International Road Passenger Transport (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Lord Whitty and Baroness Randerson

Monday 20th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw the Minister’s attention to the report published this very day by the Select Committee sub-committee that I chair on road, rail and maritime transport post Brexit. I will of course allow the noble Baroness a day or two before we get the official government response, but it has a chapter on the Irish dimension, covering not only bus and coach travel but also road haulage and rail.

I will focus on these regulations. Since the Good Friday agreement, and in some cases before the Good Friday agreement, bus operators have operated across the border and have improved the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic in a positive way, with people moving for work and for other reasons. The fact that that whole arrangement is now subject to some doubt is a serious problem, which goes well beyond the details of any transport regulations, frankly.

While our report focuses primarily on the possibility of moving to an agreement with the EU, it nevertheless has regard to the possibility of no deal. With no deal, as my noble friend has just underlined, as of Halloween we will be faced with a situation where the present propositions from the European Union will last only between then and New Year’s Eve. That is not a satisfactory position for any mode of transport. In particular, it is not a satisfactory understanding for a mode of transport by which individuals move to their work or families and which they have relied on for a decade or two to operate in a regular way.

I appreciate that my report—our committee’s report; I must not be so egotistical as two members of the committee are sitting here today—raises a number of issues related to Ireland. I hope that the Department for Transport in London is apprised of the situation in Northern Ireland, because there are some serious difficulties there. My noble friend raised the question of the decision to extend the Interbus arrangements to cover scheduled transport. That is unlikely to take place before the end of October—or, indeed, between the end of October and the end of the year. That will place a number of those routes in Ireland in doubt. I hope that the Minister and her department—in conjunction with the appropriate officials in Northern Ireland, since at the moment it does not have a devolved Assembly—will be able to resolve this issue in a way which, at least temporarily and in default of any longer-term agreement, will ensure that such services continue to operate. In the meantime, I commend the totality of my report to the Minister—no doubt her officials are studying it already.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I will start by underlining the gratitude we must feel to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which has yet again done an excellent job in recommending that this SI be upgraded to an affirmative instrument and in referring these regulations to us. Although they seek to ensure that current access rights for EU bus and coach operators in Northern Ireland remain as they are at this time, in practice the picture is complicated, as other speakers have already made clear. The situation of Translink is much more important and fundamental to the daily way of life of people in Northern Ireland than that of coach and bus operators going abroad from the rest of Britain.

The Minister mentioned 900,000 journeys a year. I am grateful to her for the statistic; she will find more in the report that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has just referred to. The evidence to the committee, of which I am a member, underlined the significance of the Translink service—and of the similar service coming from the Republic of Ireland to the north—to everyday life in Northern Ireland.

The Government’s attempts to overcome the problem by joining the Interbus agreement are obviously sensible, but I recall that when we discussed this in relation to the original SI for the rest of Britain there was some issue about the speed with which signatories were signing the extension of the Interbus agreement so that it would cover regular and special regular services. So can the Minister update us on how many countries have now signed up to that in the couple of months since we had that debate, which I believe was in March? Is the way clear so that in future we can rely on the Interbus agreement?

Haulage Permits and Trailer Registration Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Whitty and Baroness Randerson

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 17th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I have Amendment 5 in this group. The noble Baroness has in part answered the issues it is intended to raise, but it is not very clear in the Bill, in which the criteria for granting a permit seem to be entirely an issue of allocation of numbers, in terms of either the number of drivers or the number of vehicles, and what is available for a particular country. The amendment attempts to say to Ministers that there also need to be some qualitative criteria as to whether permits are given.

In the way the noble Baroness described it, the consultation might include that, but I would like that to be a little more explicit. We need to make sure that the operators who apply for and are given permits have reached certain standards of performance in relation to safety and maintenance, and to the employment and training they provide for their drivers and others; in relation to certain financial criteria that enable them to be of good financial repute; and in relation to certain environmental standards, as well as safety standards.

