Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

It is not just the train operators, it is also Network Rail. There was a report published by Nichols Group in July 2022—two years ago—comparing how maintenance and renewal was carried out compared with the water, aviation, energy and roads industries. It was about the failure to introduce flexible rostering and multiskilling teams and to bring in new technology. All these matters could have been resolved and can be resolved. It is not much different from running a different type of transport service such as air or road, and I hope my noble friend will be able to comfort me that this is well on the agenda and that negotiations with the various trade unions involved and the Government will make sure that we end up very soon with a good lot of new agreements with the unions and the operatives concerned, and that that will result in a reduction in costs, which should be 20% or 30%, I am told, and a reduction in delays which, of course, is what the passengers want. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendment 18 in my name, which proposes the creation of an independent body responsible for pay and terms and conditions of employment for employees of the public companies that are going to be set up under the Bill.

In the long term, I assume that GBR will be responsible for settling these particular issues, but, in the meantime, the question is: who is going to do that? By default, I believe and assume it will be Ministers. That is going to be a real challenge for Ministers, because the department will inherit from the current train operators a whole range of different terms and conditions for their employees, some of them anachronistic. There will then be a difficult process of harmonising all these different terms and conditions into one composite terms and conditions for the new public sector employees that are going to be created. I would have thought that the Government should welcome an independent pay review body to help them through this potential minefield, with the trade unions, understandably, arguing for everybody to be levelled up, with all the implications that will have for current subsidies of the railways.

Also, I think that an independent pay review body which would, of course, receive representations from the Government as to what they thought was affordable, should look at some of the practices that have grown up over the years that might be due for reform: for example, the refusal of trade unions to fit track sensors to trains in order to identify faults in the tracks. That has been held up because there is no agreement.

Likewise, information about changes to speed limits is now put on a board, but it is proposed that it should be put on an iPad; again, there has been resistance to that. Then there is a hangover from the 1980s. As I understand it, an employee who uses a microwave is entitled to paid leave to have a health check.

An independent pay review body could look at some of these practices and see whether they might be modernised. If the alternative is that we should leave all this to Ministers, I am afraid that what happened in the summer does not leave me full of confidence. I am sure that the trade unions, if they had been really pressed, could have set out their new relationship with the new Labour Government by conceding something by way of reform before the near 15% pay settlement. An independent pay review body could look at issues of productivity and management to see if the costs could be managed more effectively.

I turn briefly to Amendment 19, picking up the discussion we had at the end of the last group of amendments about the impact of private investment disappearing, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. As I understand it, the Minister’s reply is basically this: the train operating companies have provided a minimum level of capital investment. I happen to challenge that. The examples I gave—Chiltern opening new railway stations, double-tracking, single-track lines—disprove it; nearly all the investment was self-financed by Chiltern.

Putting that on one side, the Minister’s argument is that the roscos—the rolling stock companies—will continue to buy the rolling stock and, therefore, there is no impact on the public purse. But he has left out a crucial element in the dialogue: the roscos then lease the rolling stock to the train operating companies by way of a franchise. At the moment, the fag end of those franchises, which the department has inherited, score as public expenditure, I believe. That is a liability of a public train operator to discharge the cost of a franchise.

When we move over to the new system, in which all the train operators are run by the Government, surely the franchise costs—the liabilities to pay the rolling stock companies—will score as public expenditure. That was left out of the Minister’s recent exchange. It was also glossed over in the letter that he kindly wrote to us over the weekend. Perhaps he can clarify what the view of the ONS will be on the franchise liabilities of GBR when it takes over the rolling stock from the train operating companies.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I express some degree of surprise that my noble friend Lord Berkeley has tabled this amendment. If you make rest-day working in the railway industry mandatory, it ceases to be rest-day working, does it not? The whole purpose of rest-day working is to see that people take a break from their work. While my noble friend outlined the difficulties that have arisen in various parts of the railway system because people have declined to work their rest days, that is not really the fault of the people themselves or their much-maligned trade unions.

The fact is that, particularly since privatisation—although it happened under British Rail as well—railway staffing has been reduced as much as possible. The first thing that Stagecoach did when it took over South West Trains was to make lots of train drivers redundant. Not surprisingly, the ones who were left declined to work their rest days; they declined to work overtime. The number of cancellations in the first two years of Stagecoach’s operation of South West Trains rose accordingly.

