committee, I also declare that I have a registered interest as chair of development forums in Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire. But, as noble Lords would expect, all the views I express will be my own and not those of any particular forum members. Like the noble Baroness, I thank the National Trust and the Heritage Alliance for their briefing on this issue.

The Explanatory Notes to this clause state that it

“would provide an alternative to an applicant having to apply separately to each relevant consenting authority”.

The consenting authorities referred to are, respectively, the local planning authority in respect of listed building consent and conservation areas and the Secretary of State—in practice, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport—in respect of scheduled monument consent. The structure of the clause is not simple, so if I may, I will explain how I think it is intended to work but raise questions thereby for the Minister.

The clause replaces Section 17 of the Transport and Works Act 1992. That section inserted a new Section 12(3A) into the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which enabled the consenting process to be referred to the Secretary of State where it forms a part of an application for a transport and works order under Sections 1 or 3 of the Act—Section 1 being on transport and Section 3 being on waterways. Such an application is a Section 6 application under the Transport and Works Act. The assimilation of the applications for consent for listed buildings and scheduled monuments into a concurrent application is provided for in the Transport and Works Applications (Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Ancient Monuments Procedure) Regulations 1992.

That is why Clause 41 notes Section 12(3A) and the relevant Welsh legislation and goes on to say in subsection (4) that Section 12(3A) continues in force. To my reading, this means that if listed building and other heritage consents are required, they can continue to be included in a Section 6 application and, in consequence of Section 12(3A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act, would be automatically referred to the Secretary of State.

If noble Lords are staying with me, that raises the question of why Clause 41 is needed. My point is very simple. It is already possible not to send relevant consenting authorities separate applications since they can be assimilated in a concurrent application, which goes to the Secretary of State for a Section 1 or Section 3 order. Therefore, the purpose is not simply to streamline the consenting process by routing them to the Secretary of State; it is more substantial and significant. The new Section 17 will mean that where an order is made which would presently require a heritage consent, that requirement is done away with. As a consequence, the provisions in heritage legislation which attach conditions or considerations to the consenting process are also done away with.

That is why I tabled Amendment 55, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay for signing it. The key reference there, or the operative point, is the reference to Section 7 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which prohibits

“the demolition of a listed building or for its alteration or extension in any manner which would affect its character as a building of special architectural or historic interest, unless the works are authorised”.

There will be a similar provision in relation to scheduled monuments. The latter is distinctive in so far as it also has a requirement for advice from Historic England in relation to a scheduled monument consent.

Amendment 54, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, also rightly highlights that the making of a transport and works order may involve the demolition of, or impact on, listed buildings and ancient monuments without a requirement for consent. So, when such an order is being made, where is the advice from Historic England? Where are the statutory guardrails around the preservation of our built heritage and its setting? Where are, at the very least, the “must have regard to” provisions in relation to our heritage, including all the issues set out in the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock?

I look to the Minister to use this Committee debate to tell us where those safeguards are. If they are presently linked to the consenting process, on the face of it they would no longer apply. Why, given the scope already available to bring the consents together in a single Section 6 application, is it necessary to apply the consenting regime and its safeguards for heritage assets?

In the absence of reassurances, which do not appear to be in the clause itself or available in existing legislation that I can find—indeed, they are not referred to in the Explanatory Notes at all—I hope that those protections can be inserted into the Bill on Report.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Lansley says, I signed his Amendment 55, but I am also broadly supportive of Amendment 54, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Pidgeon—I thank the former for the way she opened the debate on this important set of amendments.

My noble friend Lord Lansley set out very powerfully the concerns that many of us have about Clause 41 and its potential consequences. His Amendment 55 seeks to remedy that by making sure that the provisions regarding listed buildings and conservation areas can continue to be applied. Of course, Clause 41 also applies protections for scheduled monuments, which is why I have tabled my stand-part notice on whether Clause 41 ought to stand part of the Bill at all; my noble friend Lord Lansley asked much the same question.

Like my noble friend and others, I have discussed these amendments and this clause with organisations including the Heritage Alliance and the Heritage Railway Association, which I thank for their time and insights. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, outlined, Clause 41 would sweep away the need for listed building consent, conservation area consent, scheduled ancient monument consent, and notices for works on land of archaeological importance for projects carried out under the terms of the Transport and Works Act 1992. As she said, it makes no distinction between the sites that are protected. She raised the horrifying example, for me, a Northumbrian, of Hadrian’s Wall, which is not just a scheduled monument but a UNESCO world heritage site. I know that the present Government take a different view from the previous one on another world heritage site, Stonehenge, and the suggested changes to the A303 there, but I am sure that the Minister and his colleagues share our belief in the importance of the protections that allow people to raise their concerns about the scheme proposed in that instance.

