High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Lord Snape Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage
Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, who is a most distinguished retired railway manager. He was working for the railway for many years in the last century, and he was a very prominent figure in the industry when I was working for the Board in the 1970s and 1980s.

This has been a remarkable debate in that every single speaker has spoken in favour of the amendment tabled by noble friend Lord Adonis, with cross-party support. I find it very heartening that there is such support for High Speed 2 across the House, and indeed in the other place as well. It is right that the Minister has been praised for backing it so wholeheartedly. I hope that she will not disappoint us when she responds to the debate and gives her view on what happens to this amendment.

May I correct one thing that the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, said about Pacers? He may not be aware of it, but there is a Pacer rail group, dedicated to buying at least one of these trains. There are Pacers in use on heritage railways now, and there will be one in the National Railway Museum. If he redevelops a wish to see Pacers, they will be around for some while yet, although happily not on the national network.

I take this opportunity to congratulate the Government on supporting the railways of Britain, not just through the present emergency but committing to their expansion in the future as well. That is why it is important that these good intentions are not undermined in the case of the eastern link of High Speed 2. There is a cross-party consensus that increasing the capability, the capacity and the use of the national electrified rail network is crucial to delivering the Government’s zero carbon agenda. No other transport project comes as close to achieving that goal as High Speed 2. Travelling on High Speed 2 will emit almost seven times fewer carbon emissions per passenger kilometre than the equivalent car journey, and 17 times fewer than the equivalent domestic flight.

Part of the essential case for High Speed 2 is the need to create new capacity on the three main lines going north from Euston, St Pancras and King’s Cross to allow substantial numbers of extra freight trains to run on them. The eastern branch of HS2, connecting Birmingham and the cities of the East Midlands with Sheffield and Leeds is, therefore, vital. We know from the 10-year experience of modernising the west coast main line earlier this century that attempting to create a 21st-century railway by tinkering with a Victorian one creates years of disruption, delay and increased cost. The situation would be as bad or worse if the same were to be tried with the Midland main line and the east coast main line, rather than building the eastern leg of High Speed 2.

I finish with a comment from the director of Transport for the North, Tim Wood, in an interview with Modern Railways magazine in the current edition. He said that the eastern leg is as important as the 2b route to Crewe, Manchester and Liverpool:

“We all welcome the move, as further progress in delivering a step change for rail travel in the north. The plans to integrate the network on the east of the Pennines need full commitment and to be progressed at speed as well.”


I do hope that the Minister will agree, and that she will accept the amendment.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a supporter of this project and congratulate previous speakers on their support for the amendment. I suspect that the amendment comes about as a result of almost a throwaway line from the Minister in Committee. She said, to my surprise—and, I note, the surprise of my noble friend Lord Adonis and, I suspect, some other members of the Committee—that the eastern leg of the high-speed network would mean more than one Bill. I think she said at least two Bills would be needed in order to go ahead. That rang alarm bells, certainly so far as my noble friend Lord Adonis was concerned, and he questioned the Minister. Like my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who spoke earlier, I fear that if we were to have more than one Bill to take the eastern leg forward, there could be not just a delay but a cancellation of part of what was proposed as part of the original Y-shaped HS2 system. That, as my noble friend Lord Blunkett said, in his memorable speech, would be disastrous for cities such as Sheffield and Leeds, and also for those of us who want to see HS2 continue beyond there and on to the east coast main line, and then further north.

There are worrying rumours, which I hope the Minister can deny, that, as was also said earlier, the intention will be to run a piece of the eastern leg as far as Toton and expect those travelling to Leeds and Sheffield to go via Manchester, through a connection between the proposed HS2 western leg as far as Manchester, and a new HS3—or whatever name one likes to give it—taking the railway forward across the east of England towards Sheffield and Leeds. I live in the city of Birmingham and, although hardly a native of it, as one might be able to tell from my accent, if I were going to Sheffield and Leeds I would not necessarily want to go via Manchester—a city for which I have great admiration, as I was born and brought up in the Manchester area and served on a local authority there.

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[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Woodland Trust. I support Amendment 4, in the name of my noble friend Lord Rosser, particularly where it seeks to ensure that the Government listen and learn from

“the views of residents and stakeholders … in regard to … the impact of the works on the natural environment, including but not limited to the impact on ancient woodland”.

In future amendments, we will discuss, with increasing depth, the issues of ancient woodlands and the unacceptably high impact of HS2, so I will not ask the House to listen to me going on and on about it several times—the Minister is already pretty fed up with hearing about it. I simply say that I support this amendment, which would not only help reduce environmental damage but, absolutely vitally, would examine the priorities of local people, which is inadequately done in these major infrastructure projects.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I question whether this amendment is appropriate for this Bill. My noble friend Lord Rosser talks about the inadequacies of the transport system in various terms, with examples including Oswestry. With respect to him, HS2 phase 2a, which is what we are supposedly discussing on this Bill, does not go anywhere near Oswestry. I point out to him as gently as possible—I do not want to upset him, as I know that he is a former railwayman—that the more stations that you put on a high-speed line, the less high-speed the trains become. The whole purpose of a high-speed line is to connect from city to city. While I have every sympathy with those who are affected by HS2, those of us who served on the committee did our best, as the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, said, to listen to people adversely affected or who felt that the road network in their immediate area was adversely affected by the forthcoming works, but again, as he said, surely those are matters for the highways authority. With the best respect to all noble Lords, we are not really qualified to make decisions about the impact of the work on HS2 on the road network in a particular town or village. That is for the local authorities. Those of us who have served on local authorities will be aware of the concern that people often express about traffic difficulties and alterations to the road network. Again with respect to my noble friend, I do not think it is for those of us in this House to make those decisions.

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[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I cannot hope to match the oratory of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, when he moved and spoke to these amendments. I have a great deal of sympathy for what he said, but I urge him and other noble Lords to look at the report from the Select Committee, which took this aspect of the Bill extremely seriously.

We heard detailed evidence from the Woodland Trust about biodiversity, particularly about the loss of ancient woodlands. Can the Minister define exactly what an ancient woodland is? There seemed to be some doubt in the committee about what it was and how much of it was being lost through the building of HS2a. It seemed to us that the Woodland Trust’s demand that any ancient woodland being lost should be replaced at a ratio of 30:1 was somewhat excessive. Does the Minister agree with that? The distinguished chairman of the committee, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, made the point that replacement to such an extent would take a considerable amount of existing farmland and would certainly not be in the interests of the countryside generally. Can the Minister say exactly how much ancient woodland is being lost as a result of the HS2 scheme?

