English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Berkeley

Report stage
Thursday 26th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to talk about the south-west, following the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and about how well the greater south-west grouping is working. To give noble Lords an example, they have come together and commissioned a successful system of getting wifi continuously on intercity trains. Some noble Lords may think that a complete waste of time, but when you have a five-hour journey, like I do, it is quite nice to have a bit of wifi. All the five counties, I think, have got together and done this. They are about to write to the Secretary of State for Transport to say, “We’ve proved that it works, even in tunnels and things like that. Will you give a small amount of funding to make it cover the whole of the network?” So co-operation works.

I have a question for my noble friend that relates to the relationship between Cornwall Council and the Council of the Isles of Scilly. There is a certain occasional antipathy between the two. Size is one thing: one is very much bigger than the other. The smaller one, the Isles of Scilly, feels that it has been “done down” and that Cornwall has not given it the share of the money that it was due for the last co-operative project. Co-operation sounds very good and I fully support it, but what can be done when it goes wrong?

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I see group 5 on social mobility as one of the most important that we have to consider on this second day on Report. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for his commitment to increasing social mobility and his work to promote that and to promote pan-regional working. These are very important. The Government are determined to reduce youth unemployment and among the ways they will do that is the promotion of growth and devolving power to mayoral authorities. I think all these things can work.

The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, in his contribution on the previous group, said that we need a duty on local service partners to co-operate, because we have to promote co-operation rather than competition. I think the same rule applies to Amendment 93 from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, on pan-regional working.

One of the history lessons of the regional development agencies, which were ended in 2012, was that they competed against each other far too much. One of my fears in this English devolution Bill is that what could well happen is that mayors will compete with each other for funding, rather than trying to work together to increase the outputs from the money that they have. I have found this a very useful discussion, because if we are to have partnerships at a pan-regional level—let us say the north of England or the Midlands—then to enable broader collaboration between strategic authorities would be very helpful, rather than having mayoral authorities within, say, the Midlands or the north of England competing with each other to earn the favours of the Treasury through their mayoral structure.

I have said previously that I think there has to be a system of assessment of the success of devolution to mayoral authorities. How do we know if they are working? We discussed that on a previous group, in one sense. I think that mayors should be targeted far more than we currently seem prepared to do. I think mayors should have a duty to reduce youth unemployment, unless they can demonstrate that central government has done something that prevents them from achieving that objective. I think that that would give a focus on the reason why mayors exist in a local area, which is to ensure that training gets better and that fewer young people, 16 to 24, are not in education, employment or training. Young people must be helped more and we have to invest more in their futures.

Finally, on Amendment 183, to which my name is attached, I think that consulting with the Social Mobility Commission on how we collect the data, and on how the evidence of social mobility outcomes is assessed, will matter. It is about achieving real outcomes, and those outcomes will depend on having the data to assess them. The Social Mobility Commission may have ways in which it can assist us. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said something that I thought was very important: the cost is tiny in terms of the potential gains that can be made. I think that is absolutely right, so I find the three amendments in this group, led by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, to be particularly helpful and appropriate, and I hope the Government will agree when the Minister sums up.

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[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I join my noble friend in congratulating the Government on this pavement parking issue.

I will speak in a bit more detail to Amendment 100 and focus on insurance, which the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, has been speaking about. She was talking about things that she does not remember in the Highway Code. I suppose that I do not remember things in the Highway Code that were published 50 years ago, when I had a driving licence. The issue is: what are we trying to achieve? Surely the most important thing is safety on the roads. That safety covers not just fast cars, large trucks, fire engines and ambulances but ordinary people trying to get around, often on equipment which has wheels. Are we looking at a series of amendments in this group which say that anything with wheels is, by definition, bad? I hope that this is not the case, because wheels are an essential part of mobility.

Occasionally, the use of this equipment needs to be separated. We spend a lot of time talking about scooters, freight bikes and other related things in between, some of which need insurance and some of which probably do not. You could widen this to a situation where if you are a pedestrian in London and cause an accident which is demonstrated to be your fault, you get the blame. Should you therefore, as a pedestrian, have insurance? It is a very wide subject and I am not sure that it is covered in this amendment.

As it stands, I cannot see why we should have special regulations

“to prohibit the provider of micromobility vehicles from providing a pedal cycle or electrically assisted pedal cycle to a person who does not have insurance”.

Surely it is for the user to decide whether they should have insurance and what the insurance is for. The alternative is to lock it. I cannot support Amendment 100 and hope that my noble friend will agree.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, my name appears in two or three places in this grouping. I join the noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, in saying how important Amendment 245 and the consequential amendment are. I have campaigned for many years on pavement parking. I finally feel that action is being taken, so I thank the Government and congratulate them on the step that they have taken.

I began being concerned about some of the transport issues when I was advised that there was doubt about who, between a mayor and a local authority, would be responsible for traffic calming measures in residential areas. In some parts of the country, it was being alleged that mayors would control the decisions on where traffic calming would take place, rather than the local council. I had a concern about that, and I wanted it clarified.

