Bus Services Bill [HL]

Lord Snape Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I will take the noble Lord’s intervention—it sounds like a bit of a school report: “Has improved, but needs improvement”. I take that on board. As I have said, I am very cognisant of the need to ensure effective analysis of the Bill. We may not agree on every element of it but it is important that information is provided. I have certainly sought in the early discussions that we have had with noble Lords to stress—it is something that I will stress again—that it is a priority for me to ensure that we not only share relevant information but do so in a timely fashion. If I were sitting on the other Benches—long may that not happen—I would be making an equally valid case, as noble Lords have.

New Section 113C in Clause 1 stipulates that the local transport authority cannot make an advanced quality partnership scheme unless it is satisfied that the scheme is likely to achieve one or more of the following: improve the quality of local services; reduce or limit traffic congestion, noise or air pollution; increase the use of local services or indeed end or reduce the decline in the use of local services. Amendment 1 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, would require the local authority to be absolutely sure that any proposed quality partnership would have the anticipated effect. I believe that, in terms of its practicality, this amendment would make it almost impossible for local authorities to say in totality or with absolute certainty what impact a particular scheme would have before it is introduced. I believe that this more stringent requirement would make the local transport authorities more risk-averse when introducing advanced quality partnership schemes. As a result, authorities may well choose to introduce schemes that fall short of fulfilling their full potential or not bring them forward at all.

Amendments 2, 3, 4, 5 and 5A deal with the content of the tests that I have mentioned. Under the Bill, local authorities may not make an advanced quality partnership unless they are likely to achieve an improvement in the quality of local services, a reduction or limitation of traffic congestion, noise or air pollution, or an increase in the use of local services. It is then for local authorities to decide what package of standards to introduce under an advanced quality partnership scheme to achieve one or more of these outcomes. These standards will depend on local need and may or may not include requirements relating to ticketing, rural bus services and pollution. The circumstances of individual areas vary and I think that it is right that the advanced quality partnership schemes should be able to reflect this.

I agree, however, with several noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon that these are important issues. Local authorities need to think very carefully about whether they should include standards in each of these areas in the advanced quality partnership scheme. We intend to recognise this in statutory guidance on these new partnership schemes, which will be issued under new Section 113O of the Transport Act 2000.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

Can the Minister respond to the noble Baroness’s very relevant point that these things depend to a great extent on money available from the Government? If the Government are going to keep cutting back on the resources available to local authorities, these well-merited objectives are surely not going to be met.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The point was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, at Second Reading—I was going to come on to it but I will say it now—and I made it clear then that, specifically in terms of the Bill, no additional funding will be provided. It will be very much for local authorities to prioritise as they see fit. While I know that noble Lords will be disappointed, I am sure that they will recognise that that is the reality of the situation.

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[Lord Snape]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, does the Committee and the industry a great service by moving this amendment. I have bored your Lordships before with stories of my involvement in the bus industry. My experience as a director and chairman of a former municipal bus operator was that there was a significant undermining of those services by the sorts of operators that the noble Lord has just mentioned. Much of this unfair competition has disappeared over the years. The intention of many of those smaller operators was to cause so much of a nuisance to the larger undertaking that it would offer them lots of money to go away. In the West Midlands, we were fairly resolved not to play that game. Indeed, during my time as a bus company director at least two smaller operators in the West Midlands were run by people who had been fired from our company for various misdemeanours. They got their hands on some older vehicles and ran them between 7 am and 7 pm. The thought of running early-morning or late-night services never struck them. Not only did they pay inferior rates, they did not provide the trade union recognition, canteen facilities or maintenance facilities that the major operators—such as Travel West Midlands, the company I worked for at the time—provided as a matter of course. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has put his finger on a very important point. We seek reassurance from the Minister that the unfair competitors that I have just outlined will not be allowed to flourish or, indeed, to exist in future.

There was always a problem in that councillors of all political hues used to say that if those operators were not there then we would be operating some sort of monopoly, and there should be competition. But when those operators were there, the councillors would say that their buses were absolutely dreadful and should not be on the road at all. We spent some years trying to please everybody but pleased nobody. I would welcome reassurance from the Minister that we will not return to those days and that reputable operators operating a quality partnership of the type outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, will not face the sorts of conditions that we had to put up with in the early days of deregulation.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and my noble friend Lord Snape have a very good point when it comes to discussing big operators and little operators, because there are competition and quality issues. In Cornwall, where I live, there has, in recent years, been one major operator and one smaller one. On two occasions in the past five years, the smaller operator’s bus garage was torched. Whether it was deliberate or not I do not know, but the fact remains that something nasty went on there. The small operators ran a very good service—as did the big one—and it was good that they were both there. But somebody had something against them. That is something that we must all be careful about, because at that level it is not something for the competition authorities.

