Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Baroness Randerson

Report stage
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, having attached my name to Amendment 67 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, I will speak briefly while noting my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, has overwhelmingly made the case for this, but I want to reflect on a number of things. She referred to the importance of reliability, and I can share her reflections on how rare that is. I was in Gloucester on Friday with Learn with the Lords and I waited for a bus—and it turned up at the time it was supposed to. I was quite shocked. It is such a rare occurrence, particularly when you are in a town that you do not know and you hope to rely on the timetable but you have no idea whether it is going to work. We cannot continue to have that situation.

Of course, that is an issue for visitors and for tourism but, overwhelmingly, it is an issue for local people. It is about reliability. I know of many people who have not been able to take jobs. We are greatly concerned at the moment about the shortage of labour supply in some areas, but you cannot take a job if you are not sure whether there is a bus or that the bus is not going to turn up reliably. You tell your employer, day after day, “Well yes, I was at the bus stop at the right time, but the bus did not turn up”. That is simply not a sustainable position.

On the idea of having local control, buses are a public service. They are essential to the operation of our communities. They should be controlled and run by local hands for the public good, not for private profit. There is no doubt. I do not believe that anyone can get up and say that the situation we have now, with buses being run for private profit, has been anything but a disaster. It is time to give back and—dare I borrow a phrase?—allow local communities to take back control of their bus services.

I can certainly assure the House that the Greens are firmly behind this amendment. I urge the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, to push it through if we do not get a strong response from the Minister because I think that, were we to hold a referendum—dare I use that word?—across the country, we would get an overwhelming win for this amendment to the levelling up Bill.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to state our strong support on these Benches for this amendment; indeed, had I been confident in advance that I was going to be able to be here to speak this afternoon, I would have added my name to it.

In 2017, I put down a similar amendment to what was then the Bus Services Bill. The similar issue was one that we raised from these Benches in Committee. This levelling up Bill gives us an opportunity to halt and reverse the decline in bus services outside London, which has been evidenced since the so-called deregulation of bus services in the 1980s. I will not repeat the points made by noble Baronesses, but it is clear to us all that urgent and radical action is needed to stem the crisis.

The problem in 2017 with the Bus Services Act was that the Government could not bring themselves to concede that deregulation had played a key role in the decline of bus services. The Act allowed franchising and other forms of additional control for local authorities but only for larger authorities; it did not trust smaller authorities to do this. With support, there is no reason why they should not be able to do this. Further, the Act did not allow local authorities to set up their own bus companies, which is totally contrary to the evidence. Some of the very best bus companies in Britain are those heritage bus companies that are still owned and run by local authorities.

Let me give one example of the sort of thing that might happen if local authorities had this power. If a local authority of modest size finds that its local commercial company is going to cut the vital bus services that enable links between the town centre and the local further education college, it might set up its own bus company specifically to enable young people going to that college, as well as shoppers going into the next town, to use those services—it does not always have to be on an enormous scale. Who understands better than the local council what will work in local neighbourhoods? The local council is the organisation that understands local traffic patterns, the best routes, where to find most people with no access to a car and so on. If we truly want to level up, we have to improve bus services, which are disproportionately used by the oldest, the youngest and the poorest in our society, in order to enable them to access work, education, health and other vital social services. I support the amendment.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Baroness Randerson

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

Rapid is faster than far, but that would not be obvious to the average local public sector employee whose job it is to ensure that there is adequate infrastructure for EVs.

My Amendment 486 requires the Government to update us regularly on their strategy to improve the charging network. It particularly refers to the discrepancies across the country. The discussion often relates to the pure numbers of charge points, but just as important are two different factors. The first is the adequacy of the numbers available in public places. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has made that point. Currently, EV ownership is concentrated among more affluent people—those with drives and who can therefore have chargers attached to their homes. We cannot have an EV revolution that is only for the rich. People who live in terraced houses and in flats must also be able to own EVs. As the revolution plays out and a second-hand market develops for electric vehicles, this becomes an ever more pertinent point. The second factor is that the Government have emphasised time and again that they believe that the market will adequately take care of the provision of charge points, but the figures do not bear that out. London and the south-east have a far more generous ratio of electric vehicles to public charge points than any other part of the UK.