The committee received assurances from the promoters of HS2, who insisted that they had planted, and intended to plant, new woodlands, though perhaps not to the extent that the noble Lord who moved the amendment would like. I would be interested to hear the Government’s view. The committee was not entirely satisfied with the promoter’s response on the replacement of woodlands, but the case for their replacement is not helped by exaggerating the amount of ancient woodland being lost through this project.

On the proportion of new and replacement trees from abroad, the committee sought assurances from the promoters that such replacement would be kept to a minimum. Again, those assurances were received. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what proportion of British native species she envisages will be replaced under the scheme and how much of it will come from other countries. I cannot comment, because I do not have the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, about the dangers of importing seeds from places such as the Netherlands, but if organisations such as the Forestry Commission and Natural England are prepared to accept a proportion of replacement trees from the continent, it seems to me that we should accept their assurances.

My noble friend Lady Young wanted to turn the high-speed train—perhaps an unfortunate name for it—into a medium-speed train by curving the line and having it less straight. I gently remind her that one of the reasons we are building HS2 is the curvature of the existing lines caused by the reluctance of landowners in the 19th century to permit the railways to pass through their land. The two things go together. If we are to have a train service that exceeds the speed of our existing services, which is at least one of the purposes of HS2, expecting it to go round curves would make unsatisfactory the reason for building it in the first place.

My noble friend asked some important questions about biodiversity which the committee was anxious to look at, but I stress that we were collectively and unanimously of the opinion that, although HS2 could do more, it was certainly making a substantial contribution to the replacement of any trees that would of necessity be destroyed by the project. Perhaps the Minister could tell us what progress has been made so far on this aspect of the Bill in light of the amendments before us.

[The Earl of Caithness (Con)]

My Lords, how appropriate it is that we are discussing these amendments during International Year of Plant Health and, more particularly, National Tree Week. It is rare that we get that lucky match.

I will speak to all the amendments in turn. On Amendment 5, which would insert a new clause on biodiversity net gain, I have very little to say except that I support my noble friend. It seems illogical that a flagship project should not behave in the same way as other projects, as envisaged in the Environment Bill which will come to us shortly.

On Amendment 6, my heart is with it, but I fear that in this and other amendments one is looking at the environment a bit too much with a telescope; it needs to be done slightly more broadly. There are other irreplaceable habitats, so why single out ancient woodlands? There needs to be a balance overall for the environment. If we avoid ancient woodlands, which I am all for, are we doing more damage to the environment by going another way? At the end of the day, that requires a balance. If we put into legislation just one item, that we will not destroy any ancient woodland, there could be adverse and perverse effects which we have not taken into account.

Amendment 7 relates to British native species. What are British native species? There is a list on the Woodland Trust’s website. I am glad to see that the only softwood is Scots pine, so there will be no chance of Norwegian pine, thuja, sitka spruce or anything else being planted; if there is to be any softwood, it will have to be Scots pine.

When it comes to our broadleaf woodlands, let us not forget that 70% of them are still represented by only five species, and disease is wiping out one of them: ash. We need more diversity in our woodlands.

Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Kent (No. 1) (Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Snape Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for introducing the orders. However, she did so somewhat blithely, as if these were a couple of routine matters that could swiftly be disposed of—whereas, as my noble friend Lord Pendry outlined, we are talking about events that will have an enormous impact on the county of Kent and elsewhere.

There are also some radical departures from what has been accepted as normal policing in the United Kingdom. I refer the Minister to the explanatory memorandum issued with the orders, and especially to paragraph 6.1, which mentions

“a financial penalty deposit of £300 to be taken immediately at the roadside from a person without a United Kingdom address who is believed to have committed the offence of contravening the new restrictions”.

This is a vast departure from our normal procedure. The Police Federation has for many years been emphatic about the police’s desire not to be seen as fine collectors on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government. I wonder what conversations have taken place with the federation about these proposals. Can the Minister tell us whether there are any other motoring offences that involve the police habitually stopping motorists at the roadside and given them on-the-spot fines? I know that happens in other parts of the world, but it does not happen in the United Kingdom.

Three hundred pounds is a not insubstantial sum. How many lorry drivers drive around the United Kingdom with £300 in their back pocket? Maybe there will be other arrangements. Will Visa be acceptable, or perhaps PayPal? Will people have to use a mobile phone to arrange a transfer from a bank account? Have these proposals, and their impact on the ground, been thought through?

Who will administer all this? The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, spoke about the number of heavy goods vehicles that could be involved under the orders, but when I looked online, the Kent road police unit appeared to consist of about 100 officers. Are they to be deployed entirely on Operation Brock, or are they still expected to carry out their other duties? Has the police and crime commissioner for Kent been consulted about the deployment of the police in this way? The Explanatory Memorandum mentions 5,000 or 6,000 lorries. That will be no small task for police documentation checks. Traffic officers are specifically mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum, but this is difficult to envisage with only 100 traffic officers. If they are to be deployed entirely on Operation Brock checks, what will happen to road policing generally in that part of the United Kingdom?

The documentation issue was barely mentioned. The Government have talked about recruiting 50,000 extra customs officers to deal with the documents. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how many of those customs officers have actually been recruited, as we come to finally leaving the European Union.

Her Majesty’s Government are supposed to be producing a driver’s explanatory handbook to explain all these regulations to drivers. It is going to be in 18 languages. So far, we have not even seen one in English; I cannot speak about the other 17. Can the Minister tell us when this handbook is to be produced, bearing in mind that we are only a few weeks away from its being necessary?

The Road Haulage Association—the very people most involved in these matters—has been fairly scathing about the Government’s preparatory work in the run-up to 31 December, recently describing the proposals as “incomplete” and “inadequate”, and using terms such as “total incompetence”. Those are the RHA’s words, not mine. It is not exactly thrilled by the prospect. Have the trade unions—especially Unite, which is responsible for the organisation of lorry drivers in the United Kingdom—expressed an opinion? What are their views about the proposals?

The figure of 5,000 to 7,500 lorries has been mentioned. If I may digress a moment from the actual orders, while remaining on the subject of cross-channel traffic, I can tell noble Lords that 30 years ago, those of us who supported the Channel Tunnel were assured that one of its enormous benefits would be that, for the first time in this small country, there would be the opportunity for long rail freight hauls right across Europe. Many of us looked forward to seeing those trans-European freight trains. But now, 25 years after the tunnel opened, when 1.2 million lorries per year use the Eurotunnel railway merely as a shuttle to get between our country and the continent, how many freight trains are scheduled every 24 hours? Six. There is a slight imbalance there, and given the likely chaos foreseen not just by me but by lots of other people, I hope the Minister and her department will look again at that imbalance between international road and rail freight, and see what can be done.