I hope that the consultation will cover all those things. What the Minister has said clearly includes that, but it is slightly odd that the wording of the Bill does not refer at all to regulations. I would therefore be grateful if the Minister could even more explicitly reassure me that these issues will be taken into account when criteria are established as to the suitability of operators to receive permits under the new system—if we need a new system.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, to take further the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, I note that the Minister said that the Government would seek to maximise the benefits to the UK economy in the way in which permits are distributed—and that needs to be done in a way which seeks to enhance the good repute of the industry and therefore of our country. I was struck by a point put to us in a briefing from Unite, which suggests that permits should be linked to the good repute of the operator; for example, their record on driver infringements should be taken into account, not just to reward good practice but to incentivise further good practice. I raise this issue because I seek an assurance from the Minister that the Government will be prepared to investigate such an approach, which seems a much fairer system than that suggested in Committee, when we talked about first come, first served and some kind of balloting system. There needs to be something to encourage good practice in the industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, this group of amendments deals with the situation for the trailer market. It is clear that the provisions in the back half of the Bill, which deals with trailers, are important and welcome. As the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said, at one point I had to be quite familiar with all this, but, thankfully in some ways, I have lost touch with parts of the industry in the interim. Nevertheless, it has been represented to me that the trailer market and the use of trailers is actually quite a complex subject—although a more pejorative word is sometimes used. For example, trailers are shared, hired out, or picked up by a driver for one operator and delivered to another, used for part of the journey and then used by another operator. What I am querying in the text is that the reference to the operator or keeper does not seem to include the part of the trailer market that is effectively hiring out. They are either hiring out for money or hiring out in kind by swapping one trailer for another or for a whole range of different services for trailers. It is a complicated area but it is important that those who hire out vehicles have the same obligations on registration, safety and the offences created by the Bill as do operators who always use their own trailers or operate on simpler, less complicated arrangements.

This is a significant part of the market without which the whole system would not operate, or at least it would be hugely more costly and inconvenient to operate without it. Therefore, those who hire out trailers, on whatever terms, are an important part of the efficiency of the sector. But they, likewise, have responsibilities. The Bill should reflect that they have the same responsibilities for registration and related matters as other operators within the sector. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, raises an important issue which did not have much discussion in Committee. It is a complex issue partly because it is possible to stick a registration plate on a trailer but not really know which trailer it is for. It appears to be the same trailer, but it could be a different one, depending on what is pulling it. We need a system to specify who is responsible and who is operating in a rental market for trailers. We should remember that rental trailers range from trailers used to cart excess household rubbish to the tip through to camping trailers for holidays and up to large commercial trailers. It is a big market. We must also take account of the important issue that, at the commercial level of the industry, drivers swap trailers regularly. In order to be fair to the drivers, there needs to be a simple way for them to check that the trailer is properly registered and safe. That is a key issue that we did not address at all in Committee.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Whitty and Baroness Randerson

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - part one): House of Lords
Monday 24th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 22 I shall speak also to the other amendments in this group in my name. I do not intend to speak for long, partly because my voice is giving out and partly because all these amendments reflect one particular dimension of the effect on the workforce of franchising and enhanced partnerships.

Amendment 22 deals with the awarding of franchises. It asks that awards shall not be made to a company solely on the grounds that it intends to pay its future workforce less than the current workforce. Of course, those who are TUPE-ed over when there is a new franchise or enhanced partnership will be covered by TUPE and therefore it will not be possible for them to be paid a lower wage. But it also indicates that there has been the occasional problem in London—where by and large the franchising system has worked well—of a two-tier workforce developing. If the Government are not prepared to accept the wording of these amendments, I would like them to indicate that they recognise that there would be a concern if franchising in particular led to two-tier workforces and the consequent industrial relations and management problems. Amendment 22 deals with the issue upfront by saying that a franchise shall not be judged on the basis of the intention of the potential franchisee to pay a lower rate than to those who are transferred over.

The remaining amendments in the group deal with the situation once the franchise is awarded. Amendment 47 deals with a situation where a franchise is already in place or has just been awarded and those who are TUPE-ed over from the former operator are paid at the previous rate under the TUPE provisions, which are clearly set out in the Bill—I thank the Government for that—but subsequent employees could be paid at a lower rate. That is a recipe for very poor industrial relations and probably other tensions in the way in which the franchisee would operate. Again, it would be helpful if the Government could indicate, at least in guidance, that this is not a desirable outcome of the franchise process.

Amendments 48 and 87 deal with dismissals following the award of an enhanced partnership or a franchise. They provide that there should be no dismissals solely as a result of the award of that franchise, in order to protect individuals over and above the TUPE regulations from unfair dismissal as a direct result of the franchise award. Amendments 41, 42, 81 and 82 simply delete the phrase “at the same time” because some of these consequences may not be immediate. The principle that is already enunciated in the Bill should apply whether or not it happens at exactly the same time as the award of the franchise.