My conclusions are that particular problems need to be addressed. The first is the disparity in cost between home charging and public charge points. If you charge at home, you pay 5% VAT; if you charge in a public car park, a public place or from a lamppost, you pay 20% VAT. That reinforces the unfairness. I urge the Government to deal with the issue soon as otherwise it will hamper any of their best intentions on this issue.

The second conclusion is that the Government must work much harder to increase support and funding in areas that have large gaps in their electric vehicle infrastructure. They are often towns in poorer areas and, of course, almost every rural area. Local authorities have a key role in this but often need greater advice because officials do not know the difference between fast and rapid and so on. They need not just money but support and advice to help them, otherwise EVs will remain vehicles for rich areas and poorer areas will remain subject to suffering from poor air quality.

My final point on this is that the Government simply must address the delays in national grid connection. They are hampering the whole thing which is totally inadequate to service the revolution that needs to take place.

In relation to Amendment 48 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I live in Wales. This week, 20 miles per hour became the default speed limit throughout the country. I live in Cardiff, where it has been the default speed limit for some time, and we have all—more or less—got used to it. The traffic flows more smoothly.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I guess I should rise at this point to follow with pleasure the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, who made a point that I was going to make. I note that in Scotland, they are going for 2025. This is a case where England urgently needs to catch up. I will primarily speak to Amendment 482. It is very simple:

“for “30” substitute “20”.

This is a “20 is plenty” amendment. I am going chiefly to speak to that, but I note that this is a very neat and fit group of amendments.

We express Green support for Amendment 240. We obviously need to get active transport joined up to make preparation to make sure that it happens. Also, we support Amendment 486 from the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Randerson, on disability access in railway stations. Of course, we broadly agree with electric vehicle charging points. However, on the interaction between these two issues, we have to make sure that where vehicle charging points are installed on roads, they do not make the pavements less accessible, particularly for people with disabilities, with strollers and other issues. The space should be taken from the road and cars and not from pedestrians.

Returning to my Amendment 482, this would make the default general speed limit for restricted roads 20 miles per hour. Among the many organisations recommending this is TRL, formerly the Government’s Transport Research Laboratory. Going from the local to the international, there was of course the Stockholm Declaration, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2020, which recommends 20 miles per hour speed limits where people walk, live and play. That is the global standard that the world is heading towards, and we really need to catch up on this. I can see much nodding around your Lordships’ House. I am sure many noble Lords know that pedestrians are seven times more likely to die if they are hit by a vehicle travelling at 30 miles per hour compared with 20 miles per hour. If they are aged 60 or over, they are 10 times more likely to die when hit by a vehicle at 30 rather than 20.

Noble Lords might say this is the levelling-up Bill rather than general provision, but to draw on just one of many reports that reflect on this issue, Fair Society, Healthy Lives: the Marmot Review says that targeting 20 miles per hour zones

“in deprived residential areas would … lead to reductions in health inequalities”.

However, there is, of course a problem. The Marmot report was looking within the current legal framework for travel, but it is extremely expensive to bring in local areas of 20 miles per hour speed limits. There needs to be local signage and individual traffic regulation orders, and then presumably, if there is to be some hope of compliance, there needs to be an education campaign. All of those things cost money, and councils in some of the poorest areas of the country will find it most difficult to find those funds.

If we think about some of the other impacts, as well as road safety, 20 miles per hour speed limits where people live, work and shop reduce air pollution and noise pollution. These are things that particularly tend to be problems in the most deprived areas. The wonderful 20’s Plenty for Us campaign that has been working on this for so long, and increasingly effectively, notes that there is a 30% reduction in fuel use with “20’s plenty”, so it saves people money as well—something of particular interest to the most deprived areas of the country.