I recommend to my noble friend a book called Red for Danger, written by a man called Tom Rolt—LTC Rolt—who sets out railway accidents since the 19th century, many of which were caused by tiredness because of the number of hours worked by drivers and signalmen. I will give one example. In 1892, the Thirsk accident, which killed some 35 people, was caused by a signalman falling asleep. He fell asleep because his infant daughter had been ill, and he had spent two days trying to find a doctor for her, but she had died. He tried to get time off after her death—he was on nights at the time—but the stationmaster refused permission. He had been awake for 46 hours. Two express trains crashed as a result.

Following that tragic accident, in 1906 the House of Commons at least debated the question of railway hours and the fact that many railway workers worked excessively. Perhaps noble Lords will not be surprised to learn that the debate did not spread to this end of the Corridor—obviously, noble Lords at that time had other things on their minds. Coming reasonably up to date, my noble friend Lord Berkeley will remember the Clapham Junction accident in 1988, where a considerable number of people were killed. That was caused by an error by a signal lineman who had worked every single day for the previous three weeks.

Arising from accidents like those, rest days were introduced by the railway industry around the time of the First World War. If train services cannot be maintained at a particular depot without rest-day working, then that depot is undermanned—it is as simple as that. Whether my noble friend the Minister can promise that such circumstances will not happen under Great British Railways is something I will leave with him.

I hope I have made it quite plain that I am not one of those people who thinks that everything about privatisation was wicked, but one of the downsides of privatisation was at least the tendency to run railway operations with a minimum number of people. I hope my noble friend Lord Berkeley will reflect on, understand and accept the fact that rest days are there for a particular purpose, and that he will withdraw his amendment.

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

My question is therefore very straightforward. When writing legislation, it strikes me that the normal practice of Ministers and of government is not to write legislation so as to restrict their powers. It is normal to write it so as to give oneself the powers to act in ways that one might need in the future. Here we have a very odd situation where the Government are deliberately stopping the possibility of extending franchises that are being successfully operated and are writing the new Section 30 in a way that allows them to make a direct award of a contract only to a wholly owned public sector company, whereas it may be in the Government’s and indeed the passengers’ interest for them to do something different. So, I put it to the Government—that is my probing amendment for this purpose—that they should write the legislation in a way that gives them more powers in the future. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will add a footnote to the excellent speech from my noble friend Lord Lansley and note in passing that the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill is running late, with the likelihood of hitting the target of getting to Amendment 11 at a reasonable hour becoming vanishingly small.

This group of amendments is to some extent the obverse of the group that we have just had. The focus of the previous group was on ending prematurely, before the Government would wish, services that were not running satisfactorily, whereas the thrust of this group is to enable the Government to extend beyond the date that they prefer a contract that is running satisfactorily.

In a sense, this is all about ideology. There are two potential views. One was expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who on Second Reading said:

“I have an ideological commitment to a nationalised railway system”.—[Official Report, 7/10/24; col. 1883.]

By contrast, in that same debate, his noble friend Lord Liddle—who, as we have heard, was formerly the opposition transport spokesman in your Lordships’ House, said:

“I do not see any ideological objection to public/private partnerships in running the railway”.

He then gave an example:

“You might have a situation where a private company was prepared to commit to electrification plans for a particular line that would not be in the public sector investment plan. My view is that we should allow public/private partnerships on a net additionality rule. If they are going to bring more investment into the rail system, what on earth is the case for not allowing them to do so?”. —[Official Report, 7/10/24; col. 1840.]


Again, in the debate today, the noble Lord, Lord Snape, said he was in favour of a mixed economy. I agree with that approach. If this amendment is opposed, it is because the Government have taken Lord Whitty’s view and they have an ideological commitment to nationalisation—which I thought had been abandoned some 30 years ago under Tony Blair’s leadership.

There has been an argument for flexibility. I want to develop the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, developed about Chiltern Railways and Marylebone station. In the 1980s, Marylebone station was almost moribund. There were a few services to the commuter villages of Aylesbury, Amersham and Chesham, but, in the decade before privatisation, there were proposals from British Rail to close Marylebone. There were also alternative plans to turn the railway into a road. That was before privatisation. Three years after privatisation, 18 miles of single track between Princes Risborough and Bicester North had been doubled. In 2000, the brand new £4.2 million Warwick Parkway station was opened, and, by the end of the first franchise, advance plans were made to double the single-track section between Bicester North and Aynho, at a cost of £53 million. Marylebone station was then extended by adding a further two platforms, and there was an increase in line speed to Beaconsfield. In 2011, Chiltern took over the operating services on the Oxford-Bicester line from First Great Western and opened two new stations, Oxford Parkway and Bicester Village, providing services between north Oxford and Marylebone.

