Lord Davies of Oldham
Main Page: Lord Davies of Oldham (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Davies of Oldham's debates with the Department for Transport
(10 years ago)
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Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)
My Lords, I yield entirely to the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Berkeley, for their huge expertise in this field. I have not attempted to master all the details. However, there was one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, which I am not sure I correctly understood. It was about the licence. My attention was drawn to the Written Statement that was issued by the Government. Indeed, my noble friend on the Front Bench repeated a Statement made by her colleague, the right honourable John Hayes. He was talking about the draft licence, which is a new document that was issued six days ago. I shall come back to that point in a moment. It states that the licence,
“indicates the manner in which the Secretary of State proposes to issue binding statutory directions and guidance to the new company, setting objectives and conditions around how the company must act”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/10/14; col. 18WS.]
I do not think that there is anything obscure about that; it is perfectly clear that the licence is issued by the Secretary of State. In those circumstances, the Secretary of State can clearly be held responsible if it does not work properly. But it may be that I misunderstood the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.
The Statement from which I quoted was issued less than a week ago and announces the publication of several substantial new documents which bear on Part 1 of the Infrastructure Bill. I fear that the Government have got themselves into rather a bad habit of publishing documents very shortly before Parliament has to consider them, leaving those of us who perhaps do not have the resources behind us that some may have to find it very difficult to catch up with it all. The most recent example—I do not hold my noble friend Lady Kramer responsible for this—is something that we will debate on Wednesday: the community electricity scheme. A task force looking at exactly that issue has been sitting for a year, but its report was made available only this morning. When I first came into the House, it was not even available in the Printed Paper Office, so I am afraid that I rang up the department concerned and expressed my displeasure, if I may put it in neutral language.
I have to say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that that is no way to treat Parliament. If the Government get into difficulties on some of these issues, it is because officials have been allowed to drag their feet to the point when things are issued only a matter of days before they have to be debated. I leave my noble friend with that thought.
Finally, I should say how much I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. I am sure that we have to come to some form of road pricing in future, if we are to make sense of this. There has been a huge increase in road traffic and no sign of it declining. The fact of the matter is that, while people of course pay the petrol duty, the licence and other taxes, that is in no way related to the amount of use that they make of the roads. I am quite sure that we will have to come back to that at some stage, and it may be something that emerges from the revised structure being set up in this Bill. As I said at Second Reading, I totally support it, and think it a very good move, but the revised structure may well bring these questions of how it is to be paid for much more to the fore. Then we may have the sort of reform that my noble friend Lord Bradshaw advocated.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, I can keep my own contribution relatively brief because my noble friends Lord Whitty and Lord Berkeley have presented the case with great clarity. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for pointing out that we are dealing today with a position that is only six days old—the latest change from the Government to this crucial part of the proposals in the Bill. That is to say nothing of the fact that the fracking aspect of the Bill came months after we had considered it in Committee, which was then held up until the Government had concluded their consultation in the summer. So this is not a Bill distinguished by forward planning from the Government, or by a clear rationale of what they are about. However, I suppose I should thank them for having another shot at improving the Bill.
We are pleased to see changes reflective of the representations made in Committee from this side of the House, but we are no clearer on why delivering long-term certainty for roads investment requires a top-down reorganisation of the Highways Agency. The Cook report told us that it is stop-start funding problems that are leading to inefficiencies of between 15% and 20%. Is there any real evidence proving that changing the legal structure of the Highways Agency will, in itself, improve efficiency? Perhaps top-down reorganisation is the metier of this Government in challenging areas. The Minister will be aware of the strength of the concern on our side that this looks like the first step to privatisation. We continue to have that anxiety. Why is the section on the company’s licence for commercial activity and charging for services still unfinished?
We are concerned about the cost implications. There is still no clarity on whether the SHC will be able to reclaim VAT in the same way that the Highways Agency does at present. In Committee, the Minister said that the SHC would not be required to pay VAT, which is exactly the case with the Highways Agency now. That soon cleared up the issue. However, it did not clear up the issue at the other end, because the Minister in the Treasury, David Gauke, in answer to a Question from my honourable friend in the other place, Richard Burden MP, said:
“New bodies are not automatically covered by the … provisions. However, the Department for Transport and HM Treasury are considering this issue”.
