Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Thursday 21st March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I will start with the licensing of railway undertakings regulations. This SI is slightly more like the type of arrangement that we were promised at the start of this gruelling marathon. It is intended to ensure the minimum change.

Currently, there are two sorts of licence in Britain. One is issued by the ORR to a small number of operators, such as Merseyrail, that are separate from the main network, and it is based on 1993 rules. The rest of the operators have a European licence based on 2005 regulations. If you hold one of those, you can provide services in any EEA member state. This is all part of the European programme to establish a single European railway area. That is a very sensible approach that will be a basis for equal access, competition and common rules on safety, which is very important.

This SI allows operators with a licence not issued by ORR to continue for two years after exit day, whenever that may be. Will the Minister clarify that this is a rolling feast—that it will be two years after an exit day on, for example, 22 June? That would be sensible, but I am concerned that the rules on continuity in these SIs are so haphazard: some things finish in September, some finish in December, some continue for two years from whenever we leave, and so on.

After two years, under this SI, operators will need to revert to an ORR licence. The Explanatory Memorandum helpfully notes that only one operator is currently caught by that rule. Importantly, the SI does not provide for long-term mutual recognition of operator licences issued by the EEA and held by cross-border service operators—that is, the Channel Tunnel. Mutual recognition will depend on future bilateral agreements. Can the Minister update us on negotiations on this aspect?

Eventually, after two years, the only type of licence that will be valid in Britain will be issued by ORR. Existing European licences will cease to be valid and operators will instead need railway undertakings licences. Once again, this is a long, tortuous, bureaucratic process to change the name of the licence.

Finally on this SI, I express my delight that there has been a full consultation, which has been reported back to this House in detail, as consultations should be. It was comprehensive in that it included passengers, freight operators, devolved Administrations and so on, and a draft instrument was produced. It is ironic that this SI will involve minor disruption for a relatively small number of large organisations which to some extent are equipped to cope with it. While we have had a full consultation for this SI, in the case of others that involve major changes for people who are not equipped to deal with them, we were told that they did not get a consultation because the changes were not considered significant or to pose a risk. The truth is that this Government are getting away with a massive distortion of the normal rules followed by Governments; ignoring the consultation process is one aspect of that.

I turn now to the train driving licences and certificates SI, which affects thousands of train drivers, as opposed to a handful of companies. While a full consultation has been done on the previous SI, this one apparently is not important enough to warrant one. In the Explanatory Memorandum there is a list of organisations that attended a workshop, but there is no mention of trade unions. Trade unions are very strong and active in the rail industry and a very important group of people. Were they consulted and, if so, what did they think about these changes? If they were not, do the Government have any intention of having discussions with them?

In 2010, the EU regulations established a standardised regime for the licensing and certification of train drivers, with a standardised layout of licences and certificates, which of course is important to avoid confusion about what documents can be accepted. It includes, for example, what rolling stock they are qualified to drive. I cannot stress enough how important it is that there is clarity on qualifications and certification. That is really important for safety. I have a good friend who is a train driver, and he has explained to me at some length the difference between the levels of qualification and how important those differences are for our safety. Standardised criteria for training and examinations are obviously as important as, if not more important than, in many other professions.

In 2015 the regulations created a new standard for language and eyesight tests. Everyone can realise the importance of that. Facility with the language is as important for train drivers as it is for the medical profession, for example, and eyesight is extremely important.

Sensibly, this SI includes a transitional provision for the recognition of European licences in Britain for up to two years. Can the Minister clarify why the phrase “up to two years” is repeatedly used in the Explanatory Memorandum? Is that because the two years is measured from the end of March and we may not leave then? Or is it because the Government have not fully decided what the end of this story is going to be? I am sure that the Minister will understand that knowing exactly how long your licence is going to last is pretty important for those engaged in the profession—and indeed for the people who employ them.

Paragraph 2.11 of the EM says that only,

“a small number of train drivers”,

use European licences. Perhaps the Minister could clarify how many “a small number” is.

I have a real concern about paragraph 2.13, on the removal of requirements to inform the EEA safety authorities if a driver is not meeting the conditions of a licence. There is a discretionary power included for passing information for a transitional two-year period, but there is no obligation. This is something that I have raised time and again: the transfer and sharing of information are at the core of safety procedures, and yet again this Government are playing politics with the safety of our transport system.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, this is about my 60th SI, so I am into some SI fatigue. Previously I have started by saying how much I regret being here because of the Government’s failure to rule out a no-deal Brexit. Unfortunately, the world has changed. If nobody blinks, our no-deal exit is next Saturday and these rules will come in. I therefore have to disagree with my noble friend Lord Foulkes: I think we do have to do this work, for the worst possible reason—because we are in the worst possible place. Brexit itself is bad enough, but the Brexit that is going to be thrust upon us unless sanity reigns—

Merchant Shipping (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Monday 18th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her explanation.

The first of these two SIs relates to training standards in the industry and is based on EU directives 2008/106/EC and 2012/35/EU. The EU-wide process for the recognition of certificates has been very important—indeed, fundamental—in raising safety levels in an industry where international crews are the norm. In 2016, as the Explanatory Memorandum helpfully tells us, 3,410 UK seafarers had certificates enabling them to work in EU and EEA-registered vessels. The SI adopts the usual procedure, replacing “EU Commission” with “Secretary of State”.

It will not surprise the Minister to hear that I am concerned about the reduction once again in transparency in the process because the SI gives the Secretary of State responsibility for the withdrawal of recognition of parties to the STCW convention where standards are not met. What is the procedure by which the Secretary of State will come to that conclusion? Who will advise the Secretary of State? Will there be any right of appeal? We are replacing a well-established, well-understood European process with a process bathed in mystery. Perhaps the Minister could explain whether any further regulations will set out the process and where any advice might be given to the Secretary of State.

The Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments drew this SI to our attention because of its impact on seafarers. The UK will continue to recognise the certificates it currently recognises but there is no guarantee of the EU recognising our certificates in future. The 2005 directive established certificates of competency; each seafarer must have one, and have it endorsed by the flag state of the vessels on which they want to work. These are known as certificates of equivalent competency. Once the European Commission has approved a third country, other member states can, but are not obliged to, accept seafarers from that third country on their ships. That is an unusual discretion. How does it work in practice? How has it worked in practice until now? Is there a record of seafarers from a recognised third country not being accepted on ships from other EU countries? If there are cases where that has happened, which countries have chosen to exercise this power of discretion? Have we always accepted those certificates?

I am sure the Minister can see where I am going with this. My concern is that once we become a third country our seafarers may find themselves excluded by some EU countries, even though the European Commission has agreed to accept our certificates as compliant with STCW.

There is also my usual concern about how we keep up with the flow of information as the EU changes its standards. It is fine to say that we will hitch ourselves to the current standards, but keeping up with the list of countries recognised by the EU might be more complex than it seems. In this SI, the Secretary of State is given the power to add to or subtract from the list of recognised countries, so I ask the same questions again about that power. What will be the system for this? Where will be the transparency? Who will give the Secretary of State advice? I am even more concerned, because as usual there has been no consultation on this, and it involves individual seafarers. Although companies can be expected to keep abreast of all these changes, individuals should not be expected to have to do so.

I turn to the SI on passenger rights. Officials working in the Department for Transport must be losing the will to live during this whole process. As things descend into farce, it is probably difficult to keep abreast of the pace of these things, but I have to say that this is an unusually opaque Explanatory Memorandum. I draw noble Lords’ attention to paragraphs 2.8 and 2.9, which introduce us to the bunkers and Athens conventions in terms that suggest we chat about them over our cornflakes, so familiar are they to us all. I really grappled with this one; I raise this because if I have misunderstood it, it is because bits of it are particularly complex.

In practical terms, this SI seeks to continue current arrangements on passenger rights and on insurance. I have a technical question for the Minister. In the EU rules on this, the compensation for when things go wrong is currently dictated in euros. It is converted to sterling at the rate for the year ended 31 December 2017. Why are we using something pretty historical for this? It makes it look rather outdated before we start.

Once again, there has been no consultation on this. I want to make an important point in relation to the comments on small business. One after another of these SIs say that there will be minimal impact and only familiarisation costs to SMEs. I am beginning to be extremely concerned that, within each sphere—here we are on maritime—individual businesses are expected to absorb and to familiarise themselves with a number of SIs, not just one. The pace of change for them is adding up to something substantial, and the Government have not consulted them on it.

I also want to ask my usual question: how will the Government keep up with changes that happen in the EU on this? Passengers’ rights are very dear to people’s hearts. If there is any shadow of thought that we in this country have inferior rights, passengers would be extremely angry—and rightly so. Therefore, I am keen that we know how the Government intend to keep pace with change. What will be the process by which the Secretary of State makes decisions to change things when necessary? On whose advice would he act?

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a certain disadvantage in following the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson: she has usually nicked most of my points. I will therefore highlight only a couple.

Paragraph 3.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum states that,

“EU recognition of United Kingdom certificates will be at the discretion of Member States”.

Clearly, here we have a non-reciprocal situation, where we are providing rights to the EU and it is not necessarily reciprocating. Will the Minister explain the processes the Department for Transport intends to carry forward? Is there reciprocity, as we desire, or will it have to be done state by state? Can it be done through some comprehensive agreement with the EU? What efforts are being made at the moment to try to get a reciprocal agreement?

I share the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about the Secretary of State. To be even-handed, I should say that that is any Secretary of State—one is tempted to ponder on this one in particular, but I will set that to one side. I could not find it in the Explanatory Memorandum, but I may have overlooked it: what political oversight is there in the exercise of the Secretary of State’s powers? If there is none, how can there be transparency in the process? To pick up the noble Baroness’s point, how will he be advised?