How confident is the Minister that all that would have happened if the line had remained with British Rail, which, 20 years earlier, was planning to close the station? Chiltern could do this because it had a 20-year franchise, which created the incentives for significant investment in rolling stock, major infrastructure and, as a result, timetable enhancements. It delivered its project on time and on budget, and self-financed nearly all the projects that I have just mentioned.

When pressed on why they were doing this, the Minister relied on, “It is in the manifesto”. Well, I hope they can provide a better argument than simply saying that. To use the expression used by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, Chiltern is to be sent prematurely to the “knacker’s yard”. Our debate takes place against a background of a Budget in a few days’ time, with enormous pressure on public expenditure. What the Government are planning to do—we will reach this in a later group of amendments—is bring on to their balance sheet all the private sector investment that has previously been borne by the private sector. Freight was mentioned, and the fact that they want to leave freight and open access operations in private hands perhaps indicates some inconsistency in their view that the private sector cannot deliver good services.

I will briefly mention two other reasons for these amendments. There is a question of the capacity of members of the Minister’s own department to manage all the new franchises that are going to come in. At the moment, they run four rail franchises; they have just two full-time staff and they rely on private consultants to manage these four franchises on a day-to-day basis. They are planning to absorb the remaining 10 franchises, which are now in private hands. They will have to grow significantly their own capacity to manage those departments and, as I understand it, they are in the process of growing their headcount from 21 to 90 by the end of the calendar year; all this at a time when there is pressure on departments to reduce their headcount. All these new people, all the external consultants, will need time to get up to speed with their new roles and build the necessary relationships to be effective, and I think that is a major constraint on their plans.

There is one other reason, which may be a simply technical one. It is possible that the Government may wish to extend an incumbent operator’s franchise, for example due to the lack of internal capacity that I have just referred to; but it may also be that the operator may not be willing to agree to a contract extension. As I understand it, with the Bill as currently written, the Government would not be allowed to appoint an alternative operator on a temporary basis—again representing a significant risk.

So these amendments indicate the need for flexibility, to allow the Government to retain high-performing private sector operators and to continue to give passengers an excellent service while minimising costs for taxpayers. I hope that, when the Minister replies, he will not say, “This is in the manifesto”, but will give some cogent reasons for ending the arrangement that provides, in the cases of Chiltern and Greater Anglia, the two lines that we have heard about, a high-quality service, possibly higher than the public sector would be able to provide.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I support the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about the potential conflict of interest under the new scenario: we will have Great British Railways, with a single operating mind, carrying all the revenue risk for passenger train operations, while at the same time there will be open-access operators and freight operators bidding for a limited path on the railways.

The former Secretary of State said:

“I shouldn’t need to approve whether a passenger train ought to be removed from the timetable to allow a freight train to run instead, as I was doing earlier today”.


The question is: who is going to make that decision in the future? If it is going to be GBR, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, there is a clear conflict of interest; the company would have an interest in the passenger train operator having precedence in order to secure the revenue. That may be in conflict with government policy, which is to promote the transfer of freight from road to rail. Surely it is important that at the moment, the train operator cannot insist that he has a particular path for his train: he has to bid either to Network Rail or to the ORR. Who is going to make that decision in the future? Will it be a domestic one within GBR? In which case, how will the conflict of interest raised by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, be resolved in a way that is satisfactory for both the open-access operator and the freight train operator, which may find that they do not have the paths they wanted?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, this small group of amendments addresses a number of issues that inevitably raise questions, because this very tightly drawn Bill provides no hint of how they are to be dealt with. I participate in this debate with some temerity following contributions by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, who know so much detail about the freight industry.

Liberal Democrat Amendments 40 and 41, to which I have added my name, are therefore probing amendments looking for details of government plans, which I hope the Minister can supply today. There are thousands of jobs and potentially billions of pounds of investment riding on the Government’s answers to these questions.

Amendment 40 is about a very specific issue but, as my noble friend Lady Pidgeon has emphasised, the role of the British Transport Police is vital, providing the rule of law on our trains. It is important to remember that the rule of law provides consumer and passenger confidence. Those of us who are older, younger or weaker are particularly dependent on the good offices of the BTP because they provide the assurance that people need before they are prepared to travel on our trains.

I emphasise that, as my noble friend said, British Transport Police funding has been provided virtually unseen from within the industry for a very long time. The total amount of money, at nearly £500 million a year, is not inconsiderable. It is therefore important that we have a clear answer now from the Government about they intend to deal with BTP in the future. In particular, how will it be overseen? Will that be with independence and at arm’s length from the Government? Which body will do that supervision?

