P&O Ferries

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, ferries are the lifeblood of many communities around the United Kingdom, and the Government have trumpeted a new shipbuilding strategy—at the moment, without any new ship orders. The noble Baroness has highlighted to me before in this House the Government’s push to reduce merchant ship emissions as part of the green revolution. To focus on just one of the many opportunities that I think there are to pull these threads together, I ask her to encourage the Government to replace the almost 50 year-old Scilly Islands ferry, which will soon not be able to run at all, with a new, green ship—I do not mean its colour, of course—to be built at Appledore, a very efficient and capable West Country shipyard with currently no work whatever, ensuring the continued future link between the mainland and the Scillies and killing three birds with one stone.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question, which is slightly beyond the remit of what we are discussing today—but never mind, I will take his suggestion back to the department. The department is very keen to make maritime more green and it is the case that the ferry service to the Isles of Scilly is a lifeline service. It is essential that it continues, and it should do so in the greenest ships possible.

Covid-19: Transport Industry

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government recognise the important role that general aviation plays in providing the grass-roots element from which so many who go on to the commercial sector come. I reassure my noble friend that the Government are focusing carefully on aviation recovery work, which will include general aviation. It will look at regional connectivity, economic growth, decarbonisation and, perhaps most importantly in the field of general aviation, workforce and skills.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that many maritime businesses have worked incredibly hard to keep supply chains open and goods flowing during the Covid crisis. However, this has resulted in businesses exhausting their cash reserves, leaving very little funding for them to begin the vital work of decarbonising the maritime industry. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will provide the necessary funding, requested by the maritime industry in recent meetings, to kickstart the urgent process of decarbonisation?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord will know that the Government published their Maritime 2050 strategy a little while back. Of course, our commitment to decarbonisation remains extremely strong. There are a number of conversations going on at the moment about maritime decarbonisation, and some ideas have been put forward for the spending review.

Spain: Travel

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 28th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

The right reverend Prelate raises a very important point. For the time being, we are taking the approach by country for border measures, but we could put them in place for regions in the future. We are not there yet, but we are certainly looking at it, because it is an appropriate consideration.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is absolutely right that our Government should take action for the safety of our people, despite what any other nation might say. My concern, however, is that many of the Government’s decisions relating to the Wuhan virus seem to be kneejerk and have a scattergun effect. It is not at all clear that policy is joined up across Whitehall. In early July, I was in France; on return, government policy, after some indecision, was for self-isolation for two weeks. This advice changed the day after my return and nobody officially took any notice of my whereabouts. While I believe that people should use their common sense, will the Minister tell us what mechanism has been put in place to ensure that the two-week self-isolation for those returning from Spain is being complied with?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton [V]]

The noble Lord is right that there are enforcement measures in place for people returning from Spain or elsewhere, where a self-isolation period of 14 days is required. PHE is undertaking spot checks as part of the enforcement approach and there is a possibility of a £1,000 fixed penalty notice for those people who are not self-isolating.

Covid-19: Aviation

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord is quite right that we need some positive support for the aviation sector. That is why we have the aviation restart and recovery expert group, which includes representatives from airlines, airports, unions and industry bodies. It is putting together the best minds to work out how we can make sure that our aviation sector comes out of this as well as it possibly can. For example, it is setting up common health standards to be applied to an air passenger’s journey, from home all the way through to the other side. That is the sort of system that will help the sector to get back on its feet.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, with an estimated 16,000 of the world’s commercial aircraft grounded and stored, airlines are doing whatever they can to cancel orders and delay the delivery of ordered aircraft. Some airlines are falling into administration. Many older aircraft have been placed in store and are unlikely ever to be able to be flown again. Commercial aircraft and engine manufacturers, along with those engaged in important supply chains, have been forced to act to ensure survival. How can we ensure a healthy and fit-for-purpose aviation industry, which will be crucial for economic recovery and hoped-for growth? Have our experts made any prediction that the Government are using for planning purposes of when the recovery of airline usage will occur and when, if ever, it will return to current levels? Will Project Birch provide similar support for our aviation industry as that being provided by the US Government and the Dutch and German Governments for their national airlines?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I refer the noble Lord to the response that I have just given about the aviation restart and recovery expert group. It is looking at all the issues that he has, rightly, pointed out, including the impact on the wider supply chain across the aviation sector. Project Birch is not industry-specific but is open to any company that makes a significant economic contribution to our country. It will offer bespoke support to a specific company, and that will be done from a value-for-money perspective for the taxpayer, on a company-by-company basis. In that regard, we will be able to support some of our most important companies that contribute to our economic future.

