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

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, the regulations that we are considering will be made under powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and will be needed in the event of no deal. This instrument amends the retained EU legislation governing access to the international passenger transport market and associated domestic implementing legislation to deal with deficiencies that would otherwise exist when the UK leaves the EU.

EU regulation 1073/2009 establishes the conditions for the international carriage of passengers by coach and bus within the EU and cabotage within member states by non-resident EU operators. It covers regular timetabled services and occasional services such as holidays and tours. It establishes for this purpose a system of Community licences, which act as the international bus and coach licences used within the EU, and enables these licences to be issued by the competent authorities of member states.

Section 3 of the withdrawal Act will preserve EU regulation 1073/2009 in domestic law, and Section 2 will preserve implementing domestic legislation, including the Public Passenger Vehicles Act 1981 and the Road Transport (International Passenger Services) Regulations 2018. This SI adjusts the language and references in those pieces of retained legislation, and five other pieces of legislation, to recognise that the UK is no longer a member state.

The SI also amends the retained UK version of regulation 1073/2009 to allow EU-based operators to continue to access the UK market in a no-deal scenario on a unilateral basis by means of the recognition of Community licences and control documents—other than new authorisations for regular services—issued by EU authorities under EU legislation. Existing authorisations for international regular services into the UK will continue to be recognised to avoid any additional administrative burden for operators.

This SI also covers Northern Ireland in its territorial extent. The devolved Administration have to make some consequential changes to their devolved legislation, and that is subject to a separate instrument.

The retained regulation 1073/2011 will apply only to EU-based operators. In the event of no deal, UK operators will be able to continue to access the EU market through accession to the Interbus agreement. This is an EU multilateral agreement that allows bus and coach operators to carry out occasional services between the participating countries—currently, the EU and seven other contracting parties in eastern Europe. At present, the UK is party to the agreement through its EU membership. Although the agreement currently covers only occasional services it is being extended to cover regular services, but this process has not yet concluded.

As part of contingency planning for no deal, the Government have deposited their instrument of accession to the Interbus agreement. This means that the UK will become a contracting party to the agreement in its own right. Due to the way the rules of the Interbus agreement apply, this will happen on 1 April. The Government are currently working closely with the European Commission to agree a way to close the two-day gap if we leave without a deal on 29 March.

In acknowledgment of the fact that the extension of the Interbus agreement to regular services will not be in place by exit day, the European Commission has extended the scope of its measure for an EU regulation on common rules ensuring basic road freight connectivity to include regular passenger services. This regulation was formally adopted by EU Ministers on Tuesday and will apply to UK passenger transport operators running regular services to and from the EU for the first nine months after exit, if we should leave without a deal. The Commission’s proposal is based on the UK reciprocating, and the draft regulations that we are considering today will reciprocate those conditions for EU operators in the UK.

Coach travel provides a low-cost, safe and environmentally friendly way to travel. Coaches from continental Europe bring in some 1.6 million visitors each year, and in Northern Ireland travel across the border is a commonplace daily activity, with 900,000 journeys per annum. These regulations allow for the continuation of EU bus and coach services in the UK and reciprocate the EU regulation so that UK regular services can continue to operate to and from the EU.

These regulations are essential to support our tourism industry and to ensure that international services can continue to run. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

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

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Government believe that a protocol to the Interbus agreement will be signed in the near future to allow regular and special regular services to be included as well, but I gather that that could take at least three months to come into effect. Maybe the Minister could update us on whether the signatures on the protocol are progressing well. As I understood it, it was going rather slowly at first, and I believe that we need at least four signatures for it to come into force.

[Lord Berkeley]

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

[Baroness Randerson]

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

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

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

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Sugg]

On 1 January 2020, assuming that we have all the signatories that we need and the Interbus agreement is in place, the main issue will be cabotage, as the Interbus agreement does not cover cabotage. UK operators will not be able to provide cabotage in the EU. There would be a separate arrangement for that for Ireland, but UK operators will not be able to do it. There is very limited UK-operator cabotage in the EU; as I said, most journeys go out and come back. However, that is the main implication and the main difference.

[Lord Berkeley]

Following up on that, I would have thought cabotage was pretty important for coach operators. Does this restriction apply in the other direction for continental operators coming here?

[Baroness Sugg]

This SI allows EU operators to continue cabotage operations. We do not have figures on how much cabotage takes place. The new EU unilateral regulations allow cabotage for regular and special regular services in the Irish border regions until 30 September 2019, when we will have something else in place. However, other cabotage is not permitted and, as I said, the Interbus agreement does not allow cabotage.

There is little exercise of cabotage from UK operators, because services are usually hired for a group of passengers who return to the UK, such as for a school trip or tour. Regular services allow cabotage as part of an international journey, but all current UK-to-mainland-Europe timetabled services, such as Eurolines, are operated by non-UK companies, so they will not be affected by Brexit.

As we have said, cabotage forms an integral part of cross-border bus journeys on the island of Ireland. Such services are incredibly important for remote communities. We recognise that the provision within the legislation proposed by the EU offers a solution, but that solution is based on reciprocity, which is what we are doing through these SIs.

I suppose that one could say that this is an asymmetric agreement at the moment. We are allowing cabotage within the UK, but these things are of a temporary nature. When we join the Interbus agreement and have future discussions with the EU on our relationship—