Turning to the very important issue of passengers’ rights, although the Explanatory Memorandum is a document in the public domain, it is not one dear to people’s hearts, whereas Hansard is. Paragraph 7.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum seems to say that passengers’ rights will be identical. Will the Minister tell us in plain language that they will be identical, so that it can be included in the formal record?

On paragraph 7.3, I share the view about opaqueness. It talks first about EU member states that are not state parties to the Athens convention. Elsewhere, one got the impression that all EU member states were parties now to the Athens convention. Of the member states, which are not parties to the convention? It tells us little about how the Athens convention works and gives appropriate support and assurance to passengers. Will the Minister spell out what the convention does for passengers? I know it limits compensation, but how does it ensure that compensation will be paid? I recognise that the answer to that might be rather complex, so I am content for the Minister to write to me on that subject.

Licensing of Operators and International Road Haulage (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Monday 18th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I start with the big question, as I see it: where does this dovetail with ECMT permits? We have already been through those in relation to an SI. They are already established as part of our no-deal preparations, and there has already been feedback on the fact that only 5% of the industry will be covered by them. So is this an either/or, or is it an either/or that kicks in after December this year? Perhaps the Minister could clarify for me exactly where this regulation stands in the whole thing.

In essence, and I say these words carefully, this SI substitutes a community licence applied for in the UK with a UK licence for the community. No wonder the public are beginning to get frustrated with the whole thing. Given that this applies to thousands of hauliers—thousands of small haulage firms, many with one or two vehicles—they could be forgiven for getting confused over this. That innocuous though confusing change of name hides a fundamental potential change in their rights to operate within the EU.

On Northern Ireland, I have very serious concerns about cabotage and cross-trade. Paragraph 6.5 of the Explanatory Memorandum makes several references to future arrangements in Northern Ireland. There is of course a great deal of cross-border haulage between Northern Ireland and the Republic. The situation is very nuanced because goods haulage is very different from passenger transport. What will happen to these arrangements if Northern Ireland is caught in the backstop? Generally these SIs say, “We’re sorting Northern Ireland separately”, but this one incorporates arrangements for Northern Ireland. That led me to wonder how it will operate if Northern Ireland is caught in the backstop. Am I right to assume that in that situation these arrangements would cease to apply?

Rather obliquely, paragraph 6.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum says that the amendments made by the SI also apply to coach and bus services, but paragraph 7.9 says that there is separate provision for international passenger transport. Could I have an explanation of that?

Importantly, regulation 1071/2009 allows member states some discretion to impose additional requirements of operators, and once again the Secretary of State is to get that power. I repeat my usual questions. What about transparency? On whose advice would the Secretary of State exercise this power? How would it be done? Would there be a role for Parliament? Would there be a negative or an affirmative process? I know I ask this every time, but I assume that the answer is different on each occasion.

Applications for Community licences currently go to the traffic commissioners. Will they maintain that role for UK licences in future? If so, what about resources? I am well aware that the traffic commissioners have a very broad responsibility and their organisations are usually extremely thinly staffed. There is the usual hope that the EU will continue to recognise our rights as usual, but there are EU proposals on this and, as I understand it, they do not give us full cabotage rights. They also extend only to the end of this year.

The Explanatory Memorandum says that it is hoped that this SI will be superseded by full legislation by the end of the year. As time goes on, the end of this year looks remarkably soon for there to be even more legislation on this. To clarify, is this EU offer for nine months after we leave for a rolling nine months following Brexit, which will kick in only when we leave, or has it offered this up to the end of this year and that is it?

Once again, there has been no consultation. That is especially serious in this case, because thousands of hauliers who make their living in international haulage will not be able to rely on a Community licence in future. This is not a minor change; it is fundamental. Again, SMEs are not especially taken into account.

Finally, if you currently have a Community licence, will you have to reapply for it? Suppose you have a Community licence that is valid to this end of this calendar year: are there any events or potential Brexit scenarios, foreseen or unforeseen, that could lead to hauliers having to reapply for their licence within that timeframe? Everyone expects that they will reapply for their licence at the end of the period covered, but is there anything that could happen that would interrupt that licence? Or are hauliers right, and can be confident to assume, that if they have a valid licence until the end of this year, for example, they can carry on working until then? I would be grateful for clarification on that.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I took a slightly more optimistic view of this SI than the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. However, clarification in plain language will help. Paragraph 2.7 of the Explanatory Memorandum says:

“The UK operator licensing regime will generally remain as at present”.


I wonder whether we could have simpler language than that. My understanding, taken with recent agreement in the EU, is that the situation will be fully reciprocal. I will say it again, because it is a question to which I would like a direct answer. The Explanatory Memorandum uses terms such as “provided that”, which enthused me to look up the European Commission—I will not do this again. On 19 December 2018, it published a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on,

“common rules ensuring basic road freight connectivity with regard to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the Union”.

At the end it says that the regulation applies until 31 December 2019, and that it was “done at” Brussels. I do not understand EU law. Is that now a piece of EU law? Does it, together with this SI, mean that in all respects, except the names of these licences, the situation for operators is identical to where we are now, with, of course, the overriding importance that the agreement of the EU is only until the end of the year?

Aviation Statistics (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, airport operators currently provide their statistics to the CAA, which passes them on to Eurostat. This is to be replaced, according to this SI, with a system whereby airport operators give the information to the CAA, which then provides that data to the Secretary of State if directed—not by legal obligation but if directed.

There are four problems with the SI. First, statistics collected on a national basis are much less useful and meaningful than international statistics. As the noble Lord said, there is no guarantee that this information will be shared internationally.

Secondly, there is no obligation on the Secretary of State to even want to see the statistics. What will he do with them? There is no obligation on the Secretary of State to publish them. Therefore, one has obvious concerns about transparency. Statistics should be important for the Government; they are certainly important for the public and the industry itself to monitor performance. The CAA already collects this data, but it will be of much less use for comparative purposes as matters stand in the SI.

The third problem is the impact of changing rules on exactly how the data is expressed and collected. This is the kind of internal thing that happens in any organisation. If you change the order of the questions or one or two words in the questions, you impact the results. It does not matter that much if you are looking across the piece and everyone is obeying the same rules, but we will be collecting our data on a different basis. I more or less guarantee that, within a year or two, we will be told that our data is no longer comparable because of differences in collection procedure.

Finally, there is the new power of the CAA referred to in the SI to impose a £5,000 fine if an airport does not provide data. I am not entirely clear about this, and I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify. I believe that this is a new power; I am not sure that the CAA has it at the moment. If it does, what is the fine, because £5,000 seems derisory as a fine on a large organisation for failing to provide data? It would cost Heathrow Airport or Gatwick Airport a great deal more than £5,000 to collect the data, so there would be an incentive not to bother. Where does £5,000 come from? Has it been thought through as a penalty that should be paid by a large commercial organisation? It does not seem worth it.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, the points made by my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, are exactly right. I look to the Minister to answer them. I can see why we would want to avoid an obligation, but I cannot for the life of me see why we would not want voluntarily to co-operate with Eurostat. This obviously is a wider question for government as a whole, but in an open society we have to believe that sharing information is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I formally object to the £5,000. It clearly is not within the spirit of the withdrawal Act and therefore the Minister has not prayed that Act in aid but has prayed in aid the draconian European Communities Act 1972. I was not here in 1972 and I have not recently brushed up on the detail, but that Act was created to implement European law. This is not creating European law; it is smuggling in a little correction. I am not going to cause a constitutional crisis by objecting to it, but the Government should not have done it.

Motor Vehicles (Wearing of Seatbelts) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I will begin by pointing out that Paragraph 7.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum says:

“With exit day less than one year away”.


I keep repeating this because I want to know where these SIs have been all this time. Someone clearly did the work on them a long time ago, and we are now rushing them through this House. Why have they been left to this late stage?

That is my complaint over with. Turning to the issues in this SI, as the Minister has said, it is a simple transposition. But it is an important topic, because hundreds of thousands—probably millions—of British people travel abroad to Europe every year. A very large number of them take their car, and could therefore start off with perfectly legal seat belts only to find themselves in an illegal situation by the end.

This SI basically says “If it is legal in the EU, it will be legal in the UK. If you are exempt in the EU, you will be exempt in the UK”. What about UK drivers going to the EU in the situation I have just explained? Has the EU indicated what it intends to do in the event of a no-deal Brexit? On some transport issues, it has given a fairly clear—if not always desirable—indication. Has it made any comments on this at all?

Those who are in favour of Brexit, including the Secretary of State, want the freedom to develop our own standards. If we do, will we be guaranteed that, when we go to Europe with, say, our child’s bumper seat—which people often take with them on holiday—it will be legal when we get there?

There has been a lot of coverage lately of the end of the EU medical insurance system as it applies to UK residents. Is there a set format for the medical certificates referred to in this SI? Is there a particular form or list of medical professionals who can sign these certificates? My point is, how easy will it be in future for UK citizens to get a certificate of medical exemption that will be instantly recognised as authentic and acceptable, even by someone who perhaps does not speak English? To reverse that, if there is an EU format, then we will clearly be used to it, and the authorities in Britain coming across someone with a medical exemption would know about it. I am trying to tease out the way in which British people will be treated in future when they drive in the EU.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, leaving the EU without an agreement is a thoroughly stupid thing to do, but if it happens, this SI is thoroughly sensible and we will not oppose it. My understanding, which I think is the same as that of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is that it is not symmetric: that it does nothing for UK drivers in the EU but sensibly addresses the issue of drivers who would unknowingly be breaking the law were this SI not completed. It produces a sensible environment in which friends—as I would call them—from the European Union can drive in the UK.