HMT is quite important, here, with regard to revenue and dispensations to other departments. It does not seem to be as clear on the matter as the Department for Transport is maintaining that it is. If the new strategic highways authority is no longer able to recover VAT in the same way, that could lead to losses of a considerable amount—as much as £400 million annually. That would be £4 billion over 10 years, which would dwarf the figure of efficiency gains of £2.6 billion that it is proposed will come from the legislation. If the VAT issue is not resolved, therefore, the justification for this reorganisation is even less substantiated.
Turning to Amendment 4, which is in my name, the Minister used two arguments in Committee to reject our attempts to clarify whether the Government envision having more than one company. One argument was that this is only standard legal drafting and there should be no cause for concern. The Minister went on to say that it might be necessary if one wanted a more regional structure for the equivalent of the strategic highways company. Can she not confirm that the Highways Agency is already structured regionally? There appears to be confused thinking within the Government about how many companies there will be, which is why many are concerned that the Government are not being entirely open about their plans for the future.
It is clear that our main reservations about the major government proposal in the Bill have not been assuaged. As my noble friends have indicated, there are other questions, too, to which the Minister needs to respond to convince us that this proposal is acceptable.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer)
My Lords, this is obviously a very wide and long group of amendments, which cover quite a range of issues. I do not want to put words in noble Lords’ mouths. but I think that we have progressed to the point at which at least we have a common goal in terms of setting up a structure that will ensure certainty of funding for highways in the way that we have managed to enjoy, and benefited from, with the railways.
Clause 1 allows the Secretary of State to appoint a strategic highways company, thereby conferring duties and functions on it to operate as a highway authority. If we were to drop this clause—there is a stand part debate in this group of amendments—it would be a fundamental change to the model and we would lose many of the key benefits of certainty over funding and plans which, as we have heard today, has been widely supported.
Our aim is to create a different model to deliver road infrastructure. Crucial to this is having a legal body separate from government responsible for our strategic road network and delivering a road investment strategy in the most cost-effective way. We consider the most effective model is a company created under the Companies Act 2006. Let me explain the rationale. We have decades of experience of the fact that the current arrangements—I point this out to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, who will remember the history of the department—have not encouraged a long-term approach to planning infrastructure or provided secure funding. Stop-start has indeed been a definition of a large part of their history and has come with high costs in terms of the efficiency and quality of our infrastructure. For long-term funding certainty and planning, it is crucial for the Secretary of State to be able to have a transparent and binding relationship with a separate legal entity. If the delivery body were to remain the Highways Agency and remain within the DfT, inevitably it would be easy to change funding and plans.
Setting up a strategic highways company as a new company operating under company law with a well established governance and financial framework will reinforce the clarity and robustness of the relationship. We have seen from international experience, for example in the Netherlands and Sweden, that where road delivery bodies have been given long-term funding certainty and a more independent relationship setting out requirements, large efficiency savings have been possible. A company would be constrained to one that is limited by shares and wholly owned by the Secretary of State, ensuring that any company is 100% owned by the Government and remains in the public sector. We have not only no intent but no interest in turning this into a privatisation. That is not part of our agenda and does not achieve the goals that we want.
Let me again take this opportunity to explain that we have no plans to appoint more than one company. We have already made clear that the Highways Agency, in its new legal status as a Government-owned company, will be the only company appointed. The use of plural “companies” in legislation was to allow flexibility for further companies in the future, including how companies would work together: and that is what Amendment 11 seeks to remove. Subsequent provisions in the Bill which refer to a company could therefore refer only to the strategic highways company or to each such company.