Amendment 41, on freight, deals with a much more substantial and complex issue, because the freight industry is so complex. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, said, it is essential that the new system be set up to encourage rail freight to improve its efficiency. That will be difficult, as he emphasised, because a centralised, nationalised Great British Railways will be bound to feel pressure to prioritise passenger services. We have crowded tracks running at capacity. We have vocal passengers who want trains at a time and a frequency convenient to them. We have a Government who have sponsored a nationalisation project, and their reputation will be damaged if passengers’ interests suffer. We also have a Government who emphasise that they are facing a financial black hole. Will they be willing to invest in track and signal modernisation of the sort outlined by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, to benefit freight rather than passengers?

I fear that freight could rapidly become a poor relation, so I am keen to hear details and reassurance from the Minister. I thank him for his letter, but I point out that it says that next year’s railways Bill will “enable” the growth of freight. I emphasise that I would much prefer a duty to promote the growth of freight, rather than simply enabling it.

Pedal Cycles

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for sponsoring this debate, and I hope noble Lords will forgive me for a moment of nostalgia. On 11 July 1975, the newly elected Member of Parliament for Acton initiated a debate in the other place on cycling. Nearly 50 years later, here he is again, though happily not, as then, at 4.30 pm on a Friday. That was a time when there were no cycle racks at all in Parliament, or at Paddington station. The few MPs who cycled to work were regarded as mildly eccentric, as was the most well-known pedalling Peer, Lord Hailsham. London then had 80,000 cyclists; it now has 600,000.

My speech included some novel arguments for promoting cycling, working out that cyclists converted energy into miles at the equivalent of 1,600 miles to the gallon, and set out a charter for cyclists, as well as a unit for cycling within government, cycle lanes, including a cycle lane in Hyde Park, a head start for cyclists at traffic lights, and cycle networks sponsored by local authorities. My speech was described as “interesting” by the Minister. This was before the programme “Yes Minister” revealed that “interesting” was mandarin for “crazy”. He proceeded to reject my suggestions, saying that it would be

“difficult to provide separate traffic lanes in the middle of … London”

and that adjusting traffic lights would be “costly”. On cycle networks promoted by local authorities, he said that

“with our present economic difficulties and with a cut-back in many local authority services imminent—this is hardly the time for Parliament to be urging local authorities to fresh expenditure”.

Well, plus ça change. The idea of a cycle lane in Hyde Park was “interesting”, and on a unit in his department there was again a thumbs down:

“We are being asked to cut down on the numbers of civil servants”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/7/1975; cols. 1025-26.]


But 50 years on we have made enormous progress, thanks in part to the APPG that was started in that Parliament. It anticipated “Boris bikes” by having a bicycle pool in New Palace Yard, enabling Peers and MPs to access a bicycle for £5 a year. Many used them to go out to lunch but, having been well entertained, they returned by taxi, leaving the organisers to collect our fleet from the choicest eating houses in the West End.

But enough of nostalgia. I join others, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, in condemning the dangerous and anti-social behaviour of those cyclists who break the law. Why are illegal e-bikes not confiscated on the spot? A few well-publicised instances would have a real impact. But justified criticism of a minority should not morph into an attitude that is hostile to cyclists as a whole. The focus of today’s debate should be on encouraging more people to cycle safely and responsibly, in line with the policy of Governments of all colours.

I have a specific request to the Minister. At the all-party reception on Tuesday, the deputy leader of Lambeth Council spoke about the hazard of rental bikes being abandoned on pavements. These are an obstruction to pedestrians and a hazard to the visually impaired. Lambeth does not want to ban them, as the chap from Brent wanted to do on the radio this morning, but Lambeth does not have the powers to manage the problem. Will the Minister’s officials discuss this with Lambeth to see how this might be put right?

I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, said, but I take issue with his proposal to register and license bicycles—I oppose that. He set out the case more fully in today’s House magazine. The Government have also looked at that and opposed it—and a Written Answer of a few months ago said:

“The Department considered the potential advantages and disadvantages of a mandatory registration and licensing system for cycle ownership as part of a comprehensive cycling and walking safety review in 2018. This found that the cost and complexity of such a system would outweigh the benefits, and that restricting people’s ability to cycle in this way would mean that many would be likely to choose other modes of transport instead, with negative impacts for congestion, pollution, and health”.


Is that still the Government’s view? Licensing has been tried and abandoned in Toronto and in Switzerland. The Prime Minister has said he wants to tread more lightly on our lives, and my noble friend Lord Moylan, a champion of deregulation, would of course want to leave an even smaller footprint on us.