Ship and Port Security (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her explanation. The EU regulations behind this provide a standardised regime of protective security for port facilities and the surrounding area, and this SI also covers inspections. It replaces the EU system with a UK system that mirrors the EU one, and in doing so, there is one crucial change: it removes the obligation to provide information to the European Commission. I am sorry to ask again: how will we co-ordinate and share information with the Commission in the future?

The SI says that the MCA will continue to carry out inspections to ensure that ships and ports meet required security standards. Can the Minister say who will set down those standards and require them in the future and how we will align them internationally so that our standards are as good as those of the rest of the world? Since this is an attempt to mirror the EU, how will the Government adapt to changes that the EU makes so that we do not put ourselves at a disadvantage with our current EU partners?

Can the Minister also say what liaison there has been with the devolved Administrations on this? It is not clear from the Explanatory Memorandum. The devolved Administrations have an important role in port administration. We do not want to confuse people totally; the idea that you would have a very different set of standards if you put into the port of Holyhead rather than the port of Liverpool would be deeply unsatisfactory and confusing. The SI gives the Secretary of State power to amend port security regulations by the negative procedure, and the Minister drew attention to that. However, perhaps I did not hear correctly or fully; could she say why the affirmative procedure is not being considered?

The EU can block amendments to the ISPS code if they might lower maritime security standards. This power is now given, in this SI, to the Secretary of State, once again by the negative procedure. We do not want to see lower standards. I am concerned about the danger that we might get out of step with the EU on the highest standards which are set by it and that we might do so simply by default. That is because the Secretary of State would exercise the power through the negative procedure and we would not be given the opportunity to scrutinise it.

This is a serious issue as regards safety and it is important that we are given the opportunity to scrutinise it. I personally would prefer the affirmative procedure, but I will listen carefully to what the Minister has to say.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, once again I thank the noble Baroness for introducing this instrument. I have subjected it to my standard test: is it the minimum policy change required? I also have to admit that I did not understand the overall framework, but that is my fault. I know about aeroplanes and trains, but the sea is a mystery to me. What I have picked up from the instrument is that SOLAS with its ISPS code is an international convention. Is it the case that the international body hands down specifications and requirements that it has previously put through the EU and in the future will make directly to the UK? Are such directions and recommendations mandatory for the UK except as excepted by this instrument?

Merchant Shipping (Recognised Organisations) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, these regulations involve ship inspections. The four sets of regulations this afternoon will lead me to repeat myself on a couple of occasions because the same themes come through in each one. All of them have safety issues at their core. The current EU-based system will be replaced with a UK-only system. As I understand it, it will continue to work within a system of international standards and the new legislation will retain existing criteria for the recognition, authorisation and monitoring of ROs: so far, so good. But ships move about and currently we have obligations to report to the EU to share information. How will this sharing happen effectively in future? Most of our ships will be sailing through EU waters at some point in their journey and many of the ships that visit our shores are EU ships. We need to know how that information is going to be shared in the future because of the safety implications.

The inspection of ships, both UK and foreign ones, is a key issue for the safety of ports. Therefore, I was quite surprised to read that there has been no formal consultation. Reasons were given on each of these SIs why there was no formal consultation. If you take the SIs together they are a pretty significant bundle of legislation and would be worth consultation in the round, if not as individual pieces of legislation.

It states in the Explanatory Memorandum that the Secretary of State will be given power to make subordinate legislation. Can the Minister clarify whether this will be an affirmative or a negative procedure?

Finally, the list of ROs we have been provided with makes for interesting reading. I do not in any way pretend to be an expert in these issues. Can the Minister enlighten me as to how this list is drawn up? How is this rather disparate list of organisations there and how do we change it? What are the criteria for changing it if we want to? I would be grateful for some information on that.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for presenting this instrument. I have no great problem with it but I lack a little bit of understanding. The first thing I would like to be clear on is whether this is a no-deal instrument, that is, something that needs to be processed quickly because it is necessary if we fall out of the EU without a deal—which in my view and that of my party would be the least satisfactory outcome. I can see that the instrument does its work in the event of a no deal; I am not so clear about what happens to it if there is a deal. Will it be repealed or will it be paused? Will it continue to exist? The Minister may find it efficient to answer that question referring to all four statutory instruments if it is the same answer.

Drones: Consultation Response

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Monday 7th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her repetition of the Statement. I see it promises further action but unfortunately when I look at the detail I see no clear action specified, except the five-kilometre rule. It seems to me it merely says that there will be more meetings and discussions; there is no specific action in the Statement.

Does the Minister accept that the Secretary of State has a personal responsibility for the safety of operations, particularly at Gatwick, Heathrow and the other major airports? The whole concept of a good safety environment is where one individual can be held personally responsible. In the case of aviation, we have several safety systems but, at the end of the day, somebody has to be responsible. Is it her view that the Secretary of State has this personal responsibility? Does he also have a personal responsibility to the many passengers disrupted because of this incident? I believe that in excess of 100,000 passengers had their travel disrupted by this event.

The present regulations in relation to 400 feet and one kilometre are pathetic. When I was both a private and a professional pilot, if I got within one, five, 10, perhaps even 15 kilometres of Heathrow or Gatwick without direct permission to do so, I would have been prosecuted, paid a hefty fine and had my licence removed. The idea that a kilometre is of any value is absurd, and there has to be a serious question mark over five kilometres.

I note that the Statement acknowledges the wider challenge with prisons and infrastructure, and I am pleased that account will be taken of that—but we have known about this risk for many years. I believe there was an incident at Gatwick as far ago as July 2017 and BALPA, the pilots’ union, has been pointing out the potential hazards of drones for a number of years. Why was there not a plan? Why was there not legislation? The noble Baroness and I spent many happy hours together at the beginning of 2018. We did space; we did ATOL; we did vehicle technology; we did lasers. There was every opportunity to squirrel some legislation on drones into those Bills, and indeed I made an informal offer to her predecessor that we would co-operate if the Government had something to bring forward. Some basic legislation could have been introduced.

Is it the DfT’s view that Gatwick Airport Ltd met its responsibilities? Does it not have a general responsibility for the safety of its passengers? Does it not have a general responsibility to plan in some depth for when things go wrong?

For part of my career, I was responsible for the passengers on the London Underground. We would respond to any risk by making plans immediately to see how we could mitigate those risks and then we would develop those plans. The mitigation, where practical, would be introduced straightaway. Indeed, in the early 1990s we developed plans to evacuate the Underground very quickly. When in 1992 we found incendiaries on trains, we were able to get the people out within something like 10 minutes. I have to admit that we did not have a plan to then restart the Underground, and it was not a good day for our passengers—but at least they were alive and well. Does the Secretary of State accept that he should have had in place, or caused to be in place, a plan? Does he accept that, if a plan does not exist, it should now?

I assume that the new powers will increase police activity and responsibility. Will there be sufficient police resources to make this practical?

The issue of drones has been with us for years, and in my view it has been handled chaotically. This is symptomatic of the whole of HMG at the moment. When will this Government get a grip?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, at last we have some sort of response from the Government on the issue of drones, which, as the noble Lord emphasised, we have discussed repeatedly and urged the Government to take action on. The only positive thing that can be said about the Gatwick incident is that it involved massive economic and personal disruption but not death or injury, which it could have.

There are now millions rather than thousands of drones in the UK. The Gatwick incident ruined travel plans for 140,000 people. In 2017, there were 93 near misses between drones and planes, and 3,500 incidents involving drones were reported to the police, concerning people’s safety and their privacy. These are large figures: this is not a marginal activity. It paints a picture of a big problem, but the Government have been horribly complacent and have dithered and delayed. The consultation that the Minister referred to finished in September, but we have the response only now and—if I dare suggest it—had we not had the Gatwick incident, I do not think it would have come out now.

I understand that action was deferred because of the pressures of Brexit, but the Government have allowed themselves to be distracted from a very important issue. The new regulations that were introduced last year proved in the Gatwick incident to be inadequate, ineffective and unenforceable. The police clearly did not have the right equipment, and I suggest that the dramatic tension of the Gatwick incident turned to farce when the police suggested they were not even sure that there had been a drone, or that it could have been their drone that people were seeing.

The Government’s proposals today are welcome, but they are far too vague. We need action beyond legislation because, as the noble Baroness said, the legislation—whatever it was—was ignored. I would like to press the Minister on the timescale for these proposals. When does she think new legislation will get through this House, given the very crowded schedule?

The Gatwick incident indicated that both the police and the Army did not have the right equipment to hand to deal with drones. That is despite the fact that some of the equipment we are talking about was invented and manufactured in Britain. Will the Minister assure us that this equipment is now being rapidly rolled out to both the police and the Army? I read that it is being purchased by airports but it is important that the police and the Army carry out the appropriate exercises so that they know how to respond—they clearly did not know how to respond prior to Christmas. Obviously, that will require additional resources. I would like some reassurance from the Minister that the Government will provide those.

For satirists, the Department for Transport is the gift that keeps on giving. Over the Christmas break alone, we had the ferry company with no ferries, the drone incident with possibly no drones and today we had the traffic jam with not enough lorries. The Secretary of State said on television with unconscious irony before Christmas that the drone incident was the first time this had happened in the world and the first time there had been disruption for days at an airport. That is because the action was not taken, because the equipment was not there and the police and the Army were not prepared. It is not the first time that a drone has disrupted an airport across the world. Unfortunately, this was our world first and it is not one that we want to see repeated.

Airports National Policy Statement

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and for providing the extensive documentation that went with it. Labour’s position on Heathrow was set out by my honourable friend Andy McDonald MP in the other place yesterday:

“Labour will consider proposed expansion through the framework of our well-established four tests: expansion should happen only if it can effectively deliver on the capacity demands; if noise and air quality issues are fully addressed; if the UK’s climate change obligations are met in their entirety; and if growth across the country is supported”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/6/18; col. 172.]


Labour’s decision will emerge in due course.

