Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Richard Burden Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I will make a little progress and then let the hon. Gentleman come back.

The Bill provides that a transferring employee can terminate their contract if there is a substantial detrimental change to it if they transfer. That reflects regulation 4(9) of TUPE. Government amendment 116 supplements that by providing that where the employee claims constructive dismissal in those circumstances, no damages are payable in respect of any unpaid wages that relate to a notice period he or she has not worked. I should stress that the amendment does not prevent employees from claiming for damages for constructive dismissal, but seeks to establish a common-sense position that damages cannot be claimed for a period of required notice that has not been worked. I should highlight that the amendment ensures that the provisions in the Bill properly reflect TUPE in that regard.

[Richard Burden]

I should like to press the Minister to clarify Government amendment 116. From what he has said, it seems that the intention is to put the TUPE principles into the Bill. The amendment contains the words “constructive dismissal”. It seems to me—this is certainly the advice we have had—that that is inappropriate. Will he look again?

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman, with the courtesy he personifies, raised that with me before we came to the House today. I have committed to take another look at that through the parliamentary draftsman. There is no intention to disadvantage staff in that regard. I give that absolute assurance, but I will double-check the language, because language in such things matters. He and I are in discussion and I have committed to write to him as soon as possible, and certainly before the matter is discussed further, to clarify the use of the language to which he has drawn the House’s attention.

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In short, these changes will lead us towards the effective, long-term planning and development of the world-class national road infrastructure that road users deserve. In that spirit and with that confidence, bold, but humble—because, as I said, we must listen and learn through the process of scrutiny—I am proud to commend the Government’s new clauses and ask that the other amendments, which would create a very different model, be withdrawn.

[Richard Burden]

Time is clearly short, so I will be as brief as I can be in having to cover a wide range of amendments and issues.

The Minister began by mentioning the walking and cycling issues covered by the amendments and new clauses. For too long, walking and cycling have been an afterthought in transport policy, given attention only when the end of the list is reached and the tick needs to be put in the box. There is now widespread consensus on the need for change. Getting more people walking and cycling will improve our nation’s health, tackle congestion and make our towns and cities better places to live.

We lag behind many other countries. Just 2% of overall journeys are made by bike and walking levels continue to decline. Some 64% of all journeys are made by car, but more than half of them are shorter than five miles, with a fifth being under a mile. We need to move walking and cycling to the mainstream of transport policy. We raised that point time after time in the other place and in Committee. In the other place, Labour secured an explicit consideration of pedestrian and cyclist safety in the Bill, and that is to be welcomed. In Committee, we pressed the Government to include a long-term strategy and funding for active travel, but sadly they voted against our plans. One always welcomes a sinner who repents, but if that was the Government’s intention all along, why did they oppose our amendments in Committee?

The Government’s change of course is a credit to the cross-party members of the all-party cycling group; to cycling groups such as British Cycling and the CTC; to transport campaigners such as Living Streets, Sustrans, the Campaign for Better Transport and the Campaign to Protect Rural England; and the Richmond group of health charities. They have all put the right kind of pressure on in the past two weeks to secure this change, which we welcome.

The new clauses and amendments tabled by the Minister are almost identical to those tabled earlier, with the exception that the original contained an explicit obligation on the Secretary of State to “comply” with the strategy. The absence of that word may not mean anything significant, but perhaps that could be clarified.

The Bill will turn the Highways Agency into a wholly owned Government company. We support road investment strategies to give the roads sector the same funding certainty as the railways, to enable efficiency savings to be delivered in the supply chain and to improve infrastructure planning. Most reviews of the Highways Agency—most recently the Cook review of 2011—have shown that the ending of stop-start Government funding could cut costs on the strategic road network, construction maintenance and management by 15% to 20%. We support that, but we will continue to ask the Government why we need a top-down reorganisation of the Highways Agency to deliver that strategy.