This is a potentially difficult problem which might not normally be dealt with in primary legislation but would be left to the franchising process, but it would be helpful if the Government could indicate that the kind of outcome that we have occasionally seen will not arise when we extend franchising in particular to other parts of the country outside London. I hope that the Minister can say a few warm words about the Government’s intention and reflect it in any guidance that the department gives to those tendering for franchises. With that intention in mind, and underlining that this can be and has been on occasion a difficult situation to deal with post the franchising operation, I beg to move Amendment 22.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, in my various discussions with bus operators, it has become clear to me that recruiting bus drivers is a complex and localised process. A standard tariff of wages across a large area can attract people in one part of it and be inadequate in another. Certainly, the experience of Transport for London has been along those lines: it is difficult to attract drivers in central London and easier in parts of outer London. That applies also to areas such as Bristol. Therefore, how one deals with the TUPE regulations and the transfer of staff from one company to another is essential to good relations between the workforce and the employer. We on these Benches support the intention of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Whitty and Baroness Randerson

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 12th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 9A, I will speak also to Amendments 10, 32 and 35. First, I apologise to the House and the Minister in particular that we have a manuscript amendment here. I thought I had submitted these amendments previously, and it was due to a mix-up between myself and the office. However, the wording is exactly the same as the wording later on which relates to franchising, and it concerns the consultation of employees’ representatives in both the advanced partnership and franchising contexts.

There are some very welcome government amendments relating to consultation with a range of bodies, some of which I spoke about in Committee, particularly representatives of passengers and consumers. Indeed, there is a reference to the Passengers’ Council, which is the proper name for Transport Focus. I welcome the general approach of the Minister in recognising that there were some omissions or a lack of clarity about who was to be consulted on both the advanced partnerships and franchising.

Indeed, in relation to franchising, the Minister has tabled Amendment 29, which, as far as it goes, is very positive. It refers to,

“such persons as appear to the authority or authorities to represent employees of persons falling within paragraph (a)”;

that is, the operators. The Minister has recognised, as he undertook to do in Committee, that there is a need to consult with the representatives of employees in this industry. I would say that that applies to not only franchising but the introduction of advanced partnership schemes, where the employees of existing operators and others affected also need to be taken into account, but, slightly strangely, the Minister has not tabled an amendment in that respect.

I hope to try to reach an accommodation with the Minister in this area but there is an additional issue. My amendments in Committee referred specifically to recognised trade unions. This is a highly unionised sector in many parts of the country. It has had relatively stable industrial relations for many years, and a relatively high proportion of employees in the industry are represented through recognised trade unions. However, there have been one or two instances where other organisations have attempted to represent the workers, legitimately or otherwise, and there have been one or two inter-union disputes over recognition. Therefore, when you refer to a consultation with representatives of employees, where there are recognised trade unions, you should say so. That stops any confusion, whether between unions or other methods of recognition.

Therefore, I have added in both the franchising and advanced partnership contexts an explanatory note which says “appropriate representatives” are either recognised trade unions or representatives who have been properly elected or appointed by the employees so affected. That seems to cover a pretty wide range of recognition, as well as possible alternatives to the trade unions. It is therefore not a direct attempt to enforce trade unionism on people who do not want it but a recognition that trade unions exist and operate very effectively, frequently in very close co-ordination with management and the authorities in these areas. Therefore, the list of consultees needs to include reference to representatives of employees. I am quite happy to accept the Minister’s wording, or something like it, in relation to franchising, but it then needs to go on to say that where there is a recognised trade union, that means a recognised trade union. I therefore have two detailed points of contention but not, I think, two points of dispute.

