Roads: Young Drivers

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

At the moment, Members of your Lordships' House may themselves have driving insurance that has telematics attached. Anyone going on to one of the websites and looking at various insurance premiums will see that discounts are available for most companies if there is an agreement to use the telematics system. It is still obviously fairly early on in its life. That is why we need to have research, because we want to understand whether there is a good relationship between this ongoing monitoring of what is happening in the car and the actual accidents about which we are all concerned.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

The Minister has not mentioned young motorcyclists. Are they not the group that is particularly in danger of accidents?

[Baroness Kramer]

The noble Lord is right that young motorcyclists are also disproportionately engaged in accidents. I am frankly not clear on the insurance and telematics potential for motorcycles, and I will have to write to him on that.

High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Snape. We were in the Commons together, and every time I take a train to Manchester and we go through Stockport and Edgeley sidings, I think of his younger days when he was doing very important work there. I am grateful to the Minister for the meeting that she arranged for us with officials last week. It was very helpful and certainly clarified a number of issues. I missed the previous debate on this so I do not have to apologise for repeating myself.

I do not believe that the argument in favour of HS2, which I fully support, is one of sentiment but I must confess that I have some affection for railways. I wonder if I might just mention a little story. I ask your Lordships to imagine New Year’s Eve December 1947: I was quite young, my mother was taking me back from London, where we had been over Christmas, and we were changing trains at Preston to go on to Blackburn. It was a cold, snowy and damp evening, the waiting room had no heating and there was nowhere to get any refreshments. The railways were to be nationalised on 1 January, the following morning. We were sitting there waiting for this non-existent train to Blackburn, and someone in the cold waiting room said, “Well, from tomorrow morning we can blame the Government for all this”.

That was a story from way back. I have one other bit of sentiment—actually, it is not really sentiment, it is harder than that. When Beeching’s report led to the closure of a lot of our railways, he did this country an enormous disservice. We closed lines that we wish we had now, not because they would replace HS2 or anything like that but simply because we lost something important. They were wonderful triumphs of Victorian engineering. I remember the line behind Tintern Abbey, the Chepstow-Monmouth line, which was a wonderful bit of engineering but is now derelict. I wish that they would reinstate the line from Penrith to Keswick, which could be reinstated—there is enough of the infrastructure there—although then going on from Keswick to Cockermouth and the coast would be impossible because it has been built over by the A66. Even then, though, reinstating some of these railways would have helped.

I suppose that those are bits of sentiment. What I am concerned with are the harder arguments in favour of HS2. I have reflected that if the financial estimates for the cost of the Channel Tunnel had been accurate, they would of course have been much higher than they were and we would not have built it because it would have been too costly. We have had enormous benefit from the fact that they were wrong. My point is that if we had deployed the arguments that some people are deploying against HS2 against the Channel Tunnel, it would never have been built and the country would have been much worse off because of it. I am not arguing that we should throw all financial estimates to the winds—not at all. I am arguing that we need to be careful before we reject some imaginative infrastructure schemes.

I am bound to say that as a country we are not very good at thinking about infrastructure and developing it—we tend to find too many arguments for not doing it. Sometimes those arguments win the day and sometimes they delay things enormously, but at other times we overcome them and then we get the benefit, and the Channel Tunnel is an example of that.

I fully accept that there are sensitivities in building new railway lines, although there are more sensitivities in building or widening motorways. I understand those sensitivities, though, and I hope that some of the concerns raised by my noble friend Lord Stevenson will be reflected in the details of the Government’s scheme as it goes through the Chilterns. Having said that, I still believe that we have something important afoot with HS2.

I was reading Middlemarch not long ago. I could not find a particular reference—it is quite a long book—but there was a lot of discussion of local opposition to building the railways. I thought that some of the arguments could have been applied to today’s debate. George Eliot used slightly more elegant language than many of us use, but nevertheless the arguments were there at the time.

When I am not living in the Lake District, we have a house in London. For a long time, we had a house in Paddington that overlooked the main line out of Paddington station, the underground and the motorway that becomes the M40. It was pretty noisy. The reason we could just about afford it was because people did not like the noise. We put all the bedrooms at the back overlooking the little gardens, and that was fine. The trains got quieter, the shunting in the middle of the night stopped and it became much more bearable. Then the foxes got in and the noise of the foxes kept me awake more than the noise of the railways. Although I was opposed to fox hunting, I wanted to make an exception for some of the back gardens in Paddington. Some of my friends did not like that argument.