We are doing this in part because we recognise that future Governments may want flexibility to create more companies: for example, to give more accountability, to allow a company to look after a specific cluster of roads or area of roads or to promote comparisons and efficiency. Those are not our goals, but they might be those of a future Government. Reference to more than one company would prevent future Governments making change as needed. However, it is not something that we are seeking, so if noble Lords feel strongly on this issue and do not want to give that flexibility to future Governments—even though it is standard in virtually every piece of legislation that this House has seen referring to “companies” and “company” because, as I explained, in law the singular is the plural and the plural is the singular—I could offer a compromise that might reassure noble Lords.
I would be very happy to return at Third Reading with an amendment that would require any Government to seek parliamentary approval to establish additional companies beyond the initial one. I wonder whether this would satisfy noble Lords. It would certainly meet our intent. We see no future Government related to us who would wish to run this in a different way, and this would allow Parliament to have the voice that perhaps noble Lords are seeking.
Turning to the requirement for a licensing regime, we have been and are clear that we do not want to privatise the strategic highway network. Therefore, given that licensing regimes in the traditional sense, which is reflected in quite a number of these amendments, apply to commercial operators, we have been trying to avoid precisely that kind of licence. I find it strange that your Lordships are now pressing for amendments that follow that commercial model. Since we do not intend to privatise, the commercial model is not relevant to our proposals for this company.
In sectors such as rail, aviation, energy and water, the licence is a means of access to an economic activity where there are potentially multiple operators in a commercial market that may seek to apply. Our strategic highways company is funded by government, with no option for a separate revenue income. All its powers and duties to operate as a highways authority already exist in legislation and it is by virtue of their appointment that these powers are switched on.
Lord Davies of Oldham
“Public sector rail operators
Within 6 months of the passing of this Act the Secretary of State shall publish a report on allowing a public sector rail operator to take on lines and challenge the train operators in the public interest.”
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, this amendment requires the Secretary of State to publish a report on allowing a public sector rail operator to take on lines and challenge the train operators on a genuinely level playing field in the public interest, securing value for money for passengers and taxpayers.
Many noble Lords will no doubt recall the exchanges that we had at Question Time last week on the future of east coast rail. I congratulate the Minister on her performance then in defending the Government’s position, which I regarded then, and still do regard, as indefensible, but I hope that today her response will be somewhat different. We should learn the lessons of east coast rail, where we have seen the benefits of a not-for-dividend operator running a rail line.
East coast rail was brought back into public ownership in 2009 after the private operator reneged on its commitments. It is efficient, it has returned more than £600 million to the taxpayer and it invests every penny of that profit back into the company. It provides a quality service, achieving record levels of passenger satisfaction and punctuality. The new timetable that it introduced in 2011 allows it to operate 7,000 more trains each year, and it now has 500,000 more passengers. It has also delivered for passengers. This year’s fare rise was in fact a real-terms cut—something that no private franchise was able to do. In fact, elsewhere, season tickets have risen in price by 30% since 2010—a stark contrast.
Despite that, the Government appear intent on pressing ahead with the privatisation of intercity east coast services. Will the Minister confirm that the cost to the taxpayer of reprivatising the east coast could run to £6 million? It is important that the Minister responds to this question and says what steps the Government are otherwise taking to improve the functioning of the railways. It is unacceptable that our rail lines are, according to the 2011 McNulty review, up to 40% less efficient than the best-performing European networks.
We know that the Conservative Party is unwilling to take a pragmatic approach on this issue. Its Railways Act 1993 effectively prohibits a public sector operator, except in the most restrictive circumstances. But the public do not feel this way. Only 28% of those polled support the sell-off of east coast. Can the Minister say on which side of this divide her own party finds itself? Many will recall her party’s support for a public sector operator while it was in opposition. It is time to put an end to this rigid ideological approach, which also sees the Government trying to rush through a sell-off of the 40% public stake in Eurostar before we have even seen the conclusion of my noble friend Lord Myners’s inquiry into the Royal Mail privatisation.