In 50 years there may be another debate on cycling and I may not be on the speakers’ list, but I hope that we continue to make the sort of progress we have made over the last 50 years.

Pedal Cyclists: Insurance

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

I am grateful for that question from the noble Lord. The Government have no plans to implement a system of licence plates for cyclists. There are over 20 million cyclists in Great Britain, and a national licensing system for all cyclists similar to the one for cars and motorcycles would be complex and expensive to design and administer. Cycles would need to be fitted with registration plates that are sufficiently visible and robust. Those would not easily be transferred from one cycle to another and the cost of administrating such a scheme would be likely to outweigh the benefits.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, it is not a vote winner with the Young family, but what is the point of introducing new laws on cycling when we cannot enforce the existing ones—particularly new laws which would discourage children from cycling to school, which the Government are supporting with £60 million of funds?

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

The noble Lord’s question is properly best directed to the Home Office in terms of enforcement, but I share his view that it does need to be enforced far more heavily than it is at this moment.

NATS: Staffing

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

There are plenty of questions there for me to get my teeth into. I shall focus on staffing and staffing resilience at Gatwick in the tower. Two unrelated operational incidents caused withdrawal pending review, which is a standard safety procedure, and that impacted the flow on that day. However, when NATS took over air traffic control at Gatwick in October 2022, it inherited a staffing shortage. It takes at least 13 months to train an air traffic controller at a specific airport, and as I am sure the noble Baroness realises, 13 months have not yet elapsed. We have reviewed NATS’ plans, we are continuing to do so, and we believe that progress is being made.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, a fortnight ago, I asked my noble friend whether NATS should be liable to pay compensation for its failures in the same way as the airlines are, but she resisted. In defence, she said that NATS’ licence conditions allow penalties to be imposed for its failures. However, in a Written Answer, my noble friend told me that over the past five years, those penalties amounted only to £600,000, whereas this month the airlines have had to pay £100 million for NATS’ failures. Surely NATS should have to pay compensation in the same way as the airlines.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his continued questions on this matter. There are 55 licensed air navigation service providers in the UK. I am not saying that all of them could look after Gatwick, because it is incredibly complicated, but it is a commercial operation, entirely separate and different from what happens in upper air space, which is what I think my noble friend was questioning me about last week. There is a contractual arrangement between the airport and NATS which will include service level agreements and, I am sure, financial penalties, but it is a commercial matter of which the Government do not have oversight.

National Air Traffic Services: Operational Failure

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for making National Air Traffic Services liable to pay compensation to customers for operational failure.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government deeply regret the recent NATS operational failure and its impact on airlines and their customers. The incident is being investigated and lessons will be learned. NATS has an outstanding aviation safety record and is regulated against service targets set by the Civil Aviation Authority. There are incentives for NATS linked to its performance; failure to reach target levels may incur penalties and reduce the charges paid by airlines.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, last week 2,000 flights were cancelled because of NATS’s inability to process flight plans, and a quarter of a million passengers were grounded. When airlines are responsible for delays, they must pay compensation to the passenger and pay for alternative flights, accommodation and food. When NATS is responsible for delays, no compensation is payable at all—and, worse, the airlines have to pick up the bill for alternative flights, food and accommodation, which, in this case, was £100 million. Both NATS and the airlines are commercial companies—NATS had a profit of £150 million last year—so is not the differential compensation between NATS, on the one hand, and airlines, on the other, wholly indefensible?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for highlighting this issue, but I am afraid that I do not accept the premise that the two are comparable. There are elements in NATS’s current licence that allow financial penalties to be placed on it in the instances of poor performance. Indeed, as I stated in my first Answer, there is also a mechanism to reduce charges in subsequent years to the airlines because of poor performance. However, I would say that the event that happened was, thankfully, very rare; nothing similar had been seen for over 10 years. Therefore, we are very grateful for the work that the airlines did, and we worked closely with them to repatriate people as necessary.

Bus Funding

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 17th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I have to remind noble Lords that this is not the only money the bus sector gets; there are many other streams that should be considered. I think there is just over £1 billion in concessions; there is the existing money, £260 million, from BSOG; and obviously there is some money in the block grant. All in all, we have to be realistic about what the bus sector is going to look like in the future. It will have to adjust to new travel patterns, but there is the combination of this new funding and the existing funding, which will stay in place, and we have committed to having conversations with the operators and local authorities about longer-term measures, which will include a reform of BSOG. I would not be surprised if that reform looked very carefully at emissions from buses. One could put that in place, although an element of BSOG is already based on zero-emission buses.