Funnily enough, the ports of Dover and Folkestone, and many other affected parts of the United Kingdom, were the areas that voted most heavily for Brexit in the referendum. They may find that “getting their country back” means that their county is likely to be choked by a torrent of heavy goods vehicles going nowhere, and their areas will be considerably affected by the carbon deposits that the vehicles will leave. Pollution and congestion could well be the outcome of these two orders.

Railways: Fare Structures

Lord Snape Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord is quite right. Indeed, the Government proactively approached the train-operating companies for proposals on how we can make our fares and ticketing system better for consumers. We have received a number of proposals over the summer and are considering them.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, it is apparent that the Treasury will insist on an inflation-plus increase in rail fares next year. Does the Minister feel that such a policy will attract passengers back to the rail system following the pandemic? Is it not more likely that, given the continuation of the 11-year freeze on fuel duty, more motorists will take to the roads, causing even more congestion and pollution in future?

High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord Snape Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 2nd sitting : House of Lords & Committee: 2nd sitting
Thursday 12th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, this is, for me, a maiden speech as far as this Committee is concerned. I will try to confine it to the essentials of the amendment, which quite possibly will make me unique in this debate. My noble friend Lord Berkeley said that he had no opinion good or bad on the question of HS2: well, pull the other one is my response to that. It is a complete coincidence, I take it, that everything he proposes so far as HS2 is concerned has the effect of delaying or cancelling the project, but he has no opinion, good or bad, other than that. I agree entirely with the sentiments expressed by my noble friends Lord Adonis and Lord Liddle, as well as the views of the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst.

My noble friend Lord Berkeley wants a review. He and I know full well that the number of reviews that have been held about the railway industry, for example, since 2000 has concerned us both. Indeed, both of us have been scathing in the Chamber over the years about the number of reviews that have been held: something like 34 reviews into the railway industry are gathering dust on ministerial shelves somewhere, few of them ever being implemented, and yet he wants another one. My noble friend Lord Adonis read out the names of the distinguished members of the Oakervee Committee, which included my noble friend, who was the vice-chairman. Could he suggest, when he comes to wind up, who, other than the sort of people listed by my noble friend Lord Adonis, could possibly carry out such a review with the impartiality that he desires? Presumably, some knowledge of these construction projects is essential unless we are going to cast around for a dozen people whom we meet in the streets to conduct the review. I would be interested to hear from him when he winds up exactly who he has in mind.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has made no secret of the fact that she is against HS2. I am always fascinated by the Green Party: if this project that we are debating today was a motorway, for example, running along the path of the proposed HS2, I would expect to see the noble Baroness and her Green Party colleagues carrying banners saying, “Put it on the railway”. The last thing we need is another motorway, yet she is against this particular scheme because, she says,—and I wrote down what she said on Tuesday when I had to contain myself from replying—this project is about cutting a few minutes off the journey time for travel between London and Birmingham. It is, of course, no such thing. I remind the noble Baroness—and I hope that she does not think that I am being personal when I do this—that this scheme is part of an overall concept of a high-speed network in the United Kingdom, which will obviously benefit other regions as well as the south-east. It will also, of course, create space on the west coast main line, which is another plus, as far as I am concerned, in relation to HS2. It is estimated that such space and availability that it will create on the west coast main line will relieve our road network of some 40,000 or 50,000 heavy goods vehicles. Again, that is something else one would have thought the Green Party would have been in favour of but, obviously, if she has this erroneous impression that HS2 is just about speed between London and Birmingham, that is not the case.

Coincidentally, as we are talking about reviews, only today the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce —I do not know whether that organisation would meet with the approval of my noble friend Lord Berkeley —issued a press release and statement about HS2. The press release is only two hours old, so it is hot off the press—I have not put it up to this, I hasten to tell my noble friend—and it says:

“The West Midlands has already benefited significantly from the prospect of HS2’s arrival— Deutsche Bank, HSBC and engineering giant Jacobs are examples of major businesses that have already relocated operations to Birmingham—with HS2 creating more jobs in the West Midlands than any other region outside of London.”


Again, I address my remarks to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. Does the Green Party not appreciate the fact that already, years before the scheme is actually completed and the line opened, thousands of jobs are being created? The chambers of commerce goes on to say that HS2 will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, thousands of apprenticeships and supply chain opportunities and,

“as Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce chief executive Paul Falkner states today, it will provide ‘a much-needed shot in the arm to business confidence’ as the country emerges from the health crisis.”

My noble friend Lord Berkeley has fought a valiant battle, whether he admits it or not, to delay this particular project. He needs to come up with something better than a specious argument about yet another review. We really ought to get on with this, and my noble friend will have some difficulty, I fear, when he comes to wind up, in convincing us that this amendment is designed to do anything other than delay this project.

[Lord Framlingham (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I support Amendments 6 and 8. Amendment 6 deals with the question of peer review, which is absolutely essential. In my remarks to the Committee last Tuesday, I explained that one of the great shortcomings of the HS2 project from the very beginning has been the complete unwillingness of the responsible Ministers to listen to the best and soundest advice coming from outside their department. Amendment 6 would allow these qualified railway experts to examine all aspects of the project in an unbiased way and give the Government the benefit of their advice. It must, of course, be totally independent of Government, HS2 and any company or individual linked to HS2.

We are all aware of the stories of massive financial and time overruns with aircraft carriers, and nuclear power station building disasters. With HS2, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.” I remind the Committee that we are talking about £106 billion to date—probably £150 billion —and the sum is confidently forecast by reliable sources to reach £200 billion. Surely it makes sense for us to take steps to put in place the strongest possible oversight; peer review will do just that.

Amendment 8, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, recommends the publishing of a cost-benefit analysis of this project. I totally agree with that, although I fear that we are locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. This fundamental exercise should be undertaken, of course—in private business it invariably is—before any decision to go ahead is made. Perhaps it was; perhaps the Minister will tell us, and perhaps we can see it. It is quite simple to do: you make a list of all the costs and a list of all the benefits. You put one on one side of the scales and the other on the other, and I have done just that.

I chose benefits first and it is quite a short list: high speed, capacity and jobs. I turn first to high speed. For all sorts of reasons, the promoters of the scheme no longer cite this as an important aspect of it, so this cannot go on the benefit side, even though high speed is what it says on the tin and that is how the idea was originally sold to the Government. For a whole variety of reasons, it is no longer top priority. I do not know all the reasons: I understand that certain aspects of the line—embankments, tunnels, et cetera—would not cope with the proposed speed; and energy costs were also an issue. Therefore, it is no longer a high-speed train in the accepted sense, and we cannot put that on the benefit side of the scales.

