High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Debate between Lord Snape and Baroness Randerson

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Lords & Report stage: House of Lords
Tuesday 10th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Snape]

I am immensely sorry to refute the noble Lord’s assertions but we spent a long time looking into this project and a considerable amount of money has been and is being spent trying to meet some of the objections that he outlined.

Those who, like my noble friend, were against the project denounced it for costing some £50 billion, yet with every speech they want to add to that cost because there is something in their area that they wish to preserve. I pay tribute, as others have, to the Select Committee, and note that my noble friend Lord Adonis has joined us. It spent months listening to various petitioners, many of whom were against the project, but all anxious for more public money to be spent on the bit they objected to. We could go on like this for ever and not build anything at all. Presumably that was the objective behind the speech of the noble Lord opposite. For my noble friend to pray in aid my noble friend Lord Mandelson by describing it as a vanity project—this from the man in charge of the Dome, a vanity project if ever there one—is, in addition to the other Second Reading speeches that have been made, of no great service to the Committee or the project.

I am fascinated by the agreement between my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. My noble friend wants to extend the line from Hanslope to Crewe. I am not sure how much that would cost. He also wants to build a four-track railway to replace the short distance of three-track railway from Hanslope Junction—as he will recall, there is another three-track railway going north from Rugby. Although it is neither in the Bill nor his amendments, it should not be too great a project to build that replacement. The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, meanwhile, wants to reduce the other end of the line to Old Oak Common. Yet they say they are in agreement with one another—by the sound of it, they both want to redesign the whole project. I am not quite sure how much that would cost, either.

I do not know whether there is any great merit in these amendments. I know that my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, spent a considerable time behind the scenes in the attempt to redesign Euston station and I am sure that we will come to that issue under a future amendment. However, it seems to me that this Committee will not make much progress if those who were against the project in the first place make similar speeches on every set of amendments between now and whenever the Committee adjourns later today or on Thursday.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I rise to make a short point following the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Snape. I recently went to the railway museum in Swindon, where I read all about the predictions of disaster for Brunel’s Great Western Railway and the huge opposition to it. In fact, the towns that accepted a station in their centre prospered; those that rejected a station did not prosper as much. We nowadays look on railways as an environmentally friendly way of travelling. I simply want to point out that I do not believe that amendments that question particular aspects of the Bill undermine the Bill; in our case, they are designed to strengthen it. Wanting to monitor the spending of money is a sign that we want the project to succeed. I want to make it absolutely clear that putting down an apparently critical amendment does not mean any lack of support for the concept of the project as a whole. We want it to succeed.

[Lord Snape]

I hope the noble Baroness will accept from me that I am not making that accusation. I am saying that I do not quite understand the agreement between my noble friend and her noble friend Lord Bradshaw on this group of amendments, but I am sure that they will explain it. I appreciate that there are genuine and legitimate concerns inherent in their amendments. My objection is to speeches that are meant to sabotage the whole project. We have had these debates on umpteen occasions. My noble friend mentioned the Economic Affairs Committee report, which was torn apart on the Floor of the House. I am not saying that my contribution made any difference, but the approach that was taken was enough for me. If we are going to judge every project on so-called value for money, no project would ever meet the criteria laid down by those who were against that project in the first place. Whatever you did, they would say, “This is not value for money”. As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, some of the objectors to Brunel’s railway were thought quite credible. They gave evidence to a House of Commons Committee saying that trains passing through Box Tunnel on the Great Western main line at faster than 60 miles an hour would asphyxiate those on board. They were not particularly credible then, although they were listened to, and some of the objections that we have heard to this project are not particularly credible now.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Snape and Baroness Randerson

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Wednesday 12th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, there is a bit of a conundrum at the heart of the Government’s attitude to this. They offer franchising powers to local authorities and, according to the Minister’s letter to my noble friend Lord Bradshaw, they offer additional powers to ensure that such franchising works well. That is logical but surely the most effective and efficient way forward is to ensure that those local authorities that do not want to go for franchising—it will be difficult and complex anyway—are enabled to make their bus service as efficient as possible to avoid the necessity for franchising. If you take that situation together with the views of the Competition and Markets Authority that franchising should be gone for only in very extreme situations—we will return to that later today—there is a bit of a contradiction. I cannot see why the Government are so unwilling to use statutory powers that already exist to implement the provisions of the 2004 Act.

It is not as if we do not have evidence that those powers work. They work in London and I can give noble Lords an assurance that they are beginning to work well in Cardiff. Those powers were given to Cardiff because it was part of the devolution settlement that Cardiff could ask for them. I was actually the Minister in the Wales Office who took that through this House in order to ensure that Cardiff had those powers. Noble Lords will probably be aware that I live in Cardiff so I have personal experience of the way in which the system is working.

