Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations (Amendment) Order 2021

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, this instrument makes several important changes to the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations Order 2007, which established a certificate trading scheme known as the renewable transport fuel obligation, or RTFO. This draft instrument would improve the RTFO scheme, ensuring that renewable fuels continue to play a key role in reducing emissions from road transport and, in the longer term, from transport modes with more limited decarbonisation options, such as aviation and maritime.

While the instrument relies on powers contained within the Energy Act 2004, parts of the 2007 order were previously amended by instruments made under Section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. Accordingly, Schedule 8 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 applies. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report of 25 November acknowledges that the committee has no specific comments on the instrument and notes that during the enhanced scrutiny process, and in response to industry comments, the instrument has been somewhat amended and improved. The instrument was also considered by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments on 17 November, and that committee identified no matters requiring report.

The RTFO scheme, changed by this instrument, promotes a market for renewable fuels used in transport. The scheme places obligations on larger suppliers of fossil fuel to ensure the supply of renewable fuels which reduce carbon emissions. These obligations are calculated as a percentage of the volume of fossil fuel supplied over a calendar year. They are met by acquiring certificates which are issued for the supply of sustainable renewable fuels. The trade of these certificates provides a revenue stream for suppliers of renewable fuels.

This instrument delivers several commitments made in our transport decarbonisation plan to upgrade the RTFO. It increases the main RTFO obligation level from 9.6% to 14.6% by 2032, continuing at that level in subsequent years, with 1.5% of this RTFO target increase being made in 2022, to maximise the carbon savings from the introduction of greener E10 petrol this September. The instrument also improves RTFO support for suppliers of renewable hydrogen by extending certificate eligibility to renewable hydrogen used in maritime vessels, and in fuel cell-powered rail and non-road vehicles. As targets for the supply of renewable vehicles increase and new end uses are included in the RTFO, the instrument strengthens the sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions savings criteria that renewable fuels must meet.

In addition, the instrument replaces references to various EU enactments with equivalent criteria. It replaces these references through changes made to the 2007 order itself, and by using technical guidance issued by the administrator. Technical guidance on sustainability reporting covers the values, formulas, and methodologies used to calculate carbon savings. To reflect changing international standards and evolving fuel production processes, and to ensure no obstacles to trade, the RTFO administrator proactively updates its technical guidance, a draft of which was published alongside this instrument.

Renewable fuels supplied under the RTFO scheme currently deliver about a third of all domestic transport carbon savings under current carbon budgets. They will also make an important contribution to future UK carbon budgets. I commend this instrument to the Committee.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her introduction. This is a complex but very important order. The sixth carbon budget requires reductions in emissions of 78% by 2035, and low-carbon fuels supported via the RTFO have been an important part of that process for the last decade. This SI extends the renewable transport fuel incentive to suppliers of renewable hydrogen used in fuel cell rail and non-road transport, and to renewable non-biological fuels for the maritime industries. It also increases the RTFO obligation by 5% until 2032, and updates emissions criteria.

This is an affirmative instrument which comes into force on 1 January 2022 which, as the Explanatory Memorandum points out, is less than 21 days. Clearly, that is less than the traditional amount of time. Some error has occurred somewhere down the line because while this is important, it is not a piece of emergency legislation. Therefore, it is regrettable that there is not the usual time limit.

Something to welcome strongly is that Articles 13 and 14 of this order strengthen the sustainability criteria. That thread runs through all of this. Are biofuels really sustainable? Are they really being produced in a fully sustainable manner? When you get down to the fundamentals, any land that you are using to produce biofuels is land that you could use to grow crops for food and so on. I therefore strongly welcome, for example, the criteria that would prevent biodiverse woodland being degraded for biofuel production.

As I said, it is a very complex area, because renewable fuels and feedstock originate from across the world. It is possible—indeed probable—that producers would be eligible for multiple incentives, which the UK provides, but are incentives where the fuel and crops originate from. What steps are being taken and what steps will the Government take to ensure that this is not exploited such that there are multiple payouts on one batch of fuel, if I can put it that way?

These detailed plans and arrangements were clearly devised prior to COP 26. How have they been affected, if at all, by the results of those discussions? Where do we go next, Minister?

Paragraph 7.12 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to the increase in 2020 in the buy-out price from 30p to 50p. Can the Minister tell us whether this has been effective in stimulating the market?

The part of this we will all have noticed was the increase from E5 to E10 in September for bioethanol in petrol. I recall that, when we discussed the regulations on that, there were some areas where there were exceptions, such as the coast of Scotland, I believe. Were those exceptions envisaged to be temporary, perhaps to let the more distant parts of the UK improve their access to the most modern fuels, or is it envisaged that they will be permanent for those areas?

It is important to note that, despite government targets to phase out the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles, raise the main RTFO target and so on, there remains a fatal flaw in government policy. Emissions from transport are not declining. Cars and vehicles are becoming more efficient, but the emissions are not declining because of the increase in road traffic. That has been made worse because many people have rejected public transport as a result of their fear of Covid. The Government have a major task to get us back on to public transport. I notice that the bus strategy, which has excellent aims, has a huge funding gap; four local authorities have made bids which are equal to the total amount of money available, and there are over 70 local authorities which could bid for it. Clearly there is a funding gap there.