Smart Motorways

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, that was the absolute crux of the 79-page report that we have prepared. We looked at it in two different ways. We looked at the average numbers and then delved down into the detail on whether a motorway, when it becomes a smart motorway, is more or less safe. I therefore encourage the noble Lord to read the 79-page report, if he has time over the coming weeks. From that, he will see that, in most ways, smart motorways are safer. In a smaller number of ways, on specific things, they may not be, but that again is within the margin of error. We are acting on these 18 points because it is absolutely important that people should feel safe as well as being safe.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, speaking as a simple sailor, it seems amazing to me that we call this smart. We have a road on which cars go along at about 70 miles per hour. If your car goes wrong, you stop in that road where cars are doing 70 miles per hour. I cannot see how that is smart when quite often there is no large gap where you can pull over. I would certainly not feel very happy if my car broke down—luckily it does not do that very often—having to stop on the inside lane of a motorway where traffic is belting along at 70 miles per hour. It does not seem very smart.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord will be well aware that if you are barrelling along at 70 miles per hour on the A31 Hog’s Back and you stop, there is no technology at all and there is no hard shoulder. We have roads all across our country that do not have a hard shoulder.

Flybe

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank my noble friend for his comment. I believe that this work is already under way.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, how will Flybe’s collapse impact on Skybus and its flights across the Scilly Isles? Does this make it even more important that we push for the ferry that should be running between the island and the mainland?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am not aware of any impact on Skybus, although I am not 100% sure about that. The Isles of Scilly are a very important destination for a number of Members of your Lordships’ House, and a ferry is certainly a very good way of getting there.

Holyhead

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

My Lords, that is a long and complex question with a long and complex answer. As noble Lords will know, arrangements for borders in the Irish Sea or elsewhere are currently under discussion.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the infrastructure in Holyhead, like the infrastructure in many ports around the UK, does not include the ability for ships, particularly ferries in the case of Holyhead, to plug in and go on to shore power. Consequently, when they are berthed alongside, they have to run their diesel generators all the time, which has a huge impact on the environment. Is there is any intention to make sure that the ports around our nation have shoreside electrical supplies so that we can cut this huge spike in diesel emissions?

Air Accident Investigation

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

The noble Lord is completely right, and we share his concerns around grey charters. It is illegal to operate a commercial flight without an operating licence and an air operating certificate, which of course is overseen by the CAA. As a result of these concerns, the Department for Transport has commenced an independent review of the safety of general aviation, and one of the strands of work that is happening as part of that review is to look at illegal charters and consider what more steps we could be taking to prevent them.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, I know that the Minister is well aware of the skill of our underwater workers in the Navy, as was shown when we recovered some Russian submariners less than 10 years ago. Can she confirm that we are still world leaders in that area, or do we now lag behind? If she cannot answer that on security grounds, could she perhaps write on a Privy Council basis?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I can say that when the evidence-gathering phase following this tragic incident occurred, the AAIB worked with the MoD Salvage and Marine Operations team, which advised it on the manner of conducting the search, safety—whether to use divers—and to make sure that the ROV was operating properly. I will of course write to the noble Lord on the second part of his question.

Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL]

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 27th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive introduction to the Bill. I apologise to her for not coming to her briefing meeting, but I hope that nevertheless she can answer some of my points.

Broadly speaking, I support the intentions of this Bill. I guess I have two interests to declare. One is that I am vice-president of BALPA. That does not mean I have the expertise of my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe or others in this House, but I am taking on board many of the points that it wishes to raise.

My second interest is slightly more tenuous, in that I inherited from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, who was here for the earlier part of the debate, responsibility for chairing the committee that produced this report in 2015 with many recommendations. In those days, we called drones “remotely piloted aircraft systems” but we all know what we are talking about. When I took on responsibility for following up the report, I found that Ministers were somewhat reluctant to take much action in the early days. Luckily, that has now changed. There was a Bill that was aborted in the last Parliament and there has been an extension to the protection of airfields, with 5-kilometre geofencing around them—a protection that now applies to many other secure sites. Therefore, we have made progress.

I will concentrate largely on the drone aspect of this subject. I recognise that nowadays we have to accept and support the technology for the many applications of drones that affect our lives and our security, but there is also the key issue of safety in the use of drones in the air and on the ground. In addition, a range of issues raised in the report produced by the committee of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, have not been fully addressed and they are not really addressed in this Bill. Some relate to the safety of other users in the air and on the ground, but there are also the issues of insurance, licensing, privacy and liability, and indeed there is the question of how far the multiple operation of drones by one programme and one operator is compatible with our current regulations.

The Gatwick incident and the anxieties that it raised have obviously increased the public profile of drones and the level of concern. Those concerns relate not just to an individual collision, disastrous though that might be, but to a total system being threatened by a drone being operated wrongly, whether it be the deliberate endangering of the operation of an airport or airfield, terrorism or simply a number of kids getting hold of these machines and causing disruption for a laugh. We have to develop a regulatory system that deals with both the big security issues and an individual drone being used in the wrong way.