Clearly, these powers are having an impact. You can measure that impact in the number of people who are fined for contravening the local road traffic regulations. It is clear that motorists started off with a brazen disregard for bus lanes, yellow boxes, right turns that they should be not making and so on, but that they learned pretty quickly. We know that because the fines start off very high but fall off pretty quickly. By the way, the council also learned because it started moving the cameras round. When it moves the cameras, the amount taken in fines goes up; then, after a while, people have learned and it goes down again. We want a very low level of fines because we want people to obey the rules. This is having an impact. All we are asking is that the Government use existing legislation to give local authorities the tools to do the job, whether they are going for franchising or any other partnership arrangement.

The evidence right across the country, as my noble friend has said, is of increased traffic congestion slowing down bus travel. The impact on passengers and bus companies is considerable. I draw noble Lords’ attention to a discussion I had with an operator in Bristol which said that it had had to put on well over 30 additional buses to maintain existing timetables because of congestion, and that much of that congestion is avoidable—if people do not park in bus lanes or drive along them, and so on. Of course, the financial impact on bus companies of having to put on additional buses is passed on to the passengers. The combination of higher fares and slower journeys deters people from using the buses. To my mind, it is only sensible to use the powers that exist.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. Obviously, if we are to tempt people out of their motor cars and on to public transport, that public transport has to be reliable. Its reliability, it is readily acknowledged, is affected, particularly in our towns and cities, by traffic congestion and by careless and indiscriminate parking by private motorists.

I worked for some years in the bus industry. The problem seems to be the lack of support from local newspapers for proper bus lane enforcement measures against motorists who transgress and park at bus stops or in bus lanes or drive in bus lanes. By and large, journalists do not travel on buses and the editorial policies of most local newspapers appear to be against bus priority measures as a whole. It is a sad fact that a Labour mayor in Liverpool has already taken out bus lanes in that city. A Labour-controlled council in Coventry is considering doing the same there as well.

When it comes to the bad publicity that bus lanes receive, all too often the local newspaper will pick a particular camera and say, “That camera has raised X millions of pounds in fines”, as though it has been deliberately placed in a bus lane to penalise motorists. It is placed there to try to ease congestion and to see that bus lanes are used for their proper purpose. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned that franchising is, quite rightly, seen as a last resort. If we are to avoid that last resort, proper enforcement of bus priority measures is essential. I hope that the Minister will give a sympathetic response to this amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I was around in the 1970s, when he was a Transport Minister in a Labour Government. I do not remember him being quite as radical in those days, although he has been around the political spectrum quite a bit since. It is a change to hear him advocating greater participation for local authorities, which, as far as I remember, was not at the top of his list when he was a junior Transport Minister in the 1970s. That is a change, although I have to concede that I have changed myself. I have never been in favour of franchising and I have made it quite plain in the debates in your Lordships’ House. Because of the time factor I will not repeat anything that I have said before, but in some ways I must congratulate my noble friend on the Front Bench. If this amendment becomes law he will have, in effect, repealed the Transport Act 1985. I am not sure what the noble Lord opposite will feel about that. We moved from a regulated system to deregulation, and presumably through this amendment we will be moving back to a more regulated system.

When the Bill was first published, combined authorities with a mayor were the only ones with the right to apply for franchise. Since then, at least under this amendment, that has been widened enormously. To quote my noble friend, or misquoting him perhaps, it seems to me that every local authority that feels that franchising would be suitable is entitled to so apply. All God’s children, presumably, can have a franchise if that is what they want. All I can say to him is that if he talks to the industry at large, it will say that such a widening of the existing proposals would mean a drying-up of investment in the bus industry and certainly a massive recruitment campaign in local government.

A franchise operation cannot be run on the basis of one director. He or she will need a complete department. There will need to be bus and crew rosters. Obviously the existing ones are not satisfactory, otherwise the local authority would not be seeking a franchise in the first place. It is a great job-creation scheme but at the same time it will have the impact of drying up investment in buses. Again, without repeating anything I said earlier, it would be difficult to persuade a finance director of a private company—that is what we are talking about as far as buses are concerned—to invest millions of pounds in a bus fleet if some local authority or town hall throughout the country is going to say how much to charge and where to run those buses. Life is not like that.