I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, spoke to Amendments 19 and 68, and I do not quite understand his amendments. He wants to leave out, in the case of Amendment 68, a reference to,

“such other incidental matters in connection with franchising schemes as the Secretary of State thinks fit”.

I agree with him, because I am suspicious of that: it allows the Secretary of State to do whatever he likes, if he does not fancy doing what is in the rest of the legislation. I would support omitting those words—but I wonder whether the noble Lord or one of his colleagues fancies explaining what this is all about.

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[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, we have touched on this matter before, but I will be most interested to know what measures the Government propose to take to deal with traffic congestion. So much of the power lies in the hands of Ministers. The Minister referred on Second Reading to the fact that local authorities have certain powers, but he knows as well as I do that many local authorities want more effective powers to deal with congestion. Certainly, if those steps are not taken, with traffic levels rising as more people have cars and with more vans in particular delivering parcels all over the place and obstructing the high streets in towns with narrow roads, we need effective measures to deal with this problem. I beg to move.

[Lord Snape]

Before the Minister replies, I hate to prejudge and pre-empt his reply, but I fear that he will say what Ministers in successive Governments have said over the years—that these are purely a matter for the local authority, which is of course free to introduce measures to control the increase in traffic.

Interestingly, as I am sure the noble Lord who moved the amendment will agree, it has just been revealed in published statistics that far from there being a war on motorists—a phrase that the Conservative Party and Ministers in Conservative Governments have used frequently—the cost of motoring in real terms has been getting cheaper over the past 30 years. Is it any surprise that congestion has got worse in those circumstances? I hope the Minister will say that the Government are prepared to take some powers themselves rather than saying, “It’s not a matter for us, it is a matter for elected mayors or anyone else who is a local authority to do something about congestion”.

All of us who take part in these debates know full well that, faced with the problem of sitting in a traffic jam in one’s own car or on a bus, the bus is very much the second choice. Only proper enforced bus priority and a proper congestion charge will make public transport more attractive, and not just in major cities; understandably, some of the Liberal amendments have been about rural transport. Again, if it were possible to travel as quickly and as cheaply—or more cheaply—on public transport than in one’s own car, the bus would become a more attractive proposition in rural as well as urban areas. The fact is that in current circumstances it is not. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance that in future, in pursuit of the very noble cause of introducing or increasing bus travel, the Government will be prepared to introduce some powers to bring that happy situation about.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, my general point is that reducing congestion is a win-win measure. First, it reduces your journey times, and we need that reduction in journey times because they are lengthening at an alarming rate. I will give noble Lords one or two examples of recent research.

Research by London Travelwatch shows there is an “alarming” decline in average bus speeds, which are down to nine miles per hour. That deters people from getting on buses, even in London, which we hold up as a wonderful example of success. In the rest of the country, the situation is also very severe. Greener Journeys research shows a decline in bus speeds in Manchester. Why? In the west of England, between 2012 and 2015, there was an 18% increase in the number of vehicles registered. You cannot have that level of increase in the number of vehicles on the roads without a serious congestion problem, and I make the obvious point that the west of England is not perhaps an area that we think of as congested.

Not only will you reduce your journey times if you deal with congestion, you will also increase bus reliability. Research by bus user groups shows strongly that bus users rate reliability very highly indeed. In other words, they probably do not mind that much whether a journey takes 25 minutes or half an hour, but they need to rely on it being half an hour and not 40 minutes. We need to encourage new users, and they want reliability. At the same time, reducing congestion obviously reduces air and noise pollution. I say to the Minister that you may not have very high levels of air pollution in the countryside, but it is still air pollution and it adds to global warming; it matters to us all. It is important that we do not dismiss air pollution issues in rural areas either.

It is entirely sensible to specify reduction in congestion as one aim of any scheme. It is important that we bear in mind that these things fit together like pieces of a jigsaw, and the Bill will not be a success unless those pieces fit together.