We have still not had the evidence for that. The only real evidence I have seen is an EC Harris paper in 2009, which found that motorway construction costs were higher per lane kilometre in the UK than in Holland, where the road operator is at arm’s length. If we look closely, however, we see that the additional costs in the UK were from CCTV, speed enforcement and vehicle recovery services, which are funded separately under the Dutch model. The additional costs also come from higher technical standards for pavements and structures, more complex ground conditions, design solutions and drainage provisions. Therefore, there is not the evidence to say that the Government need to have that top-down reorganisation. We are not convinced. We have debated this and scrutinised it in two Houses of Parliament, but there is no substantial evidence to prove that an institutional reorganisation, with estimated transitional costs of £100 million, is needed. That is why we will be moving to delete the clauses from the Bill today, while maintaining a commitment to the road investment strategy.

The Minister touched on accountability. I welcome the changes and amendments he has made. There are still some pretty fundamental questions, however, about primary accountability and responsibility. We cannot allow the Secretary of State to become a third party commentator on the performance of a company and the state of the road network: he must be answerable for it. The Minister has said that he completely signs up to that and I believe that that is his intention, but if so why are we having to debate a structure that separates responsibility for the road network from ministerial responsibility? In the absence of any real evidence to prove that this is needed, is it any surprise that many people are worried that this could become—not now, but in the future—a way of creating an increasingly contracted out, carved out and removed from public control structure? That is causing concern from organisations as diverse as the Public and Commercial Services Union, Prospect and the Alliance of British Drivers, right the way through to members of the British Chambers of Commerce. Our amendment would keep the oversight mechanisms of a monitor and road user watchdog in place, even if we did not go ahead with the reform of the Highways Agency.

The Minister talked about route strategies. He was right to do so, as they have been a major part of the discussion in Committee and elsewhere. Our concern is that, while reform and investment in the strategic highway network is absolutely necessary, we have to remember that the changes and the whole Bill affect just 2% of roads. The Department for Transport’s own research shows that 90% of the public are satisfied with those roads. That is not to say that there should be any complacency, but it does not affect the 98% of local roads that people rely on every day. It is here that we see the pothole epidemic, and it is here that we see record public dissatisfaction and congestion levels estimated to rise by 61% by 2040, so it is crucial that strategic road plans support city, county and regional growth plans and help councils to improve road conditions and to tackle congestion. Strategic roads must be co-planned with local networks and other transport modes so that we can really improve people’s everyday journeys and reduce traffic congestion.

I am pleased that pressure from Labour and transport campaigners has secured a greater priority for local roads and joined-up transport thinking in the Bill, and I thank the Minister for the movements he has made, but we need to go further. We need to get our entire transport system working as a connected whole. That is why we want Network Rail and the new company to sit down and map and plan road and rail routes together, and not only to take reasonable account of each other’s views. We want to ensure that local authorities and devolved bodies are represented at board level in the company, too. There are long-running difficulties in joining up local and strategic roads to get the network moving as one. We do not agree that “considering” local views and allowing local authorities to align their plans with a company is enough.

For that reason, our amendment 43 sets out some safeguards to ensure that the road investment strategy is a genuine co-product of plans with other transport networks, devolved growth plans and local transport provision, including walking and cycling, and to ensure that the road investment strategy is developed in consideration of the condition of local roads, a third of which, we know, are in urgent need of attention. Under the Government’s plans, £1.4 million per mile will be spent on the maintenance of strategic roads, but only £31,700 per mile is allocated to local roads. I hope that hon. Members will seriously consider the safeguards that we have argued for and which have been supported by the Local Government Association and others today.

Throughout this debate, it has been clear that infrastructure must be planned to meet clear economic, social and environmental objectives, but we have seen from previous debates on energy and planning that the Bill has often fallen far short of doing that. Along with groups such as the Campaign for Better Transport and the Campaign to Protect Rural England, therefore, we have pressed for obligations to ensure that strategic roads investment improves our environment. That means action to meet legally binding climate change targets by 2050. Worryingly, the Department’s forecast predicts that although road traffic emissions will flatten they will then start to increase in the 2030s. We need urgent action, therefore, to tackle air pollution, which is estimated to be killing up to 29,000 people prematurely each year, and vehicle emissions, such as particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen, which are major sources of the problem.