I have yet to hear from either side of your Lordships’ House the passenger view on the future of the industry. When Passenger Focus carried out such a survey couple of years ago, more than 80% of bus passengers expressed their satisfaction with the system as it was at present. It is possibly apparent that I have been around a long time—as a Member of this House and the other place, and a bus company director and chairman—and I have yet to hear a passenger say, “This service is so bad I want the town hall to run it”. That has never happened in my experience, although perhaps my noble friend on the Front Bench knows differently.

If this amendment is carried and becomes law, it will be bad for the industry and I do not see any great benefit for passengers. For that reason I am afraid that I cannot support it.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 25 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. We support Labour’s Amendment 14, which fits together with Amendment 25. Neither is complete on its own. To be consistent the two need to go together. If the Labour Party decides to press this to a vote and in the event that there might be a government defeat, accepting Amendment 25 might be considered as part of the package.

I should say briefly that arguing about mayoral authorities could seem irrelevant in a couple of months’ time because all the signs are that the Government are abandoning the idea. There is a lot of support across the House for abandoning that idea, as well as the preconditions for giving local authorities more power. If the Government do not go ahead with creating more mayoral authorities, the right to franchising is likely in effect to be restricted to a handful—three local authorities. Franchising will not be an easy step for local authorities to undertake. My view is that probably very few would wish to do so. There are lots of checks and balances already in the Bill ensuring that local authorities do it only in a thorough and highly professional manner. It will not be done in any sort of off-the-cuff way by any local authority. Therefore, what is the reason for trying to restrict it to mayoral authorities? I invite the Minister to give that consideration at this stage in the debate.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Snape and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 125 in my name, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has just explained, changes “may” to “must”. We strongly welcome the move to open data. For far too long, we have all accepted, possibly with some grumbling, a situation where there is a plethora of information on train services but very little information—outside London—on bus services.

I note the comments of the Delegated Powers Committee on the lack of clarity about what will happen to this information. Although the Explanatory Notes tell us that the powers given to the Secretary of State in this clause would,

“enable a single repository of information to be created”,

and that,

“The information … would be open to the public and could be used by software developers”,

in fact none of that is clear from Clause 17. Clause 17 is in effect an orphan clause, with no apparent reason or purpose. The amendment would ensure that the regulations “must” make the purpose of all this information clear and therefore that it “must” be free to users and passengers.

I support Amendments 124 and 124A in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I also support Amendment 124B because it is obviously logical to extend the information so that it includes numbers of complaints and performance statistics. However, I have some sympathy with bus operators: I have some concern about information on lack of punctuality, because in the bus industry that is largely the result of traffic congestion, which is not the fault of the bus operator. I fear that, if lack of punctuality were reported baldly, general traffic situations could adversely affect judgment on the efficiency of operators. I am interested to hear the Minister’s comments on the use to which the Government plan to put open data.

[Lord Snape]

I support my noble friend on Amendment 124. I asked the Minister previously to come to Birmingham to see what is being done under the partnership in that city—not that I am qualified to send these invitations, but still. I send the same invitation to my colleagues on the Front Bench because the Bus Alliance recently published a pamphlet about the work that it is doing in the West Midlands, particularly on environmental matters, which would be of interest to my noble friend who moved the amendment.

I do not know whether the West Midlands Bus Alliance pamphlet has been widely circulated—I did suggest that it should go to noble Lords on all sides of the Chamber who have been participating in the Committee stage. Under the chapter entitled “Air Quality”, the alliance states:

“All buses operating in the West Midlands will be Euro V, Euro VI or better by 2020”.

It lists operator investment under the Bus Alliance Partnership in the West Midlands as comprising 49 diesel electric hybrids to be delivered by Diamond, a company based in the West Midlands, and National Express West Midlands through the Government’s Green Bus Fund. Further, there are 21 Travel de Courcey buses—a company based in Coventry—which have been,

“converted from Euro II and III to Euro VI”,

again with help from the Clean Bus Technology Fund. In addition,

“A further successful bid to the Clean Bus Technology Fund will see National Express convert 150 buses from Euro III to Euro VI”,

standards prior to 2020.

That is what can be done and it ought to be done countrywide. If anything, I suggest that the amendment could be toughened up to ensure that what is being done in the West Midlands under the Bus Alliance is done around the country if we are serious about improving air quality—particularly, but not solely, in our major towns and cities.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Snape and Baroness Randerson

Monday 4th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape]

I suspect that when we come to debate the future of the railway industry I will be speaking for my party, which is against franchising. And, as I currently understand it, the party wishes to see the railways back in some degree of public ownership. However, let us not get bogged down in the differences within our party between the two industries otherwise we could be on this amendment for a lot longer than we should be.