All in all, I am satisfied that the sector is getting the funding it needs, and we need to work as hard as we possibly can with the operators and local transport authorities to encourage people back to buses, including those who use concessionary fares. I believe that if we do that, if we use the capital spending from the BSIP effectively, and if we have bus lanes and bus priority in the right sorts of places to improve the passenger experience, that combination of input is really good. Sitting there and saying, “Just throw money at the problem” is not it. We have thrown money at the problem. We have carefully considered how much money it needs, and we believe that this is a good future for the bus service.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I think that so far, the House may have been less than generous to my noble friend in the welcome they have given to her announcement. At a time of enormous pressure on public expenditure, an extra £300 million has been found to help the bus industry, and some funds going towards the caps. But I just pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Snape. At the beginning of my noble friend’s announcement, she said:

“Today I can announce a long-term approach to protect bus services”.


But then, towards the end, she said that the cap would be reviewed at 30 November next year and said:

“We will also undertake a review of bus fares at the end of November to support the sector”.


Can I press my noble friend a bit more on that review? November next year may be a sensitive political time and I think the bus industry and passengers will want to know before the end of November what the outcome of that review is going to be. Will my noble friend say a little more about the review, which will have to be announced before the end of November? What is the timing of it and what is the consultation exercise that will be involved in identifying the outcome of that review? I assume it will involve consultation with local authorities, passenger representatives and operators, so a little more on the timing of that review would be very helpful.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his welcome of this funding, this additional £500 million for the sector. Yes, he is right: November next year may well be a very sensitive political time. I suspect that the review will happen before the November period. One thing that needs to happen prior to the review kicking off is the completion of various reforms. Reforms to BSOG will be key. We will also need to see how travel patterns have been impacted by the fare cap. Again, we will be getting data back from operators as to the implications and the price elasticity of demand when it comes to fares, and whether they have encouraged people back on. So, I will write with further information if I have it, but I suspect the details of the review will become clearer in about spring next year, by which time we will have brought in some of the reforms we plan to undertake later this year, particularly around the calculation of concessionary fares reimbursements and BSOG. Those things need time to bed in, so we can see what the landscape looks like.

Public Service Vehicles (Accessible Information) Regulations 2023

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Grand Committee

These are positive regulations. They will make a difference to disabled people and to all people. Does my noble friend agree that all bus companies should be encouraged to get on side with the RNIB’s charter, which simply says “Stop for me. Speak to me”? In so many ways that sums up the right way to start any bus journey. “Stop for me. Speak to me”, and then the potential of the bus can truly be realised. These regulations could be a key part of inclusive buses connecting people and places, unleashing potential, and being part of the next chapter of positive bus travel for all members of our community.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise for missing the beginning of my noble friend the Minister’s journey as she introduced her remarks. I very much welcome the regulations before us, which build on the PSV regulations 2000 and use modern technology to bring in improvements for those with a sight or hearing impairment. I particularly commend the department on its very thorough analysis on pages 4 to 42, looking at all the various options. I only wish that every government policy was subjected to the very thorough analysis that the Department for Transport has subjected this proposal to.

Building on what my noble friend Lord Borwick said, I do not propose to chastise the department quite so violently as he did, but page 4 in the department’s defence refers to the high volume of consultation responses and the technical subject matter as reasons for the delay—but there were only 101 responses, apart from the supportive campaign by Guide Dogs, which produced 229. Like my noble friend Lord Borwick, I wonder whether the technical matters needed to preoccupy the department for quite so long. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister could address that.

The document refers to the risk of what is called network contraction due to the cost of implementation impacting on smaller bus operators and thereby services being withdrawn. It goes on to say that the accessible information grant of £3.5 million rising to £4.5 million might mitigate this. Is the grant meant to cover all the installation costs for smaller bus operators or will they have to fund part of it themselves? If it funded all the costs, the network contraction issue would not arise, but it is not quite clear from the document whether the grant will cover all the cost or only part of it.

My noble friend the Minister said that the instrument is technology neutral. It is not quite clear from reading it whether the bus driver simply announcing the next stop would qualify. The regulations state:

“Passengers must be given the following information … at each stopping place on the route”.


It is not clear whether if the driver just announces that over the intercom it would qualify or whether there has to be some technology-based system to make sure that, as my noble friend Lord Holmes said, the driver does not just forget to announce it. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister could clear that up.

I have two final points. First, on enforcement, how would we know whether bus operators have done what they are meant to do? Will the department rely on feedback from customers? Will the traffic commissioners be proactive in going out and making sure that the bus routes in their area have the necessary kit?