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[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, talked in his opening remarks about how Ministers before and Ministers today might respond, in terms of what decisions to leave to local authorities, and that this was a matter for them. I did at one point think he had advance notice of part, if not all, of my speaking notes. But undoubtedly, one of the new powers under an advanced quality partnership regime is to allow local authorities to introduce a range of measures to improve bus services. The Bill does not define—

[Lord Snape]

Perhaps I can help the Minister. It was the Government who asked KPMG to provide insight into the local bus market in England, outside of London, last year. It reported, presumably to his boss, in January this year and I quote one line from what it said:

“Operators have invested in vehicles and service quality but overall performance is heavily dependent on levels of road congestion”.

I presume the department paid a lot of money to KPMG; these reports do not come cheap. Surely he is not going to cast it aside; surely the Government are prepared to implement the recommendations laid down in a report that they themselves commissioned.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Those reports certainly advise decisions. No Government could claim that, with every report they have ever commissioned, chapter and verse is subsequently implemented. Perhaps the noble Lord could correct me, but I think I am on reasonably stable ground in saying what I have said.

I come back to the amendment. The Bill does not define what these measures are. For example, they could be measures that do not directly affect local bus services themselves, but instead make using buses more attractive. One way of using this power might be a measure to reduce the number of car parking spaces in the scheme area or to increase the cost of using them. While not directly improving bus services, this would make using cars less attractive and therefore encourage car drivers to use the bus instead. It could also have the knock-on effect of reducing congestion.

The current wording in the Bill leaves it to local authorities to decide the intention of the measures they include in the scheme. New Section 113E(2) requires only that they should, in some way, make buses better, either by improving their quality or by encouraging more passengers to use them. The amendment suggests that the “measures” introduced by a local authority must also reduce congestion on the bus routes included in the scheme. I say to all noble Lords that I sympathise with the objectives of the amendment but, on balance, it puts a restriction on the use of measures by a local authority. The general aim of the amendment is also already covered by new Section 113C(6)(b). This introduces a general requirement that advanced quality partnership schemes should, among other things, look to reduce congestion. It allows local authorities to decide how their schemes should meet this requirement, without it being imposed on particular elements of the scheme.

I have been listening very carefully to what noble Lords have said and there is one area that I will certainly take back. I am conscious that we will be revising existing guidance, which will also support the provisions on advanced quality partnerships in the Transport Act 2000, to take into account the AQP scheme. I will certainly consider including within the guidance specific content to deal with traffic congestion and address air pollution. I hope that I have provided a degree of reassurance in that respect and that, with the explanation I have given, the noble Lord will feel minded to withdraw his amendment.

Bus Services

Lord Snape Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I express my gratitude to the noble Baroness for the opportunity to discuss bus services. The House does not debate bus services as often as it should—though those who have heard me over the past 12 years might think we do so far too often. As the noble Baroness indicated, we look forward to the forthcoming buses Bill in the new Session of Parliament. I am sure that the Minister, trusting that he is reappointed, looks forward—as I do—to many happy hours of discussion about the Bill and how best to improve bus services throughout the United Kingdom.

As I indicated, the humble bus does not attract the attention that it ought to but its importance to society is enormous. Buses are vital for the economy and for the environment, but most importantly for people. In the year to the end of last March, some 4.65 billion passenger journeys were taken by bus in England—far more than any other form of public transport. In many cases, buses provide the only way to get to work, shopping, healthcare facilities and so much more for an enormous section of the population. For buses to serve their passengers and future passengers, they must be reliable, affordable, accessible and environmentally friendly.

Time and again, bus passenger satisfaction surveys carried out by Transport Focus highlight that punctuality is the top priority for passengers. Delivering high-quality bus services with a friendly bus driver, that go where passengers want to go at times when people want to travel, at a fair price and in an environmentally friendly vehicle is a shared responsibility. When operators work together with local authorities, real benefits for passengers are achieved. Partnership working has seen passenger numbers rise, complaints fall and has kept fares affordable in many parts of the country.

Here I must differ slightly from the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. She talked about the bus industry outside London and mentioned the word “crisis”. I hate to sound like Jim Callaghan—though he did not say it anyway—but, “Crisis? What crisis?”. The fact is that, again going back to the recent Transport Focus surveys, overall bus passenger satisfaction rates of over 90% are not bad. They do not indicate an industry in crisis. Bus operators must be doing something right if their passengers give them an average overall satisfaction rate as high as that.

The bus services Bill has been mentioned, which we expect to come before us some time in the next parliamentary Session. This will, I understand, give local authorities powers to franchise local bus services. I have never made any secret of the fact that I am not a great supporter of franchised bus services. I served on a passenger transport authority in the north-west in the 1970s, I was for a decade a transport spokesman in the other place and I was a bus company chairman in both the public and private sectors for some five years, so I hope I have some experience in these matters.

