Localism Bill

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I did not give notice of my intention to ask a question about Clause 4, but I have listened to the discussion on the previous group of amendments with some interest. Clause 4(1) gives me a certain amount of anxiety. The provision describes,

“power on a local authority to do things for a commercial purpose only if they are things which the authority may, in exercise of the general power, do otherwise than for a commercial purpose”.

Does that really just mean that if it is illegal to do it otherwise, they may not do it for a commercial purpose, or is there some inwardness here which perhaps I have not appreciated? It sounds almost tautologous. If a local authority cannot do something, presumably it cannot do it whether for a commercial purpose or otherwise, in which case why put it in the Bill? If there are differences or some distinction is being drawn here, I would be most grateful if my noble friend could explain it to me.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I want to join this brief exchange because I am developing an increasing sense of Alice in Wonderland. It feels as though we are operating in two worlds: the old world in which local authorities were only allowed to do things that were in statute, and the new world in which they are free to do anything unless they are barred. It is beginning to feel, in the context of this debate and future debates, that there is a real problem about being caught in the middle where local authorities will be stopped from doing a lot of the things that previous legislation allowed them to do. I am sorry, but I find it difficult to express the point, but I am sure that noble Lords are beginning to get a sense of what I mean. The question of how significant the general power really is, if local authorities are continually hampered by previous legislation, will become very important. It is an issue to which we will keep coming back.

People Trafficking

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord makes an important point. The issue is coming to fruition and when we see the final text we will determine whether we will opt in.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

Is the noble Earl aware that when a specialist unit was set up at Heathrow it found that, of 1,800 unaccompanied children, half were under 11 and one-third were deemed to be at risk in some way? Have the Government given any consideration of whether the age at which children can travel unaccompanied is appropriately set?

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. I am quite confident that we have considered carefully the matter of the age of the child. However, where the child is obviously younger or more vulnerable more attention will be paid by the UKBA officials.

Airports: Heathrow

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Tuesday 15th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the department has no plans for a new airport in the Thames estuary or in any other part of Medway or Kent. We want to get the most out of existing airport infrastructure in the south-east, which is why we have established the South East Airports Taskforce.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

Will consideration of more effective use of the airports include a look at the provision of take-off and landing slots, which currently owes a lot to history and very little to common economic imperatives?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, a future airspace strategy is being undertaken, which includes proposals to enable aircraft to fly in more environmentally efficient ways. For example, the introduction of new onboard and ground-based systems will allow pilots to fly more direct routes and therefore reduce fuel burn and enable aircraft to arrive punctually at the approach to Heathrow, which will provide controllers with much better opportunities to guide aircraft into Heathrow without first placing them in a stack.

Airports: Heathrow

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I look forward to answering a Question about NATS in due course.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that a bad situation last year was made infinitely worse by the seeming inability of the airport operator and the airlines to give passengers adequate information that was not contradictory? Have the Government looked at the matter and at who should be giving information?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right; we touched on this last week as well. There are two reviews. One was commissioned by BAA. The other will come from the South East Airports taskforce. No doubt both reviews will consider that very important point and come back with suggestions on how we can avoid the problems in future.

Marine Navigation Aids Bill [HL]

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Friday 21st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

My Lords, I am sure that the whole House will recognise the tenacity and commitment of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, to this important issue. I am sure that he will understand that for the reasons expressed by the noble Earl it is difficult to have a debate today in anything other than general terms on the important question of the UK system of providing aids to navigation.

However, it is useful to have such a debate at this time. It is also refreshing to have a debate on shipping in your Lordships’ House because it is a topic that we seldom cover, which is interesting when we consider how important the shipping industry is to this country’s economy and to our maritime heritage. I believe that it is timely to revisit the question of light dues. We are the only country in the world to have a user-based scheme for the funding of light dues. While that is not in itself a reason to change the system, it should at least give us the opportunity for pause for thought and to reflect on why we are the only country left which does it in this way.

Clearly, money is the essential driver, as it so often is. The budget shortfall within the General Lighthouse Authorities can be dealt with only in the way that any organisation deals with budget shortfalls; that is, you increase your income, you cut your costs or you do both. The original proposal to increase the budget at a time when all other departments were slashing theirs was ill advised. I am very glad that the Government have stepped in and have given some firm guidance that this is not acceptable.

I very much agree with the point made by the noble Earl that having a stop-start approach to light dues where they are frozen for many years and then increased very fast is not a sensible way to treat the shipping industry, which now has far more options available to them. As we have heard, a large number of companies are simply deciding to go to Rotterdam or to Antwerp and to use feeder ships to try to ship. This is having a serious effect on the maritime industry generally and has the effect of making the budget crisis within the GLAs even worse because they are trying to bring more money in and actually are bringing in less. They then get into a vicious circle from which it is difficult to escape.

The Government need to reconsider the principle of whether a 41p per tonne levy on ships in UK waters is still an appropriate way forward, given that it is described as a user tax, when there is no mechanism for measuring whether these ships are using the lights at all. With modern navigation and so on, things have moved on. The Chamber of Shipping is adamant that this is a tax on trade. We need some clarity of thinking as to whether that is what it is.

The budgetary problems will be eased by the recent announcement of the agreement with the Irish Government that they should take on responsibility for their own lights. I congratulate the Minister, Mr Penning, on achieving what previous Governments said was impossible. Therefore, either Mr Penning has been very persuasive or we have a lot of extra leverage after having written some large cheques to the Irish Government lately. Whichever way it is, we certainly seem to have made progress that has eluded us before.

I understand that the subsidy to the Irish Lights this year is around £12 million, which will come as a significant benefit to the budget. Will the Minister say whether this saving will in part or in whole be reflected in reduced fees to the ship operators or will simply disappear into the lighthouse funds to help to deal with the pension deficit?

The issue of operating costs is important. I know that the Government are working with all sectors of the transport industry to look at why UK costs are much higher than overseas comparators. They are doing that for rail, roads and so on. I suspect that this is as much of a problem with marine navigational aids as with any other sector. As we have heard, an article in the Lloyd’s List of 23 August 2010 by the former chief executive of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has highlighted how Australia transformed its lighthouse system during the 1980s, improved service quality and reduced costs. I know that a lot of other countries are looking at the Australian model and I hope that our Government are too.

On 14 January, the Government in Hong Kong announced that they will reduce fees for a range of maritime services, including lights, by about 20 per cent. Clearly, there is a wealth of international experience on which to draw. That is appropriate because shipping has well established international organisations, including the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea in this area.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has done the shipping industry a service by bringing this forward today, although I hope that he will accept the difficulties of scrutinising a Bill that has disappeared before our eyes. Nevertheless, I thank him.