Railways: Great Western Franchise

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am not aware of the noble Lord’s particular point, but we cannot operate a railway system for free; it has to be paid for, and paid for by fares.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, on this Cornish patron saint’s day, will the Minister support the continuance of the overnight sleeper service to Cornwall?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, unfortunately I omitted to ask about the overnight sleeper service to Cornwall. However, some of my ministerial colleagues have great affection for that service.

Railways: Train Design

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right in everything he says; that is why we have the Crossrail project and other large infrastructure projects. The mischief is the feast and famine, which I am sure all policy-makers over many decades have tried to avoid.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, a contract has recently been let to move spoil from the Crossrail system. This means moving stuff from central London to the Thames estuary. It will all be done by German ships with German crews. Bearing in mind what the Government intend to do to support British industry, will we be putting measures in place to help British shipping in the same way as the German Government do to support German shipping so that we are working on a level playing field?

Shipping: Towing Vessels

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the world has moved on since the report of Lord Donaldson. We have port state control and inspection of ships, the integrated safety management code of ships, much more reliable ships and much better situational awareness for the coastguard, coupled with the SOSREP system. Finally, most tankers are double-hulled. Single-hulled tankers are not allowed in UK waters except in exceptional circumstances.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that there is a growing perception that the coalition Government are suffering from collective sea blindness? We have just discovered that over the last few weeks we have no ship at immediate readiness for counterterrorism or disasters around the UK—no Royal Navy ship at all. We have got rid of our broad area surveillance in the SDSR. We have just heard about the tug towing, and I have to say there are still a lot of single-hull tankers around, not least in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary because there has been no money to replace them. The National Maritime Intelligence Centre, which he referred to, is not up and running at full speed, which it should be. I can go on and on.

I am sure these perceptions are not right, but could the Minister confirm that the Government are looking at this in a co-ordinated way because there is very real worry? Perceptions often seem more real than reality, and there is a very real perception that this is not being pulled together.

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord is right, he has gone on—he has gone on about defence matters. This is a commercial matter. One of the impacts of the Government funding an emergency towing vessel, say at Falmouth, is that it prevents commercial operators from stationing an ETV at Falmouth because there is no work for them.

War Memorial Gardens

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I agree entirely with the sentiments of my noble friend. It is important to understand that nothing has gone wrong here. An event was proposed, it was considered and, quite rightly, it was determined that it was inappropriate.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Merchant Navy Association and president of the Merchant Navy Medal. At the annual service for seafarers at St Paul’s yesterday, a large number of Merchant Navy and former Merchant Navy personnel spoke to me. I think that we have come to exactly the right conclusion about this affair.

Do the Government have any plans to celebrate appropriately the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic in which 25 per cent of the Merchant Navy sailors involved were killed, an unbelievably high percentage, and something that I fear is often forgotten by the nation?

Earl Attlee: My Lords, I cannot answer the noble Lord’s question about the 70th anniversary, but I will write to him. I have an interest to declare in that for five years after the end of the war, my father served in the deep sea Merchant Navy. Even then, he still had plenty of exciting stories to tell.

Olympic Games 2012: London Air Quality

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I answer for the Department for Transport and for the whole of the Government but, fortunately, I have no responsibilities for the city of Brussels.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a waterman and lighterman. Will the Minister say whether we have a comprehensive plan for greater use of the river, bearing in mind that we have been very poor at using barges, as we are committed to doing, for the Olympic build programme?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I rather think that we have missed the boat on that because the infrastructure is largely built. However, when I visited the Port of London Authority I detected some of the work that the noble Lord had undertaken.

Visas

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am quite happy to take noble Lords’ concerns back to my honourable friend the Minister for Immigration, but noble Lords have not explained to me where the difficulties lie, and we have not announced the results of the consultation.

[Lord West of Spithead]

I declare an interest as yet another chancellor of a university. The Minister explained that the Government have very good intentions in this. It is quite clear from all those in universities to whom I have spoken, and from the concerns of those involved in universities, that they do not understand that from what they have seen of these proposals. I ask the Minister to get them together and explain these good intentions so that we can clarify whether they are or not. At the moment, those involved are not at all persuaded, and I find the proposals difficult to understand as well.

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord makes a useful point. We clearly need to do more work to explain the situation to the academic institutions.

Maritime and Coastguard Agency

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I, too, hope that we can ensure that we have the very best Maritime and Coastguard Agency that we can provide. We are reviewing it and we will be making an announcement about consultation shortly.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, could the Minister please guarantee that the input by the coastguard agency to the NMIC, the National Maritime Information Centre, which is so crucial to the counterterrorist security of this nation, will not be touched by what is being agreed to at the moment in terms of reductions.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, unfortunately I am not briefed on that. It is a very good point and I will write to the noble Lord.