Queen’s Speech

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, before this debate I contacted two people. I do not know what their political opinions are, but they both run successful SMEs, one in the manufacturing sector with a large proportion of exports of high-value products, and the other in the service sector, whose company has been voted as one of the best companies to work for by its employees. I asked for their opinion of the coalition Government. They both replied in the same way: “We are having good government”. I then asked them what help should be given to SMEs in furthering their businesses. They responded with two points. The first was the need to reform the business rate system, which bears heavily on small businesses, particularly those in the manufacturing sector. The second was that we must not leave Europe. However, we must confront the huge waste of money due to the high salaries and expenses associated with the place, and in echo of the Prime Minister’s words, them being “so bossy”. However, we do not have to leave all this until 2017 or even 2015. We should start arguing for what we want now, because we have a lot of useful suggestions to make.

On the subject of the coalition, I pay tribute to a few of the Ministers in your Lordships’ House. I single out the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lords, Lord Taylor of Holbeach and Lord Nash, as three who have been particularly careful over the past couple of years to engage in the most meaningful consultation. They have attended countless meetings and modified a lot of things in the original Bills before they were carried into law. I must say that, in the 10 years I was here under the Labour Government, I rarely got any concession at all. The process among most of the people on these Benches has been to try to work together even though we have different philosophies.

Turning to transport, I am very concerned that we may be moving into an era of “predict and provide”, when we should be turning to smarter management of a lot of the infrastructure we have. However, the most important thing that I want to say is that the state of structural maintenance of our highways is an absolute disgrace. Everybody gets complaints about potholes. Who exercises proper discipline over the quality of repairs carried out by the utilities that constantly dig up our roads? They do not seal the edges of the holes, so that moisture gets in and the next winter we are back where we started.

One of the major problems is the revenue-capital split of the Treasury. There is a point—I have been through all this on the railways—where heavy structural maintenance should be a capital item. Maintenance is something you carry out two or three times a decade, but structural maintenance you carry out once only 20 or 30 years. These are capital items, and we should look very carefully at the way that they are accounted for. We should concentrate our road investment on the really strategic roads, which have often got bad safety records. The Minister will know that the A1 north of Newcastle going up to Scotland is a particularly bad road, and I hope that she may have some good news for us on this

I turn to the electric railway. We are not going to build any more diesel trains—all new trains will be electric. My conversations with the rolling stock companies lead me to the conclusion that they are absolutely willing to take the risk in financing freight locomotives and new passenger electric rolling stock. I plead with the Minister to let the market decide what they offer and to not let officials keep dipping their hands in subjects which they do not understand. This is all about technical issues of mechanical and civil engineering and does not benefit at all from constant interference.

I turn to some of the irritants—the things that the media seize on and use to beat Governments, whether they are a coalition, Labour or whatever. We have heard today from the Rail Regulator that there was a 5.7% increase in rail passenger journeys last year. The railway is growing very fast, but it is held back, mainly by the procrastination of officials over rolling stock. The time has come for us to not raise rail fares at the end of this year. We have huge growth but it enables the media to portray the industry as being very expensive when in fact, except in a few cases, it is actually quite cheap.

People are equally concerned about energy prices, as many Members have said. Bearing in mind that utility companies generally took far too much money out of people’s pockets, I wonder whether we could have a moratorium on energy prices. I am not saying that we should put a cap on energy prices permanently, but I believe that consumers are due some sort of recompense from these companies.

We know that getting appointments with GPs is very urgently at the top of people’s list of irritants. Strong action to deal with this problem will help keep cases out of hospital and help make people more content with the service.

This party very reluctantly agreed to raise higher education fees and we have suffered for it. But the higher education sector has not responded by giving its students a real increase in value for money. Often people get only about three hours a week of lectures and I do not believe that overall the higher education sector has stepped up to the plate at all. It should be increasing its productivity. It is a perfectly reasonable demand.

Turning back to transport, we have to find a way of making young people’s bus fares more affordable. They often cannot afford a car or transport and often live far from their places of work or education. Much could be done to encourage them. I do not know whether my noble friend the Minister has any news for us but I would like to believe that the progress being made in some parts of the country is being replicated in others.

I was at a conference of the bus industry last week and I am quite clear that the partnership that local authorities can bring about with operators is of enormous benefit. I was talking about Oxfordshire. They had to review all their services in west Oxfordshire. The county and the operators got together. They had £3 million of cuts to be made but the industry found, by various manipulations, £2.7 million out of that. So there was a very small reduction, compared to what they began with. I contrast that with the announcement from Northumberland County Council that it is withdrawing free school transport for anybody over 16. That strikes me as a particular contrast between people who work in partnership and people who work against one another.

There is much to do and we on these Benches look forward to a busy and useful Session. I personally refute any suggestion that this is a stale Parliament.