Lastly, we come to jobs. Jobs are the proponents’ fallback position, guaranteed to sway faltering Ministers. Obviously, any extra jobs are not just welcome but, in these difficult times, invaluable, although it must be remembered that this was sold as part of the deal long before Covid arrived. It is my view that however much we need jobs, they should not be used as a reason to proceed with a project that is manifestly nonsensical.

If you spent this amount of money on regional railways, improving links from Liverpool to Hull or relieving commuter services in the north and in and out of London, you would produce just as many jobs, spread throughout the country—and, at the end, unlike HS2, you would have something really worth while to show for it. So the jobs argument does not work and that leaves precious little to go on the benefit side of the scales.

Let us look at the costs to the taxpayer: a minimum £106 billion and almost certainly considerably more—all those vital projects which are having to take second place to HS2, we could probably rebuild every hospital in the country for this kind of money; massive, irreparable damage to our environment through a huge swathe of the country; damage to the thousands of people whose lives, homes and businesses have been affected; and massive distrust in the Government’s ability to build anything. I mark it: benefits, precious little; costs, enormous. How did we get into this mess? I truly believe that this will prove to be the most monumental infrastructural and environmental blunder of all time.

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[Lord Framlingham (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I am happy to support Amendment 7 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, relating to non-disclosure agreements. What on earth does an organisation such as HS2 want non-disclosure agreements for? MI5 and MI6 need secrecy for our national security and Ministers are bound to sign the Official Secrets Act for obvious and long-accepted reasons. It is understandable that employees working at the sharp end of research in companies that are competing with each other might be asked to keep their findings confidential. However, to insist on non-disclosure agreements for those working on a civil engineering project is ridiculous and must be seen as rather sinister.

Is this designed to ensure that no one is allowed to discuss the shortcomings of the project? That must have been hugely harmful to the whole construction process. Greater transparency and honesty might have prevented the problems that have arisen. Transparency leads to discussion and consultation, which eventually lead to efficiency and confidence. Secrecy breeds distrust, lack of communication, incompetence and, inevitably, mistakes, which, in a project the size of HS2, can be disastrous. It is no coincidence that this project encapsulates the worst aspects of both secrecy and incompetence. No one outside HS2 has any up-to-date facts and figures to work with and no one knows how bad things are. The truth will come out in the end, but the acceptance of this amendment might allow some fresh air in sooner rather than later.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Adonis has said, we need some more information and it might have benefited all in the Grand Committee to have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, if she feels that there is a particular problem with whistleblowing on this project. I am rather inclined to agree with my noble friend Lord Liddle that this is not the right legislation in which to include such detail, but let us wait and see.

My noble friend Lord Berkeley referred to the Oakervee review, of which he was such a distinguished member, and said that the process was too short and the terms of reference too narrow. He felt that some members did not want to hear witnesses he wanted to call in case they fell out with the Department for Transport as a result. Like my noble friend Lord Liddle, I have a great deal of time and respect for my noble friend Lord Berkeley, so I do not want to fall out with him either, but this is all a bit President Trumpish, in a way. You sit on a commission and there are various aspects of people’s involvement in that commission that are not quite what they should be. If my noble friend feels that something untoward is going on, he ought to tell us about it when he winds up the debate rather than make the implications that he has.

It is a pleasure, as ever, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Framlingham. If I might compliment him by saying so, at least it was a different tune he was playing. The end was pretty much the same, but it was a different tune. We had heard his previous speech, I think, twice on the Floor of the House, once in the Moses Room and at least twice during this Committee. We all knew what he was going to say. The Minister knew what he was going to say. I suspect that the mice in the Members’ Tea Room had an idea about what he was going to say. He is against the project. When I look at the history of his title, I rather think that a lot of his opposition comes from the fact that Framlingham station was closed as long ago as 1952 and the noble Lord has come to the conclusion that if he cannot have any trains, no one else can either. But I will reserve the rest of what I have to say and, like my noble friend, listen with interest to the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer.

[Baroness Kramer (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I think I will have to disappoint at least three Members of the Committee. First, the work on NDAs, which is an area that does exercise me a great deal, is being carried on under the umbrella of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Whistleblowing—a very effective group, chaired by Mary Robinson MP. It is very cross-party—it includes the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, among its distinguished members—and is doing an incredible amount of good work. That is the right place for this to be pursued because it puts it in the very important and powerful context that most of those who personally suffer from NDAs—or, rather, the individual version, normally called a settlement agreement—are whistleblowers.

I am also not going to bring up the individual cases. I would ask the Minister to meet me—although I suppose we will always have to do this virtually—because there are cases of individual whistleblowers that need to be much more central to the attention of the Government. But this is not really the venue to go in detail through their individual cases. They need proper and long discussion. I am also not the right person to put words into those individuals’ mouths—they need their opportunity to make their position understood.

I support this excellent amendment because I think it is rather skilful. It identifies that non-disclosure agreements have long since lost their original purpose. They were meant to be arrangements which would provide confidentiality for proper commercial interests, such as protecting intellectual property or preventing unfair competition. There might be times when they give scope for private discussion, but I think most people can see that that would be very limited.

The amendment also gives primacy to the public interest. What has happened with NDAs is that people are asked to sign them almost as a matter of course in order to get into a meeting, and they have come to be used very widely now simply as a way to make sure that incompetence and wrong behaviour do not get into the public arena.

A number of journalists have done FoIs to try to get a sense of how many NDAs have been signed for HS2, and I was quite shocked to see—looking just at local authorities and civil society-type groups—that there have been some 340. This is just a strategy to prevent transparency in a project that is being paid for by the taxpayer. There should be a presumption of openness and of closure only in those circumstances where it is absolutely required for a valid reason. Right now the assumption is that everything will be secret unless there is some mechanism for opening it up.

As I said, I am particularly concerned about the NDAs which are being used to silence whistleblowers. Again, for people who may not be familiar with this, “NDA” is actually an American term. For individual whistleblowers, these are part of a settlement agreement. As noble Lords know, most whistleblowers are fired pretty much immediately; they lose their jobs and end up in employment tribunals. That drags on for years and then there is a settlement, or they are threatened with retaliation unless they come to a settlement which includes this vow of silence.

Quite a number of whistleblowers on the HS2 project have gone public—at great personal sacrifice. I feel that they should have proper protection, and that is one of the issues I want to discuss with the Minister. Like many in the transport world—including, I am sure, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley—I am aware of many more people who have accepted settlement agreements, including those silence clauses, because they were afraid for their personal livelihood and for their family. Whistleblowers are canaries in the mine. They should be nurtured, not silenced. Serving staff should never be afraid to raise concerns. HS2 has not been exemplary—to put it mildly—on this issue. It has behaved very badly, frankly, to quite a number of its own staff. If anyone doubts that, they should look at the way that information on issues around costings and land ownership compensation has finally surfaced. Instead of government and others being aware early on that there is a problem, the whole issue festers and by the time it reaches the ears of anybody in government, as far as I can tell, it is very difficult to correct a lot of the underlying damage.