This is a very simple measure, by which we could catch up with other nations on these islands and really make an improvement to people’s lives, health and well-being. I have focused on the practical health impacts, but the reason this group of amendments fits together so well is that, if you want to encourage walking and cycling, then ensuring that the vehicles on the road travel more slowly is a great way to open up the entire road network to cyclists and walkers. Of course, it could also build communities: the reduction in noise pollution gives neighbours more of a chance to chat over the garden fence and build those communities that we desperately need.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Baroness Randerson

Committee stage
Thursday 2nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I will share the deep concerns of Green parties around these islands about the issues that we have been discussing. Like Members from all corners of your Lordships’ House, Green parties would like to see the Bill thrown out altogether, although the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, of a pause and a chance to think and understand is, at least, a positive alternative that we should consider. We have heard lots of metaphors—the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, gave us one. I am imagining the fudge, which you have unwisely packed in your suitcase when flying back from a hot place, dripping out all over everything and making a mess everywhere. That is possibly a useful metaphor for where the Bill has put us.

I put on the record a highly unusual and important joint letter written to the Financial Times on 28 November by the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution from the Scottish Government and the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution from the Welsh Government. A small part of it said:

“This bill allows UK ministers to take decisions in policy areas that are devolved to the Welsh senedd and the Scottish parliament and to do so without consultation or the need for their consent.”


That is essentially what we have been talking about.

There has been an implicit point in our debate that has not been made explicitly. I will draw particularly on the work of Dr Viviane Gravey from Queen’s University Belfast, who points out that the laws have been transposed into the nations of these islands in different ways, so we have huge diversity. That means that the devolved nations cannot help each other out. A natural situation would be that, with the issues of resources that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, raised, ideally, people would help each other out and work co-operatively. In most cases, that will not work in this situation because each nation is different.

I will briefly highlight some of the ways in which the nations are different. On Wales, we have not discussed this much but there is a huge impact on the well-being of future generations Act, which has to be considered in the context of the Bill mentioning no increase in “regulatory burden”. That and the well-being of future generations Act are profoundly contradictory, and I do not see any way of resolving that contradiction.

Many people with vastly more knowledge than I—including the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and others—have commented on Northern Ireland. I saw some telling figures. Until autumn, when the caretaker Ministers ceased to hold office, the Department for Infrastructure had identified 500 rules and regulations and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development had identified 600 rules and regulations—experts describe that as the tip of the iceberg. Given all of the issues that Northern Ireland needs to deal with, dumping that on it as well is simply unacceptable. That is why, in the context of this group, Amendment 29 from the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and others at least takes us to the core of the issues that we need to address.

On Scotland, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, covered a great deal of this, but I will mention some conclusions from the Scottish Human Rights Commission, which said that this would create incredible legal uncertainty about human rights and the ability to deliver them, and it would make it difficult to enforce those rights if the Bill goes through in its current form.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, made an important point about the tone and direction of travel here. The Windsor agreement is a significant reset in our approach to our relationship with Brussels. The tone and approach have changed in a positive manner. I suggest that we need to see a similar change in tone and approach at Westminster, where, under previous Prime Ministers, we saw an extremely aggressive and unco-operative approach towards the nations of these islands. We need a different tone and approach in this not very united kingdom. Dealing with the Bill—stopping it, pausing it or at least implementing something like Amendment 29—is absolutely essential.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I will refer specifically to Amendment 29, in the names of my noble friend Lady Humphreys and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. The Welsh Government and the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee of the Senedd have both examined the Bill closely and they did not like what they saw. They agree with each other that the Senedd’s consent is required for all clauses and schedules, with the exception of Clause 18. However, given the background of a lack of consultation and dialogue, to which several noble Lords referred, we are not likely to get that consent.