My point is that the noise of building is very hard to live with. Crossrail is causing a lot of anxiety where I used to live in Paddington because of the excavation and so on. However, once these infrastructure works are completed, the noise of the railways is perhaps not as bad as all that. It is not wonderful; I would not want to live a few yards from a railway, as I did, but at least it is more acceptable.

I use the west coast main line a great deal these days. I am conscious of the enormous disruption that there was for years—referred to by some of my noble friends—when the work was going on. Frankly, it was so awful that we could not travel on a Sunday. We said to friends of ours, “Don’t ever come up at the weekend because it is absolutely hopeless”. By the time you have changed buses and changed at Preston, the journey time is unpredictable. I shudder at the thought that we might do the same thing with our existing west coast and east coast lines; it would be absolutely intolerable. That is one of the many reasons why I would much prefer HS2.

One only had to travel for years, as I did, on the west coast main line—it is much better now but it is getting very full—to know that we do not want years of infrastructure work and disruption. Nevertheless, the trains are pretty full. On at least one occasion when I failed to book a reserved seat, because I could not predict my time, I had to stand all the way to Preston. Quite often, there was no space and that is north of Birmingham, not just from the Midlands southwards. These trains may not be full on a Saturday night, but they are full most of the time when most people want to travel. So I very much welcome the commitment to extra capacity which would be the result of building HS2. I hope that some of the freight on the motorways will move on to the railways, although I suspect that they will have to absorb additional freight rather than transfer freight from the roads as they do now. Unlike some noble Lords, I would like to see people travelling not by car, but using the railways. I was lobbied by somebody who said, “Don’t worry about HS2, flying will always be cheaper”—not a very environmental argument. I believe that HS2 and the building of it will also have strong environmental benefits when it is completed.

I have two regrets. First, I wish we could get on with it, instead of taking so long. Secondly, I wish the plans would include going further north than Birmingham. Let us get on and link the north of England and get on to Glasgow and Edinburgh. If we do not do this, the next generation will never forgive us.

Roads: New and Young Drivers

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, it is an extreme case but, sadly, it is not unique. Young drivers are prone to immaturity and reckless driving. They can also be easily distracted, especially when driving while carrying other youngsters. We are seeking to reduce the risk of these very sad accidents and will carry on the work of the previous Administration in doing so.

[Lord Dubs]

Does the Minister agree that young motorcyclists are particularly prone to a high accident rate? Do the Government have any proposals to increase the safety with which young people drive motorcycles?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, my understanding is that the work is concentrated on car drivers but, if I have any more information about young motorcyclists, I will write to the noble Lord. Over recent years, there has been a tightening-up of the rules for acquiring a motorcycle licence. I understand, however, that there is a problem in relation to more mature drivers starting to use motorbikes for recreational purposes, and, sadly, the accident rate there is not very good either.

Publishing Industry

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2013 Grand Committee

Tabled by

[Lord Dubs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the future of the publishing industry in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, I am grateful to all Members of the Committee who are going to speak in this debate. I also express my thanks to the ALCS, the Publishers Association and the Society of Authors for the help that they have given me and, I hope, colleagues in preparing for the debate.

People who are brought up with books in the home are lucky and privileged, and life must be very difficult for those who, in their childhood, never saw a book in the house. I am reminded of a book which I read many years ago by Brendan Behan, called Borstal Boy, about a teenager in a juvenile prison allocated, I believe, two books a fortnight. He loved books so much—or developed such a liking for books while he was in jail—that he rationed himself to only so many pages a day, to make sure that his two books lasted the fortnight before he got new ones. One day the prisoner allocating books gave him a seed catalogue as his non-fiction book. As Brendan Behan says, he was almost in tears, with nothing to read for part of that period. Let us also remember that in the last century, books were burned by people who saw books and publishers as the enemies of freedom and democracy.

Books and publishing are of enormous value to the UK economy. The publishing sector is estimated to be worth some £5 billion a year, of which book sales amount to £3.2 billion. The United Kingdom is one of four countries that produce 100,000 new and revised titles a year. The UK book market is the fifth largest in the world, and 41% of the sector’s sales come from exports; a larger proportion than that from any other country. Moreover, successful books often lead to film rights, another benefit to the UK creative industry. However, a large barrier to growth is the difficulty most authors have in finding a proper return for their professional work. The figures for what many authors earn show how little they get in return for their professional work. One or two authors scoop the pools and make a fortune, but for many it is a very hard job indeed to make a decent living.

I turn specifically to publishing and the publishing industry. Publishers are of course the guardians of an author’s copyright, without which authors would hardly be able to make progress; they invest in authors, and give advances and royalty payments; they identify good-quality writing and research; and they help in the distribution of books. Publishers and retailers work together to encourage reading, for example in bookshops with World Book Day and many other such schemes.