I draw the attention of the noble Baroness and the Minister to the situation in the West Midlands, where I spent most of the last four decades. The fact is that partnership there has come on enormously and bus passengers in the West Midlands have benefited enormously from the partnerships that have taken place over the years.

It has not been easy. When I first became chairman of Travel West Midlands in the mid-1990s, it was very difficult to get the passenger transport authority to sit round the table and discuss working together in the future. Wicked capitalists were always viewed as being against this sort of co-operation. However, there was, and is, an undercurrent of feeling in parts of local government—again, across party lines—that the last 30 years never happened and that the planning and franchising of bus services should be undertaken in the town hall rather than through bus scheduling generally. The West Midlands Bus Alliance has recently been formed. A press release from Centro, the passenger transport authority, now the delivery arm of the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority, states:

“Bus operators across the West Midlands have signed up to a groundbreaking initiative delivering millions of pounds of investment to the region’s network. The Bus Alliance is the first of its kind in the country and will see £150 million invested by operators and partners between now and 2021. The investment in bus fleets by operators will enable them to meet rigorous new standards on key issues such as vehicle emission levels, branding, maximum fares and frequency”.

I repeat: that is the way forward. I hope I can press the Minister to draw the attention of local authorities in other parts of the country to what has been done, and is being done, in the West Midlands in providing a comprehensive bus service with agreement on all sides rather than with the compulsion which certainly some members of my own party feel is necessary, and which the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, indicated she felt would be necessary for the future.

If the Government and the Treasury provided billions of pounds to repeat the London experience throughout the country, obviously many of my fears would be allayed. However, I do not think that any of us—regardless of party or of where we stand on the bus issue—imagine that the Treasury would be as generous in some of the places named by the noble Baroness and in some conurbations up and down the country as it has been in London.

Let us look at the progress that has been made in the bus industry over the past few years. Today’s vehicles are unrecognisable from those which carried passengers on our streets as little as 15 years ago, with many operators countrywide offering free wi-fi, USB charging points, bus stop announcements and more comfortable seating as standard. Around 95% of the British bus fleet is now either fully accessible or low-floor. The industry is continuing to innovate, invest and deliver for passengers a truly viable alternative to the private car. Let us not forget that the main competitor to the bus industry is not another form of public transport; it is the private car. Unless we can make bus journeys as attractive, quick and prompt as those undertaken by private car, we will not persuade people—I emphasise “persuade”—to leave their cars at home and travel by bus.

Low-carbon buses are becoming increasingly common, not just in London with more than 1,500 hybrids, but throughout the United Kingdom. Innovative technology is playing its part. In Bristol, for example, there are “virtual electric” hybrids capable of sustained zero-emissions operation, and more than 100 biofuel buses will come into service in the coming years which will be carbon-neutral and powered by human waste. Neither political nor nationalistic considerations countrywide will affect the source of fuel as far as those vehicles are concerned. So there is genuine hope and genuine progress in the industry. I hope that when the buses Bill comes before your Lordships it will enhance, increase and improve that progress.

I congratulate the noble Baroness on initiating this important debate. The bus really is the glue that holds together all the other elements which make up a successful and sustainable community. The importance of local bus services cannot be overstated. Despite the uncertainty which operators are feeling because of the impending legislation, I hope the Government will ensure that whatever measures they bring forward in the bus services Bill will enable the commercial market to continue to thrive and innovate for the benefit of the travelling public. It is them and their future that we ought to be concerned about.

I repeat that I wish the Minister well in the new Session of Parliament; if he is still sitting on the Front Bench then I expect him to bring forward—I have said that twice. I hasten to add that I have no inside information about the Minister’s future. I should say that, if he is still on that Bench in the new Session, I expect that, when he brings forward the buses Bill, he and I, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, perhaps, and other noble Lords on both sides of the Chamber, will spend many happy hours together discussing this. I hope that the conclusions we come to will benefit bus passengers—it is their future, I repeat again, about which we are concerned and it is their future that the buses Bill should concentrate on.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport and Home Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and congratulate her on securing this debate, as have other noble Lords, and thank all noble Lords for their contribution on this important mode of transport. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Snape, for outlining the experience of West Midlands in particular. It would be fair to say that I am very keen, as is the Secretary of State and the department, to see innovative ways in which schemes work, not just in London but beyond. If the noble Lord were to accompany me, I should be delighted, but I look forward to visiting that route and not just hearing about it but experiencing how things are working in the West Midlands.

