Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Debate between Lord Tope and Lord Lucas

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 5th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I support the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and others in this group. Local transport authorities ought to be able to deal with particular problems that arise.

We have a problem in Eastbourne, surprisingly enough, with high levels of particulates—seemingly related to the geography of the place. The local authority therefore wishes that we should be able to reduce them. We do not have a motorway. My noble friend Lord Young said that service centres had not yet been defined. I should be interested to know how the Government are thinking of defining service centres. In Eastbourne and, I should think, most metropolitan areas, we have a petrol station as part of a large, shared area where there is a lot of parking and a lot of other retail. Will this be defined as a service centre? It is as close as we get to a service centre. That would enable the benefits of Clause 10 to extend to an area such as ours and, if the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is accepted, we might even get the full benefits of Clause 10. As that is clearly a direction in which our community wishes to move, I would very much like the Bill to give it the power to do so.

[Lord Tope (LD)]

My Lords, I need to begin by declaring an interest that I did not have in Committee, because I think that this morning I was elected co-president of London Councils. No one has confirmed that yet and, as a Liberal Democrat, I know only too well not to take things for granted but, just in case I was successful in an unopposed election, I declare an interest as co-president of London Councils.

When we debated this in Committee, there was considerable concern about the apparent slow progress of London boroughs in acting on rapid charging units. It is therefore only fair that I put on record a response, although I do not want to dwell on it. I am told:

“The TfL transformation has impacted heavily on their ability to engage efficiently and consistently with the London boroughs and other stakeholders. We have been told by a number of boroughs that they had identified and submitted numerous locations for rapid charging points to TfL, only for the engagement to end, in some cases for months, with little or no information provided to the borough on whether the plans are progressing. In many cases local authorities have done all that is necessary and are waiting for TfL to complete the installation”.


I thought it was fair to put that on record, but I really do not want to get into the blame game—none of us do; we want rapid progress to rapid charging points. To that end, now that the London borough elections are out of the way as well, I am pleased to know that discussions have taken place and continue to take place between the GLA, TfL and London Councils. I think that I mentioned in Committee that London Councils had already established a sub-group of members to deal rapidly with these issues, and I am pleased to say that that is now progressing. As a consequence, I understand, TfL has said that it will not pursue its wish for permitted development rights—and that is welcome to the boroughs and to me, having had some considerable experience as a member of the GLA and as a London borough councillor. So far, all that is good.

I turn to Amendment 29. I seek clarification; I think that I understood the Minister in moving the amendment to say that the government intention was that it would apply only to large fuel retailers and service area operators—and the Minister nods in agreement with that statement. That is not what the amendment actually says. It could certainly be interpreted—and indeed I think that it says this—as relating to all roads in the key route network. Anyone reading the Bill would take that as applying to all roads in the key route network—and, indeed, the other amendments apply it to all other roads. I understand that the Government intend to come back with a further amendment on that.

I think that the Minister has clarified this issue in moving the amendment and in nodding in assent to my interpretation of it. However, if the Government are bringing back further amendments in respect of what is before us—Amendments 30A, 31 and 33A—would it not be better also to take back Amendment 29 and rewrite it clarifying what the Government want it to mean: that it applies specifically to those two areas, to area operators and large fuel retailers, rather than to all roads on the route network? That seems to me a very sensible thing to do, given that we are going to come back to the issue anyway at Third Reading next week.

Those are my points. I went through in Committee at some stage as to why it is not a good idea to give metro mayors the power over things which, certainly in London’s case, are properly the matter for the borough councils as both parking authorities and highway authorities. I do not need to repeat that; I could give many instances of how that has not worked and does not work—but I hope that we are not going to go down that route and that TfL is not going to pursue that route, as I hope is nobody else. When we come back to Third Reading, I hope that the Government will bring before us amendments that make the situation absolutely clear, and we can progress to actually getting on and installing rapid charging points.