The Statement says:

“To ensure fairness and transparency we appointed an independent consultation adviser, the former Court of Appeal judge, Sir Jeremy Sullivan”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/6/18; col. 169.]


I invite the Minister to set out in a little more depth what the role of that individual was and whether it will continue into the future.

I turn to the Government’s response to the Transport Committee’s report. Recommendation 2 of that report says:

“We recommend that both Houses of Parliament allow the planning process to move to the next stage by approving the Airports National Policy Statement, provided the concerns we have identified later in our Report are addressed by the Government in the final NPS it lays before Parliament”.


Does that mean that we will have a debate in this House on a divisible Motion?

Turning back to the Statement, it says:

“Our draft NPS was scrutinised by the Transport Committee, and I thank the Chair of the Committee and her team for the thoroughness of their work. I was pleased that they, like me and my colleagues in the Government, accepted the case for expansion and concluded that we are right to pursue development through an additional runway at Heathrow. We welcome and have acted on 24 out of 25 of its recommendations. Our response to the Committee is also being published today”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/6/18; col. 169.]


For the avoidance of doubt, I will tell your Lordships that the 25th recommendation was recommendation 22, which was about an incinerator. Does “acted upon” mean “We have agreed with the recommendation”? Clearly, it does not. The committee’s recommendation 19 is that there should be a seven-hour noise ban at night and the Government have responded by saying, “No, you will get only six and a half”. I have done my best to try to understand the response to the committee, which is vague and, at times, woolly.

On capacity, the Statement says:

“Expansion at Heathrow will bring real benefits across the country including a boost of up to £74 billion to passengers and the wider economy, providing better connections to growing world markets, and increasing flights to more long haul destinations”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/6/18; col. 169.]


That makes it sound like thousands. In fact, the committee’s report says:

“The NPS states that the NWR scheme is ‘expected to lead to more long-haul flights and connections to fast-growing economies’. The DfT’s forecasts show that, at the UK level, the NWR scheme will offer one more destination overall to emerging and fast-growing economies when compared with no expansion”.


One seems a rather modest number.

The Statement touches on savings. It says:

“We took a firm step when I asked the industry regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority, to ensure the scheme remains affordable while meeting the needs of current and future passengers. This process has already borne fruit, with the identification of potential savings of up to £2.5 billion”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/6/18; col. 170.]


Is this saving coming from the mooted scheme, which I believe Heathrow is consulting on, to reduce the length of the third runway from 3.5 kilometres to 3.2 kilometres? If it does, will there be any significant operational impact of that reduction? When, many years ago, I was privileged to be a co-pilot on 747s, 2,500 metres seemed enough, and certainly many of the operations presently at Heathrow require nothing like 3,500 metres. Given how expensive the M25 issue is to this scheme, are further reductions to the runway length being considered?

We increasingly appreciate the importance of air quality, as well as its fatal consequences. What is the commitment on air quality? There is a commitment in the Statement but there was another in the Government’s response to the Transport Committee, which said very solidly:

“No scheme would be allowed to proceed if it did not comply with air quality obligations”.


Can the Minister flesh out what those air quality obligations are?

On noise, once again the Statement is fairly bullish. It says:

“Communities will be supported by up to £2.6 billion towards compensation, noise insulation and improvements to public amenities—10 times bigger than under the 2009 third runway proposal”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/6/18; col. 170.]


That may be, but Heathrow Airport Holdings Ltd has recently proposed a cap of £3,000 on any insulation project. Anybody who has their house insulated against noise knows that that is a trivial sum. Can the Minister confirm that there will be no cap and that Heathrow will pay what it takes to achieve the appropriate levels of noise insulation?

It is a shame to see that the references to the community came right at the end of the document. It is the community that will be very impacted by this scheme. Towards the end of the Statement the Secretary of State said:

“Earlier this year a community engagement board was established, and we appointed Rachel Cerfontyne as its independent chair. It will focus on building relations between Heathrow and its communities, considering the design of the community compensation fund, which could be worth up to £50 million a year, and holding the airport to account when it comes to delivering on its commitments today and into the future”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/6/18; col. 170.]


Can the Minister set out what powers the independent chair will have? Will she in fact be acting as something like a tribunal and able to direct Heathrow in disputes to provide the appropriate money?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, this Statement has an air of Alice in Wonderland about it. Governments have been considering this problem for 20 years but I am afraid that the question is out of date, and so is the answer. Hub airports are no longer the growth area in aviation; the growth area is now in direct long-haul flights. The idea of concentrating ever more development in the overcrowded south-east will, the Government say, benefit other parts of the UK as well. Yet the report by the New Economics Foundation, Flying Low, shows that a new runway at Heathrow will cost regional airports 14 million passengers a year. It will harm them, not benefit them.

The first lack of reality is on the timescale, since 2026 is ridiculously optimistic. The idea that you are going to build a runway as well as demolishing 800 houses, moving an incinerator and dealing with the public inquiry, with development consent and—I am fairly certain—with challenges in the courts from local councils suggests to me that the Government do not have realistic expectations in that regard. This is important because it will have a big impact on the ability for any airport development to help our trade situation. There is also a level of fictional economics, which is that the Government have assigned this a zero cost by saying that it is a private development. Can the Minister clarify her attitude to Transport for London’s estimate of a £6 billion cost to the public purse for public transport? Who will pay for the cost of the disruption to the M25 and M4?

I greatly regret that there is a very brief paragraph on air quality. We were hardly aware of emissions issues when this problem was first investigated. Can the Minister provide us with more detail on how this development will enable the Government’s compliance with international obligations? Will she particularly address the issue of surface transport access and surface transport within the airport?

This is supposed to be a national statement yet there is only one brief paragraph in it referring to anywhere other than the south-east of England. How do the Government intend to achieve their promise of supporting other airports to make best use of their runways? Is that a concrete promise of support or is it simply wishing them well in the process? Liberal Democrats believe that the Government should be using airport development as a springboard for the development and prosperity of the north and the Midlands. They should be spreading prosperity across the whole country.

Finally, I warn everyone who is interested in this to look carefully at the wording in the Statement, especially that on page two. All the reassurances are couched in weasel words.

“We expect up to 15% of slots”,


will “facilitate domestic connections”. What does that promise to other parts of the UK? The Government expect,

“up to £2.6 billion … compensation”,

to be paid. They expect not at least £2.6 billion, but up to that figure. They,

“expect … a six-and-a-half hour ban on scheduled night flights”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/6/18; col. 170.]

What exactly are the guarantees, not the Government’s expectations, on compensation and night flight bans?

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 5th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 2. I submitted this amendment to give us the opportunity to clarify further exactly how the Government’s definitions would apply in practice. External organisations still voice concern that the Government are not using SAE International levels 4 and 5, which they regard as an accepted international standard. I accept entirely that it is slightly complicating matters that UNECE is still discussing this issue. I wonder whether, given that it will ultimately produce the precise definition, there could at some point be reference to the fact that these will be standards according to those laid down by UNECE. I assume it will get to the end of its discussions pretty soon, otherwise the roads will be full of automated vehicles without people understanding what they are.

I do not actually think there will be much confusion about level 5—I believe they will not have steering wheels, so it will be pretty obvious that they are automated vehicles—but I still cannot entirely get my head around the wording, at line 9, that they are,

“designed or adapted to be capable, in at least some circumstances or situations”,

of safely driving themselves. That does not suggest necessarily that these vehicles are going to be in a sustained mode of automatic driving. I think that the problem will arise with what are currently called level 4 vehicles, because that is almost a gradation further than level 3; there is no absolute cut-off point between level 3 and level 4. Level 3 cars can be driven on their own in some circumstances. I understand that using the word, “safely” is a very useful way of putting it, but it could be open to interpretation.

The Government have complicated things for themselves by using the phrase, “driving themselves”. The industry does not use that term—it does not say that the car “drives itself”. That is not the technical term that it uses; therefore the Government are using in legislation phrases that might be fairly obvious to the layman but are not used by those who deal with these issues every day.

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for the number of amendments she has brought forward. She has listened carefully to what we have had to say, and we have certainly made a great deal of progress, but I would be grateful if she would go away before Third Reading and consult a bit more with representatives of the industry to ensure that the categories are watertight. As I have said here before, probably at a much earlier stage, insurance companies are extremely good at arguing that particular situations do not apply to them and the Government are going to have to be watertight in their approach.

Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, is along very similar lines in that it seeks clarity. That is what concerns us. I welcome that amendment, as I do the amendments from the Minister which have added some elements of clarity in a potentially complex situation. It is complex simply because we are trying to imagine ourselves into the future.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House, and with apologies for being a little late, I shall speak solely to my Amendment 4. As I understand it—and I would value a nod from the Minister—she did not refer to Amendment 4 until I arrived. Amendment 4 is exactly as we moved before and we got some response to it on the issue of consultation. We heard:

“That is something that we plan to do … we fully expect this to be subject to full consultation”.


We got something really absolute only when the Minister said that the Government,

“will absolutely consult on the detail”.

I thought, “Great, those are the sorts of absolute terms I like”, only to see that she also said,

“where we need to make further primary or secondary legislation”.—[Official Report, 9/5/18; cols. 196-197.]

Well, of course you will consult when you are trying to get legislation through.

I accept that the Minister has gone some way to reassuring us but I am fearful that, given the order-making powers for conventional vehicles, Parliament may never see the safety criteria—ever. What I would like from the Minister, given the public concern about the conceptually new way of travelling, is an assurance that the safety criteria will come in front of us in one form or another before there is substantial automated vehicle activity on the roads.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 49 and 50, which are in this group. Before I do so, I reiterate my thanks to the Minister, who has taken on board the criticisms of the Bill that were made in Committee by me and the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, in relation to the slight reference to hydrogen in the Bill when it came from the other place. The Government have accepted most of the amendments and have therefore dealt with the confusion of referring to charging hydrogen vehicles when it is not a phrase anyone would use—one would say “refuelling hydrogen vehicles”.