This amendment would give the Government the opportunity to reflect and to alter their stance. It is time to learn the lessons of east coast and legislate to allow a public sector operator to take on lines. It should be able to challenge the train operators in the public interest on a level playing field. That is the way to secure the best deal for passengers and for taxpayers. I hope that the Minister will accept this amendment so that we can move in that direction. I beg to move.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, it is worth reminding the House that we already have public sector operators in this country; we have lines owned by Dutch railways, French railways and German railways. They are not called that in this country—they have different names—but they are owned by those countries. On the continent, some of them operate effective, positive and well liked services; some of them are pretty awful. When you hear that Eurostar, which is still 40% owned by the British Government—although it is for sale—is allowed to bid for the east coast, but a company that is perhaps 100% owned by the British Government would not be allowed, it does seem a bit odd. I am sure that the Minister has an answer to that, but it seems to me that we are selling off our crown jewels in the shape of a piece of Eurostar and allowing the companies that buy them—perhaps from the continent, perhaps from elsewhere—to come back and provide a good service on certain occasions, but to compete a little unfairly against what our own companies might do if they existed.
Baroness Kramer
I will just pick up on a point about “foreign-owned”. There is obviously scope for any country to decide that it is going to own an industry. We have certainly done that in the past: we have owned airports, steel companies and railways; you can go on through the list. We made a decision, as a country, that that could be done better by the private sector, but it is still entirely open to any country that it wants to own a series of businesses.
We have made a decision that that is not where we need to put our money. I have plenty of other places where I would much rather put the £140 million that I have just described than on the franchise bids alone, never mind all the overhead costs that would go with them. As I have said, this business, even when it is done well, is also a high-risk, thinly margined business. If one were to decide to go in for buying shares or into commercial ventures with taxpayers’ money, I suggest that one could choose many other businesses with higher returns, or other ways to spend the money. I would put money into services for the public rather than into owning shares in a company that would go out and compete with the private sector. That is the argument that I am making in all this.
We have a successful railway. It is delivering for the British people. We intend to place more and more demands on it. We have private sector companies that can deliver what we need, provided that we negotiate effectively and hard. It seems to me that that is where our energy has to go: delivering for the British people rather than being caught up in an idea of who owns what.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her considered and lengthy reply. She will have noticed that she was acting alone in the House, as there was not a supporting voice anywhere—expect that my noble friend Lord Snape, with his considerable knowledge of railways, asked a few questions and expressed anxieties about not returning to the days of nationalised railways, when losses were made and low investment was the order of the day. There is nothing in the amendment or in any proposal conceivable to the Opposition which suggests that.
We have had the illustration of two private companies failing on the east coast main line, and one successful directly operated railway under public auspices producing considerable degrees of success which match the achievements of any on other lines. All we seek is for the Government to think about the possibility of that continuing. That is all that the amendment involves: recognition of ready and conspicuous success under the formula and an eagerness to see that it should persist. It is only dogma on the other side that leads them to indicate that there are so many complexities about running a private railway that one could not anticipate the expertise existing anywhere in any state-operated organisation—except, perhaps, in the German, French and Dutch states, which make successful bids and operate.
I merely ask the House to recognise that this is a modest amendment to keep the ball in play for the huge success in recent events on the railway. The Minister has addressed herself to every issue except that success, which we want to confer. Accordingly, I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.
Baroness Kramer
At this point, I cannot remember the exact location of each item, but I will go back. However, we now have the monitor there to enforce the RIS or the strategic highways company’s compliance with it, as well as with the contents of the draft licence or statutory guidance.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
I very much support the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. The Minister is right; we have not spoken to Amendment 24, so I do not expect her to comment on it in great detail. However, I hope that she will indicate in her response to this group of amendments—it has been helpful thus far—that she will meet our point: that there is such great complexity about this interrelationship that things will not be rushed. It would be sad if, in pushing things hard to get the Bill on to the statute book and to be acted upon, we pre-empted in a rush what ought to be a long-term perspective on the road investment strategy. We expect the SHC very much to be involved in that new role.