The design and the use of unmanned and manned aircraft, and the components of manned aircraft, are important considerations and things that we need to follow through in this legislation. For example, limited testing has shown that the collision between a medium-sized drone and a screen could be catastrophic—for the screen, the flight crew and, potentially, for the passengers. The incursion of a medium or large drone into a jet engine could also be catastrophic. As I understand it, the limited testing that there has been has not turned into a fully fledged test of new aero engines, or indeed a way of ensuring the resilience of existing in-service engines. The certification process for aero engines is therefore not yet in place.

Standard testing is urgently required so that the ingestion of a drone, which could be much more damaging than the ingestion of a bird—which is part of the standard testing and certification operations—is taken fully on board. Certainly at the larger end of drones, very serious damage could be done to an engine, as well as to the body of an aircraft. However, even a small metallic drone could do serious damage, particularly to the operation of helicopter blades and so forth. It is the responsibility of the aerospace industry internationally but also of the Government to ensure that we mandate drone ingestion as part of the certification of aero engines.

We also need some changes in the air traffic control regulations to ensure adequate separation. That has long been a key feature of air traffic control between aircraft to mitigate the effects of turbulence, but it can also apply in relation to the relationship between aircraft and drones. Again, the interrelationship between helicopters and drones is probably the most acute in this respect; it could cause damage to both the helicopter and the drone as well as, potentially, damage on the ground. I hope that all these things can be addressed in the technical detail of the Bill.

I also have a number of points relating to enforcement. In recent years we have seen a big increase in the use of drones in all sorts of quite legitimate commercial operations. We have also seen the use of drones effectively for pleasure and some criminal use of them. I would like to consider in the course of the Bill strengthening the enforcement side so that not only are all operators licensed but—in my view—they have to be over 18, they have a clear record, they are not under the influence of drink or drugs and the way in which they operate and treat those drones is built into the enforcement and checking system and the police powers over them.

There is the question of, for example, deliberately removing in-built safety features from drones such as the geofencing requirements, the requirements for lights on larger drones and the telemetry features of the transponder that allow the drone to respond to the geofencing. If we remove some of those, the drone becomes a much more dangerous machine and, for all sorts of reasons, it is possible that users might be tempted to use it. Indeed, in the extreme case, there is the deliberate weaponisation of drones: terrorists or others might add blades or other damaging features to the drones or use them for carrying arms or explosives. Those are very serious breaches of safety and security, not only of a single aircraft but of a whole aircraft system and the whole area.

I also suggest that the individual machines as well as the operators need to be licensed. That is after all the situation regarding vehicles both in the air and on the ground, and there is no reason why it should not apply in this case.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

Does my noble friend agree that one of the problems is that we have such a successful drone industry that it has been loath to allow regulation to take place, but it really has to do so because there is now such a dangerous risk?

[Lord Whitty]

I agree entirely with my noble friend, and I think there are elements within the industry itself that recognise that. As with other new technologies, an industry begins to come of age when it begins to accept and contribute to better regulation to mitigate the problems in its sector.

I will also be suggesting that we need to look explicitly at the police powers in this area. The powers to ground an aircraft are not clear. The ability to enter premises or stop and search for an aircraft or for elements of an aircraft are also not yet clear. While I recognise the need for FPN for minor offences, it needs to be clearer what those offences actually are. I would also be grateful if the Minister spelled out a little how far we are getting with counterdrone technology and how rapidly we might see that in place.

I had a couple of points on Parts 1 and 2, but my voice is giving out. I hope the Minister can respond to the points that I have made.

Maritime Security

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I assure the noble Lord that the funding is currently for one year, but the department recognises the critical work that these two organisations do, and it will be pressing very hard for a longer-term commitment in future.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that positive response about the funding. We have been trying to do that for a long time. The Minister will know that the previous Labour Government set up the NMIC, so I am delighted it is going down the right track. However, we have a dearth of assets among all the departments, including the Navy, which is responsible for our offshore tapestry—our territorial seas and protection of the coast—so it is essential that those few assets are properly co-ordinated. Can the Minister assure me that the man now in charge of this centre has the authority to take command and control of assets belonging to different departments to respond to a specific emergency?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

It is always a pleasure to receive a question from the noble Lord. Indeed, the man now in charge is in your Lordships’ House today. It was, of course, the current Government who set up JMOCC, which works very closely with the NMIC. The noble Lord is quite right that maritime assets are spread over a number of organisations: Border Force, the Royal Navy and the coastguard. Co-ordination of these assets is incredibly important. JMOCC was set up in October 2017, so it is not even two years old. It has a lot of capability to deal with live incidents and make sure that maritime assets are in the right place. One of the things this £9 million will do is provide extra capacity so that a planning team can be built to make sure we have optimum deployment of all vessels where we need them.