Merchant Shipping (Additional Safety Measures for Bulk Carriers) Regulations 2022

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Berkeley

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing this very important instrument. It is quite complex and long. The problem which caused these new regulations to be introduced was the tragic sinking of the MV “Derbyshire” in 1980—the noble Baroness is shaking her head, but I think that is what it says in the briefing—and it is now 42 years later. What has happened in the meantime? I hope this is not another of the potential regulations from the marine section in her department which seem to have been delayed and which we have discussed before. These regulations are very important and I would like to know what has taken so long. I am sure the Brexit negotiations have had something to do with it.

The noble Baroness is absolutely right in what she says about the need for stability, double-skinned vessels and fixed covers. I would be grateful if she could confirm whether the regulations apply to what are generally towed barges—I would call them barges, but I suppose they are vessels, technically—such as those used for disposing the Crossrail spoil down the Thames about five years ago. Because they were moving on the tidal sea, they had to have covers that were strapped down, which was absolutely right, and I am sure they all complied. But there are now people doing business around the south-west who believe they can profitably rescue lithium ore from some of the mines or beaches of Cornwall. One such proposal was to take this in a vessel around Land’s End for processing in one of the ports on the south coast. I trust that that kind of transport is covered by this instrument, because it is pretty rough around there and these are very important safety rules.

I will not go through the whole instrument, because that would take a very long time and be very boring, but Part 4 on enforcement is interesting. It lists 10 different regulations, which are all to do with enforcement and which all, with one exception, apply to the owner and the master. Who does the enforcement? If the owner or master is found guilty, what level of fine would be applicable? I assume there would not be a prison sentence, but perhaps the noble Baroness could confirm that.

I have a slight problem with the way some of these things are enforced. Some years ago, I was a member of the harbour commission in the port of Fowey in Cornwall, which, of course, welcomes china clay ships and exports bulk ships—which are obviously covered by the regulations. It is not one of the cargoes referred to, but it is a dry cargo and a powder, so I am sure it is included.

One day, somebody came in and said, “We’ve just seen a Russian ship come in ready to be loaded with china clay, and we’ve seen a hole about six inches large in the bottom of the hull with a couple of rags stuffed in it.” The tide was wrong, so everybody could see it as they went past. If it had been a different tide, heaven knows what would have happened. The ship probably would not have sunk, although it would not have helped the china clay very much.

On enforcement, it is clear that most of the initial reports will come from the harbours and ports where ships come and go. I have come across this in other parts of harbours legislation. Some ports are, one fears, not very enthusiastic about reporting small defects for fear that the ships or cargo might not come back and they will lose income. Obviously, the MCA deals with it when it reaches it, but it clearly needs to know about it.

It would be interesting to know whether the Minister has any information on how many such incidents have been reported in the past few years, how many were against British-registered ships, of which they probably are not many any more, and how many were against foreign-registered ships. It is terribly important that the regulations, which I thoroughly support, are enforced fairly but comprehensively in every port, big or small, around the country. The regulations are very good, I look forward to the Minister’s answers and I congratulate her on, eventually, bringing this instrument forward.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the legislation being updated to ensure that we meet our international safety obligations for bulk carriers; it is clearly right to do so. There was an eight-week consultation, which elicited only one response, resulting in no changes, so it is good that there was full consultation.

However—the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, covered this point—there seem to have been no substantive amendments to the regulations since 2004. The 2018 amendments were minor, yet the design of bulk carriers has been transformed since the turn of the century, and ships are much larger, so it is extremely important that our legislation is up to date. We welcome the fact that this SI sensibly establishes a system for keeping us in step with international standards for the future.

The Explanatory Memorandum, at paragraph 3.2, explains the conclusions of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which discovered a massive backlog of EU maritime legislation that had never been incorporated into UK law. This seems to go back more than a decade, which suggests that we have not been internationally compliant, which would be a worrying situation for a maritime nation. I therefore ask the Minister whether what I have just said is true; I should appreciate confirmation.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made a number of points, one of which was about enforcement. I have two questions on that. As I understand it, there are 28 bulk carriers registered on the UK flag, and they are all, apparently, already compliant. Paragraph 4.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that bulk carriers registered under other flags must also comply while in UK waters.

Worldwide, there are many thousands of such bulk carriers. It would be helpful for the Minister to say how many carriers under other flags are entering UK waters, let us say in the course of a year, and what checks have been done and will be done to establish that they comply with the convention. Clearly, in the context of many thousands of bulk carriers across the world, only 28 are registered with a UK flag.

Secondly, the statutory instrument has a long and complex list of exceptions in Regulation 7. Is the Minister convinced that it will be effective given that number of exceptions, and are they all based on international precedent and regulations which are adopted elsewhere? In other words, is that list of exceptions our list that would apply only to this country, or are we establishing exceptions based on what other countries also do?