Baroness Kramer
I now have a reply, thanks to that helpful intervention and the time associated with it. Clause 3(5) places a duty on the strategic highways company and the Secretary of State to comply with the RIS. So we have that covered. Our concern about removing subsection (6) of Clause 3 is that, without it, the Secretary of State could actually pick and choose when to set a strategy. Frankly, we do not want to give that scope to the Secretary of State—and I am sure that your Lordships do not either.
Your Lordships also propose that the first strategy be set in accordance with the process we have set out in Schedule 2. We have been clear that this time around we are following a compressed timetable. Indeed, we all want to have a strategy in place for day 1 of the company’s operations—but a company that does not yet exist cannot participate in the way that Schedule 2 envisages. If we were to wait until the passage of the Act, we would be in the position of forcing the company to operate without a strategy, delaying much-needed investment in the network. I hope your Lordships will not press that amendment. This is just to deal with the fact that we are pushing ahead with the strategy that I expect your Lordships will see very shortly. However, the assent to the Bill and the creation of the company will come afterwards so it would not be possible the first time around to pursue the proposals in that amendment.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, I have listened to the argument with interest and some incredulity. Seeking to compare the number of deaths on the railways with the number of deaths on the roads ignores major differences between the two forms of transport. The roads are essentially a matter for individual drivers and many accidents and deaths are caused by serious driver error. It can be because the vehicles have not been properly inspected. Older vehicles always have to have annual road testing. Of course, there are many other causes, such as the terrible bonfire that swept smoke right across the motorway and caused serious accidents. But none of those can conceivably be laid at the door of the highways authority.
The design of the roads, signposting, warning signs and a whole range of things are the responsibility of the highways authority and would be the responsibility of the strategic road company, but a great many of the issues for which the strategic highways authority would be made directly responsible—the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, talked about legal liability—cannot conceivably be laid at the door of that authority. The language that he has used in his various amendments simply does not draw the distinction between issues that are clearly the responsibility of other authorities, notably the whole question of licensing, inspection and testing of vehicles and the question of skills of drivers and so forth. I do not see how the highways authority could be made responsible for all that.
I studied the noble Lord’s amendment and listened to his eloquent speech in which he made it clear that he has a very real interest, although non-pecuniary, in road safety, but it is overstepping the mark to try to lay the liability for that sort of thing at the doors of the strategic highways authority. I will listen to what my noble friend says having studied her amendments on this issue with interest. For the moment, I am not persuaded on this occasion by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, I pay tribute to the Government for having listened carefully to what was said in Committee, where pressure was exerted from this side of the House for greater clarity of the functions of the highway company. We are grateful for the progress that has been made in the indications from the Government that they accept some of these arguments. But Amendment 15, to which the Opposition are also committed, does not offend in any way in the manner that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, indicated. What it says is that the highways company shall be responsible for the road safety performance of the network. We are talking about the strategic network and it is essential that we recognise that we want enhanced performance over road safety, because in recent years there have been anxieties about the decline in safety for our fellow citizens on the roads.
The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said that the same criteria as for railways were being applied. What is indicated in the amendment is that the Office of Rail Regulation will be concerned with the monitoring role, and that is where the overlap occurs. It is not contended on this side of the House, as he will recognise, that there could be any anticipation that the same degree of security could be achieved on roads as on a carefully regulated railway. We are very proud in this country of the excellent safety figures of the railway network, leaving aside level crossings, which, as we know, are a perennial problem for the railway. Regarding roads, it is clear that we want all the factors—a fact which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, enumerated—and we want enhanced performance in those areas. Clearly the strategic highways company has a very important role to play. That is why we support Amendment 15.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, on the previous grouping, I was pleased to make it clear that the Government have taken on board the thoughts of this House in putting, basically, the duties around road safety, the environment and co-operation in the Bill. While safety is obviously always at the forefront of our minds, it now seems that given the language in the statutory directions and guidance and what will go in the Bill, we have both belt and braces. If we were to follow the amendments recommended by the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Berkeley, we would put on constraints which, frankly, would remove flexibility on how to approach these issues and make the strategic highways company somehow responsible for issues that it could not possibly control. My noble friend, Lord Jenkin, was eloquent in describing that.