I do not want to dwell on private grief for the Government, but last week was not an easy week for them in the north of England because of the rail announcement. Even with electric vehicles, the Government have a mountain to climb to gain public confidence. I am pleased to see these improvements, but there is still a vast amount of work for the Government to do, and unfortunately some of it involves additional funding.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

My Lords, the order, as has been said, amends the Renewable Transport (Fuel Obligations) Order 2007 to increase targets for fuel suppliers, thus driving the supply of renewable fuel in transport and delivering further greenhouse gas reductions. It amends Article 4 of the RTFO order so that the main obligation on renewable fuel targets increases by five percentage points, from 9.6% to 14.6%, between 2022 and 2032.

Those suppliers that meet or exceed the obligations already acquire renewable transport fuel certificates, the training of which provides a financial incentive. The order extends that financial incentive to suppliers of renewable hydrogen, used in fuel cell rail and non-road transport, and of renewable fuels of nonbiological origin used in maritime transport.

The Government have said that the RTFO delivers about a third of the savings required for the UK’s current transport budget, and that last year the RTFO scheme saved carbon emissions equivalent to taking 2.5 million combustion engine-powered cars off the road. They have also said that the changes made by this order are estimated to deliver the equivalent of an additional 1.5 million cars by 2032. As we know, in 2019, road transport accounted for 24% of all greenhouse gas emissions and greenhouse gas emissions from transport have remained largely unchanged since 1990, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, just reminded us.

How did the Government finally come to the conclusion that a five percentage point increase in the renewable fuel target between 2022 and 2032 would be sufficient in the transport sector to meet our greenhouse gas emission and climate change goals? What, if anything, happens after 2032?

The Government consulted on only three options: increasing the main obligation by 1.5, 2.5 or 5 percentage points, with the Department for Transport backing a 2.5 percentage point increase in the renewable fuel target. Paragraph 10.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum states:

“Of the 77 respondents that expressed a preference on the amount by which this target should increase, 61 supported an increase to the RTFO main obligation of 5 percentage points or more. These respondents included suppliers of renewable fuel who benefit from support under the certificate trading scheme, and suppliers of fossil fuel who must meet the targets. Those in support of an increase of 5 percentage points or more suggested this could provide long term certainty to industry and would provide a further contribution to the government’s commitment to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Accordingly, the government has decided to increase the RTFO main obligation by a further 5 percentage points between 2022 and 2032.”


There appears to have been a greater commitment to the Government’s net-zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2050 from the respondents to the consultation than there was from the Government themselves, which begs the question: does the order go far enough? Why did the order reject going beyond 5 percentage points, as some respondents clearly proposed, despite that not even being one of the three options the Government had offered?

Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Grand Committee

[Earl Cathcart (Con)]

My Lords, I support these regulations. As my noble friend the Minister explained, they apply to charge points intended for use by vans and cars in a domestic or workplace setting. When will we get charge points at our workplace setting, the Palace of Westminster? It would be good for us to lead by example. I looked at electric cars a few months ago but, when fully charged, it might have got me here—just—but not home again, so I had to buy a hybrid car, which was a pity.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her explanation. This SI certainly concentrates on one part of the EV charging market—the issue of smart charging and its interface with grid capacity—but there are considerable questions about the picture as a whole. I shall raise the issues of vans and of long journeys.

First, why does the SI exclude rapid charging points? They would be a reasonable investment for companies with small fleets of vans, for example, and those that come in at various times of the day needing to recharge. As the noble Earl pointed out, there is not a very long range on all the vehicles concerned. Recharging during the day in a half-hour window is therefore essential for many companies. I have sat in a queue at a motorway services where a van has used a rapid charging point. That was obviously essential to that person’s working day; he was using a van because that was his business—it was clearly a small company.

There is a lot of detail in this instrument on how exactly the provisions will operate. I was pleased to hear the noble Baroness talk about being able to change the settings and so on. I would like her assurance that it will be simple to change the settings, because it does not take too much thought to imagine a household where, for example, a district nurse works a day shift one weekend and a nightshift the next, so obviously in one week she will charge at night and the next she will charge during the day—and, on some of those shifts, she cannot pay attention to the cheapest rate for electricity.

I also want reassurance about the circumstances in which people find themselves. I have an electric vehicle, as the noble Baroness knows. I have solar panels. I have virtually no mobile phone signal in my house and very poor wi-fi on occasions—although they were digging up the road this week, so I have hope for an improvement there. My point is that we charge during the day, when the sun is out—or is at least up in the sky behind the clouds. It is easy for people to adjust in the light of their personal circumstances.

Isles of Scilly: Ships

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I said that on purpose. It is the case that there will be a proper and correct procurement process that goes alongside this money. It is a significant amount of money and, as it is so significant, the Government will be keeping a close eye on the procurement strategy.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has still not confirmed that high environmental standards will be required. I would welcome her doing that. “Scillonian III” is 44 years old, so these replacements will be built for the long term; they must be of the highest environmental standards. Will those standards also be imposed on onshore infrastructure servicing not just these ships but the many small boats that use the Isles of Scilly?