However, one of the key factors on the scene is the growth of electronic publishing. I understand that in 2011 electronic publishing increased by 366%—an enormous increase. There is no VAT on printed books but electronic books published in this country attract a VAT rate of 27%. In some of our competitors on the continent, such as France and Luxembourg, there is a much lower rate of VAT. Britain is at an economic disadvantage with our e-books, and may well suffer even more as other countries impose lower rates of tax. If books are more expensive, Britain will fall behind. We only have to look at the music industry and the recent decline of HMV to see how bits of our economy can fall behind very rapidly if they are not able to compete in a world market.

On the positive side, digital books help in self-publishing, so they open the door for some authors. But nobody can predict the way in which e-books will go. All we can say is that the digital market has grown dramatically of late and I believe that it now poses a threat. I do not want to be a Luddite or act like King Canute and say we do not want e-books because of course they are here. What is important is that printed books will not fall behind too much and can live in this new digital age.

I think it was Jamie Byng, the managing director of Canongate, who said that one of the things that bookshops do is encourage discovery. The same applies to libraries. There can be few things more exciting than for a young person to be let loose in a bookshop or library and see the wealth of books available there for his or her reading. That applies entirely to libraries. Yet we have seen recently a dramatic decline in the number of bookshops. The growth of e-books will encourage that decline. I really feel that bookshops are one of the values in our society. If we lose bookshops, something valuable will be gone.

I love going to book festivals. I have been to the one in Edinburgh frequently. In the Lake District, there is a superb book festival at Keswick that I go to most years. Yet, if we all had only digital books, how could there be book festivals? They would not mean very much if the output of a book festival was just a pile of Kindles and no books themselves. Yet the public lending right should be extended to e-books and audiobooks. That is important to get balance, but we have to be careful. We have seen the problem with Amazon, which scoops the pool in terms of electronic books at the moment but is based abroad and pays very little tax in this country. The whole thing is unbalanced and makes it very hard for British electronic publishers and above all for books to compete.

On the national curriculum, changes to that are being phased in very quickly and it is important that the publishing industry is given a chance to provide the necessary and appropriate books so that the national curriculum can work. That is one of those areas where more co-operation between government and the publishing industry would be appropriate.

Open access has been an important point. There was a report by Professor Finch about open access for future academic publishing. I am not certain that the Government have responded to that but it would be useful were they to say where they stand on this.

We have in books and publishing one of the most important creative industries in the country. We are renowned for having good creative industries. We are a world leader, as I showed earlier. It is important that, in their general approach to publishing and books, the Government should be aware that our leadership cannot be sustained automatically. They need to make sure that they support publishing.

It is important in terms of detail that we have a reasonably successful copyright regime, which should not be weakened in any way. If we do that, we weaken the economic success of our publishing industry and our books. There has been some talk about developing educational exceptions. However, we have to be careful. If an educational establishment can photocopy something that is appropriate for teaching purposes for 50 or 100 students, that of course will severely impact on the income of authors, which would be a retrograde step. Of course, one wants educational institutions to be able to work freely and easily but we also have to protect copyright in that respect.

I have already mentioned the difficulties of VAT and electronic books. I am in two minds about this. It would be fair that VAT on electronic books should be on a level playing field with printed books. I am also concerned about the impact of e-books. I should like to repeat what I have said earlier. I must admit that I have a Kindle, although that was before I discovered how little tax Amazon is paying. I now feel a little guilty every time I use my Kindle and it is useful for travelling. However, we should be careful. Anything we can do to sustain hardback books, bookshops and the publishing industry can be only for the good. We have a vital creative industry in this country, which the Government must support as fully as they can.

Disabled Persons’ Parking Badges Bill

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Friday 30th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, on this Bill and the opportunity it gives us all to debate a pretty important issue. We do this having had the most successful Paralympics in history, so that the country as a whole is more conscious of the situation and needs of disabled people. I hope that the tendency to abuse the blue badge scheme will itself be lessened through a greater awareness of the situation of disabled people.

I have some experience of the blue badge scheme, because a member of my family has one. It is amazing how, if one is closely involved with a scheme, one is so much more conscious of its use and misuse. Even if I am not with that disabled person, when I drive somewhere I look at every blue badge parking space to see whether it is being used properly or not. I look into the windscreens to see whether the car has the blue badge there. One is much more aware of these things, as one is if one is pushing a wheelchair around. In theory we all know about kerbstones and all the other impediments, but if you get behind a wheelchair and push, you know just what it is like when you are in a local authority area that does not have the kerbstones adjusted so that one can push the wheelchair up. However, I have digressed from the Bill.