One of the principles of the entire roads reform programme is to give the company operational freedom to achieve its objectives. Amendment 15 runs entirely counter to that, and could lock out potential benefits by forcing the company to focus on an important but narrow aspect of road safety; namely, road infrastructure safety ratings. That is a restraint on effective management for the purposes of safety, not a support to it. Both those issues—the constraints that this would impose and the fact that a significant number of these issues are simply not under the control of the SHC—seem to argue for the withdrawal of the amendment and for the use of the belt and braces which we have already agreed will be in place. There is no need to seek a legal requirement to appraise different types of intervention on the basis that some of the amendments propose, because they are already in the Bill. The company will continue to use the department’s transport appraisal guidance, which ensures that interventions are considered on a consistent and proportionate basis.
I come now to the duties of the monitor. In Committee, and just now, your Lordships were persuasive about the need to help improve road safety and the environment. As noble Lords know, we have said that we will move an amendment on that, and your Lordships have been able to see the much stronger and detailed language now in the guidance and direction. Therefore, this amendment should be seen as not only requiring the Secretary of State to have regard to safety and the environment when setting or varying the strategy, but also indirectly generating objectives on those areas that the company would be bound to pursue—thus subject to the independent scrutiny of the watchdog and the monitor.
In Committee, your Lordships made it very clear that consultation over and above the work carried out by the company through the route strategies and the engagement that the Government will carry out as they set or vary the strategy is needed. To provide reassurance that we will engage with the public and shareholders, we are happy to include this requirement in the Bill as well. Government Amendments 28 to 31, if accepted, would add this requirement and some of the necessary consequential changes.
New powers for the monitor contained in other amendments, which we will discuss later—I believe reference was made to Amendment 48 in a later group—would place the ORR in a different role in relation to the new company. In our original drafts of the Bill it was an advisory body; it is now able to act in the manner of an independent regulator. A regulator has formal duties, which it must work within when carrying out its activities. The ORR’s role on the roads demands the same approach. The ORR itself has asked for a set of duties to be included in the Bill, so it has a firm basis from which to act.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, Amendment 16 is about the relationship between the new company and the other highways authorities—essentially the local authorities. It is clear that for the effective operation of the new strategic highways company there will need to be close co-operation with those authorities. I should declare an interest, again non-pecuniary, as a vice-president of the LGA, which supports this amendment. Highways authorities feel that they have not been effectively consulted hitherto. Although they do not oppose the Government’s proposal in the Bill, they consider that Ministers should discuss with them how the company will operate as there will need to be co-operation between the strategic highways company and highways authorities on traffic management and new road schemes. The structure of the new organisation needs to be broadly agreed. There also needs to be some representation on the board of the new structure of those authorities that manage and oversee the other roads in England.
The amendment provides for consultation on the structure of the new company and the appointment of a local authority non-executive director on the board. That would be the minimum that we would need to see for a good and effective co-operative arrangement between the new company and the other highways and traffic authorities. I hope that the Government will accept the amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, I should like to speak briefly in support of this amendment, to which I have lent my name. The Government list the “major challenges” facing the strategic road network: stop-start funding, underinvestment, inefficiencies and growing pressure from congestion. If these challenges are so severe, why are more than 90% of our people fairly happy with the condition of the strategic road network and only 30% happy with the condition of local roads?
On the evidence that the DfT is citing to justify its obsession with strategic roads, figure 1 in the summary of reform states that spending on major projects fell sharply in the 1990s and has remained low since, while overall traffic has risen. The figure completely ignores the previous Labour Government’s investment in local roads and tackling traffic in our towns and cities. That is where congestion is obviously most frequently experienced. We spent more than £4.5 billion annually on local roads between 2005 and 2010. That was cut by one-third for 2011-12 by the present coalition Administration. If the DfT wants to talk only about strategic roads, we suggest that it compares the spending on strategic roads with the amount of traffic on them.