Integrated Rail Plan: North and Midlands

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

This integrated rail plan is in reality about backtracking on government promises to build the eastern leg of HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail. The Government know that HS2 and full delivery of Northern Powerhouse Rail would have given a major boost to the economies of our northern cities, because that is what the construction and pending completion of HS2 have already done and will continue to do for the economy of the West Midlands and Birmingham in particular. Leeds and the local West Yorkshire economy will now be denied the full £54 billion of estimated economic benefits of their HS2 link, with Leeds becoming a less attractive venue than it would have been for new and expanding businesses. Northern Powerhouse Rail delivered in full, with a new high-speed line through Bradford, was also set to deliver an estimated £22 billion for northern economies. The integrated rail plan does not address the impact of backtracking on the eastern leg of HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail on the economies of our northern cities and towns, and there was no government answer when I asked about it last Thursday.

Typically, this Government are now seeking to silence opposition to their watered-down plan, since Transport for the North, which is overseen by all the northern mayors and council leaders, has just been told that it will no longer be financed by central government to develop Northern Powerhouse Rail and that in future this work will be funded directly, and thus controlled directly, via Network Rail by the Department of Transport, a reflection of the Government’s centralising tendency and lack of enthusiasm for real devolution of power and decision-making.

The Government’s integrated rail plan, which incidentally says very little about rail freight at all, places great weight on the virtues of upgrades of existing lines and the time in which they can be completed and the costs incurred. In doing so, though, the rail plan and the Secretary of State fail to reflect the very different experience of recent major upgrades. The west coast main line was upgraded at a cost of £9 billion, nearly four times the original cost estimate of £2.5 billion. Despite costs ballooning nearly 400%, the upgrade still had to be reduced in scope from 140 mph top speed to 125 mph with moving block signalling, in-cab signalling, being abandoned; otherwise, the cost would have been up by nearly 600%. The project led to substantial upheaval to existing services over a period of years and was not completed until 2009, very late and 10 years after it started.

Work on the Great Western electrification commenced in June 2010 and was due to be completed in 2016-17, but was not completed until 2019-20. The project ran into major difficulties, causing repeated extensions to deadlines and costs to increase by more than 300%, to around £2.8 billion in 2018 from £874 million in 2013. Despite this dramatic increase in costs, the project still had to be scaled back to keep cost increases merely in excess of three times the original figure. Electrification from Didcot Parkway to Oxford, Cardiff to Swansea, Chippenham to Bath and Bristol Parkway to Bristol Temple Meads, as well as branches to Henley and Windsor, were also deferred indefinitely by the Government in November 2016, with the Cardiff to Swansea electrification being cancelled outright in July 2017.

The message is clear: upgrading routes is not as straightforward as the Government suggest. The hard evidence shows that costs will be very much higher than projected and the time taken to do the work a great deal longer than projected. Statements plucked out of the air about being able to deliver a watered-down version of what was promised a decade earlier than projected fly in the face of the facts and experience. Such statements also fly in the face of the Government’s own document, which indicates that the new lines on part of the watered-down Liverpool to Leeds route will not come into service until the 2040s—the same timescale within which the Prime Minister, in his foreword to the plan, says that high-speed lines under the original plan will have reached the east Midlands and Yorkshire.

Further, on costs, there is no breakdown of costings for each separate project within the plan, or a breakdown of any large figures within each separate project. There is also a further issue: the watered-down schemes outlined in the rail plan are dependent for delivery, on both projected capacity and speeds, on digital signalling. But I believe, perhaps mistakenly, that there is not yet a substantial tried and tested digital signalling scheme as envisaged by Secretary of State already in full operation. Indeed, people have so far been working on trying to develop such a scheme for more than 20 years. If there is a delay in the projected timescale for bringing such an as yet untried signalling development to fruition, even the watered-down schemes as projected in the rail plan will be severely compromised in respect of capacity, speed and timescale.

In the past decade, the north of England received £349 per person in transport spending, while London got £864. If the north had received the same level of spending as London, it would already have had £86 billion more since 2010. Yet this rail plan, worth £96 billion, some of which is in the south at the southern end of HS2, will take well into the 2040s at best to complete, considerably over two decades away. This plan, with its backtracking on previous pledges and reductions in previously stated future levels of expenditure, continues, not addresses, regional investment inequalities. So much for the Government’s levelling up and delivering HS2 in full, including the eastern leg, and Northern Powerhouse Rail.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I recall a particularly funny episode of “Yes Minister” in which the Prime Minister asked Jim Hacker to produce an integrated transport plan. It was called “The Bed of Nails”, and I was reminded of that episode over the weekend as I watched the Secretary of State valiantly trying and failing to sell this plan as a success for the north of England. It takes a lot of ingenuity to produce a plan that almost doubles the time it will take to get, for example, from Birmingham to York, and still call it an improvement on previous plans.

Despite the Secretary of State’s sleight of hand, the plan has not been well received. The Government have managed to unite the elected mayors of the north, the chambers of commerce in Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Birmingham, east Lancashire, Doncaster, the east Midlands and even London, the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, Conservative MPs for northern constituencies and the Conservative chair of the Transport Committee in opposing and criticising the Government’s plan.

Not surprisingly, one of the critics was Transport for the North, and for that it has been stripped of its powers, which seems a very strange approach to levelling up. I join the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in asking the Minister to explain why control of the Northern Powerhouse Rail project will now lie solely with central government—what is it that makes Ministers so sure that they know better than the people of the north about what they need in relation to railways?