The road investment strategy states that the new company should make progress towards reducing the negative impacts on air quality, but in the light of the Government’s record on air quality that is not very reassuring—a point to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) alluded earlier. The UK is not compliant with EU limits on air pollution now. In November, the European Court of Justice said that urgent action was needed, but under this Government’s plan we will not be compliant until 2030, and that simply is not good enough. That is why we are asking for much greater action than is in the Bill; why we have committed to a national framework of low-emission zones to help local authorities tackle the problem; and why we are pleased to support amendment 70, which my hon. Friend tabled, and which would add an explicit obligation on the new company to address air quality issues.

I wish to say a word about transfers—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) will want to say something about this as well. I welcome the Minister’s assurances in Committee that the terms and conditions of employees transferring will not diminish—I believe he meant it, and it was good he met the trade unions—but, as my hon. Friend said, one issue remains: if the TUPE regulations, or the mechanisms used to apply them in other reorganisations, are to apply, why has that not been enshrined in the Bill? As the Bill continues its passage, I hope that those issues will be addressed further, and I welcome the Minister’s clarification today that he will come back to us on the question of constructive dismissal, on which the Bill does not currently make sense.

The road reforms could have done so much more to fix Britain’s roads. A constituent of mine wrote to me last week:

“I have major concerns about the ill thought out proposals which will do nothing to assist the UK economically and will be of great concern to road users.”

I think a lot of people would agree with that. We need to ensure that infrastructure decisions are based on national independent evidence-based assessments, which could be done if we set up the national infrastructure commission; we need to facilitate more efficient joint road and rail planning, which could have been done had our amendments been accepted; and we need to join up local and strategic roads to get the whole network moving. Unfortunately, the Bill is a wasted opportunity. Its centrepiece, before all the others things were added, was another top-down reorganisation that cannot deliver the changes our road network needs.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

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[Richard Burden]

Toward the end of his remarks, the Minister praised members of the Bill Committee and adopted a consensual approach, so perhaps I shall start in the same vein. I, too, thank all those who have contributed to debate on the Bill as it has gone through its various stages. In particular, I add my thanks to Labour’s team in the other place for the improvements they sought, and in some cases secured, and to my hon. Friends the Members for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) and for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods), with whom I led for the Opposition in Committee and again today.

I also thank all members of the Committee on both sides who scrutinised the Bill, but two in particular: my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller). For both, this will have been their last Bill Committee, I suspect, unless they do something dreadfully wrong in the next few weeks. Both have given great service to the House. In fact, when we were both new in this place, the first Bill Committee I served on was also my hon. Friend’s first Bill Committee, so it is great that we have shared his last.

Finally, I thank the Minister and his colleagues, and all those who have contributed to today’s debate. We all know that infrastructure is critical to the UK’s future, from affordable energy in our homes to a modern communications system, or a transport system connecting people to jobs, opportunities and each other. Good infrastructure is vital to our economy and our quality of life. That is why it was so important to give the Bill the thorough scrutiny that it deserved. Given its wide-ranging nature, it should have had more than one day for Report and Third Reading; the way debates today have been truncated underlines that fact.

It is of course even more wide-ranging than what the Library briefing described as a “portmanteau Bill”, when it was introduced in this place. The Bill has had a new long title, and it has two more parts and many more clauses than when it was introduced. It ranges from the abolition of the somewhat mysterious Public Works Loan Board commissioners to invasive non-native species to the British Transport police, and everything in between.

Constructive criticism has strengthened the Bill, ensuring that a rushed and badly drafted reform of the electronic communications code governing mobile telephone infrastructure will be rethought. We have new requirements to support apprenticeships and training in road construction, and we have a walking and cycling strategy which is welcome and must be built on. Important actions that will follow from the Bill include the Wood review, whose implementation will be vital. If we needed reminding of that, the current situation in the North sea is such a reminder. In a victory for wildlife groups, communities in Devon and Scotland and the Opposition, we have protected the European beaver.