I have to say this; it is important. Most of the whistleblowers on HS2 are great supporters of HS2. I am a supporter of HS2. But we want the project to be judged on its genuine merits and not incorrect claims. I do not believe that the project is being helped by the way in which information has come out—delayed, challenged and finally admitted. It has scarred the reputation of the project. It has undermined public trust, frankly, in any information that HS2 now provides and that is a real tragedy.

We politicians have to shoulder responsibility for some of this. There is a pattern whereby the Treasury pressures departments to understate project costs. That has infected not just this project but a lot of major infrastructure projects. Crossrail strikes me as another of these tragedies which have suffered from the need to come up with an attractive claim in order to get approval at various stages. Those who are running projects—and sometimes this includes the Ministers, frankly—are really afraid to admit when costings are shown to be wrong because they are afraid they will then be vilified.

In complex, difficult, long-term projects, attempting to assess the issues and the costs up front is extraordinarily difficult and we need to take that on board and understand that information will change, that facts on the ground will change and that in this very complex situation not everybody will get it right, but we need that correction to happen as soon as possible and for the information to be available in the public arena as soon as possible. Open kimono is really the only way in which to generate trust and sensible decision-making. Frankly, we will never get that kind of transparency unless we deal with this NDA problem and the silence clauses in settlement agreements. Change that framework and people will speak out, we will hear the canaries, and it will be possible to take action in a way that is beneficial to the project and fair to the taxpayer and all the various stakeholders.

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[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, that was a very powerful speech by my noble friend Lord Adonis, and I have very little to add to it. I support this amendment. I think it is sensible that Parliament look regularly at how the HS2 scheme is being used to promote greater connectivity at local and regional levels, and of course I agree with my noble friend’s concerns about the eastern leg of the HS2 plan. The only other point to add concerns the work of the Select Committee. I have sympathy with the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Rosser, on the capacity of the county councils to deal with the consequences of the HS2 plan. The Select Committee felt that in one or two cases where we had petitioners making perfectly reasonable points, the county council had not responded to them in the way we would have hoped. There should be a strong message—although I doubt an amendment would be appropriate—that the councils need to gear up to cope with this major project.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, while I support everything that has just been said on this amendment, I do not want to repeat anything. There is a connectivity problem with HS2. If it were decided—wrongly, as has been amply outlined by my noble friend Lord Adonis—to truncate the eastern leg of HS2 somewhere in the east Midlands and, presumably, electrify the existing line so that HS2 trains will join the existing main line at some unspecified point in the east Midlands, there would be an immediate connectivity problem.

In the days when I worked for the railway, on the operating side, the regulation of trains was a fairly simple matter. Trains were broken down into various classifications: A, B, C, et cetera. Class A was an express passenger train, and signallers would normally give priority to such a train, regardless of circumstances —late running, bad weather, et cetera. Since privatisation, of course, things are somewhat different. It never ceases to amaze me sometimes, standing at Birmingham New Street station, to watch a late-running Pendolino train for London Euston being held in the station while a local train booked to leave behind it leaves on time and therefore in front of it, delaying the express passenger train even further. When I ask signallers and people responsible for operating the railway these days why these incidents take place, I am told, “Well, the lawyers will say that that was its booked path and if we delayed it further, there would, of necessity, be compensation payments”.

I raise that technical side for this reason, as far as this amendment is concerned: in Clause 34, “Objectives of Office of Rail and Road”, there are details about railway matters. If we are to have high-speed trains mixed in with existing passenger and freight trains, I just remind noble Lords on both sides that this will happen regardless of the completion of the Y-shaped layout planned for HS2. There will be another regulation problem thrown up by the addition of such trains to the existing traffic. Without going into any great detail, the Select Committee discussed the provision of an altered junction on a short stretch of the west coast main line that would have meant that high-speed trains, instead of joining the “down” fast line on their way to Crewe, actually joined the “down” slow line—again, as the result of the understandable desire to reduce expenditure—cutting over to the “down” fast line some small distance further north. That adds another complication so far as train regulation is concerned, on, as we have already discussed, an already crowded west coast main line. That situation, of course, would be repeated and worsened if the Y-shaped east Midlands leg of HS2 were truncated, as my noble friend Lord Adonis fears.

I have a question for the Minister, going back to Clause 34. I quote from the Explanatory Memorandum:

“The Railways Act 1993 imposes on the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) a duty to address certain objectives in the execution of its non-safety functions. These objectives do not currently contain any explicit requirement for the ORR to facilitate the construction of Phase 2a of High Speed 2. Subsection (1) adds such a requirement and thereby clarifies the ORR’s role for the benefit of the ORR and rail operators.”


My question to the Minister is, what role will the ORR have as far as connectivity and train regulation is concerned? I do not expect her to have the answer off the cuff, and I would be grateful if she would write to me. It is an appropriate matter, I hope she agrees, to raise in connection with this amendment and I hope we can find some way of answering this particular problem concerning the role of the ORR in future.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly in support of these two amendments. They are vital to getting the best out of HS2. Amendment 11 was moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who mentioned 20 trains an hour in and out of Moor Street, and there is a great deal that needs to be done around Birmingham to improve local services there. She and other noble Lords mentioned the problem—or the not very good services—and the tracks that head from Birmingham eastwards towards Nottingham and Derby. I think there is quite a strong argument for either upgrading the existing lines or at least building HS2 section 2b there.

I have more of a problem with making decisions now about what should happen to HS2 between Derby and Nottingham towards Leeds and Sheffield. There are various ways of doing it, such as just upgrading the existing routes or improving the east coast main line, which I know my noble friend Lord Adonis is greatly against, as he said on Monday. However, all these things need to be looked at because when we were doing some of the consultation, such as it was, for the Oakervee report, it was quite clear that the demand for services in the Midlands and the north was primarily for shorter distance and to a large extent east-west, and therefore getting across the Pennines somehow is very important. Whether it is HS2, Network Rail or Transport for the North does not really matter as long as there are services there and further south from Birmingham to the Derby area. The key is to have frequent, reliable services going faster, but whether they need to be separate or together with HS2 is something I think the Minister is looking at in her study.

For me, HS2 is, as my noble friend Lord Adonis said, not a network but a line which starts in London, splits in two and goes to Manchester, and perhaps a little further north to connect with the west coast main line, and to Sheffield and Leeds. The network is there to connect with much improved local services, and therefore the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is very important. It needs to link with, I hope, improved local services.