The most high-profile decision was, of course, to truncate HS2 by abandoning the eastern leg. Those cities that had expected to be directly linked to a new 21st-century rail line have developed investment plans predicated on that and expected an economic boost along those lines. They now have to start again following a massive no-confidence vote by the Government. As the noble Lord said, transport spend per head is scarcely more than one-third of the size that it is in London. In her answer to me last Thursday, the Minister admitted that abandoning HS2 and reducing the Northern Powerhouse Rail plans

“saves the taxpayer billions of pounds.”—[Official Report, 18/11/21; col. 407.]

I suggest to the Minister that this approach is totally unacceptable. What do the Government plan to do to redress the balance now that their levelling-up promises to the north of England lie in tatters?

HS2 was always as much about capacity as speed. The Government are going instead for a patchwork of schemes, with short stretches of electrification. Digital signalling, which has long been promised, and longer platforms for longer trains will create some extra capacity but it does not compare with what a whole new railway would do. The Government promised to electrify 13,000 kilometres of railway by 2050 and so far have done 2.2% of that. So we are 235 years behind schedule. I ask the Minister: after all the stretches referred to in the plan have been completed, what percentage will we be on?

Finally, one of the reasons for building a new line is that the upgrading of existing lines is enormously disruptive. As a veteran of 10 years of Great Western’s electrification, I can attest to that. What calculations have the Government made of the cost of disruption for the lines they propose to upgrade?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for their considered responses to the integrated rail plan. I too had the opportunity, over the weekend, to read the documents in detail and consider the sorts of questions I might face today. Actually, noble Lords have not disappointed so far in the issues that they have raised—and I accept that they feel very strongly about this.

Having read the documents and considered this more carefully, I think the integrated rail plan is an elegant solution. We had a very outdated plan, the old plan, which did not properly take into account some developments, particularly from the national transport bodies, notably Transport for the North and Northern Powerhouse Rail, and Midlands Engine Rail, Midlands Connect and the Midlands Rail Hub. None of them had a proper look-in in the plans. We saw that costs were rising and that the whole thing did not fit well together, so it was absolutely right for the Government to go back, look at the plans, set them all out and consider what we are actually trying to achieve. The goal is not to build new railways; it is just something that enables people to get from A to B more quickly, more frequently and at a cheaper cost. That is what we are trying to do.

How we choose to do that is a combination of stretches of new railway, as noble Lords know, and some upgrades to existing railways. That is a very elegant situation that comes at a lower cost to the taxpayer. I will not and see no reason to apologise for that at all. It also happens much more quickly than it would otherwise, so we need to take a step back. There are a lot of winners here. I would like to be living in Nottingham, quite frankly; people there are going to have a great time. Good old Derby will have direct access to HS2, which it was nowhere close to prior to this. Also, all the places along the Midlands main line will get electrification and have more reliable journeys now. They did not even get a look-in in the old plans.

We have taken a more considered approach to the system as a whole. I accept that life has changed slightly for Leeds, but Leeds is also benefiting from this. We have said that we will spend £100 million on looking at how to get HS2 to Leeds. We will look at whether the current station can absorb the additional capacity and we will finally start work on the West Yorkshire mass transit system. This is great news for Leeds, so I do not share the doom and gloom of the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about its economic future. Actually, having a train line that goes to Manchester is just one of the things that people in Leeds might want; they might also want to travel around their own city on a mass transit system. I think we have been able to help Leeds in this regard. The impact on economies will be set out in the business cases for all the different schemes, as we go forward.

On TfN and its change of role, this is not at all unusual within the Department for Transport. We have a good relationship with TfN and it has an important role in providing us with statutory advice. However, the Northern Powerhouse Rail programme will be in the Government’s major projects portfolio and it requires clear accountability to the Secretary of State. Therefore, the client will be the Department for Transport, but that does not cut out Transport for the North. It has a joint sponsorship role, and again it is important that it can offer advice and knows what is going on with the project. In terms of delivery, however, it must be accountable to the Secretary of State to make sure that we keep things moving as we need to.

There was a comment about the Government not being a fan of devolution, on which I beg to differ. The city region sustainable transport settlements have committed £5.7 billion to our major cities. That is truly transport devolution on a large scale.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, came up with a litany of delays that had happened previously. I do not disagree that sometimes large transport infrastructure projects suffer from delays. None of us involved in transport likes delays but sometimes they happen. However, I am not entirely sure why they would not then happen to elements of HS2. Given that the previous full “Y” going all the way up was not going to be delivered until the mid-2040s, my goodness, we could be looking to the mid-2060s before that was delivered then, had it been delayed. I am not sure that that is necessarily a reason for not liking the Government’s plans.

On the issue of disruption, all transport infrastructure projects are disruptive. We know that. However, the approach taken by this IRP will cause less disruption that previous plans would have. For example, the HS2 eastern leg in full would have caused significant disruption to the motorway network. It would have crossed it 13 times. I am the Roads Minister—that disruption would have been quite challenging. We know that enhancements to existing lines will ease bottlenecks and make rail services more reliable. We will work very closely with the rail industry to minimise disruption as the schemes are developed and delivered.