If I may digress for a moment, I was somewhat perturbed by not just one but two mentions of a possible reshuffle. The noble Lord clearly has his ear closer to the ground than I have; perhaps we should talk outside the Chamber.

[Lord Snape]

In view of the Minister’s invitation for me to accompany him, I assure him that I will put a good word in with the Prime Minister for him.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I thank the noble Lord for his support; I serve, of course, at the Prime Minister’s pleasure.

Returning to the important issue before us, I assure all noble Lords that the Government recognise the importance of buses and the role of public transport more generally for both the sustainability and the independence of communities. Let me say from the outset that we understand the importance of affordable, accessible transport for constituents across England and beyond in Wales and Scotland, through devolved Administrations. We recognise the extra pressures placed on local authorities throughout the country to provide services—particularly, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, in more isolated, rural and remote areas.

Transport is not just about levels of public funding, it is about how and where that funding is used. The Government believe that local authorities are best placed to decide what support to provide in response to the needs of their local communities. For example, where commercial operations are not feasible, local authorities have a vital role in supporting bus services. Indeed, around one-fifth of bus mileage in predominately rural authorities is operated under contract to them. That is why the Government devolved £40 million of the £250 million paid in the BSOG bus subsidy to councils outside London last year to support bus services in England, so they can decide for themselves how it is spent. But it is vital that those authorities maximise the return on every penny of the funding they provide. While there is a lot of innovation and hard work done by councils across the country, there is scope to look into more innovative ways.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on his re-election and his journey for all of us to the hill town of Colne. The route 95 is now very much part of the Hansard record. He also highlighted the importance of using other available sources of funding, such as Section 106 money to ensure that important routes are retained.

On the issue of public funding more generally, at present £2 billion per annum of public funding for transport services is provided by a number of agencies. For example, there is the bus service operators grant, or BSOG, of £250 million currently, paid by the DfT to bus operators, local authorities and community transport organisations on the basis of fuel burnt. Then there is the local bus services support of £317 million per annum, provided by the DCLG for local authority support of socially necessary bus services. There is home-to-school transport of £1 billion per annum, also provided to local authorities by the DCLG, and the non-emergency patient transport of £150 million per annum, provided by the NHS to individual local clinical commissioning groups.

Bus Services: Local Government Funding

Lord Snape Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

It is not. I mentioned the bus service operators grant. In Lancashire, last year, we provided £1.86 million directly for the purposes of retaining services. The Government are looking at the overall offering of bus services, particularly in rural areas, to ensure both connectivity and the sustainability of essential transport links.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, did the Minister happen to see the BBC “Countryfile” programme last Sunday, which set out starkly the decline in bus services throughout this country, particularly in rural areas? Does he agree with the conclusions of that programme that this decline is largely due to the reduction in government payments to local authorities and direct grants for bus services? Can he assure the House that the much-vaunted devolution of these services will be accompanied by proper finance? Otherwise, some of us might suspect, that decline will continue, with the blame moving from Whitehall to the town hall.

Economic Case for HS2 (Economic Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Snape Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, this is to some extent a pretty depressing debate. I did not find the Economic Affairs Committee report to be particularly enlightening, and indeed having listened to the contributions of my noble friends Lord Hollick and Lady Blackstone, I find myself even less enlightened as to why they have come to their conclusions.

Capacity on our railways is not the simplistic concept that the committee appears to believe. The Institution of Railway Operators defines network capacity as:

“The number of trains that can be incorporated into a timetable that is conflict-free, commercially attractive, compliant with regulatory requirements, and can be operated within the laid-down performance targets in the face of prevailing levels of Primary Delay”.

In his opening speech, my noble friend Lord Hollick talked about improving the existing railway as though that would be a solution to the overcrowding that, bizarrely, he appears to think happens only on a Friday afternoon—presumably during the summer. Yet all the evidence shows that, with an increase in traffic of 59% on the west coast main line over the past decade, the existing problems of overcrowding are only going to get worse.

