Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, missed from his list of public sector burdens the stretches of track which still exist and belong to the residuary body. He might have mentioned that—perhaps I did not hear him—but, as he is nodding, I think that he missed it out.

It is very important that some stretches of track should remain within the public sector in some way or other, pending the glorious day when the railway is returned to those lines that were closed down and had their tracks removed. Obviously, I refer to the Colne to Skipton line, much of which belongs to the county councils of Lancashire and north Yorkshire because it was transferred from the old West Riding county council. However, the track between the old county boundary and Colne was never transferred to Lancashire, so it is very important that, at the very least, it remains in public sector ownership. I declare an interest as a patron of the Skipton East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership, or SELRAP. I merely add that point to the very important list of issues. Of course, because the Colne to Skipton stretch includes lots of bridges, the county council is reluctant to take over responsibility for the former line because it claims that liability for the bridges would cost a vast amount of money, although the residuary body has not spent much on them at all in the 15 years since privatisation.

I merely add that little pebble into the pond.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, for tabling Amendment 25, because it gives the Government an opportunity to put on record the decision to include BRB (Residuary) Ltd in the list of bodies to be abolished.

As the noble Lord may know, consultations on the decision have been ongoing for some time. Many historical obligations associated with railway structures continue to rest with BRB and cannot be transferred with title through the normal property conveyancing process but must be transferred to someone else, such as the Secretary of State or some other public body under a transfer scheme. That can be done only by primary legislation, which is why BRB is mentioned in the Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, said, BRB is also liable for the industrial injury claims from former railway industry employees. It would be more difficult to transfer BRB to the Secretary of State for those claims to be dealt with without having a statutory transfer scheme, which is again why the body has been included in this Bill.

BRB (Residuary) Ltd is a public limited company that was created in 2001 to manage and dispose of British Rail’s commercial property assets, to manage historical liabilities for industrial injury claims and to maintain some 4,000 or so railway structures that are no longer used for railway purposes—to which the noble Lord referred as the burdensome estate.

The intention to abolish BRB once it has achieved its objective of maximising money from the disposal of its assets has been in place for some time. The inclusion of the body in Schedule 1 is necessary in order to wind up the body fully, as otherwise it would not be possible to transfer certain liabilities relating to the burdensome estate. Its inclusion in Schedule 1 will also facilitate the transfer of residual assets and liabilities to other parts of the public sector in the most cost-effective manner. For example, the conveyancing of the individual structures alone would cost approximately £6 million in the absence of a statutory transfer scheme, which the Bill provides for.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked about the cost implications. Savings on staff costs, premises and accounts, audit et cetera are expected to be around £6 million in 2013-14 and £6.9 million per annum thereafter. On the number of jobs that may be involved, we currently envisage that roughly 30 posts would be made redundant as a result of these changes.

Although I have not provided detailed information on some of the structures that the noble Lord asked about—I hope that he will allow me to write to him when I have found out any detail on those that is available to me—in the light of the information that I have provided, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.