Secondly, the regulations will provide information while you are on the bus, but in London at any rate, at many bus stops there is a visible sign telling you when the next bus is going to arrive. That is quite useful and I wonder whether the department has any plans to roll out that information at bus stops, which would again encourage use and build up confidence in the system. At the moment, some bus stops in London have this but not all of them. Does my noble friend the Minister have any strategy for improving the information available at the bus stop, as well as that provided on the bus? Having said that, I very much welcome this as an important step forward and I endorse what my noble friends Lord Borwick and Lord Holmes said in welcoming these regulations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, I am extraordinarily grateful for all the comments from my noble friends and all other noble Lords. They mostly welcome this SI because there is nothing in it that cannot be welcomed. I also welcome the enormous experience of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, and his description of the time when he was working at TfL and the Tube. I agree with him; it is about culture, and one of our challenges is to inculcate that culture onto the buses. I do not know how many bus operators there are—the number 140 is in my head but I cannot remember—but it is a lot. Some operators are extremely small with fewer than 20 vehicles. This is about making sure that we bring everyone along with us, although I have to say that I expect some of the big operators in the larger metropolitan areas to be very much on the front foot with this. I expect that disability campaigners and representative groups will be on their cases— I hope that they are—to get dates for implementation from those companies that, frankly, have the wherewithal to do so quickly and set an example that others might follow.

I turn to some of the comments from my noble friends. The first was from my noble friend Lord Borwick. He was duffing me up a little. The “violent chastisement” of my noble friend Lord Borwick were the words of my noble friend Lord Young. I should like to say in mitigation that I was the Buses Minister for a vast period when we as the Government were considering this SI. I was pushing for improvements and to move things faster. It was disappointing every time when, as a Minister, I had to decide whether to reprioritise and re-timeline various things.

Covid has faded into the rear-view mirror, but it is extraordinary to me how, for more than two years of my life, it was all-consuming. For that time, as Buses Minister, saving the bus at all was my absolute priority, and it was a priority for the sector. I think there were two issues why the delay due to Covid happened. First, there was reprioritisation within my department as we were coming out of Covid—and we could potentially see the endgame—and we tried to get the national bus strategy out there to help in that recovery and to provide that strategic framework that we needed. Secondly, there was the ability of the operators to be able to give headspace to the very technical and detailed arrangements that they needed to consider to make these regulations right. Frankly, they were more concerned about keeping the buses on the road, keeping the drivers trained and recruiting drivers—all of the challenges that have either happened during Covid or subsequently.

While it is always regrettable when one has to deprioritise anything because there are other more pressing issues, having a stable bus network was the right priority at the time. I wish that we had been able to do everything at once but sometimes in Government, one just cannot. When it comes to these regulations and the technicality around them, it is because buses are not standard, and they can come from all sorts of manufacturers in various parts of the world. Therefore, there had to be a reassurance that whatever we put in the regulations worked on the buses that were available. Of course, the older buses are not particularly standard at all—some of them have very random seat configurations —and they often operate on the rural routes, the less profitable routes, or sometimes the supported routes by local transport authorities. They are the ones with the greatest vulnerabilities—so it is about getting that balance right between implementing those very important changes while making sure that we maintain all the benefits of buses which all noble Lords have already discussed today.

This was particularly reflected in the comments by my noble friend Lord Holmes in the way that buses can be the most inclusive form of transport and they are the best-loved form of public transport in our country. I thank my noble friend Lord Holmes for his positive remarks; he has been an assiduous campaigner in this area for many years. I completely agree that these benefits are for all people. There cannot be a noble Lord in this room who has not forgotten to get off the bus at some point or another. Our reflections in our analysis show that we do believe this will encourage more people on to buses—not just those with disabilities, but other people too as they feel reassured about the information provided on their journey. This is part of the mitigation for the cost of putting it in place in the first place.

My noble friend Lord Holmes also mentioned Northern Ireland. The matter of equalities is devolved to Northern Ireland. However, Translink, the bus operator there, has got audio-visual equipment widely deployed on its buses. I would encourage anybody to go to Northern Ireland, because it is a fantastic place for a holiday. Extra information can be added, but that is up to the discretion of operators. As I said previously, we expect some sort of increase in patronage as a result of this. It is difficult, obviously, to put a firm figure on it, but we do think it will be a positive outcome.