I turn now to the issue of digital signalling. If I may, I will write on this issue so I can provide the most up-to-date information that I have.

The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, asked what percentage will be electrified when this is all finished. In my brief I have the figure of 75%, which I want to check. It feels right—but you think, okay, we are going to go from quite a small percentage to 75%. We are going to be electrifying hundreds of miles of railway line, so this probably is right but, again, I will write to 100% confirm that number. This is a huge electrification programme, as I am sure the noble Baroness will understand.

Let us turn to money. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned it and so did the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. This is the sort of thing that I get a little bit confused by. We are in a strange parallel universe where it matters only how much you are spending rather than what you are spending it on. That strikes me as bizarre. People are saying to me “But you are not spending this money on this railway line,”. No, but we are providing more benefits to more people, more quickly for less money. Surely that is a good thing.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that I believe that the leader of the Opposition has in mind to establish something called the value for money office, should he ever become Prime Minister. He may well think that that is a very good idea. But I say to the noble Lord that, if he had the Government’s integrated rail plan at £96 billion—providing some pretty good service uplifts and some good improvements in journey times—versus the previous outdated plans costing £185 billion, and if he were to give those to this new-fangled value for money office, I wonder which one it would choose.

Rail Infrastructure: North of England

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Randerson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to improve rail infrastructure in the north of England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, this Government will be investing more than £35 billion in rail over the spending review period, including rail enhancements and vital renewals to improve passenger journeys and connectivity across the country, focusing on the Midlands and the north to level up the economy. Furthermore, the Government have today published our independent rail plan, a £96 billion programme to transform services in the Midlands and the north.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, there has not been a major new rail line in the north of England since the Victorians. The Government promised to change that. Northern Powerhouse Rail was announced seven years ago, and the Government have re-announced it 60 times, but today’s announcement turns its back on that. Does the Minister accept that haphazard dollops of money—a scattergun approach to rail upgrades—will not create a transformation, and that cancelling the HS2 eastern leg is seen in cities such as Sheffield, York, Leeds and Bradford as nothing else than another broken promise?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I advise the noble Baroness to read the documents, which, when I left my office just now, had not actually been published. If she were to look at the integrated rail plan, she would see that it is comprehensive and very well thought through. It sets out exactly how the different pots of money will be used to create the sort of system that delivers for people in the north far sooner than other plans were going to. It also saves the taxpayer billions of pounds.

Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2021

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Grand Committee

There is a further saving on examiner effort that might be available. At one point, I was driving a tank transporter carrying a tank grossing 100 tonnes. However, I could not drive the tank in public because, at the time, I did not have an H licence, which covers track-laying vehicles steered by their tracks. This does not make sense. I will not weary the Committee with further technical details, but will the Minister agree to meet me and officials to discuss this matter? I do not think that the H licence test is required at all.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her explanation. I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, because, as the Minister knows, I waited five months for my licence.

Listening to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, it is important to bear in mind that he has considerable experience. To me, experience is at the centre of all this. I note, and bear in mind in my comments, that one of the things he said was that passing the test does not make someone an HGV driver because this takes a lot longer.

Taken together, these SIs set out to simplify driving tests. They are part of the litany of what I understood to be 25 crisis actions—I gather it is now 30—that the Government are taking to try to tackle the shortage of HGV drivers. The logic is that, if you streamline driving tests, this will free up slots for tests, enabling more people to qualify. They will make the process of training to qualification quicker and easier, so the staged process is being abandoned.

I will make some general comments then ask some specific questions. Here, I bear in mind what the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, said. How has this crisis been allowed to get so bad? In a previous debate, the Minister told us that there had been a shortage since 2010, so it has hardly happened suddenly. The Government say that the crisis is of long standing and worldwide, but we are the worst in Europe. In percentage terms, only Poland has a greater percentage shortage of drivers, and that is a totally artificial situation because it services the rest of Europe—a very high percentage of Polish lorry drivers drive almost entirely, if not entirely, abroad—so we have the most acute shortage. The No. 2 order blames Covid, although the No. 4 order has the grace to admit that Brexit might be a factor and quotes shortage figures of between 39,000 and 100,000 drivers. To put that in context, the total requirement is estimated to be around 300,000.

Clearly the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, has driven trailers on many occasions, but I ask how many people in this Room—there is no need for noble Lords to put up their hands—have driven trailers? I reckon backing a trailer to be the trickiest driving manoeuvre that I have ever undertaken. It takes experience, judgment and the kind of steady nerve that only comes with practice. I wonder whether anyone has seen a trailer jack-knife? I have, on the M5. It blocked the road in both directions for two hours and led to some serious injuries. The cause, although one can observe only from the outside, was that it was a windy day and the driver was going very fast. That was probably the cause, and it was probably due to a lack of experience. Frankly, I am astonished that, having got themselves into this mess, and despite warnings from the haulage industry, the Government’s reaction is to simplify tests in a way that could have an impact on road safety. The Government admit that themselves. The Explanatory Memorandum to the No. 4 order says:

“Any impact on road safety ... may therefore be marginal”.


That is a hopeful statement, but it implies that there will be an impact.