I also support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Rosser to some extent. It is very important, but we are almost going back to the discussion we had about the Transport and Works Act and hybrid Bills and whether local authorities in the present set up have enough resources and are given enough time in Committee to make their arguments. That is something that I am sure we will continue to discuss over the next few weeks.

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[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Henig) (Lab)]

I then call the next speaker, the noble Lord, Lord Snape.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst. As members of the committee, we heard some familiar feelings from many of the petitioners. During my time in Westminster, I have served on committees on four hybrid Bills. Without exception, people affected by works of this kind go through various stages of concern, fear and outrage that their property could be taken, altered or knocked down. It is an inevitable consequence of projects of this size. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst, I thought that those who appeared in front of the committee were treated pretty well by HS2 and its representatives. Like him, I saw many of them withdraw those petitions before it was necessary for us to come to a decision.

On all the hybrid Bills that I have served, without exception and across party, Members of both Houses have been aware of the sense of loss that people go through when their property is affected. We buy houses, too; we cherish our own homes and feel terribly strongly when projects such as this affect us.

Dealing with large organisations is never easy; I speak with some feeling here. I spent last night and the best part of about two hours this morning trying to get some sense out of Virgin Media, so I know how people feel and how irritated they become at saying the same thing to different people in the same organisation, but, by and large, it seemed to us on the committee—I think I speak for all of us who were on it—that HS2 did its best.

When Theo Clarke MP appeared before the committee on behalf of her constituents and others affected by this project, the chairman handled the matter in an exemplary way. The committee chairs on all the four hybrid Bills in which I have been involved have been pretty good, but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, given his experience, was excellent in the way he handled both petitioners and HS2. Without knocking any heads together, and in his calm way, he got them to come to some sort of compromise. Therefore, like previous speakers, I do not see any need for this amendment. I just say to the Minister that if she can satisfy the noble Earl’s correspondent on every single one of those complaints, she will not be an Under-Secretary for very long.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have heard many noble Lords say that there is not a problem because the Select Committee, if it received complaints, dealt with them. I suspect that, if there was a problem and people got as far as petitioning about it, the committee would have made sure as best it could that it was solved, and that is very good.

However, I have also heard many examples of people not being paid, and some landowners who have found that HS2 was trespassing on their land, and maybe doing damage to it, not being paid for months or even years. That has been a common thing—and I suspect that both examples are equally valid. The real issue here is that, if there is no problem, the amendment does no harm to anybody. If there is a problem, it will encourage HS2 to behave, and pay for what it intends to occupy permanently or temporarily.

I suspect that the issue may have been something to do with the timing: the Select Committee sat for a certain time and the HS2 Bill has been around for several years. In the intervening period, what do people do if they suffer hardship? There is a lot of evidence, which I think that the Committee has heard before, that the budget that HS2 was given for land purchase by the department, and which the department was given by the Treasury, was woefully inadequate—probably about 50% of what was needed. That is probably one of the reasons, apart from having too much work to do, and maybe incompetence—I do not know—for late payments. HS2 and Ministers will have to do all in their powers to make sure that that it does not happen again for the next phase or two. There may be lessons to learn. In the meantime, I cannot see what is wrong with the amendment, which might incentivise HS2 and other businesses to behave in what is normally thought of as a normal business relationship.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I have some sympathy with the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Rosser. We had a considerable discussion at the Select Committee about this matter; we felt then, and I certainly feel now, that these are matters for the local highway authority rather than a Committee of the House or the Minister herself. If the representations made by the parish council to Shropshire Council as the highways authority are powerful enough, surely they will be acted on. If they are not acted on, obviously the remedy is in the hands of local people at the next council elections. Beyond listening with some degree of sympathy to the petitioners at the time, we felt that, and I certainly feel now, that these matters are best discussed and debated and agreed at local level, and that this is a matter for the local highway authority. From that point of view, I do not see why the Minister should accept an amendment that would delay construction until these discussions have concluded. Given the Covid epidemic, I presume that that will be the reason why things have not progressed as quickly as we might have hoped. Still, I repeat, these matters are best debated and agreed at local level rather than in Parliament.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a lot of merit in this amendment. As my noble friend Lord Snape says, it should not be necessary because local authorities should be required to deal with HS2, but clearly, in some cases, this does not happen. There is a similarity between what my noble friend Lord Rosser is trying to achieve with this amendment and what we will probably be discussing under Schedule 23 stand part. That is that, before any work starts, there should be a condition survey of the road and the traffic so that one can see what changes, if any, have been brought about by the construction and then, as necessary, deal with it. It is easy to say that local authorities should deal with it, but there needs to be a fallback that, if that does not work, the Minister’s door is always open so that he can deal with it and, if he thinks it is a reasonable request, he can instruct or advise HS2 to do a little more local engagement and respond to what may be justifiable complaints or concerns from the local authorities or residents.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Committee will be very much indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for that very full, comprehensive and interesting introduction to the party wall legislation as it applies to HS2. I have been involved in party wall disputes, but on a domestic basis. I assure the Committee that, even at a domestic level, people get very upset about it. It is really important that fairness and transparency is identified all the way along: the result may not be everything that all parties want, but there is definitely a feeling that a fair hearing has been had, that those who caused the problem are having to pay for it and those who suffer are given reasonable but not undue benefits.

I read the article in the Property Journal and I recommend it to all noble Lords, because it is a simple introduction to what I think the Committee must believe is quite a complicated subject. My purpose in speaking now is to try to ensure that a reasonable and fair solution is found to this, because we run the risk, I am told, that if it is not sorted out, there could be some class actions around for people who live adjacent to or above bits of HS2. The example I will quote comes from phase 1, but it is not surprising, because many party wall issues will not appear until the construction is getting close to starting. The text in the legislation is the same in both Bills, so I can give an example to explain what the problem is from my point of view.

I was alerted to this legislation by an eminent engineer, Sam Price, who petitioned against the phase 1 Bill about the approach to Euston, and I helped him a bit with other things, as some noble Lords may remember. One example was a house on the west side of the approach as trains come into Euston, a road called Park Village East. There is a very high brick retaining wall which has stood there for many years, but HS2’s current scheme—I appreciate that it is one of two current schemes—was to excavate down from the footing of that wall, about 10 metres down, and create something that, in cross-section, looked a bit like a birdcage, but of course it was very much bigger than that, with lots of concrete walls, diaphragm walls, concrete structures and everything. There is a fear that this high brick wall, which basically supports the road and the Queen Anne houses behind it, probably does not have any foundations, because it has been there so long.

