Transport: Bus Services

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Monday 20th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am not aware of the particular point that my noble friend makes. However, with the Better Bus Areas, there will be much closer co-operation between bus operators and local authorities, which should improve the situation to which he refers.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, the noble Earl may be aware that there is a very limited bus service down to the Point in Portsmouth. This is important because today HMS “Ark Royal” is being towed away to be scrapped. Is the Minister willing to convey the thanks of the House for her 25 years’ amazing service to this nation?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am delighted to stray completely off piste. First, I have not been on HMS “Ark Royal” but I have been on the “Illustrious”. Secondly, there is a railway station called Portsmouth Harbour.

Scrap Metal Dealers Bill

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Friday 18th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am confident that individual Members of another place will undertake to meet their commitments. Perhaps I may carry on.

We should not risk the House of Commons being reluctant in the future to accept government commitments in the circumstances of private legislation. My noble friend Lady Browning talked about honour and the word of a politician. How right she is to do so. We all know in our hearts what the right thing to do is. The noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, is correct in what she says—

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, the noble Earl says that we all know in our hearts what the right thing to do is. As has already been said, the Government fully support this Bill—it has the support of all parties—so all this amendment is doing is delaying it and introducing real uncertainty as to what will happen to it in the future.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I will come on to talk about the future, but I am confident that it is not a problem.

As I was saying, the noble Baroness, Lady Farrington, is correct as usual, but that is trumped by the need for the House of Commons to be able to rely on government assurances made in respect of a private Bill.

British Transport Police

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Monday 3rd December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, in answer to the noble Lord’s first question, we are talking about only 53 police officers, so the bureaucracy load is manageable, although extremely inconvenient. The weakness in the legislation on the protection of officers who are involved in an incident, alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, is an extremely important point.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that although metal theft is a heinous crime and has caused damage to war memorials and danger to hospitals and railway lines, shooting those involved might be a little over the top?

Railways: London Midland Rail Franchise

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord is basically right. Full driver terms and conditions, including salaries, are confidential to the drivers concerned; however, a glance at the London Midland website states that the company is advertising for qualified drivers at a salary of £42,620, while Chiltern Railways, by comparison, is advertising for qualified drivers and offering £46,344.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I have considerable sympathy for the Chancellor. Last weekend, I found myself totally confused by first class, second class, the price of tickets, which line to be on and everything else. When I showed my rail card with an old photograph of me, the ticket inspector said, “Gosh, you look like George Osborne”, which was a bit of a shock. Does not the noble Earl feel that we should try to simplify this plethora of ticket types and rules? It is totally confusing.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that the ticket system is very complicated and no one has fully grasped the nettle, as yet, to put in place a better system.

Government: Cars

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Thursday 25th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, my noble friend makes an extremely good point.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, carrying this over to other areas of manufacturing, does the Minister agree that if we do not buy something in this country, other people will not buy it? This is particularly pertinent to defence contracts. In the White Paper, we said we would try to sell lots of things abroad; but no one will buy stuff if you do not buy it yourself. It is rather important that we buy things that we make here.

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord is absolutely brilliant at asking questions that are wide of the Question on the Order Paper.

Transport: Isles of Scilly Ferry Link

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Monday 25th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, my briefing covers that. There are two air services. There is a fixed-wing aircraft, which goes from St Mary’s to a few destinations on the mainland, and there is the helicopter service, which is by definition much more flexible in where it can land. There is an issue over the condition of the runway at St Mary’s; it will not last for ever.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the unrelenting application of free market principles to our merchant marine, which has resulted in it having its smallest ever numbers of officers and men, is very damaging, bearing in mind that it is the fourth service and absolutely necessary strategically for global operations? Are the Government doing anything whatever to support the merchant marine?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, wondered how far my brief would stretch. Unfortunately, it does not stretch as far as the condition of the Merchant Navy.

Airports: Heathrow

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Monday 28th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, as currently drafted, the Bill does not say anything about night flights, although the noble Baroness might tempt me with an amendment. It is important to understand that the problem of Heathrow is much greater than that of the other two London airports. Some 228,000 people are affected at Heathrow, whereas at Gatwick and Stansted the figure is only between 1,000 and 2,000, so the problem at Heathrow is much more serious. However, all three London airports have noise controls imposed by central government.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, if there were a third runway at Heathrow, would that make any difference to the pressure for more night flights?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I doubt it. The issue about night flights is that flights coming in from the Far East make connections at Heathrow.

Railways: Great Western Franchise

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am not aware of the noble Lord’s particular point, but we cannot operate a railway system for free; it has to be paid for, and paid for by fares.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, on this Cornish patron saint’s day, will the Minister support the continuance of the overnight sleeper service to Cornwall?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, unfortunately I omitted to ask about the overnight sleeper service to Cornwall. However, some of my ministerial colleagues have great affection for that service.