I am aware of the fraud and misuse of blue badges. It is extremely upsetting when this happens for people who have a blue badge and want to park but cannot find anywhere to do it. There is also the misuse of spaces that are designated for blue badge holders by other people, thereby denying the blue badge holder ease of access to the building, home or whatever it is. I will say a little more about that in a minute.

Some years ago, when I was a junior Minister in the Northern Ireland Office, this particular area was one of my responsibilities. The disability organisations in Belfast came to me saying that far too few spaces were designated for blue badge holders in Belfast city centre—I realise that the Bill is for England only, but the example applies—so that people with a blue badge could not find anywhere to park, as the spaces were all taken up by other motorists. One of the beauties of being a direct rule Minister was that I could change things very quickly, and I got a few more spaces installed right away. I am not even sure we had to do any consultation, and it happened within a short period of time. Sometimes there is a case for not having too much consultation if you want to get something done. It made me much more aware of the difficulties and the situations.

I understand that even ahead of this Bill, arrangements for the renewal of blue badges have been tightened up. The blue badge must now be collected in person by the holder within a six-week period, otherwise the badge is revoked. However, getting to the place where the blue badges are issued can sometimes be a problem, and one should be aware that these are extra burdens imposed on people who do not have the ease of access and mobility that the rest of us have.

There is one issue about enforcement that I will just mention. I once drove a disabled person and dropped him near a shop that he wanted to go to. I then drove the car to a parking space and put the blue badge up, but thought to myself that if someone sees me doing that and hopping out of the car, they will say I am abusing it. I thought I might have to explain this, so was ready with my explanation; which was that it was too far to get the disabled person from the space to the shop he wanted to go to, so I left him at the edge of the kerb with somebody else. If one is being tough on enforcement—as one should be—there are certain sensitivities about the way other people help disabled people. Although the Bill does not apply to supermarket and other private car parks, there is still a problem of enforcement there. I only hope that, as a result of this measure, the owners of supermarkets and other private car parks will enforce the blue badge parking bays. There are blue badge parking bays at my local Sainsbury’s, and I think they are being properly used—because I tend to look at them to see—but enforcement is sometimes not carried out as well in some supermarkets as it might be.

One key point is that there is still a lot of confusion and uncertainty about the scheme and the entitlements of blue badge holders. There is a very good website, which is clear, but you cannot always say to people when they get a blue badge, “Look at the website and go through it all before you go out in the vehicle”. I understand that these Explanatory Notes have been prepared by the government department, but there is at least one mistake in them. In paragraph 4, the notes say that the Bill,

“provides parking concessions for certain severely disabled people to enable them to park without charge or time limit”.

Unfortunately, in the four central London boroughs—Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, part of Camden and the City of London—there is a three-hour time limit. That may be necessary because of the enormous pressure on parking in the central London boroughs; on the other hand, if you do not know about it and come from outer London, you can be caught. Even a three-hour time limit can be difficult, because a lot of the hospitals that people with blue badges may need to visit for appointments are in the three-hour time limit area. One cannot always predict that one will be seen within the three-hour period and therefore it is hard to know how to manage the parking to make a hospital appointment. My point is that there is some confusion and uncertainly about it. It is fair enough in one’s own local area, because the blue badge holder gets to know what the conditions are there, but that does not apply if one goes outside one’s local authority area. All I can do is plead for more sensitivity and more information, because if a blue badge holder goes outside their own area, or is driven outside it, there are not always signs up saying what the conditions are.

One thing I did not know, which I checked with the carer for a blue badge holder, and which is also in the Explanatory Notes, is that there is permission to park on yellow lines in England for up to three hours. The carer did not know that; she had no idea one could park on yellow lines. Did your Lordships all know that? Maybe I am the only one who did not, but I certainly did not. However, it is not quite as simple as that, because it also applies to double yellow lines—but there are exceptions, such as where there are the vertical kerbstone markings, although that does not always apply in all local authorities, so the advice is to phone up the local authority and check. That is a bit of a performance but I understand that is how the system works. Confusion and uncertainty are a problem for those with blue badges.

Another problem is that some local authorities have bays that are designated for named persons. That is fair enough. Others do not. If one has a blue badge bay outside one’s house, which is not designated to the person in the house, and somebody else parks there it can be very difficult getting into one’s home because there is not a parking bay there. That designation of parking spaces for individual blue badge holders varies from local authority to local authority. I understand that Westminster does it, but others do not, so there can be a real problem there.