Of course, we are not talking about just passenger-train overcrowding. If we accept the definition of line capacity as laid down by the Institution of Railway Operators, we have to take into account more than just the number of commuter trains. According to the report, commuters are simply dismissed—we should just put up the fares, as we do on aircraft, when things are particularly busy. My noble friend Lord Hollick has the security of sitting, as I do, in the upper House, but I would have thought that knocking on doors with that solution, particularly in commuter areas, would not be too sensible. However, neither he nor I have to do that—in his case, I do not think he ever has—but let me assure him that it is no easy task to convince people that what you are doing is for the public good.

There have been a number of irrelevancies introduced into the debate, not least by the noble Lord, Lord Truscott, who appeared to read every word of what he had to say. He talked about the Midland main line and the trans-Pennine route to a certain extent, as did my noble friend Lord Prescott. They appear to believe that the Economic Affairs Committee report on HS2, indeed the whole construction of HS2, is menacing other parts of the railway system. There was a simple reason, of course, for the electrification teams being switched from the Midland main line and trans-Pennine routes, and from the Manchester to Scotland route, to the Great Western. It was that the Government have been unwise enough to sign a deal with Hitachi for a number of IEP trains, which have to be paid for from the moment of delivery. Of course, electric trains without electric wires are a bit of a drain on the taxpayer, which is why these electrification schemes have been paused. That pause has nothing at all to do with HS2.

Indeed, although the electrification of those schemes has been “paused”, to use the Government’s word, we should not make the mistake of thinking that electrification —the stringing up of wires—is the be-all and end-all of modernising the railway. The fact is the infrastructure on the Midland main line and elsewhere is still being improved prior to electrification, as it should be. Wiring up the existing route is no way to speed up trains, whether or not we have electrification.

Returning to what seems to me the central premise of the committee’s report, I think that my noble friend Lady Blackstone suggested that we need to improve the existing infrastructure and use alternative routes. We were unwise enough as a nation—let us take London to Manchester, for example—to close the alternative routes some years ago under successive Governments, so there is no alternative Midland main line: it finishes at Matlock instead of heading into Manchester. There is no alternative route on the former Great Central, the last main line to be opened in the United Kingdom. That was closed in the 1960s. I would be grateful if my noble friend could tell me what these alternatives are.

The fallacy that it is possible to reduce overcrowding by removing a few first-class coaches is just that. Indeed, Virgin Trains is doing that now on its Pendolinos. What contribution will that make in the long term? It might help reduce overcrowding in the next couple of years, but at the rate of increase of passenger carrying on the west coast main line. It is very much a stop-gap solution.

My noble friend Lady Mallalieu talked about commuters. If they are in the south of England, our hearts bleed for commuters, but if they are on the west coast main line, they are to be dismissed and should pay more, according to the IEA report. Network Rail, however, is already doing a great deal to combat the overcrowding in the south of England. The central core of what was Network Southeast is being improved and resignalled at the present time. London Bridge is being completely redesigned—you cannot do that without causing a few raised eyebrows and some complaints, but that is what is happening.

None of these irrelevancies has anything to with HS2. The fact is that the west coast main line is overcrowded with trains. I was bemused that the committee prays in aid Professor Glaister—he is a man who likes building roads, incidentally, although that is not necessarily to his detriment. On the Department for Transport’s own figures, only 1.2 passengers are found in each motor car, yet we do not build motorways on the basis of the number of passengers. We build motorways on the basis of congestion caused by those 1.2 drivers and occupants, which the department says is the average occupancy of a motor car. I think, therefore, you can put Professor Glaister’s views to one side. He is no friend of the railway system. I have no doubt that he will come up with the conclusion that he wanted in the first place.

There is a problem, of course, about HS3. My noble friend Lord Prescott wants to see it go ahead; I want to know where it is going. So far it is a sentiment expressed during the election campaign. Is it between Manchester and Leeds? Is it between Liverpool and Manchester? Is it between Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds? If it is all those—and Hull as well, as I had better put that in for my noble friend’s sake—which of the existing routes is going to form part of it, or is it going to be a completely new route? Are we to reopen the Woodhead Tunnel, which was closed in 1970? We do not know. All we have is a slogan from the Government on HS3 and the northern powerhouse. At the moment it is a powerhouse where the power has been switched off.

I shall conclude because of the time factor. However, my advice to my noble friend Lord Hollick and his colleagues is, “Back to the abacus”.

North of England: Transport

Lord Snape Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, like the previous speaker, I, too, was born and brought up in the north of England, although I suspect in somewhat different circumstances. Like my father, I spent my working life in the railway industry in the north of England, so I shall confine my remarks to the railway infrastructure in that part of the world and particularly to the two franchises, both of which have been mentioned in this debate—the Northern franchise and the First TransPennine Express franchise.