Railway 200

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have to agree with Disraeli after all these years. The railway is currently, and will remain, publicly supported to a great extent but with significant private sector contributions. As my noble friend would imagine, we are appealing to all the people whose businesses support the railway, to make sure that the public sector contribution is as low as possible at a time of financial stringency. We have not finished that process yet. Meanwhile Network Rail, which is supported by the department, has contributed some support to get the project going. I cannot say exactly what the department’s contribution is. I expect it to be as low as possible, and in due course if my noble friend asks we will be able to tell him. At the moment we are still collecting financial contributions from those people whose businesses support the railway and vice versa. As far as the nature of the celebration goes, quite clearly the benefits are not only a good celebration of history but of the fact that the UK’s railways are leading the world with technological innovation. Those are the things that we will be clearly showcasing alongside, as I said, the career opportunities offered.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I too agree with the first Earl of Beaconsfield. As Heritage Minister, conscious that plans for the anniversary might be derailed by an intervening general election, I encouraged people from across the sector to liaise with the now Minister in his capacity as chairman of Network Rail. Little did I know that after the election he would be in such an excellent position to help deliver it. The Minister shares the passion of so many, particularly in that cradle of the railways the north-east of England, to ensure that this anniversary celebrates the past and inspires people for the future. I imagine he shared my dismay to hear the news in the Budget yesterday that the Government are not minded to honour the £15 million of capital funding for the National Railway Museum in York which we announced in March. Will he use his good offices to try to persuade his colleagues across government not to cancel that funding, particularly at such a historic juncture?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to see the noble Lord in front of me. He was material in moving this project on at an earlier stage, for which I thank him very much. I had not caught the issue that he raises and my best course of action is to go away, inform myself, and then see what can be done about it.

Stockton to Darlington Railway Anniversary

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for reminding us of the coal issue. We will have it at the top of our minds because it is absolutely critical. Heritage railways are a key part of local tourism. They attract people not only locally but internationally. We absolutely recognise the importance of the heritage rail sector; alongside DCMS, DfT works closely to make sure that it is properly promoted.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, the National Railway Museum in York was founded in the year we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Stockton to Darlington railway. Since 2008, it has included the excellent Locomotion museum at Shildon, which formed a key part of County Durham’s bid to be the UK City of Culture for 2025. As the Government consider the recommendations from Sir Peter Hendy and others, will my noble friend ensure that this museum is supported to play its full role in the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of this great gift to the world from the north-east of England?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question. I pay tribute to his outstanding service as DCMS Minister—he therefore knows an awful lot about the topic of heritage rail. He is right that we are not going to have a full celebration without making sure that all of our railway museums are fully engaged in the process. I completely agree with him that we absolutely need to ensure that railway museums across the country, including the fantastic National Railway Museum in York, are involved in the celebrations.

Air Traffic Management (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con) [V]]

The Minister may know that I am a former RAF pilot and a civil pilot. I have also been an adviser to an airline.

On the surface, this seems a pretty straightforward SI, which arises out of Brexit, and it is important that it is laid. Inevitably, though, it raises certain questions to which I do not necessarily expect the Minister to respond immediately this afternoon. If she is not able to respond to them now, I would be grateful if she could drop me a line after the debate.

I think it is easiest to go paragraph by paragraph through the Explanatory Memorandum. Paragraph 2.4 on page 1 says:

“This will ensure the continuity of a functioning regulatory framework for the UK’s Air Traffic Management”.


Are we saying here that the EU agrees with this in toto? That seems absolutely fundamental. I assume that it does, but I would like to have that in writing.

Turning to paragraph 2.5, will we still be involved in the SES ATM Research programme? We have clearly played a major role in the past. In paragraph 2.6, for the reference period 2020-24, how do the costs compare for users in comparison with the previous period?

Paragraph 2.16 refers to “efficient and safe ANS”. Have all the interested parties—the CAA, the users and so on—been consulted all the way and, most importantly, are they now comfortable with what has been agreed?

Further on, paragraph 6.4 talks about interoperation with the rest of Europe. Is the UK aviation industry 100% comfortable with that? Paragraph 7.2 refers to EU targets. Clearly, we are leaving the EU, so those targets are no longer necessarily what we want, but are our UK targets already established and are they comparable?

Paragraph 10.1 deals with consultation, which is a very important area. Are there currently any issues arising from this SI where there are ongoing discussions or concerns within the industry, or is it all now virtually signed and sealed once we pass this SI?

Turning to paragraph 11.2, is the UK already compliant or working towards compliance? What is the estimate for when the UK will be 100% compliant?

Paragraph 14 states that

“no review clause is required.”

I spent 12 years of my life on the Public Accounts Committee, and one great issue over the years was that all sorts of SIs went through which alleged that no review was necessary. Lo and behold, before very long, people wondered why there was no review date. I cannot think of anything more dramatic or large than leaving the EU—which I am in favour of. We ought to look at this and put down a date for review. I am open-minded on how far away it should be, but I would have thought it wrong to say that no review provision is required.

Lastly, the Minister may not know it, but I have always taken a passionate interest in drones. The development, flying and control of drones have all been a challenge. Are there any issues on the drones front that are affected by this SI, or that somehow escaped the notice of the Department for Transport?

As I said, I do not expect a detailed answer this afternoon, but I have been through this quite carefully and I would be most grateful if the Minister could ask the department to provide an answer to the points that I have raised.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I gently remind all noble Lords that this is a time-limited debate. We would be grateful if noble Lords could stick to the four-minute speaking limit.