Common Rules for Access to the International Market for Coach and Bus Services (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for bringing this SI and for her introduction. She has probably answered my question, but from reading paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum it looked as if UK operators would not be able to operate on the continent from 30 March. I think she has confirmed that that is no longer the case because of these more recent agreements. I hope we will be able to see a continuation of this important traffic without any interruption. What the French customs and immigration people do is of course a different matter, but let us hope that at least the services can run. I hope this will continue and that therefore the services that go to many member states across Europe can continue without getting bogged down in too much bureaucracy. As the Minister has said, it is a very important market.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, here is an SI that does not replicate what exists now, yet, astonishingly, there has been no formal consultation on it. The Explanatory Memorandum claims that it makes just technical amendments, but really it does much more than that. We must remember how important this industry is to us. Every year there are 3.6 million journeys to and from Britain by coach and 1.6 million overseas visitors coming to Britain by coach. That is 4% of all foreign tourists who come to Britain, and 83% of that 4% are from the EU. On the return leg, 1.1 million British residents go abroad by coach, of which 99% go to the EU. Looking at Northern Ireland, which is very important as well, there are 900,000 border crossings from Northern Ireland to the Republic and vice versa in a year.

The EU regulation allows reciprocal access for regular scheduled services and for occasional services—we would call them coach holidays. This SI provides unilateral access for current EU operators after Brexit in the hope that there will be reciprocal arrangements. I will turn to that later. The SI was originally recommended for the negative procedure. I was disturbed to see that, because I believe it is sufficiently important to be worthy of the affirmative procedure. Anyway, we are discussing it now.

I have some questions for the Minister. In future, EU coach operators will have to apply to the International Road Freight Office, when previously they received authorisation for coming to the UK from their home state. The DfT estimates that there could be up to 600 applications for authorisation for regular services at a cost to the Government of up to £95,500. Will the Government be charging an extra amount for this service? It did not need to exist before, so any charge would be additional. Is the IRFO being given sufficient additional resources? The Explanatory Memorandum also refers to a separate SI coming through for Northern Ireland. When will that be? Can we expect to see it in the next few days?

Obviously, things will be more complex and bureaucratic for EU operators. What will the Government do to make them aware of what they will have to conform to? What work are the Government doing with coach operators on the continent of Europe to make sure that the industry is fully aware of the change to the processes?

The Government hope to solve this problem in the long term by joining the Interbus agreement. The problem is, first, that the agreement does not allow cabotage and, secondly, that it applies at the moment only to occasional services. This will of course impact specifically on National Express and Translink in Northern Ireland, because they are the companies that provide the bulk of the regular services. Translink provides a lot of cabotage services as well.

In any event, the UK first has to join the Interbus agreement. I gather that the Government ratified it on 30 January. Will the final accession date that we were given of 1 April still apply if Brexit is deferred? Is it the case that we cannot accede until Brexit, or is 1 April a fixed date? At the moment, if we were to leave at the end of next week, there would be a two-day gap when services could not run. That might not seem like the end of the world, but it could be inconvenient and a real problem for the companies concerned. If they tried to run services without that specific authorisation there would obviously be insurance implications for them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley]

Would the noble Baroness care to speculate as to whether progress would have been so fast if this had been called European Interbus?

[Baroness Randerson]

I think we have a complete rewriting of the dictionary in Britain at the moment. We are not allowed to use the word “European” in any technical or official sense.

The EU is proposing a regulation to maintain basic road connectivity, which the Minister referred to. Does she share my concern that this is for a very limited period? Part of it applies until December, but only until September in Northern Ireland for cabotage and so on. It is all very messy, and therefore very complex for those operating in that industry. Do the Government intend to publicise this on GOV.UK? I am seriously concerned that while this will not apply to big companies, small coach operators in particular—there are quite a few of them in the industry—will find it difficult to keep pace with the very complex changes that the EU and the Government between them are proposing as short-term solutions. What about progress with the bilateral agreements that the Government are proposing to sign? How many countries have signed up so far to those?

On the publicity to the general public for all this, we are coming up to peak coach holiday season at this moment. Easter will be the beginning of high season for coach operators. Are passengers fully aware that they are in a situation of some uncertainty in relation to the ability of UK coach operators to ply their trade in Europe?

