High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Snape and Lord Young of Norwood Green

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

No, I am not going to because I have just remembered that Peers are allowed only one contribution on an amendment.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, I am not quite sure whether I can help the noble Baroness. I asked the same question about a mined tunnel in Committee and the noble Viscount, Lord Astor, explained it all to me. The problem is that I have forgotten the explanation. It sounded very plausible at the time. I am sure if the noble Baroness consults her noble friend she will get all the details of what should be done.

I listened to the noble Baroness who spoke earlier from the Conservative Benches. She made a fleeting appearance in Committee and said pretty much the same thing; I hope she will forgive me for saying so. I do not think emotive language about a two-track railway destroying the countryside takes this House or this debate any further forward. What did she say: “Just another 8.7 kilometres of tunnel”? That is in addition to the 47 kilometres of tunnel out of the 210 kilometres of the high-speed railway line. This is expensive lunacy in my view. I make a plea again on behalf of those who travel by train. People do not travel by train to gaze at a tunnel wall. Some of the semi-hysterical comments—I exempt my noble friend Lord Stevenson, he will be relieved to know—about the damage that the railway line will do to the Chilterns are just that, sheer hysteria. They were all made 30 years ago at the time of High Speed 1 across Kent, and none of it proved true then. Indeed, the economy of Kent has benefited enormously from High Speed 1.

The secondary point—the great unmentionable in this debate on the demand for tunnels—is of course that some people making these points about additional tunnelling do so on the grounds that there is no benefit from high-speed rail passing through the Chilterns to those who live there because there are not any stations. Well, there may be at some time in the future, as we have heard. Again, I exempt my noble friend from that; he is my Whip and I had better tread carefully. Once you get out of London, the M40 passes through the Chilterns without a mile of tunnel. Has that motorway destroyed that part of the world? I do not think it has. My noble friend nods his head but I do not think most people agree. Mind you, of course many of them use the M40 and that they are not going to be able to use the train is behind a great deal of the opposition, in my view. I hope that the Minister resists temptation. Whether it is cheaper to build a mined tunnel or go ahead with the existing proposals, as the Select Committee recommended, I know not. Nobody could have worked harder than the committee to look at those objections. I think there is quite sufficient tunnelling already so far as this high-speed railway is concerned, much of it expensive and unnecessary.

High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Snape and Lord Young of Norwood Green

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Lords & Report stage: House of Lords
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Snape]

I am rather sorry I got involved in this whole thing now. I make one plea on behalf of the train passengers, who will pay a substantial amount and a bit more besides as a premium. Part of the pleasure of taking a train journey is looking out of the windows. This obsession with tunnelling everywhere through the Chilterns means we will perhaps be denied the sight of my noble friend galloping across the rolling hills of the Chilterns in pursuit of the uneatable. Surely these are sights that people enjoy when travelling by train. Rather than confine train passengers in tunnels for miles on end, would not the noble Viscount be satisfied with some sort of noise barrier, rather than insisting that train passengers on this proposed high-speed line spend their lives in semi-darkness to avoid my noble friend and her colleagues?

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I hesitate to come into this debate, but I confirmed with my colleagues that I was not suffering from post-traumatic High Speed 2 Select Committee delusion. We spent an inordinate amount of time, quite rightly, looking at possible alternatives and at costings. We did not just take the promoter’s word for it. Whenever it put up its experts we looked at whether we could ascertain whether there was an independent corroboration of the costings. Indeed, the Minister confirmed that this was the case earlier when he talked about the possible tunnelling in the Colne Valley area. That was independently assessed. It was proved that the promoter’s costings were right. There were not any savings to be made, although there were lots of assertions that there were savings to be made.

I appreciate the thanks we have had for the amount of time we spent. There were times when I remembered the old Army adage, “Never volunteer”, but, despite that, for the most part we enjoyed it because it was expertly chaired. We ought to pay tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, who carried out the task, in our collective view, skilfully and carefully.

On the final point in Amendment 7, there are no heavy goods vehicles going through Wendover. It was asserted on many occasions that there are alternative routes. Like my noble friend Lord Adonis, I am not trying to pretend that this project will not cause problems in its impact during the construction phase, but we at least ought to be accurate if we are putting down an amendment. I hope that that has helped noble Lords.