However, although the consultation was held over the summer period and was relatively short—four weeks—it led to 9,541 responses, some of which, we are told, led to serious concerns about road safety. There has been no response by the Government to the public consultation yet; when can we expect that? The Explanatory Memorandum says that, of those who responded,

“the majority of people supported this proposal”.

I would be interested to know the percentage of people and organisations that supported the proposal because haulage organisations have expressed serious concerns. On 4 November, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, of which I am a deputy chair, took note of the concerns of its road user behaviour group that the changes to the testing system and the relaxation of drivers’ hours, to which the noble Earl has referred, are a threat to safety. So why did the Department for Transport rush to announce these changes to driver training and testing two days before the end of the consultation period?

The Government have said that they will review this, which I am very pleased to hear, but the review period is very long—an awful lot of driving is going on in a period of three years. I believe that we can see a pattern very much sooner than that. Is the Minister in a position to give us a commitment that the Government, informally at the very least, will keep this under continuous review and take swift action if there are problems with safety?

There is a clear interaction between the availability of HGV drivers and that of bus drivers. Bus companies are already complaining about a shortage of drivers, who are being attracted into lorry driving because the pay has gone up recently. I am afraid to say to noble Lords that bus drivers’ wages are one of my hobby horses; I think they are seriously underpaid for the level of responsibility they take on. A shortage of bus drivers is having an impact on bus services, but I am concerned about any impact on the levels of experience and expertise that we can expect in future from newly qualified bus drivers. We are talking here about the safety of passengers as well as that of other road users.

One way in which the Government are trying to simplify the system is by reducing the required levels of expertise and qualification for those who can supervise a learner driver. This is a very risky path. Some years ago, a previous Government recognised the need for a certain level of experience before you could supervise. Decades of evidence indicate that you are much more likely to have an accident in the early years of your driving career. That underlines my point that experience counts.

One of the actions proposed to be taken is that backing the trailer should not be part of the main test but should be assessed by training organisations. Can the Minister explain in detail how this will work? I noted that she said that the Government “recommend” that people undertake this training rather than it being compulsory. I thought that it was going to be compulsory, but that it would happen not as part of the test but as part of training with a training organisation. If my original understanding is correct, can the Minister explain how the organisations will be chosen and accredited and how we can be sure that individual drivers have passed that aspect of the training?

One is endlessly concerned these days about the ability of organisations to fulfil the contracts they are awarded. A major question is whether these new tests and licences will be fully recognised in Northern Ireland and hence in the Republic of Ireland. Paragraph 7.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum for the No. 2 regulations refers to the fact that people may wish to take the B + E test for employment purposes. Is the implication therefore that some companies will still demand full qualification? It also refers to people wanting to take both tests in order to drive outside Great Britain.

Are the Government saying that the provision will not be recognised in the EU? The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, raised that, I believe. That will not just have implications for commercial HGV drivers; it will also have implications for people towing horseboxes, and dozens of other examples. When we left the EU, we were promised that there would be no watering down of standards, but here we are in a situation where that is effectively what is happening. Last night, in the police Bill, we concentrated on road safety, as the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, know. The message of that was that we should be dedicated to raising standards, yet that is not the message that we are getting with these two SIs.

Railways: East Coast Main Line

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, it is five times more expensive to go to COP 26 using east coast main line train services than it is to fly. Since train travel is much more environmentally friendly than flying, how can the Government justify the Chancellor’s decision to make domestic air travel even cheaper by cutting APD? Since the Government subsidise the railways with taxpayers’ money, how can they justify giving tax breaks to their competitors, which will inevitably undermine the viability of railway lines such as the east coast main line?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

As the noble Baroness knows, the Government were really clear in the transport decarbonisation plan what the long-term future looks like for various modes of transport. We recognise in that plan that the cost of motoring has fallen at the same time, for example, as the cost of fares have gone up by 20% and even more than that for bus and coach journeys. But, of course, gradually and over time we will make trains and buses better value and more competitively priced. This will impact on the modal shift and take people away from flying or using their car and get them on to trains and buses. As she is well aware, there have been a number of competitions recently where people have taken a train and a plane at the same time and arrived at their destination at the same time.

HGV Drivers

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Randerson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to evaluate the success of the measures they have put in place to address the shortage of HGV drivers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)]

My Lords, we have taken decisive action to address the acute driver shortage, with 25 specific measures taken by the Government already to support the industry as it resolves this long-standing workforce issue. We are seeing results, with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency dealing with around 4,200 applications daily, more than double the pre-Covid rate.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, we have a truly world-beating driver shortage in the UK. Given that the last time we discussed this the Minister said that the problem goes back to 2010, can she explain why the Government have had to resort to government by panic button, with some 25 last-minute measures to try to avert a crisis? Why was there no long-term plan to improve pay rates and conditions in order to attract the new entrants that the Government now say are so needed?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I think that I will probably say this many times: the haulage sector is a private sector and the Government do not customarily get involved in individual pay rates within those sorts of sectors. We have been working with the sector to address this issue. Indeed, many years ago now we commissioned a study into the availability of lorry parking and we are doing another one to see what we can do in that regard. So it is not fair to say that we have not been cognisant of this issue for quite some time. We have been working with the industry because it is mostly up to the industry to resolve it.

Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, we were talking about the content of the SI and discussed the first element, which changes the minimum usage ratio to 50%.

