Public Bodies (Abolition of the Railway Heritage Committee) Order 2013

Debate between Lord Bradshaw and Lord Faulkner of Worcester

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on the way in which he has introduced the debate and set out the proposed new arrangements, and I thank him for the kind comments he made about me. I shall reciprocate by saying some nice things about him and two of his ministerial colleagues in a moment.

I start by declaring some relevant interests, all of them unpaid. Until 2009, I was chair of the Railway Heritage Committee. I am president of the Heritage Railway Association and I am a trustee of the Science Museum Group and serve as chair of the newly-established Railway Heritage Designation Advisory Board, to which the Minister referred. I am also an officer of both the rail and heritage rail all-party groups. As the Minister said, the order provides for the statutory designation powers of the Railway Heritage Committee to pass to the Science Museum next year, assuming of course that this House and another place pass this order.

This has been a bit of a tortuous journey, but it is one which I hope will have a happy ending. It started badly. The first anyone knew of the Government’s intention to abolish the Railway Heritage Committee came in a leak to the Daily Telegraph on 23 September 2010, which listed all the public bodies down for abolition. This was followed on 14 October by a statement from the Department for Transport saying:

“The Government believes that the RHC cannot be justified as no equivalent protection applies to the heritage of any other transport sector”,

and that the RHC will therefore be abolished. That was it. There was no consultation whatever leading up to that decision, but this was followed by a huge outcry in the specialist press and in the heritage world, and scores of letters were written to Ministers and MPs asking the Government to think again. Interestingly this unease appeared to be shared by no less a person than the Prime Minister. Writing to one of his constituents on 25 October, Mr Cameron said:

“I understand the significant role railways have played and continue to play in the life of the nation. I also recognise the value of preserving evidence significant to our railways heritage”.

The continuation of statutory powers of designation is of particular importance to the heritage railway movement. This covers around 111 working heritage railways and tramways, as well as 60 steam museum sites. There are more than 399 stations on these lines—more than on the Underground network—and there is a fleet of around 800 preserved steam locomotives. Artefacts that are designated, and thus preserved, often find a new life on the heritage railways, and that brings many benefits to local communities and to local employment, skills training and tourism.

The Railway Heritage Committee’s existence and operation stemmed from three distinct Acts of Parliament, two of them passed by Conservative Governments and one by the recent Labour Government, each supported by all political parties. The Railways Act 1993 set up the Railway Heritage Committee at the time of the railways privatisation. The Railway Heritage Act 1996 brought artefacts and records that had passed into the private sector back into the scope of the committee after attempts by Ministers to set up a voluntary scheme was seen to be unsuccessful. That is a point that we need to bear in mind when we hear about voluntary arrangements in future. The Railways Act 2005 conferred NDPB status on the committee following the demise of the Strategic Rail Authority, and the 2005 Act also brought military railways owned by the Ministry of Defence within its scope.

The principle that the nation’s railway heritage is worth preserving goes back a long way. At the time of the railways nationalisation in 1948, the big four private railway companies were meticulous in passing over their principal heritage items to the newly established British Railways. Section 144 of the Transport Act 1968 transferred responsibility for the British Railways Board’s historical artefacts and certain of its records to the Department of Education and Science, and in 1975 the National Railway Museum was established in York. Had the abolition of the RHC gone through as originally intended, much of that good work would have been lost. Not only would nothing of significance to the nation’s railway history have been preserved in future but all 1,300 artefacts and thousands of important historical documents previously designated would have had to be de-designated, with many of them being put at risk.

Fortunately, it was possible to discuss these matters sensibly with Ministers, and I am happy to praise the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach—I am pleased to see him in his place—who sought me out after the Second Reading debate on the Public Bodies Bill, and also Theresa Villiers, the then Minister of State for Transport. I should also mention in dispatches the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, whose role in this was also extremely helpful. Quite quickly, we were able to agree an alternative way forward which retained the statutory powers of designation by transferring them to the trustees at the Science Museum, and this is provided for in this order.

There is, however, one aspect of the new arrangements which is not entirely satisfactory and it is the reason I am moving this amendment to the Motion. This is the question of scope. The list of organisations covered by the statutory powers of designation does not adequately cover the modern railway industry. The previous Government recognised this when my noble friend Lord Adonis was Secretary of State. In 2008 and 2009, the DfT carried out an extensive consultation exercise to gauge the degree of support for extending the scope of the RHC following changes in the structure of the railway industry since 1996. There was virtually unanimous support for this proposition. Indeed, Transport for London specifically asked that London’s Underground railways should come within the committee’s scope, as did, perhaps surprisingly, the railway trade unions, which, whatever their discontent with the privatised industry, very much saw themselves as part of the railway family. As a result, a new statutory instrument was drafted and circulated in 2010 but, sadly, was never tabled following the change of Government.

Reverting to where we are today, the Minister has referred to the consultation on the new arrangements that the department undertook earlier this year. This produced almost unanimous support for retaining the powers of designation and transferring them to the Science Museum. One reason why there is so much support within the railway industry for the RHC is that it has always worked happily with the industry and with the grain of the industry. The industry members see it as a helpful partner which not only relieves them of much of the burden of worrying about preservation matters but complements their own very serious commitment to railway heritage.

Writing to Theresa Villiers on 1 August this year, Peter Hendy, the Commissioner for Transport for London, repeated that TfL would welcome inclusion under the scope of the new designation arrangements. He said that he made this point for a number of reasons. I received his permission this morning to quote directly from his letter, which states:

“First it demonstrates the strength of commitment we in TfL have towards our unique railway heritage, and our determination that nothing of significance to the nation’s railway story should be lost. Secondly, bringing TfL within scope would solve an anomaly, in that some of TfL’s operations, having formerly being British Rail services, are in-scope—for example, London Overground—whilst the Underground is not. Thirdly, not being in-scope adds to our regulatory burden, because management time has to be expended unnecessarily on dealing with requests from members of the public—especially railway enthusiasts—to preserve artefacts, when it would be much more efficient and cost-effective to refer such demands to an independent body possessing statutory powers, able to judge objectively what is important”.

