Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2013 Lords Chamber

Amendment 77A to 77BA not moved.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, just before I resume the House, I alert speakers in the debate that, as we now have a speaker in the gap, there are no spare minutes at all. Please would Back-Bench speakers ensure that they sit down as soon as the clock says “5”, and preferably while it still shows “4”, so that the Minister has his allocated time to respond?

House resumed. Committee to begin again not before 8.28 pm.

Sports Grounds Safety Authority Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Friday 13th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I, too, would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, for sponsoring this important Bill. I pay tribute to his expertise and enthusiasm on this subject and indeed, for the cross-party support of many Members of both Houses of Parliament.

I am unable to confirm or deny which football club, if any, I played for in my youth but I am pleased to be able to reaffirm the Government’s strong support for the Bill. As has been explained, the Football Licensing Authority—the FLA—was originally established to help ensure safety at football matches in England and Wales. In doing so, it has played a key role in transforming spectator safety at football grounds over the past 20 years. Over this time, it has built up a national and international reputation for expertise in the area of sports ground safety. It is also the author, for DCMS, of the world’s leading sports safety publication, which has already been referred to: The Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds—the Green Guide.

However, the statute limits it from sharing its expertise, through advice direct to other sports or those in other countries and it is right that we remove this restriction. The Sports Grounds Safety Authority Bill will therefore extend the advisory role of the FLA. As has already been mentioned, this will be especially important in the run up to the Olympics and Paralympics. It therefore makes complete sense to free the FLA from the current constraints and allow it to provide advice directly to LOCOG and local authorities in relation to non-football Olympic venues. It will also allow it to offer such advice to other sports. This has the potential to help ensure a greater consistency in the application of sports ground safety advice across all sports.

It is important to recognise and build on the FLA’s work over the past 20 years. This Bill gives us an opportunity to raise the profile of the valuable work of the FLA. We are very clear that the FLA carries out an important role in relation to football ground safety and we want this to continue. We are committed to maintaining the services and standards provided for football but we also want to allow it more freedom to build on, while not compromising, this core role. We have a unique opportunity to extend the reach of the FLA for the wider benefit.

It is important to clarify some potential misunderstandings about the extent of the Bill. It will not extend the regulatory role of the FLA, add any burdens to football clubs, other sports or local authorities, or change the safety regime which relates to football or other sports grounds. In addition, local authorities and others will not be required to seek advice from the authority in relation to sports grounds. To ensure that the authority’s publicly funded resources are not diverted from its core role in relation to the safety of football grounds we have included some safeguards in the Bill. The consent of the Secretary of State will be required to provide advice to bodies or persons outside England and Wales. I shall leave the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, to identify the anomaly that was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Watson.

The authority will be able to charge for its advice to bodies in England and Wales, where such advice is given at the request of the recipient or bodies outside England and Wales, but it will also need the consent of the Secretary of State to do so, and the charges will be limited to the recovery of costs so there is no risk that they will be unreasonable. These charges will simply ensure that the costs of providing the advice are met by those who receive the benefits of the expertise rather than any increased public expenditure.

The noble Lords, Lord Faulkner and Lord Grantchester, and others, raised the Government’s commitment through the Public Bodies Bill to transfer the functions and expertise of the FLA—or, if the Sports Grounds Safety Authority Bill is enacted, the Sports Grounds Safety Authority—to another body after 2012. They have raised concerns that more should be said about where the authority will be located before this Bill’s passage is completed. We recognise the concern to know where the functions and expertise will be located. However, we believe that it would be premature to rush to a decision without full consideration of the options. We want the benefits for the FLA, any partner body, and all sports to be maximised.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is working with the FLA to develop a range of criteria that will enable us to ensure a successful transfer of functions and expertise to another body and allow further growth. These criteria are still to be finalised but may, for example, include: the preservation of the FLA’s ethos and independence; the enhancement of the FLA’s expertise and reputation; continued effective delivery of the regulatory role and expanded advisory functions; improved value for money; and the ability to develop and to build on successes to date. It would be wrong for me to speculate at this stage as to which organisations might be considered. There could be obvious and natural linkages with sports or safety bodies, but we are open-minded on that.

I can assure noble Lords that we will not commit to any transfer until we are confident that we have an appropriate home for the FLA’s expert role and functions, when judged against these criteria. We have also made it clear that we want to discuss the proposals and options with those affected as part of the necessary consultation process, as set out in the Public Bodies Bill. To pick up the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Billingham, about standing, we currently have no plans to change the policy of all-seater stadia in the top two domestic leagues. All-seater stadia are the best means of ensuring the safety and security of fans, and they have been a contributing factor to the increased diversity of those attending matches in recent years. But change in the policy could not happen unless the football authorities, those charged with stadium safety and the police all indicated their support. There is currently no appetite from the police or safety authorities for any change in that policy.

For some noble Lords the efforts to extend the advisory role of the FLA will be familiar. There have been a number of attempts to do so over recent years that have not progressed through lack of parliamentary time, including the Bill put forward not long ago by the noble Lord Faulkner of Worcester. I thank him for the co-operative way in which he has involved all parties in this Bill to ensure its success. I am delighted that progress is at last being made and I trust that this Bill will continue to have similarly strong cross-party support.

