Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Viscount Hanworth and Lord Davies of Oldham

Thursday 10th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, this amendment and the others grouped with it seek to add to the list of those who have a crucial part to play. None of us has anything but great respect for the work of the Environmental Audit Committee in the other place, which has done a tremendous job in reviewing invasive non-native species and highlighting what needs to be done and how we can improve the situation. It would surely be hugely beneficial to have it involved in the process of issuing, revising or replacing the codes of practice for invasive non-native species. That committee is on record as being very supportive of the implementation of the Law Commission’s proposals and some time ago highlighted the need for this to be a priority for the Government. We think that there is a clear role for that committee, particularly against the background of there being more limited resources to hand for the Government in carrying out this crucial evaluative work.

Our remaining amendments involve the local authorities and local nature partnerships. The simple fact of the matter is that most local authorities do not have the capacity or the ability to assess biosecurity risks and to take a proactive or intelligence-led approach to reducing them. Two-thirds of our local authorities no longer employ any ecologists, according to the Association of Local Government Ecologists. The evidence suggests that ecological capacity within local government is stretched very thin indeed, but it has a very wide policy agenda. We are here debating this Bill because that agenda is extending, and we are trying to respond to those difficulties. There is clearly an ecological skills gap within the planning system and a clearer understanding of the specialist ecological competence is required, especially in understanding exactly what the discharge of statutory obligations involves. Having that clearer understanding would enable local government to allocate better its resources against the risks associated with the fact that it no longer has the level of technical expertise that it once had. When dealing with biosecurity issues such as diseases, pathogens and invasive non-native species, 75% of local government ecologists indicate that only “basic” or “capable” levels of competence are required at that stage. There is a worry about the ability of local authorities to play their part effectively, and that is why we would like a reference to local authorities in the Bill in addition to the crucial role of the Environmental Audit Committee.

It may be thought that I am putting enormous stress on a committee of the other place, but so much competence for dealing with these areas has been swept away that inevitably we have recourse to those obvious locales where expertise exists and can be called upon. The Environmental Audit Committee report has been of the greatest significance in the development of policy. I am seeking to strengthen the role of those who have some capacity to assist the Government, with their limited resources, in carrying out the necessary functions under the Bill. I beg to move.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, the comments that I wish to make may have some relevance to the codes of practice that will accompany the Bill. Amendment 71, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, which has already been debated, could have been a cue in its own right for a wide-ranging and interesting debate.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, proposed the definition of a species. A species is commonly defined as the largest extent of a group of organisms that is capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. That is similar to the definition that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was advocating, which also mentioned the exchange of genes. However, his definition did not include the fertility of the offspring as one of its conditions. Moreover, we know that bacteria of widely differing species can exchange genes via plasmids, which are small DNA molecules that can be separated physically from the chromosomal DNA. One might wish to exclude bacteria from the definition.

These are abstruse matters and I do not wish to pursue them further. Instead, I propose that in place of “invasive non-native species”, the legislation should be talking simply of “pests”. I assert that it is inappropriate to talk only of non-native species. The objection might be raised that the word “pest” is too vague to serve the purposes of this legislation. What is a pest in one context might be a harmless organism in another context. However, this is one of the realities that ought to be taken into account. I will mention the well known example of the English rabbit. When transferred to Australia, it became a major pest that threatened the viability of Australian agriculture. Rabbits destroyed the grazing land and by eating native plants and grasses exposed the top-soil and left it vulnerable to erosion. One way of overcoming an infestation is to alter the ecology by introducing a predator of the pest, or by some other means. In Australia in the 1950s, the ecology of the rabbits was altered radically by the introduction of a malign myxoma virus, which causes myxomatosis in rabbits.

The point I wish to make is that we need to consider pests within their ecological contexts, and ecology can be severely disturbed by inadvertent human interventions. Often the effect of a human intervention is to diminish the diversity of the ecology by eliminating some of its organisms, which may allow others to propagate without restraint. Thus an organism that has hitherto been regarded as harmless may become a pest as a consequence of such disruption. This is an ever present hazard in intensive modern agriculture. The matter of whether an organism is native or non-native is beside the point.

An ancient example will serve as an illustration. It is provided by a variety of grasshopper that was originally confined to the Middle East, which has latterly invaded the entire African continent. This is the locust, of which the pestilential effects emerged when the advent of agriculture upset an ecological balance. The Book of Joel in the Old Testament provides a graphic description of a locust plague in the Middle East.