The amendments may appear simple, but they are very significant because the terminology used sends signals to investors and markets about the Government’s wishes and what form of ultra low emission vehicles they are supporting in this legislation. As originally written, it looked as if the Government were backing battery electric vehicles over other technologies, and these amendments put things in a more balanced light and level the playing field considerably.

However, I invite the Minister to think again before Third Reading and change the title of the Bill. The Bill now refers to three specific categories of vehicles—automated vehicles, electric vehicles and hydrogen vehicles—but its title refers to only two of those three categories, so to the less-than-expert observer it would appear that the Government have no legislation to encourage hydrogen vehicles. The Government could have chosen a much more general title, but they have chosen a relatively specific title because the Bill is limited and specific, so it would be sensible to flag up to the world that the Government have this legislation by putting the word “Hydrogen” in the title. I urge the Minister to reconsider this. I have no intention of pushing this to a vote today, but I think it would be useful if the title could be amended at Third Reading.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that a change to the title would be helpful, and I accept her point that it is not something we are going to divide the House on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

I am somewhat confused. I thought we were still debating the group starting with Amendment 29, and my understanding of the rules is that no other amendment is yet moved. Anyway, I will make the speech that I was going to make. I thank the Minister for her help in trying to get me to understand the amendment, those that preceded it and the amendments to the amendments that preceded the latest amendments to the amendment. I have to admit that I am now totally confused. Hence I am absolutely delighted that the Minister has assured us that this group of amendments will be translated into a single government amendment. I will reserve my views on that amendment until I have seen it, and I hope it turns up quite soon. Because that amendment will be tabled, we may choose to bring forward amendments to it at Third Reading, but I will refrain from using the time of the House any more at this point.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I am totally confused as well because I thought we were still on group 7. I am going to confuse everyone even further by moving and speaking to Amendment 33.

Rail Timetabling

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, the national railway is a public service for two reasons. First, most passengers have no choice and, secondly, a vast amount of its expenses are paid for by the taxpayer. One has to ask: who is responsible for this public service? It is very clear: it is just one person, the Secretary of State. He owns Network Rail, he hires and fires the directors, he determines their pay, he can give them directions, he decides what funding they get. He commissions the train operating companies and the various, appropriately complex, conditions on their contracts. He is personally responsible for the mess.

My colleague in the House of Commons said that the Secretary of State should resign. I would not be nearly so presumptuous, but an apology would be a step in the right direction. There is not a word of apology in the Statement. I share his sorrow, and I wish that he would take personal responsibility for the sorrow that he has caused. He failed fully to understand the operation; he did not assure himself that he had sufficient skilled resources to understand the risk. Furthermore, he carries on trying to make the present structure work. The present franchise system does not work. You need much more skill than the Secretary of State has so far displayed to get a profit-maximising organisation with virtually no real competition to maximise the concept of public service. His favoured solution for getting the railway right is a partnership, as he set out in his east coast Statement, but Northern was managed by a partnership and it failed; GTR had a partnership and it failed. Why did it fail? It failed because a publicly owned Network Rail and a profit-maximising train operator do not make natural partners.

The Secretary of State fails to understand the basic financial pressures on the train operating companies. They go on about increases in passenger numbers, but this is much more dependent on external forces such as the economy than anything that the train operating company can do. Revenue is largely outside their control; the road to shareholder value is by cutting costs.

Finally, the Secretary of State’s plan to get us out of this mess, a programme of incremental introduction, is likely to go as wrong as the current mess. I have run a railway in the public sector. It is a complex system, and any change to any part has an effect on the whole system. Change needs to be modelled and tested by high-quality research staff, which takes time and effort and long lead times to recruit and train staff, particularly drivers. Does the Secretary of State have access to such staff? If he has, are they recommending incremental introduction?

To summarise, does the Secretary of State accept personal responsibility for this mess? Will he apologise, and has he got sufficient skilled resources to manage the situation? Is he still convinced that a partnership really can work? Given the continuous failure of the present franchise structure, does he not agree that the train operating companies should be taken into public ownership?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord I am horrified by the tone of this Statement. The passengers, who bear the brunt of all this, have absolutely had enough, and the lack of any shadow of an apology in that Statement from the Secretary of State is going to anger them even further. The Secretary of State lurches from catastrophe to chaos, and I believe that he thinks that he is Teflon man.

I differ from the noble Lord in that I do not believe that nationalisation is the answer. Indeed, when you look at the ability of the Department for Transport to manage things effectively, one shudders to think of what it would do if it was in charge of the whole lot. I do not subscribe to the kneejerk approach to politics that heaps all blame on Ministers; I realise that government is difficult and that Ministers cannot be expected to micromanage. But I have been a Minister in two Governments and I recognise the point where a Minister has to take direct responsibility when something goes wrong. The Secretary of State has reached that point, and he needs to take that responsibility for his part in this debacle. You cannot claim the credit for something if you are not prepared to shoulder the blame when things go wrong. The latter part of this Statement trumpets the wonderful things that are still going to happen in future; the Secretary of State has trumpeted all this in the past and therefore takes responsibility for it.

Why were basic precautions not taken to ensure that a big change like this ran smoothly? It is the coward’s way to blame the staff and managers involved. Transport Focus warned of potential problems with the new timetables last autumn. Why were its warnings not heeded? What meetings took place with Transport Focus, and between it and the train operating companies, to deal with the concerns which it voiced? For how long has this change been planned? Was there any element of speeding it up to get it done by a particular time, which might have been a factor in why it went wrong? Has Network Rail, or the train operating companies involved, ever raised any concerns about either the scale of change or the timescale for it? The Statement says that there were meetings recently and no concerns were raised then. Were they raising concerns some months back? Why were these changes introduced on such a grand scale, involving several train lines? Would a pilot project not have been a good idea? Given the delays to the Bolton electrification project, why go ahead at all with changes on Northern at this time?

The Statement refers to compensation, but it is not precise. Can we please have exact details about compensation to long-suffering passengers? Finally, the Statement referred to the ORR undertaking an inquiry. Will this be entirely independent? Will it analyse the roles and responsibility of Government, as well as of Network Rail and the train operating companies, so that Government can learn the lessons from this and ensure that it never happens again?

Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to see that we have, after several weeks’ delay, reached the Committee stage of this Bill. As I said in the previous debate, I welcome it. I was reminded, however, of its very narrow scope when I tried to devise some amendments which seemed to me useful and straightforward but seemed to the clerks, quite rightly, to be out of the scope of the Bill.

I understand the Government’s desire to deal with insurance as the low-hanging fruit of automated vehicles first of all. As we are told, however, that these vehicles will be on our roads in two to three years—and indeed as they are widely being trialled across the world and in parts of Britain—the Government, I fear, are going to have to run very fast to catch up on this issue given the pace of development of technology. I know that the Law Commission is looking at other aspects beyond insurance, at such matters as criminal responsibility and the wider issue of pedestrian and driver behaviour, but there is a serious danger of being overtaken by events. In moving Amendment 1, I want to concentrate our minds on the issue of vehicles manufactured and purchased or simply manufactured outside Britain and the importance of their being properly and fully reflected on the Secretary of State’s list.

The amendment’s intention is to ensure that this list is fully robust. Up to now, our insurance system has coped with imported cars simply because a car is a car. Whether a car is manufactured abroad and imported here prior to sale or manufactured and sold abroad and then imported into this country for use, either temporarily or permanently, this list has to be clear and comprehensive. How do the Government intend to ensure that the list is truly comprehensive? The world is a very big place, and we have a large number of people living in this country with links to other countries who might choose to import cars from abroad. There are also many hundreds of thousands of cars—indeed, millions—being driven on our roads that were manufactured abroad.

Amendment 2 stresses the importance of the Secretary of State’s list being aligned with definitions used in other countries—indeed, that goes for the whole Bill. The insurance industry has produced what it calls the 10 commandments, or 10 points, that a vehicle needs to adhere to in order to be considered automated. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, or UNECE, deals with global transport issues in relation to safety and is currently discussing international definitions of automation. I am told that the Department for Transport is taking a leading role in this.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders is concerned that the Secretary of State’s list should follow the internationally accepted criteria as spelled by UNECE and should not be just a UK-specific definition. For this reason, it is keen that this legislation should use the internationally accepted levels used across the world within the industry. These standards were established by the Society of Automotive Engineers International and are apparently used everywhere across the world.

The Government intend the Bill to apply to levels 4 and 5, but, as written, it could apply to some vehicles at level 3. I want to draw attention to a recent court case in which a man was prosecuted for driving a Tesla S down the M1 near Hemel Hempstead while sitting in the passenger seat—there was no passenger in the driver’s seat. He was on autopilot. That is described by Tesla as a suite of driver assistance features including traffic-aware cruise control, which assists with acceleration and deceleration, and auto-steer. Although the reports I read did not specify it, I imagine that the vehicle also has automated emergency braking, because that is quite common in a range of cars. That is level 3, but it meets the definition in the Bill at Clause 1(1)(b), that vehicles are,

“capable, in at least some circumstances or situations, of safely driving themselves”.

Clearly, the argument here is whether that was safe, but I fear that the Government might find themselves involved in a great deal of protracted court procedure on the definition of “safe” After all, level 3 cars are certainly on our roads.