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the explanation given to us about the complicated nature of this SI. I shall speak particularly about the local situation in Northern Ireland. Once more, this is an example of how that part of the UK will feel the full force of Brexit, not only for Translink and the regular services that it provides across the border, which was once simply the border with the other part of Ireland but will now become the frontier with the EU. There is genuine anxiety in the industry about, first, the complicated nature of running regular services across the border and, secondly, the many local employers of small coach services that are frequently—especially, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, as we come into this season—crossing the border, going into the Republic and vice versa.

As the Minister reminded us, there will be a separate SI, but I suggest that there is bound to be an overlap between what this SI covers and the individual SI for Northern Ireland. If Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom there is bound to be that overlap. Can the Minister reassure the House that special attention will be paid to Northern Ireland’s difficulties in this respect, since we will feel the full force of Brexit when it comes?

[Baroness Sugg]

I thank noble Lords for their contributions. Turning to the questions on consultation from the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, I say that the aim of this legislation is to maintain the status quo as far as possible through technical amendments to the existing regime. We have engaged with the Confederation of Passenger Transport, as the main industry representative, and the Federation of Passenger Transport Northern Ireland, the FPTNI. The industry has been supportive of the application to join Interbus, as this will give liberalised, unlimited access to run occasional services in the EU, which covers the vast majority of activity by GB operators. There is little use of cabotage on occasional services, because UK carriers are normally taking the same group of passengers to a destination in the EU, then bringing them back.

We have been working closely with industry to make sure it is informed. While this SI makes technical changes, this SI, the EU regulation and the accession to the Interbus agreement together give maintenance of the status quo. Letters are going out to every operator which holds an international licence, to inform them about future processes. The trade association, the Confederation of Passenger Transport, is making members aware via social media, newsletters and email, and the information on GOV.UK which the noble Baroness referred to.

The noble Baroness asked about the effect on the International Road Freight Office. Relatively few authorisations are required by EU operators. We expect there to be about 150, rather than 600—600 is the top end of the estimation. There is a simple process; operators have to pay only for postage and, possibly, translation. Some operators already apply directly through the IRFO rather than their home member state, so we do not expect there to be a huge effect.

There is an issue with this two-day gap. It might be helpful if I explain why we have it. The Interbus agreement can come into effect only on the first of the month. If we had laid the SI earlier, the agreement would still have come into effect on the first of the month, as the agreement itself specifies that. We cannot become a contracting party until we leave the European Union. We are working closely with the European Commission to find a solution to overcome that gap in provision—

[Baroness Randerson]

Have I understood this correctly? Suppose we were to leave the European Union on the 15th of the month—I am plucking a date out of the air—we could not access the Interbus agreement until the first day of the following month. Therefore, we should be grateful that it is only a two-day gap, because it could be a gap of about 28 days, if things work out wrongly.

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Baroness is right: we are grateful that it is only a two-day gap. Should we not leave on 29 March, we may have a longer gap to contend with. However, we are working closely with the Commission and are very optimistic about getting a solution. Our preferred approach is to deposit a note verbale with the General Secretariat of the Council, stating that we propose that our accession be treated as coming into effect on the first day of exit. Once we have resolved that, we hope that we will be covered regardless of the length of the gap. That is particularly important for Northern Ireland, as I believe there are some major sporting events going on which will require lots of cross-border travel.

The Interbus agreement provides for liberalised occasional coach services—holidays, school trips and private tours between contracting parties. As I mentioned in my opening speech, those parties are the European Union and seven eastern European members. We intend to accede to the protocol of the agreement in our right regarding the international regular and special regular carriage of passengers by coach and bus. The protocol to expand the service to regular services is in progress.

The noble Baroness points out that the process has been quite slow. It opened on 16 July 2018. As of 13 March, no contracting parties had signed the protocol. We need only four contracting parties; obviously we will be able to sign it once we become a contracting party. We think we will see other signatories join but, if it is not in place by 31 December, we could either negotiate an extension for regular and special regular passenger services with the EU, which are covered under the current EU regulation, or seek to put bilateral agreements in place. At the moment, we think Interbus is the best solution to provide regular services, but we have options if that is not the case.