Bus Improvement Plans

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, we committed to £3 billion of new spend over the course of this Parliament, and that is what we will deliver. In addition, the noble Lord will recall that my noble friend Lord McLoughlin asked a question about other parts of funding within the system. There will be a letter in the Library, which I will also share with noble Lords who have spoken in today’s debate, setting out exactly all the different funding streams available for buses. They are significant. Some are very long standing, some came from Covid and others will be part of the funding from BSIPs and CRSTSs, et cetera.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, noble Lords have asked about how the Government are to allocate resources to the different regions. Given that this seems to be done in some mysterious way that bears no resemblance to need or the levelling-up agenda, can the Minister say exactly how allocations will be made under this funding?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Yes, I can. There will be probably three different tranches of funding. Some areas—those that produced the best BSIPs, matching all the stated outcomes set out in the national bus strategy—will get transformation funding. A second tranche of local authorities will go into the improvement category, whereby they are on their way to preparing the sort of BSIPs that take into account all the outcomes from the NBS. Other areas will probably need more support, in terms of capability and capacity, so that they can fully understand how buses can meet the needs of their communities. We understand that no place must be left behind. We hope to provide support to areas where the BSIPs are not fully developed but where there is huge potential to do so.

Bus Services: Covid-19 Emergency Funding

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

I am not sure of the latest figures, but it used to be that something like 70% of the funding for buses came from the public purse. Is it not time that we regulated the buses again to make sure that the taxpayer gets value for money?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

To a certain extent, I think that is what we are doing, but perhaps not in the way that the noble Lord would expect. The requirement that we set out in the national bus strategy is that every single local transport authority has to have an enhanced partnership, which brings together the right people—the bus operators and local authorities. Managing it from Whitehall is definitely not going to work, but managing it from a local authority level, where local authorities can provide local services for local people in collaboration with bus operators, is what we are hoping to see. We know that the enhanced partnerships will be available in the early part of this year.

Electric Vehicle Charge Points

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I apologise to my noble friend—I was not aware that Westminster did not charge. That may be an anomaly and not something that can go on for ever.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

How difficult would it be to adapt street lights to be charging points?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord is stretching my technical knowledge at this point. I am sure that those things are being considered. Obviously, the Government are working closely with the industry on the design of charging points, because we want to make sure that they are accessible and do not obstruct the pavement—and we have seen much innovation in the area.

Hammersmith Bridge

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I cannot answer that question, because I have not received a proposal. At the moment, the costs for repairing the bridge are estimated to be £120 million but this is a very early stage of the process. We should recognise that TfL has already stepped up to the plate and committed £25 million to make sure that the early work can start. It is its intention to go to award of contracts for the next stage in the spring.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister was in charge of this area of responsibility when he was Mayor of London. How much did he put aside for the repair of this bridge?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am afraid I cannot answer that question because that was many years ago. If I can find out any information, I will write to the noble Lord.

Brexit: British Airlines

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

I reassure my noble friend that we are speaking to airlines regularly and keeping them updated on the progress of the regulations. Of course, they are following them in detail. There will be no effect on non-EU international travel; we have 111 bilateral agreements with third countries and those will continue. We are doing what we can to mitigate any disruption that we might foresee. We do not expect there to be much disruption, assuming that the regulations pass as we expect. There may be some issues at EU airports given some changes to passport checks, but we are working very closely with those airports to ensure that we minimise disruption.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not the case that this is only a 12-month deal and it will cover only the routes that currently exist? It means that British airlines will not be able to develop new routes during that period.

[Baroness Sugg]

There was in the original regulation a proposal for a fixed cap at 2018 levels. I am pleased to say that that is no longer the case, so there is no restriction on growth. The noble Lord is quite right that the regulation is only temporary. Overall, we continue to believe that liberal reciprocal market access is in the best interests of the EU and the UK. Should we leave without a deal, we will move swiftly to propose negotiations on that basis.

HS2: Electricity Supply

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness that we have to ensure that the project is good value, because £55.7 billion is a lot of money. The full business case is planned for later this year, and that will reassess the phase 1 scheme against the standard business-case criteria. That business case will provide an updated benefit-cost ratio for the phase 1 scheme.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, when are the Government going to kill this white elephant off and switch the funding to rail schemes around the country that are starved of investment?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, if I have not made it clear already, we are committed to HS2. As well as the £55.7 billion investment we are making in HS2, we are spending record amounts on the rest of our railways— £48 billion over the next five years.

Transport: Freight Services

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Lord raises an interesting point. Of course we want to maximise the capacity on our routes for both passengers and freight. As the noble Lord will be well aware, timetabling is very complex and I do not profess to be an expert in it. Network Rail leads on the technical aspects of this but I would be very happy to arrange a meeting with the noble Lord.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, if the Government are to give the regions the opportunity to make these decisions, would it not be sensible to ring-fence funding for all the regions so that they can spend that money?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as I said, we absolutely are consulting Transport for the North on our funding, and we have committed that £2.9 billion to the trans-Pennine routes upgrade, which is the largest investment in existing railways at the moment. Obviously, the rail system is complex, crossing all parts of the country, and it is important that we co-ordinate it centrally, but we listen to the needs of people in the areas where we are making the investment.

Railways: East Coast Main Line

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

There are some issues with trains to Scotland at the moment, so I am afraid that I am unable to give that guarantee. We are working very closely with the Scottish Government to deliver that.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, how can the Secretary of State keep his job? What has happened to ministerial accountability for this shambles?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we are overseeing, as I have said many times, record investment in our railways: £48 billion over 2019 to 2024. Obviously, with all these improvements, that has given us challenges, but we should not lose sight of the benefits that are being seen through this investment. The Azuma trains alone will have 15% greater capacity, and once the full fleet is in service they will deliver a 28% increase in morning peak services. There will be improvements in accessibility, and they will be more reliable, with more storage room. That is what we should aim for.

Railways: Fares

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I certainly do not want to predict what my right honourable friend will say in the Budget shortly but we are well aware that rail fares take a large part of people’s income. That is why we are capping fares in line with RPI for the sixth year running. We want to see fares linked with CPI in future but we do not think it is fair to ask people who do not use trains to pay more than those who do. Taxpayers already subsidise the network by more than £4 billion a year, meaning that 54% of our transport budget is spent on the 2% of journeys that the railway accounts for.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government say that they have cheap rail tickets for young people and for old people. What about the hard-pressed people who are trying to get to work and paying extortionate rail fares?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we all want to see a fares system that delivers tickets at a reasonable price for everyone. The noble Lord rightly highlights the 26-30 railcard and the discounts for older people. We are looking at how we can make fares fairer. The Rail Delivery Group recently consulted on easier fares, looking at fare structures and ticketing to simplify things for passengers; it received over 20,000 responses and is currently analysing those findings. We look forward to seeing its report.

New Cars: Sales

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I entirely agree that we must work across many departments and get much advice on this. At the end of May, we published our clean air strategy, which aims to cut all forms of air pollution, not just transport emissions. It set out a wide range of actions that the Government are taking. We are working with the organisations the noble Lord mentioned.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, what discussions have taken place with, and what assessment has been made of the likely impact on jobs in, the car industry?

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Lord is quite right to point to the number of jobs in the UK car industry: there are nearly 190,000 direct jobs, and we absolutely do need to protect them. We are working very closely with the industry on this. As I said before, we want to make sure that we set these targets and that they are reached, but also that the transition is done in a managed way, so that our very successful car industry can continue.