If the Minister is of a mind to discuss this further between now and the final stages of the Bill, or to accept my amendments, I am sure that we could reach an accommodation. However, it is important to recognise in both contexts within the Bill that it is likely to improve the chances of the new situation—the new schemes in franchising and the new advanced partnerships —operating smoothly and effectively, with the engagement and consent of the employees involved. That seems to me common sense. The Minister has conceded the principle with his own amendments but I would like him to be prepared to go a stage or two further. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I very much welcome the fact that the Minister has taken on board the need for consultation with employees as well as with the passengers we referred to earlier. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, has just pointed out, the Bill is uneven from one part of it to another, and something taken for granted in one section is neglected in another. As I said in an earlier debate, it is as if the Bill had been written by several different people who had not got together to make sure that the same terminology was used from one part to another. We in our party—not a party run by the trade unions; far from it—believe in the trade unions. They are an important part of a stable industrial relations picture and it is important that they are referred to, where appropriate, in the Bill.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Whitty and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, my name is attached to this amendment and I strongly support the purpose behind it. As the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has made quite clear, there are more than a dozen council-owned bus services in Britain. Many of them are at the very top of their game; they are some of the very best bus services in Britain.

This is a nasty, mean-minded little clause. It is totally at odds, as the noble Lord has just said, with the rest of the Bill, which is supposed to be devolving power to local authorities. It is supposed to be seeking the best possible arrangements for running bus services. For the last 30 years, since competition came to bus services, local authorities have been allowed to keep the power to set up bus companies. Why is it thought necessary to take that power away now, when they have had it in parallel with deregulation for all these years? In practice, in the last 30 years, local authorities have not rushed to set up bus companies—rather the reverse. Judging by past experience, we in this House are probably setting bus policy for the next 30 years, so the Bill needs to be robust and to have the imagination to cater for circumstances that might arise in decades to come.

It is true that in the current financial circumstances, local authorities could not afford to set up bus companies. But it is not beyond credibility that, in order to save rural services at some point in the future, when local authority finances are less tight, a local authority may decide that it needs to lease a small fleet of minibuses to provide a rural service. That is a perfectly credible scenario. This clause would prevent it doing so, even in partnership with a local operator.

What about the operator who is about to go out of business and could be saved by the local authority buying a stake in the business or buying it, and therefore saving the bus service that is so valuable to the community? Clause 21 is not devolution; it is reverse devolution. It is perverse and plainly a ridiculous limitation on local authority powers. It seems to me to be totally unprovoked as I can think of no example of a local authority in recent years attempting irresponsibly to set up a bus company. So I urge the Minister: please listen to the strength of feeling here today. It is not worth the trouble to keep this in the Bill. The Government should just allow local authorities the discretion they deserve to be able to provide a decent bus service.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, most has already been said by my colleagues on the Front Bench. This clause sticks out like a sore thumb and goes against the rest of the Bill and any commitment to localism. It undermines the rest of the Bill, which essentially gives local authorities a range of options in how to optimise the bus services in their area—urban and rural. There are many circumstances in which the provision, in partnership or directly, of a municipally owned bus fleet could play a part. If that is closed off by keeping this clause in the Bill, we will be undermining the consensus behind most of its provisions. The Minister ought to take this back to his colleagues because it will be an issue of contention in the Bill’s later stages, and is already an area of extreme contention with many local authorities and bus operators around the country. It would be wise to listen to the Committee—to speakers on this side, at any rate—and withdraw the clause, preferably before Report.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Whitty and Baroness Randerson

Monday 4th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I support Amendment 33. I have tabled other amendments which will make a similar point. I also raised the issue in our previous sitting. It amazes me that the Bill specifies bus operators and a number of other organisations for consultation on a regular basis, but not bus users. Bus users are specified in that way in one place; the rest of the Bill refers to “such other persons” as local authorities think fit. That is not good enough for a Bill which purports to put the passenger at its heart. The point of the Bill is supposed to be to increase the number of passengers and improve bus services. You will not, of course, improve bus services if you cannot increase the number of passengers. To be able to do that, bus services have to be more sensitive to the needs of passengers. The difference between a good, effective bus service and one which is trotting along almost empty is how much you have consulted people about where and when they need the service.

I draw the Committee’s attention to the latest report from Passenger Focus. As a result of its survey, it makes the point:

“At present, passengers believe they have no involvement in determining how bus services are provided; few could think of any examples where they had been given the opportunity to be consulted, and therefore even fewer where they had been actively engaged”.

It goes on to say that they could all “recall significant changes” to bus services but had no recollection of being asked about them. Many years ago, I was a local councillor. I clearly recall how important it was to get the details of bus services right: where the bus stops were, the timing so they fitted in with local trains, and so on. Those are crucial decisions which passengers—who are, after all, the ones doing the journeys—are able to advise on.