The owner of one of the houses discovered that HS2 was planning to support this wall, before it started the excavation, by drilling horizontal soil anchors underneath the house, from the wall towards the back of the house, over the length of about 10 houses, and they are big houses. These holes, which might have been two levels of holes at about 1 metre centres, were designed to hold the house up and stop it settling. We can have views about whether that would be suitable, but that does not really matter. My friend Sam Price asked where under the party wall Act is the obligation for the residents of those houses to be given notice that HS2 wishes to do this work. The answer is that they have not been given notice. They hear about the work on the gossip, but not much else.

We looked at this a bit more with the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who is a real expert, as I am sure the Committee has understood. It seems that the legislation in the HS2 Act has been developed from the Crossrail legislation—of course, much of Crossrail was underground —which itself was developed from the party wall legislation that the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, mentioned. From a quick reading of some of the issues that went on with Crossrail, it appears that there was a major problem near Hanover Square with party wall legislation. I suspect that has something to do with the two or three-year delay to Crossrail and Bond Street station because that has not been resolved. I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that that is it. The problem is that this legislation on HS2 removes the obligation of an adjacent developer to serve advance notice on an owner whose property might be affected and removes the need for a joint condition survey undertaken by a professional surveyor. That is the first nub of it.

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, commented that when it comes to being the final arbiter engineers are splendid people, but—. I speak as an engineer, and I think he is absolutely right. Engineers are very good at engineering but they are not surveyors and they are not party wall surveyors. That is an error in the Bill, because the final arbiter should be from the RICS, as in the 1996 legislation. I do not know whether the drafters consulted the RICS but I doubt it.

As it stands, this legislation is very unfair on residents. They will have no alternative but to go down the legal route. They should not be trying to stop HS2, and I do not think they will, but they deserve to be treated fairly. I am afraid I compare it to this. If we think about phase 1—just the section between Euston and Old Oak Common, although there are many other tunnel sections near Birmingham in phase 1 and further up the line—under this legislation the only remedy these people have is a class action, if they can afford it, against HS2. That will be a horrible delay. I am not trying to delay it, but I am trying to get fairness. I refer to our debates over the past few years on the postmasters scandal, which ended up as a class action. It was finally decided that the Post Office had acted illegally and £60 million was awarded against the Post Office, but the lawyers took £58 million of it so the poor old postmasters got nothing. We really do not want that.

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has described the problems very well. I have met some of the experts he has read and I commend them. They are really looking for a solution to this that will not delay the project but will stop people trying to go to court because they feel badly treated. I think there is a solution, but I echo noble Lords’ requests for an urgent meeting with the Minister and whoever so that we can take this forward.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Berkeley persuaded me to add my name to this amendment. Having listened to the debate so far, I do not owe him any favours. I suppose that we should congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, on his comprehensive knowledge of these matters. He mentioned the Crossrail Bill, which I served on. Fortunately, we did not get involved in the realms of the Party Wall etc. Act at the time, which is perhaps surprising. It also enabled my noble friend Lord Berkeley to return to another of the many other bees in his bonnet, which is the early part of HS1 between Old Oak Common and Euston. I do not think that that has taken the Committee any further forward as far as the debate is concerned.

I have two questions for the Minister. First, why was this particular schedule added to the Bill, bearing in mind the rural nature of the line that we are supposedly discussing, phase 2a of HS2? I repeat that no mention was made of any party wall difficulties during the passage of the Bill through the Select Committee. Perhaps the noble Earl can tell us how many properties he thinks will be affected by Schedule 23 if it is included in the Bill. However, it seems to me that we could be discussing the vagaries of the property world for some considerable time without taking forward the Bill that we should be discussing, which covers phase 2a of HS2.

[Baroness Randerson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I will not take long, but I want to say simply that when a noble Lord raises an issue of this complexity and technical detail, it deserves to be taken very seriously. While I fully realise that the issue is not really appropriate for debate in Grand Committee because it is much too technical and detailed to encompass within the form of our debates, that does not mean that it is not important. Therefore, I ask the Minister to make sure that when she has had her meeting with the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, about the issues concerned she will set out in some form the outcome of those discussions in a letter to all noble Lords who are participating in this part of the debate today.

Network Rail’s Enhancements Pipeline

Lord Snape Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am sure that my noble friend would like me to say that I will of course appoint him to lead Network Rail, but, unfortunately, he is going to be disappointed. He slightly underplays the huge developments in recent years as we established the RNEP. It was established only in 2018 and what it tried to do—and indeed does—is to put in one place, open for scrutiny, all the projects that we are considering, whether they are at the initiation, development, design or delivery stage. We provide updates every quarter; that is good transparency and provides for good scrutiny.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

The Minister’s noble friend is quite right: Network Rail’s costs are outrageous. Is she aware that, back in 1988, British Rail built a new station at Tutbury on the Derbyshire-Staffordshire border for £80,000? As recently as 1998, Railtrack built four new stations on the Robin Hood line, as well as a new platform and two overbridges, for £5.3 million. Yet Network Rail is now quoting £14 million for a single platform and £22 million for a double-platform station. This is outrageous. Will the Minister tell Network Rail so, and will she tell me how she gets on if she does?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord is right to raise the increasing costs of transport infrastructure projects. Noble Lords may know that I have a particular interest in Hammersmith Bridge at the moment. It was built for £10 million in today’s money many, many years ago; you could not get it for that now. I take the noble Lord’s point that we absolutely have to drive down costs. That is part of what we are doing with Network Rail. It is really important that we challenge the costs and make sure that they are as low as possible. If the noble Lord has any evidence that he wants to share with my department and the rail Minister, I would be happy to pass it on.

Covid-19: Transport Industry

Lord Snape Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Baroness may be interested to know that bus demand is currently running at about 55% of normal, which is encouraging, but she is quite right, and will know that we had always planned to do a bus strategy this year. Of course, we are starting from a very different place from where we had hoped to be, but it will include an awful lot of recovery work, as she so rightly outlined, and set out how we will get 4,000 zero-emission buses on our roads.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

Is the Minister aware that the coach industry feels particularly aggrieved, having been excluded from the industry-specific grants that have so benefited buses and trains? Is she also aware that long-standing family companies such as Travel De Courcey, based in Coventry, have already gone to the wall because of the economic situation? Can she offer any comfort to these vital parts of our transport industry, as far as the future is concerned?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am aware of the very difficult situation that the coach industry finds itself in. It is a very diverse sector with, as the noble Lord points out, a large number of family-run businesses. About 80% of revenue in the coach sector comes from tourism, and we are working very hard with DCMS to ensure that where tourism—particularly domestic tourism—can take place, it does. Much of the remaining 20% is home-to-school transport, and the Government have made available £40 million for the first half of this current term, for local authorities to procure extra vehicles.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings on Public Transport) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Snape Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, we are debating these regulations today as a result of a reference by the Scrutiny Committee, which was

“critical of the timing of these Regulations which were laid after they had taken effect and too long after the initial announcement.”

