Defence Funding

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Thursday 16th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government have published figures in accordance with the OBR forecasting period, which sets out exactly how this uplift will be met. The OBR forecast goes out to 2028-29, and obviously the uplift goes out further than that. For example, in 2028-29 there will be an extra £4.5 billion, which will be met through an increase of £1.6 billion in R&D spending and £2.9 billion from reducing headcount in the Civil Service to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Can the Minister reassure us that it is the Treasury’s view that an increase in defence expenditure to 2.5% of GDP is compatible with the promise of further tax cuts, without further cuts in other public spending areas?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I can assure the noble Lord that this has no impact on our ambition to further cut taxes in future. We want to end the unfairness of double taxation of work—we have cut employees’ national insurance contributions by a third—so we do not see that this is incompatible.

Network Rail: Ely Area Capacity Enhancement Programme

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not sure that I am able to update the House on when the consultation will be done, but the Government of course remain committed to East West Rail. I will write to my noble friend.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, on a previous occasion the Minister promised improvements that would provide for the second of the two lines between Leeds and Bradford to be upgraded to a point where one could get from Leeds to Bradford in 10 to 12 minutes. I am advised that that is impossible unless there is very extensive reorganisation of the western approaches to Leeds station. I note the priority now being given to the Oxford-Cambridge line; I simply re-emphasise that, unless the various trans-Pennine links are substantially improved, we will not begin to get any sort of levelling up in the central cities of the north.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government are incredibly ambitious when it comes to investment in the north and the Midlands. As the noble Lord will know, we have the Northern Powerhouse Rail programme and we are taking forward all sorts of different schemes in the area.

Railways: Trans-Pennine Express

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend has hit the nail on the head. It is likely that any noble Lord will get there and get back on time, unless there is a strike.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, could the Minister persuade the Prime Minister to use the railways himself a little bit more often? We know that he flies around the country rather a lot. I think if he were to do so, particularly in visiting his constituency, then services to Northallerton and Thirsk would improve very considerably.

South West Rail Resilience Programme

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Monday 22nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I do not accept the latter point. We have invested £165 million to date, and of course some of that was to ensure the resilience of the seawall itself. Other elements of that funding went into cliff protection measures. This final section of cliff protection measures is highly complicated and there has been some local reluctance around the plans that Network Rail originally put forward. That is why it has had to go back to the drawing board. At this stage we do not know the scope of the works or the costs, and therefore it is impossible to speak further about the funding.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister refers to keeping within the funding envelope. Is there any connection between the Government’s determination to cut taxes before the next election and the refusal to provide additional long-term funding for long-term investment? As a Government concerned with the national interest, should they not be more concerned with long-term investment than the short-term political advantage that a tax cut might provide before the next election?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government are always cognisant that we must provide value for money to the taxpayer. As I outlined in a previous answer, the amount of funding going into our railways is going up. We are very cognisant of the impact of that increased funding and the sorts of deliverables that we want to see out of it. I assure the noble Lord that the rail network enhancements pipeline, or RNEP, will include some of those enhancements and will be published soon.

Global Britain: Traffic

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Monday 15th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I absolutely encourage the noble Lord to speak to his friend and colleague who currently holds the mayoralty for London. It is up to him to think about how that balance is achieved. I agree that there are challenges with regard to economic activity for those people who need to use the roads, and that is why the balance of transport is so important—and I believe that more can be done.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I entirely welcome what the Minister has said about the high quality of public transport in Greater London. A similar quality for the north of England—an Elizabeth line between Manchester and Leeds, for example—would transform the economy of the north. Is that among the Government’s priorities for a long-term strategy for levelling up in the country?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

That is slightly beyond the scope of the Question. Obviously, the Government are committed to the integrated rail plan for the north, and the noble Lord will know that we are investing £5.7 billion under the CRSTS for sustainable transport schemes in many of our major cities.

Integrated Rail Plan: North and Midlands

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I hope that we are able to prove the noble Lord, Lord Snape, wrong in that regard. Obviously, we have done a significant amount of work on this and we believe it can be done. In terms of the fact that we have previously been advocating for a different style of network, I do not see that is a particular issue. Sometimes when the facts change, you have to change what you are proposing. The issue here is: do we have endless amounts of money? No, we do not. Can we deliver very good improvements to service for just under half the amount of money? I think we can. The other thing is that we can use the money we are not spending for other vital investments, so it is not such that that money is suddenly disappearing.