These seem to be pretty compelling arguments. They were good enough to persuade Mrs Villiers repeatedly to ask her officials to come up with a formula which would achieve what Mr Hendy and the rest of us wanted. The noble Earl, Lord Attlee, was not unsympathetic either in conversations with my noble friend Lord Davies of Oldham and me.

The legal advice seemed to rest on the fact that to extend scope required a negative statutory instrument, while the abolition of the RHC had to be done by affirmative order. However, bearing in mind that a draft SI had already been prepared in 2010 to achieve exactly what is needed now, it seems to be a pretty feeble reason for not taking the steps before the designation powers transferred to the Science Museum. Mrs Villiers never sent a reply to Peter Hendy or me because she was promoted in the government reshuffle on 4 September. Instead, it seems that within hours letters were put in front of the new Ministers saying, effectively, “Nothing doing on the scope issue”, and they were signed by Simon Burns and Stephen Hammond and sent to Peter Hendy and me.

We are advised to rely on voluntary agreements with organisations wishing to come within scope. The advisory board which I am chairing at the Science Museum will do its best to come up with a suitable short-term solution. However, the Minister knows very well that this cannot be permanent and that a new SI will be needed before long. This amendment to the Motion is about a missed opportunity to get this right from the start. However, I stress that the decision to retain the RHC’s existing powers of designation is warmly welcomed, and I thank the noble Earl for his part in achieving it. I beg to move.

[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, I will add to what the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has said. I have a feeling that many people might think that we are interested only in collecting engine numbers, steam trains and old things. I was present at the National Railway Heritage Awards last week, and among the winners were some remarkable feats of engineering and advanced technology. These included the repainting of the Forth Bridge in such a way that it should not need doing for 25 years, and the magnificent fourth span at Paddington station which pushed technology a long way. I also mention that much of this work is supported by the industry itself and by a huge number of volunteers. It pushes science and preservation forward and, because of the attractiveness of a lot of this to tourists and our own people going about the country, it is worth preserving for reasons other than sheer nostalgia.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Debate between Lord Bradshaw and Lord Faulkner of Worcester

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw]

I will speak to Amendments 231A, 231B, 234ZA and 234ZB standing in my name. They relate to the British Transport Police. That body is unique and not, as far as I know, subject to the idea of elected commissioners. However, it polices our railways and goes back in its origins to the days when transport policemen were the signalmen on the railway who looked after the conduct of trains.

We have moved on a bit and the transport police now are more or less corralled within the boundaries of the railway, so that they cannot exercise their powers outside the railway unless explicit guidance or agreement has been reached with the county force or its successors. These amendments would extend the jurisdiction of the transport police to make them responsible for policing transport interchanges. Nearly every railway station has a car park, a bicycle place and somewhere where people catch the bus. People need to be assured of their safety throughout their journey. Some research I had done about 18 months ago showed that according to the estimates made by the Department for Transport, 11.5 per cent more journeys would be made on public transport if passengers felt more secure. I am not pretending for one instant that letting the transport police embrace the precincts of a station would put that all right, but I know that the moment when people get off a train and transfer to another means of public transport, even walking down the street, is when they feel most vulnerable and is probably when they are most likely to be attacked.

I am not asking for more money to be given to the British Transport Police, which is, in fact, a matter for the Department for Transport, rather than the Home Office, but it is important that some real force is put behind the guidance. Actually, there is no guidance. Informal arrangements exist in some places, and they work, but they are informal. To take an example I know well, at Reading station, which has extensive bus stops, car parks, some of them rather nasty, and cycle racks, the police cannot even deal with disorder in the park that was built as part of the station but is outside the limits. We want to use the manpower at the Government’s disposal in the best possible way to promote the interests of passengers, and the British Transport Police force is, to a large extent, paid for by the train operating companies .

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, and have put my name to the same amendments in this group. I commend the speech made at the beginning of this debate by my noble friend Lord Stevenson, who summed up ideally the importance of the British Transport Police and the necessity of removing the anomalies in existing legislation. We made some progress on improvements over the past 10 years. For example, at one point, it was illegal for a British Transport Police officer to pursue a pickpocket out of the station on to the neighbouring street. It was like one of those Wild West films where the police’s jurisdiction finishes at the state line and the next state’s police have to take over. It is an absurd situation. The problem that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, referred to still exists to a considerable degree. I believe that it is important that when people undertake a journey by train to an airport station, the British Transport Police should be not only on the platform but in the airport as well because they are providing the same sort of security to the traveller and, as far as the passenger is concerned, it is a seamless journey.

There are some anomalies that we have the opportunity to address with these amendments. I shall concentrate on one aspect of them relating to alcohol. The BTP is at present excluded by Section 1 of the Police Act 1996 from having a view on licensing applications, even though there are now large numbers of retail outlets selling alcohol on stations, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, points out. It would be very much in the interests not just of the travelling public but of the public generally that, if the British Transport Police was aware of problems relating to particular premises associated with the railway, it had the opportunity to object to those licences. I understand that at present it is not able to do that.

A number of these anomalies can be put right, particularly if the amendments that the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, has tabled and which I am supporting were to be accepted by the Government. I very much hope that the Minister will look at them, and if it is not possible to accept the amendments today will be able to come back to us at a later stage to say that some of these difficulties will be ironed out at later stages of the Bill. I think these are worthwhile amendments, and I hope the Committee will support them.