Railways: High-speed Rail

Lord Snape Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, as a founder member of the All-Party Parliamentary Rail Group in the other place and its first chairman, I congratulate the Minister on the Statement that he has repeated today. I further congratulate the Government on having the courage to go ahead with this project, which they have inherited from their predecessors, in the face of some pretty virulent opposition from people who could perhaps be regarded as traditional supporters of the noble Earl’s political party. I also support my noble friend on the Front Bench in his plea that the Government should look again at the question of the first hybrid Bill. The Minister will be aware that these Bills take many months, if not years, to get through both Houses, and the thought of two or three of these Bills is not going to speed up the project in the way that he might like.

Finally, how much is the new tunnel through the Chilterns going to cost? Some estimates suggest that it will be around £500 million. Does he agree that that is a pretty steep price to pay in order to keep the Welsh Secretary in the Cabinet? Is it not just as well that she is the only member of the Cabinet who has threatened resignation over this project, otherwise the total bill could well have been doubled?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord asked about the cost of the extra tunnelling. I do not have the full details, but they will be set out in the accompanying literature. A CD of the large bundle of documents that I have is available and I will ensure that all noble Lords who take part in these debates are given a copy of it. I am advised that the extra tunnelling through the Chilterns is cost neutral.

Severe Winter Weather

Lord Snape Excerpts

Monday 20th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, yet again a noble Lord rightly raises the importance of Heathrow Airport and the fact that most of the time it is running at 98 per cent efficiency, along with the fact that we are not going to have a third runway at Heathrow. What we will do is to make Heathrow Airport more effective and more efficient.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, will the Minister pay tribute to those staff, many of them manual workers and low paid workers, right across the transport industries, who have spent the past week or so working in extremely inclement weather to try to maintain some sort of service. To follow on from the point made by his noble friend Lord Dholakia, does he agree that the most irritating aspect of the delay and dislocation is not the fact that things go wrong, because we can all accept the case that they do, but the lack of information to passengers or customers, or whatever the industry likes to call them? Will he accept that industries such as the railway industry—I suspect that this is true of the aviation industry, too—whether publicly or privately owned, are overmanaged and undersupervised? The largely junior staff who have to face the ire of the public are no wiser about what is going on than the people concerned. Would he knock a few heads together to ensure that senior managers are there to make decisions and to face the travelling public when things go wrong?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, first, the noble Lord talked about manual workers working in the cold. These people are working outside in absolutely freezing conditions to keep transport equipment working, and I think we should all be very grateful to them. Yet again, another noble Lord has raised the issue of the lack of information about what transport services can do. Ministers are acutely aware of this problem; we are not happy about it. I also stress the point that we must not interfere at the moment but, when it is all over, we will be talking very closely with the transport industry to see what can be done in future so that passengers know what can be done.

Roads: Long and Heavy Vehicles

Lord Snape Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, before responding to that question, I should first declare an interest as I know Mr Dick Denby, who is a proponent of a longer and heavier vehicle. I have also received engineering advice from his designer on a pro bono basis. Mr Denby has done the country a great service by opening up this issue. As a result, this Government and our predecessor have been looking at a small increase in the length of an articulated vehicle to address precisely the concern of my noble friend: that low-density goods are bulking out, rather than grossing out, our current range of goods vehicles.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that it is the heaviest goods vehicles that directly abstract traffic from rail freight? Will he accept from me that, for years, the road haulage industry has been claiming spuriously that heavier and longer goods vehicles would mean fewer of them? Does he agree that the heaviest goods vehicles have, for over 30 years, failed to pay their true track costs, and does he accept that any acceptance of longer and heavier vehicles will cause even more damage to Britain’s roads, which will be paid for by other taxpayers?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, most of what the noble Lord says is right. We are looking at an increase in the cubic capacity of an articulated vehicle, but we have absolutely no intention of increasing the gross weight of a goods vehicle, for precisely the reasons that the noble Lord explained.

Railways: Investment

Lord Snape Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, those of us who take an interest in these matters will welcome many parts of the Statement that the Minister has just made. The previous Government promised an electrified Great Western main line. That line has never ended at Oxford but goes a considerable distance further west than that. Will he give us some assurance that the Oxford of tomorrow does not become the Bedford of yesterday—namely, a terminus for electric trains—rather than the whole line being electrified?

Without getting into the argument between the two Front Benches on the exact number of new coaches, can the Minister give the House some assurance that he will do what he can to see that those coaches are constructed in the United Kingdom? Furthermore, does he accept that the one downside of his Statement is the proposal to allow train operating companies to increase fares by inflation plus 3 per cent? Is he aware that that was a favourite tactic of British Rail in the days of the nationalised industry under successive Governments? Such increases appear guaranteed to choke off new passenger demand, rather than, as the Government’s stated objective supposedly is, to increase the number of passengers carried on Britain’s railway system.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord referred to electrification past Oxford. He will have to be patient for our determination on the IEP project, but he will not have to wait too long. He asked where the coaches would be constructed. He will know that EU procurement rules prevent us from guaranteeing that coaches will be built in the UK. Personally, I hope that they will be built in the UK, but we will have to see what happens.