If I go into a little detail about the difference between the levels, the Committee will see how narrow that difference is and how the Government’s definition in the Bill could be misleading. In level 3, the vehicle controls all monitoring of the environment. The driver’s attention is still needed, but can disengage from safety-critical functions such as braking. Many level 3 cars currently available require no human attention to the road at lower speeds. At level 4, a vehicle tells its driver when it is safe to be automated and when not. The vehicle is capable of steering, braking, accelerating, monitoring other vehicles and the road, and responding to traffic. It can determine when to change lanes and signal but it cannot cope with traffic jams. That is sometimes referred to as the, “mind off” level. At level 5, a steering wheel is optional—there is no need for a steering wheel—no human intervention is required and you do not need brakes or pedals. It is a totally new design of car.

I have gone into that in some detail because I fear that the Government’s definition of automated vehicles as being,

“capable, in at least some circumstances or situations, of safely driving themselves”,

is oversimplified. They need instead to rely on internationally accepted definitions. The reason the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders is concerned is that the levels are so well established and widely used across the world and within the industry that even if technology advances further, as it probably will, all they will do is add a level 6. It is rather inconsistent of the Government. I understand that they want some all-embracing definition that is not subject to change, but in the second part of the Bill, for example, which relates to electric vehicles, the Government are happy to refer to “fast and rapid charging”. That is the same kind of technological term currently in use—the current jargon.

I believe, and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders also suggests, that this could lead to a blurring of definitions. It could lead to legal challenge and the Government could spend a lot of time defining what is safe. Amendment 33, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, also deals with the definition of safe driving. I welcome it especially because it touches on the crucial issue of hacking: I am sure we will come back to that in later debates. I beg to move.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendment 33 and comment briefly on the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. The debate today will cover several areas, but one of them will be safety and I shall speak more about that later. My amendment covers safety, and lights particularly upon hacking. This is not a controversial Bill as I see it: virtually all the amendments are probing amendments and I hate to say it to the Minister but I think the speaking part on this occasion will be principally hers rather than mine.

Clause 7 sets out the terms for when a car is deemed to be driving itself, or in automated mode. However, it makes no mention of what happens if the vehicle is designed or manufactured faultily, or if it is hacked due to a failure by the manufacturer to install adequate software safeguards. While we all welcome the opportunities that this new technology will bring, we also have to recognise that it will bring new risks. A lot of these risks will be around the software used and therefore may be harder to pick up than in a conventional vehicle. This is a good opportunity to put in safeguards to give protection around this area now, rather than later down the line.

The amendment tightens up this area of the Bill by setting out when an automated vehicle is capable of driving itself safely. This would give the driver protection with regard to liability if it was proven that there was a manufacturer’s fault or the vehicle had been hacked. The purpose of the amendment is to get a general debate started in relation to this area, particularly on the hacking element.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, removing the two words “or adapted” would mean that the Secretary of State’s list would not include vehicles manufactured for conventional driving and adapted for autonomous mode. Those involved in the motor industry regard the concept of adapting vehicles as extremely dangerous. The technology companies—the people who write and design the software for cars—also regard it as very dangerous. The point they make is that their software is specifically tailored to individual car design. The fact that their technology works safely in one car does not mean that it can be shoe-horned into another model, even a similar model.

The clause as written would include individual adaptations by enthusiasts, which would be a very uncertain path to go down. Indeed, if a car manufacturer decided to adapt a current level 3 model—for example, the Tesla S, to which I referred earlier—to a level 4 car, I am absolutely sure that Tesla, in line with standard motor industry practice, would call it the “Tesla S Elite” or something similar. It would be a different model and therefore it would not be an adaptation in the meaning set out in relation to the Secretary of State’s list. What I am really pointing out here is that the concept of “adapted” vehicles would narrowly include those adapted on a one-off basis by individual enthusiasts, and therefore it would not seem reasonable to expect the Secretary of State and the Department for Transport to have the expertise to know whether that was safe.

I want to refer briefly to Amendment 29, which is in this group and stands in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. A big section of it is very similar to the amendment tabled by Labour in the Commons to the Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill. I congratulate the noble Lord on having managed to get this amendment accepted. I could not think of a way of doing it, but he has done very well.

Amendment 29 addresses crucial issues associated with the proper repair and maintenance of automated vehicles. In particular, it goes into detail on the need to establish properly accredited training schemes for those who repair and maintain them. Rather like the repair of electric vehicles, the process is totally different from traditional vehicle repair. I spoke at Second Reading about the need for a process similar to the old CORGI gas safety scheme. That was a highly respected, universally acknowledged scheme and came about as a result of the Government working with the industry. We need the Government to work with industry in the same way on automated vehicles, and I am very grateful that the noble Lord has raised it in his amendment. I beg to move.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 29 in my name. I accept the noble Baroness’s congratulations on behalf of my staff—which is one quarter of a very able lady—who managed to get this past the Public Bill Office. The proposed new clause would protect insurers against accidents caused by vehicles repaired by unauthorised technicians. It would also require the Government to establish a scheme for the authorised inspection, repair and maintenance of automated vehicles by licensed and accredited technicians.

The automotive industry already relies on hundreds of thousands of individuals who support work on and maintain vehicles. As the technology develops, so too must the skills of those working on them. We are already aware of an existing skills gap in the industry. As the technology develops, that gap may well worsen but, as it stands, the Bill does not address a worsening skills gap. If we do not start planning for this now, we will be left with a huge hole in the support structures for these new vehicles.

I am of the generation where I was privileged at the age of 17 to buy a car for seven pounds and 10 shillings. The car was seven years older than me. It tended to go only about 10 miles before having to have its plugs cleaned and so on—which made courting my wife a bit difficult at times. But we were of a generation when the skill of looking after automotive technology was very straightforward, and widely understood by a large section of the population. Now I drive a Prius, and I would not dare touch anything on it. Not only is it unduly complex, but it could be very dangerous, with the very high voltages involved and so on. There is nothing I could do to that car that would do anything other than worsen its performance.

Transport Levying Bodies (Amendment) Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comments. The regulations come after a period when there has been, not surprisingly, a lot of local discussion and debate about the formation of the combined authority. Having been through a period of change in local council formation in Wales about 20 years ago, I still bear the scars; it is never an easy or happy situation. As I knew that there had been debate about this matter and some discussion about the plans for transport in the area, I took a look at the mayor’s transport delivery plan. There are local concerns about an overemphasis in that plan on Cambridge city and on roads.

I applaud the ambition of the mayor, because his ideas include a Cambridge underground—the Cambridge autonomous metro with underground electric buses. It is ground breaking stuff and a very good idea in many ways, because Cambridge as an historic city with a dense population has a huge traffic problem to solve. However, undergrounds involve tunnelling, which is very expensive. It is therefore not surprising that the amount of money that would be sucked into the Cambridge area has alarmed people in Peterborough, who believe—I think quite rightly, being familiar with Peterborough—that much needs to be done to improve their bus network, such as the introduction of bus lanes and encouragement of ultra-low emission buses, as well as to improve cycling and walking infrastructure and the uptake of rail. Those are much less expensive options.

Then there is a wider picture, because Peterborough and Cambridge are two cities in the midst of a large rural area. I strongly welcome devolution of powers over railways, but, in that wider area, people are campaigning for the reopening of Wisbech station, which was a casualty of the Beeching era, and of the line from there to March. They are isolated communities that desperately need investment. People are also campaigning for the electrification of the Peterborough to Ely and Cambridge line to encourage freight from the east coast ports to the Midlands on to the rail. Of course, there are always demands for better rural bus services, with people emphasising the importance of sustainability and tackling congestion and air quality problems. I am simply trying to set the issues that have been put forward in this debate in the context of these regulations, and I have some questions for the Minister.

First, taking devolution fully into account, infrastructure development is of course an essential part of co-ordinated transport planning. So how does the Department for Transport monitor the way that levying bodies, not just this one but others as well, spend the money they raise? How does the department ensure that transport plans treat the whole area affected by this fairly? How does it ensure that there is co-operation and co-ordination—this is a key point—from one local authority area to another? Because there are certain aspects of transport provision, such as local buses, which are rightly an issue for that area alone, but when you are looking at railways you are almost always linking from one local authority area to another, and the same with road provision. So you have a transport plan from here to somewhere; you cannot just stop it at the border. I am interested in how the Government can ensure that the levy, which is after all a levy on the people of that area, is spent wisely.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I can set the Minister’s mind at rest that we are not going to have a constitutional crisis: this will be one of the thousands of affirmative instruments that will go through without a Division. Nevertheless, I have some mild misgivings.

The draft regulations give authority to the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority to levy the upper-tier authorities, as far as I can see without constraint. They give this authority to set a levy in respect of transport. I did not know until I heard the speech of the noble Baroness that they were considering digging holes underground. My experience of digging holes underground is that they cost about £250 million per kilometre and they have a dreadful habit of not coming out at anything like the figure you thought they should. Therefore, this levy, if there is overambition, could be a very significant drag on the upper-tier authorities.

I cannot see in the legislation how that is limited. I saw some words about having regard for the ability of the upper-tier authority to pay, but that seemed to be all, so my first question is: are the upper-tier authorities consulted on the level of this levy? There is a general principle that there should be no taxation without representation. There should surely be some process with proper checks and balances in it.

In researching this order, I went back to the Explanatory Memorandum to the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority Order 2017, which says on page 5, at paragraph 7.13:

“To give effect to the contents of the deal to devolve powers to the proposed Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, the Order confers local authority functions for public transport on the proposed CPCA, to be exercised by the Mayor. It also enables the Mayor to produce and publish a Local Transport Plan for the CPCA area”.


My second question, therefore, is: has the mayor produced a local transport plan? Has he costed it? Has he explained the criteria for how the decisions on expenditure are made? Surely this transport plan should create a budget which the upper-tier authorities are able to have sight of and have some say about whether or not they are getting value for money for their levy.