I will quote an example that I have quoted once before. The carer of a blue badge holder parked in the blue badge space outside the home. Life can be pretty stressful and she did not put the blue badge up, although she also had a resident’s parking permit for the borough. The wheelchair was perfectly visible in the back of the car. The car was towed away within minutes and that cost her £250. I thought that the insensitivity of the local authority to tow away a disabled person’s car with a wheelchair in it, without any notice, took some beating.

I very much welcome this Bill. Obviously, we would all like to go a bit further but Private Members’ Bills can only go so far and so quickly. The noble Baroness is nodding; she understands that. I welcome the tougher enforcement that is going to happen; that is a good thing, but there also needs to be greater clarity so that legitimate holders of blue badges are not caught by the tougher enforcement.

Disabled People: Blue Badge Scheme

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, there is an appeal process—I have unfortunately forgotten exactly what it is, but I shall write to the noble Lord. It is important to understand that the number of blue badges issued has gone up and up. There are already 2.5 million badges. As you increase the number of blue badges, you can get into a position where you dilute the benefits.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, in assessing the results of the consultation, will the Minister bear in mind that there are sometimes quite confusing differences in the operation of the scheme for disabled drivers from one London borough to another? If one lives in a particular borough and uses a blue badge only there, it is easy, but if one goes into the central London boroughs—Kensington, Westminster and Camden—the rules are different and it is extremely confusing for people because they do not know what the rules are and they are not clearly stated anywhere. The best thing might be if all the boroughs operated in the same way.

Railways: Brighton to London Line

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 6th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes an extremely important point. We all know that at peak periods, the commuter railway lines south of London are all running at peak capacity. One difficulty is that we cannot easily increase the capacity to the main line terminals. In the case of Uckfield to Lewes, one of the bottlenecks is East Croydon, so even if we increased capacity in that area on the south of the line, you would still encounter the bottleneck at East Croydon, and there is very little we can do about that.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that many people believe that the Beeching cuts represented an act of terrible vandalism in the previous century? There are local campaigns to bring back many small railway lines up and down the country that have fallen into disuse because of Beeching. Can the Government at least say that they will encourage local initiatives to help us restore those railway lines? They have environmental benefits and tourist benefits. If the Government were to say that that is their policy, many of us would be very grateful.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, it is great that there are local initiatives to reopen lines—to make my department think carefully about that—but there has to be a good business case.

Railways: Light Rail Vehicles

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I should like to make it quite clear that, personally, I am very enthusiastic about light rail vehicles. One of the advantages of the Parry People Mover is that it is extremely energy-efficient. But I also have to point out that Network Rail had to undertake improvements to the line to achieve an acceptable ride quality for passengers.

[Lord Dubs]

The Minister will be aware that a number of branch lines were closed many years ago under the Beeching programme and other stupid cuts. Does he think that the light rail vehicle might be a way of reopening such lines on an economic basis? I mention, for example, the line that runs from Penrith to Keswick in the Lake District.

[Earl Attlee]

I do not know about that particular line but the noble Lord makes the extremely good point that there will be opportunities to use light rail on old, disused lines.

Asylum Seekers: Medical Treatment

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Monday 14th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, as far as I know those who test positive for HIV in the UK, as long as they have not exhausted all their appeal rights, have exactly the same access to NHS treatment as the rest of the population. If the noble Baroness knows any different, I would be grateful for the details.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, is not the issue that of how seriously ill the person is? Surely, whatever the other considerations, to deport a person who is seriously ill and getting medical treatment here is wrong in principle.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the issue is whether the person being returned is fit to fly. That decision is made by NHS health professionals, not by UK Border Agency staff.

Airlines: Snow and Ice

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Dubs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that airport authorities will be able to deal adequately with snow and ice in the future.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the Government have invited the South East Airports Taskforce to consider airports’ contingency responses to last December’s severe weather. The Government are also considering proposals, under a Bill to reform economic regulation of airports, for new licensing provisions to give the aviation regulator more flexibility, where appropriate, to strengthen airports’ resilience to severe weather.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that. Does he agree that what happened at Heathrow last month represented a national humiliation, given that Heathrow was closed for far longer than other airports in other countries that suffered? Is not the problem that the British Airports Authority failed to learn the lessons of last winter and to invest in proper snow-clearing measures, with the result that the airlines, particularly British Airways, were out of pocket many times more than the cost of providing those measures?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I share the noble Lord’s concern. It is important that we look at what happened, avoid a witch-hunt and make sure that BAA takes appropriate steps to avoid a repeat. It is important to remember that it cost BAA £24 million in lost revenue. It is also important to understand that, because of the situation that arose, there were 24 aircraft stands with an aircraft stuck on them and that it takes a very long time to clear a stand when the aircraft is standing on it.