The noble Lord talked about capacity, and this is a really important point: the capacity constraints on the west coast main line are far greater than on the east coast main line. We will be able to get capacity improvements on the east coast mainline. It is far more important that we improve capacity on the west coast main line, which is why we have developed the plans that we have.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, Bradford does not come out very well, or have any joy, from this. I was very unhappy with the way in which the Minister answered questions on Thursday; I thought she was condescending to the House, which was inappropriate. I am glad that she is now engaging with the reasoned arguments others are making.

There are a number of inaccuracies in this paper. It refers to “introducing” an electrified line from Leeds to Bradford—but I travel on an electrified line from Leeds to the north of Bradford most weekends. It also refers to “electrifying” the Leeds to York section. I happened to travel on that on Monday of last week and the gantries for the electric wires are already up—so I suspect that the investment for that has already been made and it is not new money. So I puzzle over the accuracy of some of what is being said.

I ask, however, about capacity across the Pennines, because clearly the biggest cost of the new line from Leeds to Manchester via Bradford would have been the tunnel through the Pennines. The capacity across the Pennines is extremely tight and, unless one doubles the Standedge tunnel, you are going to have a choke point on upgrading the line between Leeds and Manchester via Huddersfield. Do the Government intend to double the Standedge tunnel, or would they consider that?

A cost-benefit analysis of the Calder Valley and north-east Lancashire—the latter being one of the poorest areas in England—would show that a more northerly line between Leeds and Manchester would spread benefits economically in a way which upgrading the current line simply will not do.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Well, I am very happy to write to the noble Lord on the detail of his question, as I am not well versed on the tunnels et cetera in the area to which he referred. I apologise if he felt that I was condescending to the House on Thursday. It is, of course, always very funny to be asked lots of questions based on the media rather than the actual documents, which had not been published at that time—and of course the questions were about upgrading, and I could not answer them. Maybe the noble Baroness had read the documents, but I had not, so I could not answer.

Bradford will benefit from electrification of the line to Leeds, and improved journey times will mean that you can get from Bradford to Leeds in 12 minutes—that is quite some distance in 12 minutes. I wish I could get that far in London. So it will benefit, and I think that we will look at various other projects as well. Part of the whole issue we are looking is the core pipeline work, which is set out in the Integrated Rail Plan, but we will look at any other scheme and service that will offer further improvements. This is exactly what the National Infrastructure Commission suggested that we do. This is the Integrated Rail Plan, and this is the core pipeline of work and, if noble Lords have suggestions for other schemes that would be affordable, would further improve our ability to improve services, and would be deliverable, I would really appreciate it if noble Lords would forward them to us.

Air Accident Investigation

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Monday 10th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am delighted that the noble Lord has made the connection between my two workstreams of the day. However, I deny that there is a lack of enforcement. We have a very good safety record in this country, and part of that is due to the fantastic work that the AAIB does in investigating accidents and promoting action to prevent recurrence.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I understand from reading the press that a large number of private aircraft operated in British skies are registered in the Isle of Man. Is that a tax avoidance scheme which the British Government do nothing about? If so, would I be allowed to register my car in the Isle of Man for the same reason?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am afraid that I am unable to answer the noble Lord’s question about the motivations of people wanting to register their aircraft in the Isle of Man. Anything related to a potential general aviation safety issue will certainly be covered in the review.

Railways: Trans-Pennine Freight

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Baroness Vere of Norbiton

Monday 7th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank my noble friend for raising further questions around HS2. She referred to HS3, which is known to most noble Lords as Northern Powerhouse Rail. It is an incredibly important, complicated and extensive project. It works closely with the trans-Pennine route upgrade, and indeed with HS2. The Government have already committed £60 million of funding to Transport for the North to develop the proposals and a further £300 million to ensure that HS2 can accommodate Northern Powerhouse Rail. As she made clear, Northern Powerhouse Rail could bring huge benefits.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, some weeks ago, I asked someone from Transport for the North where they could find extra freight rail capacity between Liverpool and Hull. The answer was that they had identified that, if you took container traffic through Daventry, you could take it from Liverpool to Hull; that is an interesting diversion. Meanwhile, freight container traffic goes along the M62, which becomes even more crowded. Can we therefore raise the awareness and importance of increasing freight paths on rail through the north of England without having to go via either Scotland or the southern Midlands?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

We are deeply aware that there are a number of freight routes for rail and are doing what we can to improve their usage. For example, I am not sure whether the noble Lord is aware of the W7A gauge clearance project, which is going on at the moment. We are building a business case with industry to develop a W7A gauge clearance which would run along the trans-Pennine rail route via Huddersfield and Stalybridge. I hope that meets with his approval. If there is a positive business case, we will proceed with it forthwith; it could be in place by late 2020.