Railways: Train Design

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Thursday 12th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the noble Lord is absolutely right in everything he says; that is why we have the Crossrail project and other large infrastructure projects. The mischief is the feast and famine, which I am sure all policy-makers over many decades have tried to avoid.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, a contract has recently been let to move spoil from the Crossrail system. This means moving stuff from central London to the Thames estuary. It will all be done by German ships with German crews. Bearing in mind what the Government intend to do to support British industry, will we be putting measures in place to help British shipping in the same way as the German Government do to support German shipping so that we are working on a level playing field?

Shipping: Towing Vessels

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the world has moved on since the report of Lord Donaldson. We have port state control and inspection of ships, the integrated safety management code of ships, much more reliable ships and much better situational awareness for the coastguard, coupled with the SOSREP system. Finally, most tankers are double-hulled. Single-hulled tankers are not allowed in UK waters except in exceptional circumstances.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that there is a growing perception that the coalition Government are suffering from collective sea blindness? We have just discovered that over the last few weeks we have no ship at immediate readiness for counterterrorism or disasters around the UK—no Royal Navy ship at all. We have got rid of our broad area surveillance in the SDSR. We have just heard about the tug towing, and I have to say there are still a lot of single-hull tankers around, not least in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary because there has been no money to replace them. The National Maritime Intelligence Centre, which he referred to, is not up and running at full speed, which it should be. I can go on and on.

I am sure these perceptions are not right, but could the Minister confirm that the Government are looking at this in a co-ordinated way because there is very real worry? Perceptions often seem more real than reality, and there is a very real perception that this is not being pulled together.

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord is right, he has gone on—he has gone on about defence matters. This is a commercial matter. One of the impacts of the Government funding an emergency towing vessel, say at Falmouth, is that it prevents commercial operators from stationing an ETV at Falmouth because there is no work for them.

War Memorial Gardens

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Thursday 13th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I agree entirely with the sentiments of my noble friend. It is important to understand that nothing has gone wrong here. An event was proposed, it was considered and, quite rightly, it was determined that it was inappropriate.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Merchant Navy Association and president of the Merchant Navy Medal. At the annual service for seafarers at St Paul’s yesterday, a large number of Merchant Navy and former Merchant Navy personnel spoke to me. I think that we have come to exactly the right conclusion about this affair.

Do the Government have any plans to celebrate appropriately the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic in which 25 per cent of the Merchant Navy sailors involved were killed, an unbelievably high percentage, and something that I fear is often forgotten by the nation?

Earl Attlee: My Lords, I cannot answer the noble Lord’s question about the 70th anniversary, but I will write to him. I have an interest to declare in that for five years after the end of the war, my father served in the deep sea Merchant Navy. Even then, he still had plenty of exciting stories to tell.

Olympic Games 2012: London Air Quality

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Monday 23rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I answer for the Department for Transport and for the whole of the Government but, fortunately, I have no responsibilities for the city of Brussels.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a waterman and lighterman. Will the Minister say whether we have a comprehensive plan for greater use of the river, bearing in mind that we have been very poor at using barges, as we are committed to doing, for the Olympic build programme?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I rather think that we have missed the boat on that because the infrastructure is largely built. However, when I visited the Port of London Authority I detected some of the work that the noble Lord had undertaken.

Visas

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am quite happy to take noble Lords’ concerns back to my honourable friend the Minister for Immigration, but noble Lords have not explained to me where the difficulties lie, and we have not announced the results of the consultation.

[Lord West of Spithead]

I declare an interest as yet another chancellor of a university. The Minister explained that the Government have very good intentions in this. It is quite clear from all those in universities to whom I have spoken, and from the concerns of those involved in universities, that they do not understand that from what they have seen of these proposals. I ask the Minister to get them together and explain these good intentions so that we can clarify whether they are or not. At the moment, those involved are not at all persuaded, and I find the proposals difficult to understand as well.

[Earl Attlee]

The noble Lord makes a useful point. We clearly need to do more work to explain the situation to the academic institutions.

Counterterrorism Review

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords—

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I think we should hear from the opposition Back Benches.

Maritime and Coastguard Agency

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord West of Spithead

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I, too, hope that we can ensure that we have the very best Maritime and Coastguard Agency that we can provide. We are reviewing it and we will be making an announcement about consultation shortly.

[Lord West of Spithead]

My Lords, could the Minister please guarantee that the input by the coastguard agency to the NMIC, the National Maritime Information Centre, which is so crucial to the counterterrorist security of this nation, will not be touched by what is being agreed to at the moment in terms of reductions.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, unfortunately I am not briefed on that. It is a very good point and I will write to the noble Lord.