Enhanced Partnership Plans and Schemes (Objections) Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introductory comments. One of the big questions when we debated the Bus Services Bill last year was exactly how the Government were going to devise a scheme that allowed existing operators to object to a proposed partnership without allowing them to act as a complete block on progress towards improved bus services. We all hope that the enhanced partnerships will provide those improvements, so I strongly welcome the Minister’s realistic analysis of what the regulations seek to do. It seems that the scheme as outlined here is quite a cunning plan, which is well balanced between the operators and the local authorities.

However, we will see how well it works in practice. I am delighted to hear that 30 local authorities are already working on this. One hopes that they are successful because the others, the less adventurous ones, might perhaps follow suit. Given that the Government declare in the Explanatory Memorandum that a review is not appropriate, will the Minister assure us that there will be an element of informal review to assess how well this is working after a couple of years? There might be some unintended consequences or the need for some adjustment, so it is only sensible to allow for review—although I understand the Government not wanting to commit to a formal review process.

The plans set out five stages in the life cycle of an enhanced partnership. The first is when the local authority proposes a plan, the second is when it makes a plan and the third is when it proposes to vary a plan. How will that work in practice? Suppose at stage 1, when the local authority proposes an enhanced bus partnership, the bus operators object. Is there sufficient flexibility in the process for the local authority and the bus operators to meet and discuss the plan, for the local authority to amend it and for the bus operators to withdraw their objections without having to go back to square one? I fear that in practice some local authorities might look at a plan and, if the bus operators object, they might just retire from the field and say that they will not bother with enhanced partnerships again. I am concerned that we have a system that is sufficiently simple and flexible to allow both sides to address issues and concerns and to move on through the process without having to go back to the start.

I hope the system is flexible and that this is a successful way ahead, because the decline in the number of bus services, particularly in rural areas, indicates that for many areas this is the last opportunity for decent bus services to survive—and we know that when a bus service goes, it strikes at the heart of a rural area.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I am afraid that the Minister has not really made my day since she has answered all the questions in my original speech. I shall not waste the time of the House by repeating them. Suffice it to say that I commend the realistic attitude that the Government have taken to how bus companies might behave. I shall press the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about a review. I am not pressing the Government to commit to a review, but should the carefully researched numbers in these regulations prove not to achieve the Government’s objectives, what complexity would there be in changing the numbers? Would it be possible within the parent legislation to bring forward new orders if the reaction of bus companies was excessively to veto apparently viable schemes?

Seafarers (Insolvency, Collective Redundancies and Information and Consultation Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2018

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, we should congratulate the Minister on bringing this legislation here. Since she took up her role as Minister, it is clear that she has looked into the dark corners of the Department for Transport’s cupboards, dusted off some badly overdue legislation and brought it into the strong light of day. I regret having to say this, but I have to ask again: why is it so late? I understand that this measure is based on the seafarers directive of 2013. It should have been transposed into UK law by October last year. So we are now six months overdue. I know that the Government are distracted by Brexit, but it is a bad symptom of a situation where a Government are really struggling to cope.

Of course, I support the proposals here; on these Benches, there is strong support for the principle behind the regulations. The big issue is whether they really equalise rights for seafarers, bringing them fully into line with those who work on land. We all realise that it is a much more complex issue, because if you work at sea national boundaries are crossed less obviously and supervision of terms and conditions of employment is probably much more complex. There are also complex employment patterns, as the Minister has pointed out.

One can therefore do nothing other than welcome the increased job security that there will be for seafarers as a result of these regulations—and perhaps dwell for the moment on the fact that it is quite ironic they have been introduced as a result of an EU directive at a time when many fishing and coastal communities are among those in the UK where support for leaving the EU was strongest. I fully support the regulations and thank the Minister for her explanation.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I come to these regulations still intellectually exhausted from biofuels and have set myself the minimum objective of trying to understand them. My few questions for the Minister are therefore just to understand them better.

The regulations and their accompanying Explanatory Memorandum seem, as far as I can see, to talk solely about share fishermen, where employed, and I am not clear whether the regulations affect anybody else. I thought that the easiest way to understand this might be to turn it on its head. The objective, we are told, is to turn the rights of seamen into the same rights that land-based workers have. Paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum identifies five directives, which are set out, covering five areas where in the present situation there is a difference between seamen and land-based workers. I was not clear whether all five were covered by the regulations. In simple terms, asking the obverse question, following the approval of the measure, what differences remain between seamen and land-based workers? If there are any differences, why have they been retained?

Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 27th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, while I am not going to get carried away and divide the House on this issue, I will press it just once more. In my view, Clause 1(1) and (2) in fact describes two crimes. Clause 1(1)(a) says,

“the person shines or directs a laser beam towards a vehicle which is on a journey”,

which is great,

“and … the laser beam dazzles or distracts”.

That is a straightforward crime because I have stopped before the word “or”, so it is not a problem. Then there is a second offence, where,

“the person shines or directs a laser beam towards a vehicle which is on a journey, and … the laser beam … is likely to dazzle or distract … a person with control of the vehicle”.

In my view, it will be incredibly difficult to prove this second crime of being likely to dazzle or distract. That is why I would like paragraph (b) deleted so that it would simply be a matter of proving that a person had shone or directed a laser beam towards a vehicle that was on a journey. That is my reason for pressing the amendment again.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

The noble Lord has my support in wanting to push this issue a bit further. I recall raising in Committee the issue that it would be difficult to imagine why people would be walking around carrying a laser and pointing it at either objects on the road or planes in the air unless they were intent on doing some mischief.

It is also possible that people would find it very difficult, as the noble Lord has said, to prove the intent that is in the Government’s proposed legislation. I understand where the Minister is coming from on this—the Government do not want to criminalise people simply for walking around with a laser pen in their pocket—although I go back to the point, which I believe I made at Second Reading, that we have a situation with knives where we all own them and use them on a daily basis but it is an offence to be carrying a knife in certain situations. So we have managed to sort out the law in such a way that it is possible to distinguish between people who happen to have a knife in their rucksack because they were cutting up their apple for lunch and people who are carrying a knife with the intent to use it as a weapon. I say to the Government that it is probably worth while going back and looking again at applying that approach to the carrying of laser pens and lasers in general.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

I certainly support the principle behind the amendment, but I am aware that the Government are keen to keep the Bill as simple as possible, and I hope that the Minister will be able to persuade us that it is already covered in other ways. It is essential that co-pilots are also covered. Attempts have been made in government amendments to broaden the Bill—for example, to include towers at airports. That is welcome, but it is important that we ensure that the co-pilot—the person sitting alongside the pilot —is covered, because if the pilot is dazzled, undoubtedly anyone sitting next to them will be as well.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, we support the amendment and hope the Minister will consider it. First, I can see no harm in it and no perversity that might come out of it. It is always dangerous in high-tech industries to be too constraining in one’s language. For all we know, the illustrious title of pilot, which both the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, and I enjoyed at one point in our lives, may fade away as the operation of aircraft becomes more automated. This catch-all amendment would improve the Bill just that little bit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her amendments. They demonstrate that she has approached this Bill with very much an open mind. Because of the Bill’s technical nature, some experts in the House were able to add some very useful amendments, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, being an example. But it perhaps gives us pause for thought that the Bill, which has been pretty narrowly drafted—fortunately the noble Baroness has tabled amendments to broaden it significantly—still needed quite a lot of amendment. Although this is an issue that the Government have been considering for many months, there were still technical issues that needed to be addressed. That does not suggest that the proposals had been consulted on sufficiently. However, in relation to the Minister’s approach, I am very grateful to her for her assistance.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, we have examined this group of amendments and believe they have significantly improved the Bill. I thank the Minister for bringing them forward.

Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I was pleased to add my name in support of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Monks. As he said, the age profile of offenders tends to be quite young and the amendment reflects the fact that young people are often unaware of the danger and gravity of what they are doing. I made the point earlier today that the fact that lasers are often mislabelled emphasises that it is difficult for people to know the strength of the laser they are using.

The Minister wrote to me in response to points I raised at Second Reading and pointed out that lasers are often bought by young people and children on holiday abroad, and that this is frequently the way in which they come into the country. This emphasises the importance of the underlying points the amendment seeks to make—the issue of parental responsibility and the importance of educating parents in the dangers of lasers. In that way we will educate generations of young children.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

While I have some sympathy with the general direction of the amendment, it touches on a massive subject—the extent to which parents are responsible for the criminal activities of their children. I worry about such a difficult concept being part of this Bill. If there is a problem here, I hope the Government will take this issue away, look at the generality of the relationship between parents and the criminal behaviour of their children and solve it in a wider context than this Bill. I await further discussion on Report before we take a final view.

Space Industry Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, the amendment relates to the position of the CAA. We tabled a similar amendment in Committee. As promised, I went away and read Hansard carefully, because at the end of the debate I was still not clear about resources. The then Minister addressed a charging regime for assessing and issuing licences for monitoring and so on. Clause 61 gives the CAA and the space agency the powers to charge for their services. We can safely assume that they will charge the commercial rate to cover their costs, but my reservations were also about the development and expansion of the CAA to take on its new role prior to it becoming commercially viable. That aspect was not addressed in the Government’s response in Committee.

I was very pleased to receive a letter from the chief executive of the CAA setting out its viewpoint. As well as referring to the CAA’s power to set charges, it addresses the preparation issue. It says:

“Until the Space Flight legislation is in force the DfT is funding the CAA team that has been established to focus solely on supporting the Government with the development of the Bill and the regulatory framework, so the CAA will be ready to regulate this UK industry once the statutory powers are in place”.