The point that I wish to make is that we should approach the problem of ecological imbalance not by programmes of localised pest control but in a holistic manner that takes a far wider ambit. Instead of relying on local pest control officers to deal with outbreaks of invasive species, we should be relying on our public sector research establishments to monitor our natural—and our unnatural—environments so as to guard against pestilential outbreaks and to suggest the necessary countermeasures. This reinforces a point that has already been made by my noble friend Lord Davies, and I hope that his comments might be taken into account at a later stage when we come to review the Government’s deliberations.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Debate between Viscount Hanworth and Lord Davies of Oldham

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, there currently appears to be a gap in the Government’s draft licence for the strategic highways company. It says:

“Provisions relating to commercial activity and charging for services are still under consideration. We expect that the Licence holder will, where legislation allows, be able to continue to undertake commercial services or charge for services, on a non-discriminatory and cost-recovery basis, where this represents the continuation of current practice by the Secretary of State, in his role as highway authority for the network”.

My amendment is intended to probe this position and to ascertain in what precise circumstances the Government envisage the strategic highways company charging for services. There is some concern in many quarters that the model that is being constructed allows for the strategic highways company or companies to charge for road use. Although the company will have to be wholly owned, Clause 8 includes extensive powers for the strategic highways company to delegate functions, which could mean that many roads are contracted out in the future.

Our history on charging schemes for roads is not a particularly happy one. The toll road on the M6 was supposed to take 75,000 cars a day; in fact, it averages just over 40,000. As the embattled public who travel on it will testify, the equivalent stretch of the old M6 takes up to 180,000 vehicles a day. Therefore, road pricing and toll roads raise very real issues. There are also concerns that if the Government significantly increase the number of roads for which people have to pay, there will be increased congestion on other roads and more accidents as a result. The M6 toll road stands as a bleak beacon of warning. I beg to move.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, in lending my support to my noble friend Lord Davies, I speak to my Amendment 39. It proposes that:

“The power to set a toll or a tariff on a strategic highway may not be delegated to any company or person but must remain the sole prerogative of the Secretary of State”.

We have heard from the Minister that there are no immediate plans for privatising the highways company, which is set to replace the Highways Agency. However, this does not allay our anxieties about the privatisation of our strategic highways network. Nothing that the Government have said will preclude them from asking private contractors to administer parts of the network under concessions. The contractors would derive their income from tolls.

We need only look across the Channel to see an example of a strategic highways network that is largely under the control of private profit-making agencies. The example is provided by France, where 45% of the motorway network is now operated under commercial concessions, including all the main arteries. This circumstance has been the result of a major sale to private investors of the state’s holdings in autoroute companies, which began in 2005, under the Villepin Government, during the presidency of Jacques Chirac. Initially, the tolls on the roads were set by the French Government, but the private companies have been permitted to make year-on-year increases in the tolls. There is now widespread discontent at their exorbitance and at the excessive profits of the companies, which acquired their assets at knock-down prices. Clearly, the French Government ought to have retained the sole prerogative to set the levels of the tolls.

The only example of a tolled motor road in the UK is the M6 toll road of a mere 27 miles in length, which bypasses the Birmingham conurbation. This is controlled by the Australian company Macquarie, which holds the concession until 2054. In contrast to the French toll roads, this under-used road appears to be a commercial failure. In 2012, the operator, Midland Expressway, claimed to have made a loss of £41 million. I have no way of confirming this figure, which seems to have been exaggerated; there would have been a tax advantage in exaggerating the loss. The recourse of the company was to increase the tolls. This may have increased the company’s revenue, but it would certainly have diminished the traffic on the road, thereby reducing its social utility and increasing the costs of congestion and physical depreciation that are borne by the adjacent M6 freeway.

These circumstances should serve to emphasise a fundamental principle. Road charges need to be set by a central authority with an overarching concern to maximise the utility of the roads. High tariffs should be levied to deter vehicles from travelling on congested roads. High tariffs that deter traffic from using empty roads should be lowered or abolished. It might seem to be redundant to declare such principles at a time when there appear to be no immediate plans to impose additional tolls and tariffs on our roads. However, I believe that such charges are certain to be imposed sooner rather than later.

There are two factors here. The first is the likelihood that this Government, or a future Government, will desire to raise revenue to finance additional construction and maintenance. The second is the availability of new and effective technology that will greatly facilitate road-charging. My concern is that, unless the Government think ahead and resolve to take a strategic oversight of the matter, a piecemeal and dysfunctional system of road-charging will arise that will reproduce the problems that can be clearly discerned in other countries that have already applied tolls and tariffs to their roads.

Finally, whenever private enterprise is charged with undertaking motorway projects, it has been expected to raise the finance for those purposes from the open market. That has certainly been the case for the French toll roads, and it has been the case with our only toll road company, which administers the M6 toll. By going in their own right to the market, the companies have been denied the advantage of the superior creditworthiness of the Government. In consequence, they have had to bear much higher interest rate charges. There should surely be a way of conferring the benefits of the Government’s creditworthiness on all borrowings in favour of investment in social infrastructure, whoever undertakes them.