Like my noble friend Lord Foulkes and the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, I have to be critical of a Government who shoot first and ask questions afterwards. For goodness’ sake, Ministers ought not to make announcements and pronouncements like this until they have properly consulted. I ask the Minister to confirm that it will not be the bus driver’s responsibility to ensure that people are wearing masks.

I endorse the memorable intervention earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts. Why is there a difference between trains in England and trains in Wales? What happens with trains that meander between the two countries, as they do along the Welsh border? Is it necessary to don the mask in England but then, if you want, take it off in Wales? No wonder the Welsh First Minister called this whole business a shambles. I ask the Minister to ask the Secretary of State to talk less in future and consult more.

Covid-19: Public Transport

Lord Snape Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

The noble Baroness will be well aware that the Government’s communication strategy is evolving over time as we respond to coronavirus. She raises some very important points, and we must also consider what will happen in the future, particularly as people return to work in greater numbers in the autumn and children return to school in September. We are cognisant of all these things and our messaging is appropriate.

[Lord Snape (Lab) [V]]

Does the Minister accept that Transport Ministers’ consistently doom-laden warnings about the risks involved in travelling on public transport have destroyed public confidence in the safety of our transport systems? Does she accept that any failure to extend taxpayer support beyond the proposed cut-off date of 20 September is likely to mean that buses and trains will be few and far between after that date, outside of Britain’s major conurbations? What comfort can she offer to bus and train operators and their passengers that the future of public transport in this country is secure?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

The travelling public have listened to the Government and decided to heed our warnings about travelling on public transport because capacity is so limited, not because it is unsafe. The Government are working extremely closely with transport operators across all modes to establish a medium-term funding mechanism, because we want high-quality public transport in the future and our public transport system to rebound, when it is safe to do so.

Public Transport: Face Coverings

Lord Snape Excerpts

Thursday 25th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

I agree with the noble Lord that it is essential that people use a face covering when they travel. We have been working with the rail industry and other transport operators on the provision, on a one-off basis, of a supply of face coverings that can be given out in the circumstances he has described, particularly while people get used to wearing them. We are also looking with the Cabinet Office at longer-term supply options so that members of the public can purchase low-cost face coverings at various outlets. For example, Network Rail has installed vending machines supplying face coverings at many of its stations.

[Lord Snape (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, what consultations took place with bus, coach and train operators and their representatives before the announcement about face coverings was made? Turning to enforcement, does the Minister expect front-line staff to turn away would-be passengers who for any reason are not wearing face masks? What other consultations have there been with the police, particularly the British Transport Police, about the enforcement of the wearing of face masks on railway services?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

I think the noble Lord will understand that at present, all Ministers have a close ongoing relationship with transport operators and unions. We are continually having conversations about the sort of measures that may come in in the future. We spoke to the unions about face coverings; indeed, it was the unions that did not want the use of face coverings by transport workers made mandatory. We listened and worked with them to make that the case. Transport operators such as bus drivers often have to turn people away, for example, because of poor behaviour, in which case they might then go on to call the police. It is the same in the case of face coverings; if people create a fuss because they are denied boarding, transport operators will get the police involved. Of course, we speak frequently to the British Transport Police about this matter as well.

Smart Motorways

Lord Snape Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, like previous speakers I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for introducing this debate. It is apparent that smart motorways have few friends—other than perhaps in the Department for Transport. Those of us who have used them are aware of the dangers and see from time to time the awesome consequences of all four lanes of traffic being in use at exactly the same time.

My noble friend Lord Jordan referred to the BBC “Panorama” programme—I do not know whether the Minister saw it. She might have lots of free time to watch television, given what we are hearing in the media, but we wish her well as far as her future, at least in this House, is concerned. My noble friend referred to the example given in the programme of the number of deaths on smart motorways. The programme also gave lists of near-misses on the M25 on those parts of it that have been converted into smart motorways. I am not quite sure where the BBC got these figures, but it publicised them during the programme and in writing since. Prior to these parts of the M25 being converted into smart motorways, there were 72 near-misses on one particular stretch. Following the conversion there were 1,485 near-misses on the same stretch. So it is apparent to most of us that making running lanes of all four lanes is inherently dangerous.

What can we do instead of spending money on widening our motorways and making many or all of them smart motorways? I will make a couple of constructive suggestions that the Minister might like to look at. We ought to have a driver education programme, inspired perhaps by the department, on keeping to the left on motorways. We are all familiar with the middle-lane hogger. My estimate from driving around is that something like 40% of private motorists never use the left-hand lane anyway and will sit in the middle. They are the same ones who, after millions of pounds have been spent converting three-lane motorways to four-lane ones, leave two empty lanes on their left-hand side, because they then sit in lane three at 50 miles per hour.

The former Secretary of State, Mr Grayling, announced in publicity for which he was famous, if for nothing else, that people would be prosecuted for middle-lane hogging. I have asked a Question since about how many people have been prosecuted. I cannot get the figures because evidently they are not centrally kept, but my view is that, given the general lack of traffic police on our motorways and roads these days, that figure would probably be less than a dozen over the two or three years since the law was changed. So the Minister might consider some aspects of expenditure other than on smart motorways.

It is an accepted fact all over the world—except in the corridors of the Department for Transport—that the more road space you create, the quicker you generate more traffic to fill that space. The noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, said that he was partly American and had spent part of his life in the United States. In southern California, there are 12-lane highways between Los Angeles and San Diego. It takes six hours to travel between those cities on a Friday afternoon because all 12 lanes are full of traffic. It does not make any sense, other than in the corridors of the Department for Transport, to generate more traffic, particularly in the pollution-conscious age we are supposed to be living in. Yet those are the policies that we have followed under successive Governments, and if we try to curb the private car—I am as guilty as anybody else; I drive a car, like most noble Lords—we are told that this is a war on motorists. Well, if it is a war, it is a war that is currently not being won very well.

I am not alone in my aversion to smart motorways; nor are noble Lords in this place. I looked online this morning at an organisation called Change.org which has set up an online petition against smart motorways; this morning, no less than 270,358 people had signed the petition and hundreds more are signing on a daily basis. That shows the department and transport Ministers that there is genuine concern about and an aversion to what is happening on our motorways. Like the previous speaker, I do not think that they are particularly smart at all. A combination of driver education, more traffic police and a more sensible transport policy on the private car is long overdue. I look forward to the Minister telling us that this will happen.