The problem is that the Bill does not just infringe on devolved powers—it tramples all over them. The Welsh Government have called it a “power grab”. The injury to devolution throughout the Bill is compounded by the lack of preparation and background information provided by the Government. These issues have been well rehearsed here—the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, referred to them in detail. The Welsh Government and the Senedd committee agree that, for a start, Clause 2 needs to be amended to grant Welsh Ministers similar powers to those granted to UK Ministers to extend the sunset date in relation to devolved matters.

On sunsetting, June 2026—the fallback date—is of maximum practical inconvenience to the devolved Administrations because it coincides with elections. There are two possibilities for how the date was plucked out of the air: one is that it was chosen deliberately to make life difficult for the devolved Administrations, and the other—I agree that this is probably more likely—is that it is an example of the sort of poor, substandard legislation that you write when you do not consult the people affected. It would have been so easy to choose a different date.

The Senedd committee’s report reflects concerns already expressed about deficiencies in the dashboard and emphasises the need for it

“to identify how each piece of retained EU law falls across reserved and devolved competencies.”

Without doubt, it is essential that, when Welsh and Scottish REUL is added to the dashboard, it is clearly identified. So when will this happen? Can it be confirmed that this will happen? If it does not happen, that means that this truly is a Government just for England. It is essential that Wales and Scotland legislation is identified.

The committee’s report also emphasised the pressure of time, both on legislatures and the Governments in Scotland and Wales. It is essential that all REUL that the Government do not intend to save or reform is identified by the end of September and laid before all the legislatures of the UK.

Amendment 49, in my name and that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, is designed to probe these issues. The Welsh Government have made no secret of the pressure they are under—other noble Lords have referred to that—and the Minister acknowledged in her response to me last week that there was an issue of resources. The simple time pressure is compounded by the lack of coherent information from the Government. It is more difficult to get on and do what you are supposed to be doing if you do not know what that is. What will the Government’s policy be in relation to any failure by a devolved Administration to update their chosen items of REUL and obliterate as required references to EU law? They might choose not to do it, or they might just not have the time to do it. Does that mean that the UK Government will take over the role of the devolved Administrations and take things out of their hands if by mistake or due to lack of resources they cannot get round to it?

As I understand it, the devolved Administrations are also required to search for REUL made by Secretaries of State prior to devolution, which seems tantamount to having to do the job of the UK Government for them. Have I got that right? Can it be clarified, please?

As many noble Lords have said, the state of the dashboard is central to the pressures that I have referred to. The latest count of Welsh REUL on the dashboard is apparently in the teens. I am assured that when they have counted it all it will be in the many hundreds, and the Government have not yet been able to take account of that situation. What estimate do the Government have of how many hundreds of pieces of REUL both Scotland and Wales will have? It will be different numbers, obviously, because law has developed differently, and they have different powers. I noted in an earlier debate that the Government have failed to clarify when or even if we will get a final list, when or even if we will be told what legislation is to be dropped entirely, and when or even if we will be given a definitive list of legislation to be amended. All this is essential not just to us here doing our work but to both the Scottish and Welsh legislatures, and I hope that it will in time be relevant and important to the Northern Ireland Assembly as well when it is up and running.

On Northern Ireland, I do not want to repeat the vital questions asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, and my noble friend Lady Ludford, but I emphasise the importance of them. In the past 36 hours or so, I have been trying to get my head around the implications for this Bill of the Windsor Framework by working through a couple of examples—not quite at the level of detail with which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, did so, but in my own humble way. I think that the Windsor Framework probably requires substantial rewriting of this Bill; it certainly requires substantial reinterpretation—I understand that because it is such a skeletal Bill it might be possible to bend it to the new circumstances, but we need a new interpretation. Please can we at the very least have a major ministerial Statement on the impact of Windsor Framework on REUL which has an impact on the Stormont brake? The three are intertwined. We need more than a letter; we need the opportunity to ask questions and to understand how it will work.