The second element is that the regulations allow airlines which hand back a full series of slots to the slot co-ordinator before the start of the season to retain the right to operate that series of slots the following year. This will provide an opportunity for other airlines, including new entrants, to apply for and operate these slots on a temporary or ad hoc basis. This measure will apply to traded and leased slots but not to newly allocated ones; this is to prevent carriers acquiring slots with no intention to operate them. Airlines which have announced that they have permanently ceased or will permanently cease operations at an airport before the start of the winter 2022 season will not benefit from this measure in winter 2022.

Finally, the draft regulations expand the reasons which airlines may use to justify not using slots to include Covid-19-related restrictions. This provides a backstop against the risk of unforeseen Covid-19-related measures or restrictions being imposed during the season. This will apply where unforeseen Covid-19-related measures—including flight bans and quarantine or self-isolation requirements—are applied at either end of a route and have a severe impact on demand for the route or its viability. It will apply where restrictions could not reasonably have been foreseen in time to hand back the full slot series. There will be a three-week recovery period during which these provisions, sometimes known as force majeure, may still apply following the end of the Covid restrictions. These measures will cover the winter 2021 scheduling period, as I have noted. We are currently considering alleviation for summer 2022 and plan to consult with industry to inform our policy decision later this year.

This instrument provides necessary relief for the aviation sector for the winter 2021 scheduling period. Through this package of measures, we have aimed to strike a balance between supporting the financial health of the sector and encouraging recovery. I commend this instrument to the Committee.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her very clear explanation. I certainly appreciate the need for these adjustments to take the heat off the airlines during what is still a difficult time for aviation.

I note that one of the reasons why the non-use of slots is justified is a result of government-imposed measures which make routes unviable. It is a pity that the airlines are getting the benefit of this alleviation on slot allocation when there appears to be no clear obligation on those same airlines to return money to consumers on the basis of the same government restrictions on flying. Not all airlines by any means have behaved badly, but the CMA has recently cited a lack of clarity in consumer legislation for its abandonment of attempts to ensure that all airlines did the decent thing and offered proper refunds. Can the Minister say whether the Government have any intention to clarify consumer law?

I note also that there has been no impact assessment because this legislation is designed to be for a period of less than 12 months. But in fact, although it sets out rules for 2021-22, it also bestows rights to the control of future slots into 2023. That is what the winter period of 2022 becomes—it moves over into 2023. This situation has already existed for 18 months, and, as the Explanatory Memorandum itself points out, slots have significant competitive operational and financial value. Taken together, this will have a distorting impact on the industry—it can have nothing else. The Explanatory Memorandum warns of the impact on smaller airports and the likelihood that the relief to a 50% level for the use of slots will have an impact on small airlines wanting to accumulate new slot rights at congested airports. Therefore, although this measure is undoubtedly environmentally desirable and commercially necessary at this time, it will favour the big and established airlines. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that.

Paragraph 7.6 of the EM recognises the dubious practices of some airlines, which seek basically to game the system by seeking to accumulate new slots for this winter which they have no intention of using, simply to gain historic rights for use in the future. So my question to the Minister is this. In the past, Gatwick has had some concerns about what it saw as unfair hoarding of slots. Is the Minister aware of this issue—I am sure she is—and has it been resolved to the satisfaction of Gatwick Airport?

Paragraph 3.1 of the EM refers to reasons for delay in laying the draft SI and the need to use the latest data on the level of air traffic. Can the Minister please give us an update on what the latest level of air traffic is at the moment? What percentage are we up to compared with 2019, for example?

Finally, is the Minister aware of what action our neighbouring countries are taking on this issue? Are they taking similar action on slots? Everyone started from a similar position on the rules on slots across the EU and in neighbouring countries. In the early period of the pandemic, I recall that they all moved forward in a fairly similar way. Are we still in tune with the actions of our neighbours?

Heavy Commercial Vehicles in Kent (No. 1) (Amendment) Order 2021

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend on the Front Bench for expanding a little on what is in orders No. 1 and No. 2. I took the opportunity to have brief consultations with some hauliers in my former constituency of Northampton South. I will go through the paragraphs of the Explanatory Memorandum that I think are relevant; they are coterminous across the two orders.

My noble friend talked at some length about the sunset clause, in paragraph 2.6. In my experience in both Houses, the purpose of a sunset clause is that it is a time to review a situation. It ensures that the department involved knows that there is a particular time when the order, or whatever it may be, must be reviewed. If the Government of the day decide that they no longer need it, okay, it is finished. But my noble friend said that they would like to keep it, just in case they might need it at some future time. With great respect, that is a burden on the industry because hanging over it is the fact that, at any point in time, Her Majesty’s Government can suddenly bring it in again, even though it is in a modified form. My conclusion is that there should be a sunset clause, maybe in 10 years or whatever is an appropriate time, because that ensures that there is then a proper review. Otherwise, all we do is add to legislation sitting there to no purpose. That is my view on that.

On paragraph 7.1, has there been any report on the review of the effectiveness of Operation Brock? That is an important dimension, particularly to hauliers. There is no mention that there has been, but I would have thought that somebody must have done one and that, if they have, it ought to be published. On paragraph 7.3, is my noble friend saying that the requirements listed are definitely no longer needed at all—in which case, has this been publicised sufficiently to the industry?