Enterprise Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Snape and Lord Young of Norwood Green

Monday 2nd November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

It would be helpful to me and perhaps to the Committee if the Minister would indicate whether she intends to refer to the matter arising from the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on which I congratulate him. It is not often that I find myself agreeing with much of what the noble Lord says. Perhaps I may say that I consider him to be on the more progressive side in these matters. After all, we sparred on a Bill earlier this year when he defended resolutely and ably the brewers and their incentives. To find him now speaking in such a progressive manner, albeit on behalf of the Engineering Employers’ Federation, is a pleasant occurrence. Arising from the noble Lord’s amendment, it would be helpful if the Minister could indicate whether she will speak about the quality of apprenticeships on this amendment or, as I suspect, on the next group. My response depends on her further response to the noble Lord on this group.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I support the intention of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. I will not damn it with faint praise or criticism of previous actions. That has already been done by my noble friend.

[Lord Snape]

To be fair, I was praising wholeheartedly the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. I do not think my noble friend should dilute my praise in that manner.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

Perish the thought: my humble apologies to my noble friend. I welcome this, perhaps because I had anticipated this debate. The Minister indicated that she would be dealing with quality, so I presume that this is the occasion on which she will deal with it. In the debate on the statutory instrument, I raised the issue of the Ofsted report quoted in the Times, which states:

“Some apprentices were not aware that they were classed as such, while others did not receive broader training or support to improve their English and maths. In the retail, catering and care industries, inspectors found apprentices cleaning floors, making coffee or serving sandwiches. Other employers used apprenticeships—which are wholly government-funded for those aged 16 to 18 and part-funded for older apprentices—to accredit the existing skills of their staff, Ofsted said. Sir Michael will tell business leaders in the West Midlands”,

where this survey took place,

“that employers, teachers and training providers are among the ‘guilty parties’ who must improve. ‘The fact that only 5 per cent of our youngsters go into an apprenticeship at 16 is little short of a disaster,’ he will say”.

That is a really serious and worrying criticism given the number of apprenticeships in the areas that he described.

The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, gave us a letter today. I have had a chance only to skim through it and think about whether it really does give an assurance that quality will be capable of being achieved in the drive to increase by a significant amount the number of apprenticeships. In the letter he says:

“An ‘approved English apprenticeship agreement’ carries the status of a contract of service. That means that employment and health and safety laws apply. The apprenticeship agreement confirms that the apprentice is undertaking an apprenticeship and specifies the standard they are working towards completing”.

That is good. I will not quote everything in the letter, but he then says:

“In addition to this, we have also introduced a new ‘Statement of Commitment’ which is signed by the employer, training provider and apprentice and sets out the key expectations, roles and responsibilities of each party involved in the apprenticeship and complements the approved English apprenticeship agreement”.

That is okay. However, what I really wanted to know was how we are going to check that, though they may have signed these agreements, they are actually delivering what they say they will. He said:

“In addition, the Skills Funding Agency … runs the apprenticeships helpline which was given an expanded remit in the summer, enabling anyone involved in an apprenticeship—not just the apprentice—to raise concerns about any element of how the apprenticeship is being delivered”.

The next sentence I found really interesting and I would welcome a comment from the Minister:

“The SFA have rigorous checks in place and have embarked on a programme of staff training to ensure that these issues are dealt with effectively”.

What exactly does that mean? There are an awful lot of apprenticeships going on. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, talked about mystery shoppers. I do not know whether the SFA will be the mystery shoppers, but a serious point is being raised. How are we going to ensure a number of things: that the quality of an apprenticeship is actually being delivered as per the contract, and that the training provider, in allocating a young person to an employer, is confident that that employer has a track record of delivering apprenticeships? How will we ensure that it is a safe working environment? I raised this issue previously. We had the appalling situation, I think just over a year or so ago, where a young apprentice went to work in the morning and never returned home—they died in an appalling workplace environment. Are we serious about enhancing the status of apprenticeships and ensuring that parents feel confident about the quality of apprenticeships?

The comment in the letter:

“The SFA have rigorous checks in place and have embarked on a programme of staff training to ensure that these issues are dealt with effectively”,

refers back to a point raised by my noble friend Lady Corston, who is not currently in the Room. She talked about young people employed for very short periods of time in what purported to be an apprenticeship but clearly was not. I have not heard of any periods as short as that, but certainly the Government declared that they would not support apprenticeships being described as such if they were for less than a year, which most people would say is about as short as one could get for an apprenticeship. Some might express concern that the period of time ought to be longer. However, my concern is whether the Skills Funding Agency will be able to deliver for the Government in terms of ensuring that there is real quality in apprenticeships.