On floating bus stops, the Department for Transport is undertaking some research to ensure that they do the job they are intended to and can be operated safely. My noble friend Lord Holmes also mentioned bringing forward the review of the regulations. It is our intention to review them after five years, but noble Lords will be able to see our progress due to the annual bus statistics. This is a key document issued by the department, which collates all sorts of interesting information about buses, whether they are zero emission et cetera. One of the stats that we will put in that will be the extent to which this is being rolled out. I think that will enable the Government to think about whether it is going quickly enough.

My noble friend Lord Young mentioned support for smaller bus services. It is envisaged that the roughly £4.5 million will cover all the costs of implementation for those operators with fewer than 20 vehicles, which is incredibly welcome. He asked whether the bus driver could just shout, but visual information needs to be provided as well and the two often go hand in hand, so I do not think it would fulfil the requirements in the regulations for the bus driver just to shout.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I am looking at Regulation 13, which is entitled “Requirements regarding audio information”. There is a lot about the volume, but it does not say that the information must come from a machine; it seems that it could come from the driver. I do not see where Regulation 13 excludes the driver providing the information.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

This might be one of those grey areas. My officials say that it is right that the driver could provide the information, but there is a minimum and a maximum volume for that information. I suppose that the driver could provide it, but I do not think this would be widespread across the bus industry, given that much of the technology links audio and visual together and the computers behind it project that information at the same time.

Information at bus stops is a key part of the national bus strategy. It is not the responsibility of the operators; they provide the information that is used for those real-time scoreboards at bus stops, but bus stops are operated by local transport authorities, as I am sure my noble friend knows. The BODS is the DfT’s means of collating as much real-time information as is available and making it available to local transport authorities, which can then put it into bus stops. Some of the BSIP funding we issued to successful local transport authorities recently will go into boosting the information at bus stops. I agree that it is very helpful to know when your bus will arrive.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned contrast. There will be further information on that; we have discussed it with campaigners and representative groups in this area. It will be in the guidance, which will come out this summer. There will be training for drivers; it will not be centralised as such, but the operators will be encouraged to make use of the REAL training syllabus and can sign up to the inclusive transport leaders scheme to make sure that staff have the knowledge and skills to support all disabled passengers.

The regulations apply to a service and not a vehicle. Therefore, if a vehicle is being used in different services—it might sometimes be running a scheduled service and sometimes be doing something else—it would still have to provide the information set out in the regulations.

I shall finish on enforcement, as I am conscious that I have spoken a fair amount. There are two main ways of enforcement. First, the Government will be able to check progress via the annual bus statistics, which come from industry, so we can chivvy people along as such. However, if elements go wrong for a certain customer or there is persistent non-compliance on a particular route or vehicle or by a particular operator, we would expect that passenger to escalate a concern to Bus Users UK outside London and to London TravelWatch inside London. That is the standard method; in my experience, passengers are very good at escalating concerns, particularly as this is such an important issue. We expect that bus operators will want to make their passengers aware of when they have fitted this technology in their area.

Great British Railways

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I completely agree with the noble Lord.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, further to my noble friend’s reply, while understanding the reason for postponing the legislation, can she confirm that it will not stop worthwhile reform, such as simplifying ticketing, introducing more e-tickets, replacing diesel trains on branch lines with battery electric trains and other steps such as providing more real-time information about trains?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I can absolutely assure my noble friend that the Government are hard at work with the train operating companies, Network Rail and everybody in the railway industry to make sure that as much progress that can be made is being made. For example, the accessibility audit of all railway stations is now well under way and should yield really good results for accessibility in the future.

Airports: Delays

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of recent airport delays.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, Ministers have been very clear that the current situation is unacceptable and that passengers must be properly compensated where applicable. We are working closely with industry as it resolves the current issues and today the Transport Security announced a set of 22 measures that this Government are taking to support the aviation industry.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. Responsibility for the chaos rests primarily with the airports, which are not providing the necessary support services, and with the airlines, which cannot provide the flights that people have paid for. To improve the industry’s response, a fortnight ago my noble friend set up a strategic risk group to meet weekly. Can she tell the House what fresh solutions that group is working on to minimise disruption to holiday travel; in particular, is it looking at lifting the restrictions on night flights?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The strategic risk group is now well under way. It meets weekly at the highest level. It is a CEO-level meeting with the Aviation Minister. It is working on all of the mitigations to the risks as they become higher up the priority list and therefore more urgent. The 22 measures are some of the things that have resulted from the strategic risk group and, indeed, from other conversations that are happening, particularly on the operational side of matters. On night flights, the Government are well aware that there is always a balance between the aviation travelling public and the communities that live and work near airports. The current rules extend to October 2025 and the Government have no plans to change them.