Ministers continue to stress that their reforms will deliver a world-class roads network, but throughout the extensive documents that they have published there remains scant mention of the major challenges for local roads, which face a pothole epidemic. Any Member of Parliament will tell you that the transport problem in his area is bound to be represented by potholes in roads. The potholes do not just cause damage to vehicles but affect the pace at which they can travel.
The Government claim that they will deliver more reliable journeys, reduced congestion and less delay and disruption. However, they cannot be listening to local government, which is warning that the new two-tier road system threatens to speed up vehicles travelling significant distances but will lead to greater delays on local roads. I have no doubt that the Minister will say that the department has committed unprecedented funding for local road maintenance—£9.8 billion over the next Parliament and £975 million a year to councils. However, both those figures represent a real decline and more than one-third of the money will be topsliced for the Challenge Fund dreamt up by the department, which means that local authorities spend time and, of course, scarce money on bidding rather than actually fixing the roads.
There is no point in building a world-class strategic road network if 98% of local roads that people use every day are clogged with congestion or are falling apart. That is why this amendment seeks to ensure that the Bill gets the strategic and local road networks working better together and makes a real and tangible difference to tackling congestion. That is why we want to see local representation on the strategic highways company board, which will ensure that the company delivers and complies with its obligations. Local authorities must be actively involved in the creation of the strategic road network.
This issue is of the greatest importance. I understand entirely, of course, why the Bill concentrates on the strategic network but it must not ignore the needs of local road networks. They have to be recognised in the Bill as partners in ensuring that journeys are carried out in the most effective way.
Lord Berkeley
My Lords, I will speak to one or two of the other amendments in the group, and hope that the Minister will be able to respond under the slightly odd arrangement we have.
In Clause 8, on my Amendment 33A, the Government have moved a long way in changing the name and activities of the Rail Passengers Council. The point of the amendment is to emphasise the need for them to consider not just the users of the network, but also those who do not currently use it or who cross over the network. In other words, they must look at the people who are not using it, at the potential for modal shift and at reducing the need for travel. They must look at the thing in the round before they come up with their excellent data, which I am sure they will do on the roads as they currently do for railways and, of course, buses.
Moving quickly, I raised a question about Amendment 48 in a previous grouping—I got it wrong—and the Secretary of State giving the Office of the Rail Regulator guidance as to the circumstances in which payments were defined. I hear what the Minister said. My question is whether that is the same guidance and instruction that the ORR currently has with the railways. If not, why not?
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 33, which asks the watchdog to look after the interests of cyclists and pedestrians. As we know, and as the department has recognised, a strategic road network can often be a barrier for pedestrians and cyclists. That means that there are many potential users of the network who may wish to use it to cycle to work but currently cannot.
The legislation would not allow Passenger Focus to consider their views. The chief executive, Anthony Smith, has been quoted as making clear his view that, given the legislation, Passenger Focus could focus only on actual users of the strategic network along with, perhaps, a second tier of fleet managers marshalling its use. While he quite understood the concerns around the remit, any change must be a matter for government and the legislative process. This is therefore our chance to effect that change, against a background in which the Government continue to respond to the increasing pressure for the use of cycles by saying that they are very much in favour of such growth.
Of course, the greatest deterrent to cycle use in our towns and cities and on connecting roads of any significance is danger. Because we do not set out to protect cyclists adequately, our present figures are dreadful in comparison to many other European countries. In the UK, 2% of journeys are made by bike, compared with 10% in Austria, 19% in Denmark and 27% in the Netherlands. Some 22% of all journeys in the UK are of less than a mile, but a fifth of these are in a car. Some people are, of course, obliged to use a car for a journey of less than a mile. However, the great deterrent to using the far more efficient and effective cycle is that people consider cycling to be dangerous.