I welcome generally the statutory instrument—the proposal is absolutely right—but it has raised a number of questions and it would help if they were clarified.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Berkeley

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley]

My Lords, I could not agree less with the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, on this matter. The grounds that he has produced seem to relate to a potential conflict of interest where the local authority is a franchising authority. Clearly, there could be—but, of course, not all contracting will relate to franchises. A whole set of partnership arrangements will be possible. The noble Earl is asking the wrong question, if I may say so.

I remind the Committee of my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. Clause 21 is a very bad clause and I hope that the Minister understands that it will become a major issue on Report if the matter is not resolved. The clause is headed, “Bus companies: limitation of powers of authorities in England”. Of course, it does not apply in Wales, where local authorities would have the right to continue to create companies if they wished to. But that right to form a company exists now and it seems to have worked. So it is not clear why the Government have decided to include this clause in the Bill, which is otherwise, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, pointed out, by and large very good in many respects. Many of the amendments we have been discussing are matters of detail that would enhance what is already a good Bill.

I remind the Minister that five years ago this House passed the Localism Act 2011, which granted an extension of powers to local authorities with an associated general power of competence. That is not to say that local authorities then take on that power and start creating lots of companies, but it means that they have the power to do so should there be an occasion when it seems necessary and in the public interest so to do. It is therefore wrong in principle to remove the right of local councils to do that.

So I hope the Minister will understand the strength of feeling about this issue, and I hope that he will be able to explain to the House why the Government think it is necessary to strike out a power that local government currently has, which has served local government well and would potentially improve public transport networks rather than make them worse.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, my reading of this clause is that even those authorities that are running bus services now will not be able to do so in future. That is very serious. To respond to the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, if a local authority wishes to run a bus service, it does not need a franchise itself: it can just run the service. Ditto, it does not have to have an enhanced partnership with itself: it can just run the service. So it seems to me that if the local authority wanted to run the service it could just do it if this clause was not there. It does not need to have a conflict of interest.

I support all noble Lords on this side of the House who have spoken. This is a really bad clause. It has many similarities with the railway industry, which we can go into. I very much hope that we will see the end of it quite soon.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Berkeley

Monday 4th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I should first declare my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. In principle, I am in favour of the right of local authorities to franchise bus services. However, I expressed concern at Second Reading that the audit and scrutiny of proposed franchises needed to be tightened up, and I remain of that view.

I also said at Second Reading that the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill required substantial amendment to improve the effectiveness of audit and scrutiny to ensure public confidence in the financial robustness of franchising arrangements. Now, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, has pointed out, on Friday the Public Accounts Committee in its sixth report of this Session expressed some serious concerns about the extent to which consideration by central government of the local scrutiny arrangements had been adequate.

I quote, in particular, from its summary, which states:

“There has been insufficient consideration by central government of local scrutiny arrangements, of accountability to the taxpayer and of the capacity and capability needs of local and central government as a result of devolution”.

I have absolutely no doubt that local government may have the required capacity and capability—certainly in a number of places with which I am familiar. That is not to say that it cannot gain the capacity and capability to undertake successful franchising. However, I subscribe to the view that there has been insufficient consideration of this issue by central government and it really does matter.

In consideration of previous amendments, I noted that the Minister said that mayoral combined authorities were appropriate for taking forward the policies in this Bill and would have the necessary checks and balances in place. These amendments improve the checks and balances that the Government seek. If the Government listen very carefully to what is being said across your Lordships’ House, it is much more likely that franchising will succeed, and I am very keen that it should do so.

There are three amendments in this group. The one to which my name is attached tries simply to make it clear that the auditor should be independent of a local authority or a combination of local authorities. The other two amendments are in the same area, but address issues around affordability, value for money and the role of traffic commissioners. There are various ways in which that could be progressed. The Minister may say that this can all be addressed in regulation. However that is done, I hope that the Minister will be able to come back on Report—if he is not able to do so now—to explain that there is an understanding of the issue that the auditors’ scrutiny function in this case must be robust and seen to be robust and how the Government plan to take this forward to ensure that the public can have confidence in franchising arrangements.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, on the amendments that we have discussed in Committee, many noble Lords have said how important it is for devolution to happen and for local authorities around the country to be able to operate franchises without too many controls from central government. Whether that happens or not, the importance of independence in the audit is vital, as other noble Lords have said. It would be so easy for some local authorities in the future to get it wrong and then for a rather nasty article to appear in Private Eye, suggesting that the leader’s brother-in-law was the auditor. I am sure that would never happen, but we do need independent checks. My noble friend Lord Snape’s suggestion of traffic commissioners appointing the auditor has enormous merit. The two issues in Amendment 42 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, and myself, about the affordability of the scheme and whether it represents value for money, are the two most important ones that should be focused on by the auditor. Then we would all feel comfortable that it would probably work very well.