I am very grateful for that additional information and I am glad to hear that the Department for Transport is funding that team, but I press the Minister for a little more detail. I find it quite difficult to get a handle on how big this team is. Perhaps she could quantify the funding that is in place to assist the CAA. Can she provide some detail on training? In working towards such a regulation, the CAA would undoubtedly look at parallels; for example, the regulation of normal aviation. However, it is surely looking across the world at how other countries regulate the space industry. I assume that there is an element of seeking information from other countries across the world, if not of sending employees to train there. I would be grateful for a bit more information to flesh out the assurances that I received from the CAA. I beg to move.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I support the general spirit and direction of the amendment. The task that the CAA and the space agency will face will be very difficult. I hope that the Government will be able to give us further assurances that resources will be made available to power this learning curve. I hope that there will be enough time for the skills to be in place before real applications come before the regulator. It is easy to underestimate just how difficult this task will be for the CAA and the space agency.

Space Industry Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 18th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, Amendment 39 is on a similar theme. It relates to Clause 42 and the operation of orders in relation to the land to be used for a spaceport. A proposal to make an order, or an order itself, under Clauses 38 or 40 may not be challenged in any legal proceedings. Furthermore, such an order becomes operative within six weeks, which is a very short period of time.

On the face of it, these are sweeping powers for the Secretary of State to create rights over land and to restrict the use of land to secure safety. I find it quite difficult to square this clause with the comments of the Minister in relation to the previous debate, in which he assured the noble Lord, Lord Deben, of the legal right to challenge. That is because this clause states specifically that that cannot be done.

The powers referred to in the clause are essentially planning powers, which are normally devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so this amendment is designed to probe how the powers in the Bill that are conferred on the Secretary of State will operate in tune with the powers of the devolved Administrations. We have heard on several occasions that the devolved Administrations are supportive of the spirit of this Bill, but I am surprised, given that it relates so strongly to devolved planning powers, that it makes no direct mention of the devolved Governments. Here I draw a parallel with the Bus Services Bill. That also dealt with devolved powers and referred to the rights of the devolved Administrations in that respect.

As well as planning issues, the Bill deals with the licensing process, which is to be managed at the UK Government level as a UK Government responsibility. I would suggest to noble Lords that there could well be friction between the two sets of powers and between the two levels of government; in fact, it is unlikely that there will not be friction at some point. It is also inevitable that security issues will have to be taken into account, and those powers lie at both the devolved and the UK levels. The point I want to make is that this is a complex picture, so the amendment seeks to formalise the relationship between the UK and devolved Governments and to ensure that they cannot be overlooked.

I have no doubt that those Governments are supportive of the Bill now, but they may not always be so in every case. Good law should seek to allow for every possibility. I beg to move.

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 39 and the Motion that Clause 42 should stand part. The points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, underline why we support devolution, so we would not want this Bill to reduce in any way the responsibilities of the devolved Governments—along with the devolved city state of Prestwick.

Our concern with Clause 42 as a whole is that we do not understand why orders made under what will be Sections 38 and 40 cannot be challenged, but it then refers to a schedule under which they can. We feel that the drafting could be much clearer so that it takes account of the devolved Administrations and does not reflect an apparent conflict between the schedule and the clauses.

Space Industry Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Randerson and Lord Tunnicliffe

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 16th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 7, I shall speak also to Amendments 8, 11 and 12 in this group. The Bill requires, in Clause 9(4) on page 7:

“As regards risks to the health, safety and property of persons not within subsection (2)”—


subsection (2) is about individuals who take part—

“the applicant must have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that those risks are as low as reasonably practicable”,

and,

“the level of those risks must be acceptable”.

This set of amendments vests the responsibility for certificating that this level of risk has been achieved in the Health and Safety Executive.

I start by thanking the Minister for the time that he has given to talk to us about the Bill—therefore, I cannot pretend that this is a probing amendment. I for one, and the rest of our Front Bench to a degree, feel that the Bill is premature. The two-year gap envisaged between the Bill becoming and Act and the full emergence of the regulations suggests to us that introducing the Bill at a later time would have been more efficient and allowed fuller scrutiny on a more comprehensive Bill. That is particularly drawn out in the whole safety issue.

The bit of the Bill that I have read requires the concept of the risks to what I shall call uninvolved third parties to be reduced to “as low as reasonably practicable”. That is a very widely used concept in the safety world—a complex concept that weighs benefits against risks and costs.

I shall take a view of the benefits of the Bill. The Minister quoted the importance and value of the space industry to the United Kingdom, and I would not in any way demur from that, but we are not talking about creating it or not, or the space industry carrying on in future or not. We are talking about two capabilities. One is about inserting the satellites into orbit and the other is space tourism. I know that some other things are prayed in aid, but that as a generality covers what the Bill will provide.

There is no way in which we are going to be a first mover in inserting satellites into orbit. The Americans, Russians, French and Chinese are all in this business. The Minister suggested that there was a special European dimension, and there may be, but to a degree inserting satellites into orbit is likely to become a commodity, especially as satellites become smaller and less weighty. There is a benefit, but the benefit will have to be judged in the whole balance of achieving “as low as reasonably practicable”.

I find the concept of space tourism extremely difficult to grapple with in safety terms. The nearest thing we have had to sustained space tourism was the shuttle programme. There were 135 missions; two ended catastrophically and 14 people died. I doubt that there is genuinely much of a market for tourism which involves a one in 65 chance of dying. The Virgin Galactic programme has also been mentioned. This has so far resulted in one destroyed aircraft and one dead pilot. Broadly speaking, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act requires that an activity where an employee runs a risk of more than one in 1,000 is unacceptable and should simply not happen. I find it difficult to believe that, with the risks apparent at the moment, space tourism would be certificated in this country in the near future.

Although the benefits of the industry as a whole are valid, it is less clear how great they are for this particular capability. They would also need to be balanced in meeting the requirements of the clause that protects the safety of uninvolved third parties, whose exposure is nicely brought out in annexe C to the letter which the Minister was good enough to write to me and some other noble Lords. It stated:

“The current UK aviation regulatory regime prioritises the safety of the aircraft and its occupants and does not directly regulate the safety of third parties on the ground ... If the level of safety for the aircraft and its occupants is sufficient then by default third parties can be considered appropriately protected”.


This approach is clearly not sufficient in this direction, either in its outcome or in its nature.

Generally speaking, there are two ways of developing a safety regime. There is the accident-led way: an enormous proportion of our safety law—fire law, building regulations et cetera—comes from accidents from which we learn. It may surprise noble Lords to learn that aviation safety essentially has the same basis. When I was involved in the industry in the 1960s, a British-registered jet aircraft crashed about every two years. When I entered the profession it was dangerous, with a chance of dying of about one in 2,000 per annum. Before civil aviation had its many crashes, the military was exploring the edges of the envelope and having similar numbers of them. The industry developed a high-quality investigation regime and slowly learned from these events. It then put them into regulations and co-operation emerged, both in the industry and internationally, which has refined itself into today’s civil aviation regime. I am not questioning its effectiveness, but one has to recognise its background. It is about experimenting, having events and then learning from them. That is my first point in arguing that the civil aviation approach is not suitable for this industry.

Secondly, the hybrid launch concept will not be certificatable within the normal civil aviation system. Basically, you cannot certificate aeroplanes to carry rockets. One has to realise that a rocket is merely a managed explosion. Those of us who remember the early days of spaceflight know that when rockets go wrong they turn into explosions. Carrying a rocket, these aircraft will be highly specialised and certainly will not fall naturally into any certification regime. As the Minister’s quotation illustrated, the consequences on the ground of an aircraft with a rocket on board crashing will have to be addressed. The presumption that the airplane and its occupants are safe will not be proven to the level by which one can disregard the impact of such a crash.

Thirdly, in a hybrid approach, not only do we have to look at the risks to aircraft used to launch rockets, we also have to look at rocket-propelled aircraft. One of the many ideas used to illustrate the potential value of spaceports are rocket-propelled aircraft, which will be an entirely new area of risk. The Bill allows for vertically launched rockets, and these will need to be assessed. Therefore, I argue that the aviation approach is not appropriate or called for by the Bill. It calls for an ALARP approach, which essentially, as I have already said, balances the benefits against the risks. It is a forward-looking approach and is used in nuclear, the railway environment and safety-critical industries. To meet this requirement one needs competence in the ALARP approach. Our amendments argue that that competence is held by the Health and Safety Executive.

However, as important as the requirement in connection with the body certifying that the level of risk has been reduced to as low as reasonably practicable is the requirement that from the beginning we have a single point of responsibility for safety. For most of my career I have been involved in safety-critical environments. It is almost impossible to stress the improvement in safety whereby an individual accountable to his board or organisation goes to bed knowing that if there is an incident in the area for which he or she is responsible, they cannot say, “That was their fault”, because, at least to some extent, it is that person’s responsibility. The most that person can do is join other parties in their responsibility. The responsibility lies with the individual and the organisation. Therefore, I believe that we need a single authority and an ALARP approach as an integrated whole that can look at the benefits and the risks posed by events and the consequences. We argue that only the Health and Safety Executive, with appropriate professional inputs, can meet that requirement and has the experience and skill to deliver this judgment. I beg to move.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I associate myself with the intention behind these amendments. In preparing for the Bill, I spoke to a wide range of individuals and organisations involved in the space industry. They undoubtedly take health and safety very seriously and are surprised at the low density of detail in the Bill in relation to those aspects. Noble Lords across the Chamber have said several times this afternoon how exciting and important this issue is. There is undoubtedly lots of enthusiasm but, looked at dispassionately, this is a dangerous activity for those involved in it and others who are not involved but who live in the surrounding area or, indeed, almost anywhere in the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, pointed out the potential for space tourism without people even leaving the ground as there will be viewing platforms and so on. All these things have to be considered from the health and safety standpoint. I have become increasingly concerned about the clutter in our skies. We are all familiar with planes but we are increasingly concerned about drones, and now we are taking into account space activity. Our skies are crowded and it is important that the Government set out a comprehensive, co-ordinated and truly effective approach to these issues.