The Government promised to support cycling but, of course, Cycling England, the pressure group for cyclists, was shut down; the body which co-ordinated policy and action on cycling, which had a £60 million annual budget, was shut down; and the Government also abandoned the cycling towns and cities initiative which we, as the previous Administration, had initiated—and it was delivering results. The proportion of people cycling at least once a month in England dropped from 15.3% to 14.7% in the year to October 2013. No one is going to say that that is a dramatic drop, but it is movement in the wrong direction when there are calls on all sides, to which the Government subscribe, for cycling to be encouraged. There was a decline in all regions in the United Kingdom.
I am therefore seeking with this amendment for the Government, who alone can take the legislative initiative on this—that is quite clear—to give a voice to cyclists and pedestrians, and to ensure that we make some progress on the aim of improving the use of cycling, and even walking over short distances. In order to achieve that, certainly with cycling, we must overcome the anxiety of the public that cycling on so many of our roads is just not safe enough.
Baroness Kramer
My Lords, I begin by addressing Amendment 49, which relates back to my original amendments on changing the powers to fine. As I said earlier, the ability to provide overarching governance is a necessary part of a regime in which the ORR is undertaking independent enforcement activity. This is especially true on fines. We want fines to be independent and fair, but we also want to make certain that they do not jeopardise the ability of the company to deliver what it has promised under the RIS. In future, it may also be helpful to have a mechanism to clarify the rules around fines. In the Railways Act these are subject to very detailed instructions, and without the subsection that this amendment removes there would be no way to do this if it were judged necessary.
I now turn to the watchdog. I am aware that the House recognises the value of that role. I am keen that we keep sight of what is important about the creation of the watchdog: the establishment of an organisation that will represent the interests of road users, whose voice must be listened to by those in government. That is something that will make the roads operator publicly accountable in a way that it never has been seen before.
I would like to make a distinction between what the new system of road governance achieves overall, and what role the watchdog plays within that system. Overall, we agree wholeheartedly that the impacts on communities around the network, and on those who walk and cycle in the vicinity, are very important. Environmental enhancements and measures to improve conditions for walkers and cyclists will be important parts of the road investment strategy when it comes into force. I will be discussing a number of issues around cycling in a later group, where a number of cycling-related investments are clustered. That may well answer some of the questions that have been raised at this point.
We expect that the policing of this will belong to the monitor and not to the watchdog. The ORR has monitored Network Rail’s environmental improvements for many years and has the necessary expertise to do the job well. By contrast, looking at the watchdog, Passenger Focus is an organisation focused firmly on gathering, understanding and promoting the views of transport users. It is not an expert in examining environmental impacts or issues, and while it is expanding its remit it does not plan to do so at the expense of its widely praised focus on users’ interests. The purpose of this organisation, whether now or in its new guise as Transport Focus, should be to put forward the views of the people who use the network. Anything else would dilute its ability to do the job well.
I should stress that users include both walkers and cyclists, as Amendment 52 ensures that the definition of “users of highways” includes cyclists and pedestrians, although I must make it clear it is not limited to them. Those who might use the network but do not feel able to are already being heard through the work that Passenger Focus is doing to engage with walking and cycling groups and find out what they feel to be the main barriers to using the network. I can assure your Lordships that this will remain an important part of Transport Focus’s remit. The same is true of potential freight users and potential motorists. All users, of every kind, will contribute to the route strategies that determine the priorities for future investment plans.
I am pleased that we are creating an organisation dedicated to listening to road users’ views, but I would be less happy creating an organisation that tells road users what their views should be. Transport Focus must be free to say what users actually think, and not what we might like them to, otherwise it will not have any credibility with the travelling public. That means we must catch the other issues that your Lordships have raised—including modal shift and environmental impact—elsewhere in the governance system. We have already discussed the new environmental duties on the monitor, and I hope our road investment strategy will do even more.
The proposal to widen the scope of voluntary agreements between the watchdog and local highways authorities is an interesting one. In practice, I believe that the existing wording, “protecting and promoting” the interests of users, is already broad enough to cover anything that a local authority might want the watchdog to do, and more clearly matches their remit as specified in subsection (1).
I therefore hope that your Lordships will feel able to support the government amendments and not to press the others.