On the previous amendment, we talked about not-for-profit companies making a bid for franchises. The problem with that reflects directly on Amendment 35. If a successful franchise bid depends on a lower bid, and there is every chance it will given the shortage of cash in local government and the cutbacks that have been made so far as support for bus services is concerned, obviously some of the smaller and perhaps less reputable companies will start out with an advantage. If you are running a major operation that recognises trade unions, pays trade union rates, provides proper canteen facilities, uniforms and so on, you are not in a particularly advantageous position when bidding for a franchise against a smaller company that does none of those things.

Again I remind the Minister that over the years a lot of these companies have come and gone. The bus industry has rather settled down, and although we deplore the lack of competition, when we had lots of it, it was often denounced as wasteful and unnecessary. Speaking specifically to this amendment, if a company large or small loses its assets as a result of measures inherent in the Bill, surely it is only fair that it deserves to be properly compensated.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I say in response to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, that of course the arguments he makes about less reputable companies fortify my argument that a lot of these things need to be set out in the Bill, so that we can ensure that only the more reputable companies—those that observe those aspects important to passengers and indeed to our environment—are able to win a franchise.

I say in response to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that I cannot understand why bus companies should be immune to the usual rules of business in this country. Increasingly local government services are run through commercial companies in various forms. Many commercial organisations are involved in the provision of a range of local authority services right down, for example, to care for children, the elderly and so on. Local authorities franchise services or commission them and from time to time they will change the companies they are working with; someone loses the contract. There are well-known procedures throughout our public life which account for that to happen, thus enabling a service to be handed over from one organisation to another. I cannot see why bus companies should be exempt from that general run of business.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Snape and Baroness Randerson

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape]

Before the Minister replies, I hate to prejudge and pre-empt his reply, but I fear that he will say what Ministers in successive Governments have said over the years—that these are purely a matter for the local authority, which is of course free to introduce measures to control the increase in traffic.

Interestingly, as I am sure the noble Lord who moved the amendment will agree, it has just been revealed in published statistics that far from there being a war on motorists—a phrase that the Conservative Party and Ministers in Conservative Governments have used frequently—the cost of motoring in real terms has been getting cheaper over the past 30 years. Is it any surprise that congestion has got worse in those circumstances? I hope the Minister will say that the Government are prepared to take some powers themselves rather than saying, “It’s not a matter for us, it is a matter for elected mayors or anyone else who is a local authority to do something about congestion”.

All of us who take part in these debates know full well that, faced with the problem of sitting in a traffic jam in one’s own car or on a bus, the bus is very much the second choice. Only proper enforced bus priority and a proper congestion charge will make public transport more attractive, and not just in major cities; understandably, some of the Liberal amendments have been about rural transport. Again, if it were possible to travel as quickly and as cheaply—or more cheaply—on public transport than in one’s own car, the bus would become a more attractive proposition in rural as well as urban areas. The fact is that in current circumstances it is not. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance that in future, in pursuit of the very noble cause of introducing or increasing bus travel, the Government will be prepared to introduce some powers to bring that happy situation about.

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, my general point is that reducing congestion is a win-win measure. First, it reduces your journey times, and we need that reduction in journey times because they are lengthening at an alarming rate. I will give noble Lords one or two examples of recent research.

Research by London Travelwatch shows there is an “alarming” decline in average bus speeds, which are down to nine miles per hour. That deters people from getting on buses, even in London, which we hold up as a wonderful example of success. In the rest of the country, the situation is also very severe. Greener Journeys research shows a decline in bus speeds in Manchester. Why? In the west of England, between 2012 and 2015, there was an 18% increase in the number of vehicles registered. You cannot have that level of increase in the number of vehicles on the roads without a serious congestion problem, and I make the obvious point that the west of England is not perhaps an area that we think of as congested.

Not only will you reduce your journey times if you deal with congestion, you will also increase bus reliability. Research by bus user groups shows strongly that bus users rate reliability very highly indeed. In other words, they probably do not mind that much whether a journey takes 25 minutes or half an hour, but they need to rely on it being half an hour and not 40 minutes. We need to encourage new users, and they want reliability. At the same time, reducing congestion obviously reduces air and noise pollution. I say to the Minister that you may not have very high levels of air pollution in the countryside, but it is still air pollution and it adds to global warming; it matters to us all. It is important that we do not dismiss air pollution issues in rural areas either.

It is entirely sensible to specify reduction in congestion as one aim of any scheme. It is important that we bear in mind that these things fit together like pieces of a jigsaw, and the Bill will not be a success unless those pieces fit together.