Marine Navigation Aids Bill [HL]

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Friday 21st January 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

The noble Lord mentioned making amendments. Will he tell us in precise detail what parts of the Bill he proposes to remove?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, the noble Lord is entitled to make his Second Reading speech without interruption at this stage of the debate.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to noble Lords. I was about to come to what I intend to remove, which will be a significant part of the Bill. I will replace it with what I would call an output specification, which, as I said a moment ago, would be a clause that would require the Government to reduce light dues, to codify reduction targets by probably 50 per cent over five years and to cease providing the Irish subsidy.

I was proposing to leave in the clause on pensions, because that came from the draft Marine Navigation Bill, for which the previous Government did not get round to finding parliamentary time. I wrote to the Shipping Minister asking whether he thought that it was a good idea to leave it in or whether he wanted anything else to be put in. As the noble Lord will know, there is already a Commons Private Member’s Bill, promoted by Therese Coffey, on wreck removal. So it is for me to have further discussions with the Minister, and a substantial reduction in the Bill’s scope will be proposed. However, I have checked with the Clerks and they seem happy with that. I have also been advised that in Private Members’ Bills in your Lordships’ House we can propose reductions in charges, costs or anything else, but we are not allowed to propose increases. That is the advice that I have had from the Clerks. Again, however, we can debate that.

All organisations that are under pressure will say that they have squeezed their efficiencies as far as they can and that they cannot do any more without compromising safety. However, we have seen in many areas that, when push comes to shove, they can do it. I believe that a bit more pushing on the GLAs will enable them to reduce costs. They will have to reduce costs and it will not compromise safety.

I welcome the Government’s action in particular in respect of the Irish question. However, I think that it would be useful for the Government to have some legal support in the shape of this Bill in case the Irish want to change their mind at any time. I have talked to many people in the shipping industry, as I said, who have confirmed the view that Mr Davidson has suggested—that reducing the costs of the GLAs by 50 per cent is reasonable and achievable and that, if the costs come down, the charges will come down. I very much look forward to noble Lords’ comments and, no doubt, if the Bill is given a Second Reading, to further discussions. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Prescott]

My Lords, I start with an apology; I did not realise that the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, was before the House until I came in, switched on my television and heard him speaking. I declare an interest having spent 10 years as a merchant seaman and having been a Minister for merchant shipping in the previous Government.

Having heard the argument’s today, I should say that ship owners have always been concerned about cutting costs. But we are talking here about a very small part of their operating cost. Whether right or wrong, whether it should be paid by the taxpayer or the user, it has been subject to the user principle. As the Minister for shipping, I constantly had to deal with the problem that the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, raised, of how to deal with the Irish and how to get a proper agreement between us. I am pleased to hear that agreement apparently has been reached. The Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is trying to bring greater efficiency and effectiveness into this operation and the payment of navigational aids. I am not too sure whether that is the right approach, but there is certainly a problem.

I want to address my remarks to whether the user cost, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, is a disincentive to British shipping. The facts are clear: more tonnage is coming into Britain by ship than ever before. We are roaring in trade. That is true not only in Britain but in most countries; it is the nature of the global economy. So I do not think that they have been put off by the cost in those circumstances. I have been concerned about the cost of the crews, however, to which the noble Lord, Lord MacKenzie, referred. Over the past few decades, the reduction of crews on ships has led to a reduction in navigational skills and the loss of ships. Crews have been reduced by more than 25 per cent. That is a real saving—there is no doubt about it. Most of our shipping was flagged out to what we call the flag-of-convenience countries, such as Liberia and Panama, which sold their flag. The ship owners, many of them British, were very happy to take advantage, because it was a reduction in costs. It was also a reduction in skills and navigational abilities. Having achieved that real advantage, they now talk about the costs of navigational aids.

I should point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, that what happened to containers happened years ago. A decision was made on whether Britain was going to be the area for container centralisation and distribution to Europe. We lost it. The tidal advantages to Rotterdam and other places gave them an advantage. Therefore, there was a great deal of redistribution from Rotterdam and to the British ports. Nevertheless, the container trade has been considerable; there has been massive growth, even in the UK.

I shall return to the point about user tax. Is this a disincentive to the British industry? Does it wish to reduce its costs and have an advantage? Of course it does—I understand that—but should they be paid by the taxpayer or met in user payments? When I was Minister for shipping, I was faced with a decline, as the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, must know. The British navy as registered under the Red Ensign was 30 million tonnes in 1970; when I came in in 1997, it was down to 2 million tonnes, and it had flagged out to other countries. I introduced the tonnage tax, which was a user payment and a means by which the ship owner could have greater control over his costs and profits by paying a known tonnage tax rather than a profit tax, which might be changed by various Governments. By using the tonnage tax we had a transfer back to the British fleet, and from 2 million tonnes in 1997, we now have 17 million tonnes under the Red Ensign. I am delighted about that, although I do not think enough jobs came out of it.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I remind the noble Lord that speakers in the gap should restrict their comments to four minutes and he is now in his fifth minute.

[Lord Prescott]

I bow to the noble Baroness’s knowledge, and I am sorry about that. I shall finish on this one point. User tax did not discourage the fleet—it actually encouraged it. So I am not convinced that the small amount of tax that we are talking about would be a disincentive to the British ship owner.