For making some of those changes and changes in other areas, including some of the roads clauses, I pay tribute to the Minister for the way that he has approached these matters. We still disagree on some key points, particularly on converting the Highways Agency into a Government-owned company, but he understands the need for scrutiny of Bills and he has made changes to the Bill in response to issues that we and others have raised. That shows how legislation can be approached. Sadly, that is the part of proceedings in this place that the public all too seldom see.

However, as we approached today’s debate, some things went badly wrong, starting with the timetable and the fact that we had only one day on Report. We have seen far too many last-minute changes to the Bill and things being tagged on without time for parliamentary scrutiny, despite the Minister’s best efforts. We saw it in the rushed electronic communications code, which ended up pleasing nobody and had to be rethought. It was not in the Bill in the other place; it came in more than halfway through the Committee stage and had to be withdrawn today. It was not necessary for that to happen. The issue should have been approached in a more measured way.

In relation to new regulations regarding planning and pubs, we tabled a thought-through amendment, but the response was a last-minute rushed statement to try to head off that amendment, instead of Ministers looking at what was being said, responding to that and enshrining it in the Bill. Most notable today has been the issue of shale gas extraction. I am pleased that the Government accepted our new clause 19, which introduces 13 conditions as vital protection if shale gas extraction is to be taken forward. The matter should not have had to be resolved today at the last minute with the Government finally accepting an Opposition amendment, presumably because they thought they would lose unless they did so. These issues have been raised in Committee and elsewhere, and they could have been resolved elsewhere. My hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West has been raising them for three years. We now know that new clause 19 has been accepted and I welcome that.

I have to say to the Government that one or two comments made today suggested that although new clause 19 was being accepted today, when the Bill went back to the other place, there could be attempts to tinker with it—take a bit out here, put a bit in there. If the Government go down that road, they will be asking for trouble. That new clause was thought through. It is a package, not a pick and mix. I hope the Government will respect that as we go forward.

As the Opposition have continued to state throughout proceedings on the Bill, we face major infrastructure challenges—a population rising to 73 million in just 20 years’ time, the challenges of energy security, a chronic shortage of affordable housing, airports, roads and railways all straining under demand, and the threat that climate change presents to us all. There is a cross-party consensus on the need to address these issues, but all too often decisions are not taken, public support is not achieved and projects are not delivered.

We may be one of the world’s leading economies but we lag behind other countries that take a more strategic and long-term approach to infrastructure investment. As the noble Lord Adonis said last week, infrastructure investment

“will not happen on the scale required unless it is better planned, better led and better financed.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 January 2015; Vol. 758, c. 1392.]

During the Committee stage, the Institute of Government published a booklet called “The Political Economy of Infrastructure in the UK”, which concluded that we need to change the “institutional architecture” for infrastructure decision making. Labour Members completely agree. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham called for this House to back the proposal by Sir John Armitt, chair of the Olympic Delivery Authority, for a national infrastructure commission that would look three decades ahead and consult across all sectors to provide an evidence-based assessment of infrastructure priorities in the UK. Parliament would be able to vote on these, and Governments would be held accountable for delivering them.

For me, the debates on this Bill have crystallised why that kind of evidence-based approach is needed so badly, from controversy about the priorities in the road investment strategy, to disputes about rushed electronic communications regulations, to the need for robust environmental and regulatory safeguards in relation to energy security. We need a more rigorous and independent look at infrastructure needs in energy, transport, telecoms and many other sectors. It is a travesty that the Government continue to oppose such a common-sense reform, which is backed by the LSE Growth Commission, EEF, the Institution of Civil Engineers, 89% of businesses surveyed by the CBI, and many more. By establishing that commission, the Bill could have set the UK on course for the challenges of the 21st century, but it has failed to do so. The repeated failure of the Government to address these issues in a sufficiently planned-out way is not good enough.

This could all have been very different. With a shared national purpose, long-term planning, proper public engagement and cross-party support for our world-leading engineering and construction sectors, we can deliver the improvements our country’s infrastructure needs. The 2012 Olympics were a model of that kind of approach. We urgently need the same framework for decision making and planning across national infrastructure. This Bill could have delivered that, but it has not done so, and we have a Government who are not going to do so. That is why it will take a change of Government in May to deliver the change that is needed.