Operation Brock

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

Operation Brock is designed to be an improvement on Operation Stack, which we saw huge problems with in 2015. We actually used Operation Stack in mid-March; that was caused by high winds. My noble friend is right to point out that disruption can have a number of causes. That is why we have the contraflow in place: to ensure that we can deal with any disruption.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that my rule of transport safety is: if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. That seems to have proved true in this case already. Accidents will create enormous delays and completely destroy the whole operation. Can she assure us that everything is being done to reduce the risk to as low as reasonably practical?

[Baroness Sugg]

As I said, there is no evidence for the cause of the current accidents, but we are of course looking at the circumstances around each collision and considering what can be done to prevent future incidents. Highways England has already reduced the spacing between cones on the coast-bound carriageway to reduce the risk of illegal parking. Additionally, the junction 8 coast-bound entrance slipway, which is currently closed, has had CCTV infrastructure installed. The department is assured that Highways England is doing everything it can to reduce the risk of accidents.