I have never really understood why the two franchises are separate. They were lumped together in one franchise prior to the Strategic Rail Authority deciding to split them around 2000. I have always been against franchises such as Northern, dependent as it is solely on subsidy. It is all too easy, as experience has shown, to point the finger at such franchises and say that too much money is expended on them. I go back to British Rail days when, under sectorisation in the mid-1980s, services that could not find a place anywhere else under PTE areas—and reference to this has already been made—were lumped into other provincial services. They were seen as ready targets for reductions in expenditure, because their continuance depended entirely on public subvention and money from the Treasury.

I would personally much have preferred the two franchises to be kept together. Indeed, from the point of view of the non-duplication of head office and managerial positions, it would surely be more sensible to have kept them together. However, separate as they are, the invitations to tender for the TPE franchise had to be submitted to the Department for Transport by 28 May and for the Northern franchise by 26 June. During the course of these debates, we have said on both sides of your Lordships’ House that the Department for Transport is occasionally too prescriptive about its requirements for railway rolling stock and locomotives. It is interesting to note that the invitations for tender insist on the tenders being submitted in the “prescribed font”, which is 11 or 13-point Arial, whatever that may be. It goes to show that nothing escapes the eagle eye of the department when it comes to franchising and submitting tenders for these franchises.

We expect a decision later this year on both those franchises, and I would like to ask the Minister early in my speech if he could give us any information as to whether that decision is likely to be made. After all, the franchises will commence next year, and the sooner we know to whom the awards have gone, the better. It is also interesting to see the short list of bidders. For the Northern franchise, the three bidders are Abellio, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Dutch railways; Arriva Rail North, a wholly owned subsidy of Deutsche Bahn, the German railways; and Govia, which is at least 65% owned by a British company, Go-Ahead, but 35% owned by Keolis, which is responsible for much of the operation of SNCF, the French railways. It is remarkable that companies and nationalised industries from other parts of the world are deemed fit to run Britain’s railway lines, yet our own public sector was recently deprived of the opportunity to continue to run the east coast main line.

The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, was fairly scathing about his experiences on the TransPennine Express. I cannot say that I have shared those experiences, doubtful as he found them. If they were and are regarded as the cream of the long-distance commuter services in the north of England, perhaps he caught them on a bad day. I cannot say I share his views about the removal of roundabouts on Britain’s major roads. I remember pictures of him astride a motorcycle in, I think, one of the Sunday colour magazines. In those days, he used to burn his way up and down from London to his constituency. I hope I do not cause him any distress when I say that the sight of him in black leather was somewhat disturbing, and I hope I do not cause him any offence by saying that the sight of his good lady wife in black leather was a lot more alluring.

The electrification of the trans-Pennine line appears to be in some doubt. My noble friends Lord Woolmer and Lord Faulkner and the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland, had harsh words to say about the likely delay in electrification. I think the Minister owes us an explanation about how long the delay is likely to be. “Indefinite” is a pretty ominous word. It has ominous connotations for the franchise bidders. What sort of rolling stock are they going to have to provide for trans-Pennine services if electrification is indeed delayed indefinitely? Electric trains without overhead wires will not take passengers very far, and there is a problem about ordering new diesel multiple units. For a start, there are very few being built at present, and I understand that none of those in service meets European emission standards, yet here we are embarking on the letting of two major franchises in the north of England with no real idea about what sort of rolling stock can and will be used on them.

Although we are all heartened to hear the Minister’s opening speech and how wonderful life is going to be for those of us who travel by train in the north of England, I think we are entitled to ask him what sort of trains we will have. Reference has been made to Pacer trains. The Government have left us in no doubt—indeed, the Prime Minister has left us in no doubt—that there is no future for Pacer trains. A junior Minister recently referred to the need for new diesel trains in the north of England. For too long, those of us who have used trains in that part of the world have had to suffer cast-offs—I can put it no higher than that—cascaded trains from the south of England. When the newly electrified line between Manchester and Liverpool was opened recently, the class 319 electric multiple units that were used were 25 to 30 years old. They had been refurbished and came from the south of England. Imagine the enormous row there would be if we decided to dispatch a shedful of Pacers to the south of England and invited Ministers and civil servants based in the south of England—indeed, the commuters of Wimbledon, perhaps—to ride on those somewhat uncomfortable nodding donkeys, as they are known. Joking aside, the fact that class 170 DMUs were removed from the trans-Pennine franchise and dispatched to Chiltern Railways to be used between Marylebone and Banbury does not augur well for the prospect of new trains in the north of England.