Paragraph 7.6 is about the supply chain, which we all know is causing a problem. Do Her Majesty’s Government expect normally not to need any further legislation, as has happened over the recent change on inviting in foreign truck drivers? No legislation was needed and an announcement was made. While I am on that, I have to say frankly that it has gone down like a lead balloon among UK hauliers, for two reasons. First, the hauliers ask, “If the short-term people from the continent can be given multi-drops and pick-up cabotage in a difficult situation, why on earth are we UK hauliers not allowed to do that?” Quite frankly, there is a great problem out there—it is painfully obvious —so if we are giving it to the foreigners coming in, which I welcome, why are our own people not allowed to do the same for a short period as well?

Paragraph 10.2 on consultation says that there were just 14 responses. I am not quite sure how to read that. Is that 14 companies—if it is, it would have been helpful to list them as companies—or 14 people who are interested in the industry who have responded? What is it? The universe of that is really quite important. If it is companies, is it just companies using Dover, or is it some other universe? It would be enormously helpful if my noble friend could tell us what the universe is.

The haulier handbook in paragraph 11.1 is very welcome and the trade welcomes that. Regarding the 17 locations, I am not quite clear, but I assume that this affects all ports trading between the UK and the EU. I did not have time to work out how many ports there are, but it must be a fair number. So, if the 17 locations are all related to Dover, that is fine, but if they are across the UK then that is not quite so fine.

Finally, I raised the training of HGV drivers with my noble friend on the Floor of the House the other day. My noble friend will know that there was a scheme for professional career development loans for drivers and for some reason it was closed in 2019. The amount of the loans available were from £300 to £10,000. These were for families that were probably not that well off and probably could not find that money very easily. If we have a shortage of HGV drivers—which we appear to have—why on earth was the scheme closed to new entrants in 2019? I do not expect an answer today, but can my noble friend have a look at that situation and see whether we should not be reopening that straightaway?

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

I start by thanking the Minister for her explanation. I share some of the noble Lord’s concerns. I have real concerns about these SIs. Although they seem to be perfectly reasonable attempts to introduce a more systematic way of dealing with the pressures on Kent roads and ports, especially Dover, in practice this is yet another step in the creeping accumulation of powers by this Government. This is an issue to which our attention was drawn by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.

This is an unusual example, because they are SIs that were introduced for one reason; that did not occur, but the Government are using the opportunity to take away the sunset clause and make it a permanent situation. They were introduced under cover of emergency procedures, hence without the usual consultation and safeguards, and are now being converted into long-term measures. This general trend in a number of pieces of legislation is exacerbated by Covid and the pandemic—although that is not relevant in this particular case.

In practice, these amending orders remove the sunset clauses in existing legislation. They make the powers that make up the response which is Operation Brock a permanent feature. The county of Kent will live under a series of extraordinary measures with certain categories of vehicles requiring passports to enter the county. Operation Brock is now to be used as a response to unforeseen disruption; for example, bad weather or industrial action and, I assume, other forms of unforeseen disruption as well. But these are occasional disruptions, and they happen across the UK as a whole, not just in Kent, so there is always the danger that this will be seen as a precedent.

My unease is even greater because when the Government originally introduced these measures, they anticipated—I have to say, I believed them—that there would be long queues on motorways because of new port procedures following our leaving the EU.

In fact, that has not happened, partly because the number of HGVs using the motorways has fallen, partly because there are not any drivers, or at least anything like the number that there used to be, because there has been a general falling-off in levels of trade with the EU, and because the trucks that used to take the land bridge between Northern Ireland and continental Europe now go largely via the Republic and straight down to the rest of the EU. Added together, these issues have meant a reduction in the number of HGVs, so there has not been the level of queuing. The Government took other measures which undoubtedly alleviated the possibilities of queuing. Although it complained vociferously about it, after the first few weeks, the industry became better prepared in terms of the paperwork than it was feared that there might be.

Kent access permits, which the first order is concerned with and as the noble Lord has pointed out, are undoubtedly an additional bureaucratic hurdle for the logistics trade at an already difficult time. It is yet another piece of paper, another form to be completed. I am interested in the practicality of this. Can the Minister explain how often these powers have been used? She referred to that briefly, but can she give us a little more detail about how often these powers have been used so far and how long Operation Brock has been in force on these occasions? Also, how is the logistics industry informed that Operation Brock is active? Someone might be aware that it is snowing, but perhaps not if they are in Newcastle and it is snowing in Kent.

This is an additional piece of bureaucracy for local hauliers too, albeit so that they can continue to use local roads, which obviously is important for them. Paragraph 10.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum referred to the consultation and said that there were 14 responses, and that the majority were in favour. What were the views of the industry representatives? I am particularly interested in the views of local councils because they represent local residents, who have had their lives seriously disrupted by traffic issues in the past. It was hoped that Operation Brock would solve this.

Paragraph 13.2 says:

“The vast majority of HCV drivers travelling via the Channel Tunnel and Port of Dover work for foreign hauliers”.


We know that this balance has changed in recent months, so it would be very useful for all of us if the Minister could update us on the most recent percentages and the balance that there is now between UK domestic hauliers and foreign hauliers using those routes. I look forward to the Minister’s responses.