I urge the Minister to listen to this plea, which has already gone out in previous debates and will go out again on a number of other amendments: please specify bus users; be precise about this; and enshrine in the Bill a role for bus passengers and their representatives at whatever level. Even down at the lowest and most informal level, bus passengers need a voice. The amendment talks about an increasing voice for bus passengers. We need a good, strong voice there right from the very start.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I too have a later amendment which deals with this subject, so I will be brief. I agree with what my noble friend and the noble Baroness have said. What ought to be in the mind of the Government is the kind of bus service and its relationship, not only with those who currently use buses, but with those who might do so if the service was significantly better and integrated with other means of transport. My noble friend Lord Berkeley spoke about plans in Cornwall to link together the train and bus timetables more effectively. I have to tell him that in my area of Dorset they are not integrated at all. Quite frequently, even in the main part of the day, you get off the London train and there are no buses for another hour and a half.

It ought to be a precept from the word go for these new and enhanced arrangements that there is effective passenger representation in the decision-making process. I quibble slightly with the noble Baroness in that I think that probably has to build up over time. You need an organisation in there right at the beginning, but the way in which my noble friend has phrased the amendment puts an obligation in the new contract or the new franchise for the operator to make part of that improved performance be an improvement in taking into account the views of passengers. As Transport Focus—as it is now called—surveys have shown, there is a pretty pathetic level of trust and appreciation among bus passengers about services at present. So we are starting in most parts of the country, outside London, at a pretty poor low. It is therefore important that this is there in the Bill and that it underlines the whole philosophy of the management approach of the new operator, and that ought to be specified at this early stage of the Bill.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Whitty and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

At a time when the key spots in our towns and cities regularly breach EU limits on air pollution, I believe it is essential that the Bill reinforces the need to improve emission levels. Of course, some people in this country this week may be rejoicing at the idea that we will no longer have to worry about EU emission levels in a couple of years, but the fact that we have emission levels that we have to adhere to is a wonderful example of the advantages and huge benefits that being part of the EU has brought us. Whatever emission levels we choose to adopt in future years, bad and polluted air will still kill you. Therefore, it is important that we have stringent levels.

Many operators are doing an excellent job of reducing emission levels from buses. They are investing heavily in fleets which have very low, sometimes zero, emissions at the point when they are actually being driven. I have in recent weeks been on two electric buses and they were very impressive. However, this does not apply to all operators; some are lagging behind. The technology exists and it does not necessarily involve investing heavily in new buses. TfL has retrofitted buses with scrubbers in order to reduce emission levels—exhaust scrubbers have taken out many of the emissions from diesel vehicles.

I want to deal briefly with the other amendments in this group. I support the other amendments but I re-emphasise my point about retrofitting. The other amendments are very specific about new vehicles, but there is potential for dealing positively with older vehicles and I believe that the general tenor of the amendment in my name means that those operators which may have small fleets and less access to large amounts of capital could still manage to improve the quality of the emissions from their vehicles.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group which go in broadly the same direction as that of the noble Baroness and were intended to apply to existing as well as new vehicles. It seems extraordinary to me that the Bill as first drafted does not contain a need to have regard to environmental standards—even through the word “may”. Over recent months there has been increased attention to air quality in our cities and sometimes in our countryside as well; quite rightly, because the health effect and the environmental effect of air quality deterioration, plus the Volkswagen scandal, and so forth, have underlined the need to move more rapidly on all sources of air pollution, in particular in relation to vehicles.

I should declare that I am the current president of Environmental Protection UK, the successor organisation to the National Society for Clean Air; it was the leader of the successful lobby that led to the Clean Air Act 50 years ago this year, which seriously cleaned up visible forms of air pollution and, indeed, many invisible forms as well. We need now to finish the job and we have the technology, both in retrofit, as the noble Baroness has said, and in new standards. Buses may not be a huge component of air pollution but, per person and per trip, they are large contributors if they are not treated or the standards are not met.

I hope that the Minister will take away, if not the wording of any of these amendments, a need to write into the Bill, both in this section and the subsequent section on franchising which my second amendment deals with, that some of the requirements must relate to the environmental standards of the vehicles and the total environmental impact of the fleets of franchisees or contract holders. If it does not, it is a serious omission and a serious lack of joined-up government between the Department for Transport, DECC and Defra when we are trying to tackle both climate change and air pollution. Whatever final form of words we come up with before the Bill leaves this House, this ought to be reflected in both sections of the Bill.