Transport: London and the Regions

Lord Empey Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2011 Grand Committee

Asked By

[Lord Empey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for improving transport links between London and the regions.

[Lord Empey]

My Lords, by coincidence a Question was asked in the Chamber earlier today which brought the issue of links between the regions and London very much to the fore. Perhaps I will take the opportunity to refer to that later. It is the case that for decades Governments have had regional development policies in place. Since the Second World War I believe that successive Governments have made it part of their policy to carry out works and to spend money on the development of the regions and their economies in order to bring prosperity to the entire country. One of the ways this was done—Europe did the same thing—was by putting into place meaningful infrastructure so that it was possible to get to and from particular regions. This is how our country has developed since the Industrial Revolution. We can go back to the canals and all sorts of developments; they were all about creating access to all sorts of centres of population from centres of production. The United Kingdom developed in this way over many decades.

We know that there are many proposals on the board for developing rail, the most obvious of which is the proposal to put in a high-speed rail link between Birmingham and London. There are other proposals for road development and for the east and west coast railways to be upgraded. All these things are part of the general infrastructure of our country. Indeed, the European Union through its regional development funds has provided significant amounts of money to improve infrastructure throughout the United Kingdom.

The debate I want to have now is on whether we are going to continue to ensure that the investment that successive Governments have made in trying to improve the economies of the regions is going to be sustained in these difficult times. It was clear from the Question this afternoon—and I found this from my experience in government as well—that when a business makes a decision about whether to expand, or an inward investor decides whether to come into a particular area, a key issue and one of the first things that they look for, after whether the relevant labour is there, is the infrastructure. Can they get goods, services and people in and out of a region quickly and effectively so that they can get worldwide access for their goods and services? Can they get executives, and of course the population in general, in and out? Now that we travel much more, one of the key considerations is whether, if you are in one of the regions, you have access to the major hubs, particularly air hubs. That way you can go on holiday or conduct your business as efficiently and effectively as possible.

There has been an enormous debate, particularly in the London area, over airports. We have things like Boris island being talked about and the proposal from Norman Foster for the Isle of Grain. There have been decisions from the Government and the Opposition not to proceed with the third runway at Heathrow. Therefore, air travel and traffic in general is the subject of extremely significant debate in this country at the present time. When the noble Earl replied earlier in the Chamber, he made the point, which I fully understand, that if you are looking at air route access from the regions for instance, there is potential for a public service obligation to get people from a region to the London area. However, from the evidence of the comments made around the Chamber this afternoon, we all know that that is not quite the issue.

The issue is very specific. Heathrow is the principal air hub in the United Kingdom and if you do not have meaningful access to Heathrow, you do not have meaningful access to other routes in and out of the UK. It is as simple as that. If you are going to market remote regions as places where people can do business, one of the first things they will look for is whether they can get to that place reasonably quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively. If you do not have access to your principal airport, that is likely to be a negative factor when an investment decision is being made.

My anxiety is this: as we know, in recent days British Midland International has come on the market and Lufthansa wants to sell it. There has been a bid from BA and we know that Virgin Atlantic is also interested. This has significance, not only for Northern Ireland, but for all our regions. I believe that earlier this year BMI removed its Glasgow service. I have no doubt that air routes, particularly for the Scottish Islands, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester and Cardiff, are all vital. Therefore, how can we ensure that our regions will retain appropriate access to our principal airport at Heathrow, as long as it remains the principal hub?

It is not clear to me—and I would ask the Minister to respond to this at the end of this debate—how the Government can ensure that this access exists. I am afraid that it is not enough to leave it purely to commercial decisions, because everybody knows that landing slots at Heathrow and at other key airports are worth enormous sums of money. We are talking about hundreds of millions of pounds. It is also the case that airlines tend to make much more profit out of long-haul flights than from regional flights. It does not take a lot of imagination to see this. Indeed, the chief executive of the IAG group, Willie Walsh, has already indicated publicly that he would be looking at some of these slots for international use. Of course, Virgin Atlantic is an international carrier and not a domestic carrier. It therefore seems highly unlikely that, if it should become the owner of BMI, it would suddenly wish to take on and start producing a domestic service, when even its very name indicates that it is an international carrier.

It would seem that there is a genuine, clear and present threat to access of the key slots at Heathrow for the regions in general, and not simply for Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland’s case is more acute because we cannot get into our cars and drive directly to the south-east, nor can we get on a train to the south-east. We have either a ferry and a very long drive, or air access. To all intents and purposes, for meaningful business to be done, you need air access.

As was made clear in the House earlier, in many cases flights are exceptionally expensive if you want to get to the key hubs. I would say to the noble Earl that access to some of the peripheral airports in the London area might be fine for leisure customers and so on, but it is not suitable in all cases for the business customer. Anyone with anything to do with economic development will learn that access has to be as quick and as accessible as possible. It is therefore my intention to draw your Lordships’ attention to the critical importance of access as we move forward, and I would ask the noble Earl to address that in his response. I intend to take this matter further, if necessary through the route of a Private Member’s Bill, if the law is insufficient to allow the Secretary of State for Transport to have adequate direction powers over this matter. I feel strongly that we cannot sit back and simply wait until a crisis arises. We have to anticipate it and prevent it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I understand what the noble Lord is saying, but BMI has not been sold, and no services have been stopped yet. I think he is going ahead of himself slightly.

The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked about the Greater Anglia (Short) franchise and customer satisfaction. Although this is a relatively short franchise, she will recognise that Abellio has offered commitments that will improve customer experience. She also asked several other very detailed questions, and I fear that I will have to write to her on those points.

Abellio plans to continue to run all those services that are crowded today or are likely to become crowded in the next five years in the formation planned by NXEA. In almost all cases where crowding occurs today, the trains concerned are being operated at the maximum formation allowed by the infrastructure, so it is an infrastructure limitation, not a rolling stock limitation.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Empey, touched on the Thames estuary airport. We welcome the input from the mayor and Lord Foster, and their suggestions will be considered alongside the many other contributions about our future aviation policy. However, such a project would be hugely complex. Detailed consideration would be needed on a range of issues, including airspace capacity, safety and access to the airport as well as costs and funding.

[Lord Empey]

I know that my colleague in Northern Ireland, the Transport Minister Danny Kennedy, has been to the European Parliament and spoken to the chair of its transport committee, who in turn has spoken to Lufthansa about the slot issue. This is a pertinent issue. I understand the legal difficulties the Minister is in, but perhaps it is something that with co-operation between Brussels and ourselves we have in our own hands to resolve.

[Earl Attlee]

I am sure that noble Lords will keep a very close eye on this issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, suggested that he would return to this matter on a future occasion, and I look forward to all such debates. In conclusion, I thank him for this short debate and for all his efforts in encouraging improved transport links between London, the regions and Northern Ireland.