I shall refer to a couple of other matters in the last 60 seconds or so of what I have to say. There is a great deal of concern about the future of ticket offices in the north of England. People, particularly women, understandably do not like travelling through unmanned stations, particularly at night. As one of my noble friends said in an earlier debate, there is no recorded instance of a ticket machine ever coming to the aid of a passenger in distress on a railway station. The Government should not be proud of the destaffing and dehumanising of our railway stations. There was a similar story with the driver-only operation of trains, which, again, is in the specification for the franchise for the Northern region. Although DOO is by no means unknown, the rail unions have let it be known that without proper negotiation they will not be prepared to accept its imposition. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what plans the department has to see that it takes rail staff with it in the attempt to re-let the franchise in the north of England.

I conclude by wishing the Minister well. As my noble friend said, it was refreshing to hear him at the Dispatch Box. My noble friend Lord Faulkner paid tribute to some of his predecessors, but he missed out the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. What I always found refreshing about the noble Earl was that if you asked him a question and he did not know the answer, he told you that he did not know it. In the macho world of politics that is refreshingly different. He always made a point of writing to noble Lords on either side of the Chamber subsequently to answer their questions. I commend that approach to the Minister; we do not expect a whole string of answers to those questions at the end of the debate, but we do expect an answer in a reasonable time, otherwise all those honeyed words he has heard today might not last throughout his career.

Hillsborough

Lord Snape Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

You can rely on your noble friends, particularly your former colleague as the Minister of Justice, to tackle you on this subject. I am not a lawyer but I assume that the Queen’s court—the coroner’s court—has the power to seek all evidence. Its needs are the most important aspect of the inquiry while the coroner’s investigations continue. Clearly, information will be made available to the coroner’s court or discovered through the coroner’s inquiry that will inform investigations by other bodies. I would hope that that would be the case because the whole point of the inquest is to establish the truth about those 96 deaths, as well as to help clear the obfuscation that has long surrounded this issue.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister accept from me, as a former chairman of a—sadly—former Football League club, that the attitude of the police a quarter of a century ago towards the Liverpool supporters was coloured at least partly by the fact that there was a strong belief then that those who watched football were somehow less worthy of the sort of policing that most members of the public would accept—that football supporters were there to be marched and corralled and generally to be poorly treated by police officers from a senior level downwards? Will he also accept from me that, regrettably, these days that sort of attitude persists in certain aspects of policing towards those wishing to do no more than go and watch a football match?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Amazingly enough, as somebody who has an interesting life, I have relatively limited experience of attending first-class football matches. However, in fact I went to see Arsenal play Wigan in the final home game of last season. I have to say that I found it a really delightful experience and I saw none of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, has suggested. The policing was discreet and the stewards were in place but working with people rather than against them, and I think that that characterises it—it certainly characterises other sporting events that I have been to. However, I shall have to ask the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, what it was like to go to a football match 25 years ago, and he will be able to tell me of the change there has been in recent years. I am sure he would vouch for the fact that there has been considerable change both in policing and in the way that crowds, who in most cases are now seated in purpose-built stadia, are treated. It is to be hoped that, because of those measures, there will not be a repetition of what happened at Hillsborough.

Alcohol: Minimum Pricing

Lord Snape Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am sorry if my noble friend finds these matters hard to understand and measure. That is one of the reasons why we are mounting this consultation. It depends what my noble friend drinks, but he might be aware that it is possible to buy a can of lager in a supermarket for as little as 20 pence, or a 2 litre bottle of cider for as little as £1.69. We think that those sorts of prices, charged particularly in the off-trade, are encouraging drinking that can lead to very severe anti-social behaviour. That is why we think it is important to look at the possibilities of a minimum unit price and consult on the appropriate level.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the main beneficiary of the Government’s proposals for unit pricing will be the drinks retailers? Does he agree that the issue of excessive drinking involves all social classes in the United Kingdom? Could he perhaps tell the House how doubling the price of White Lightning in supermarkets would affect the activities of organisations such as the Bullingdon Club?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I accept that it is possible that a minimum unit price could lead to extra profits for the retail industry, particularly for the supermarkets, but I am sure that they will find other ways to compete. We do not think it is right that they should be competing by means of low-priced alcohol that leads to the disorder of the sort we discussed earlier.