North of England: Rapid Mass Transport System

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The absolute priority for this Government is to get it right. Endless amounts of pressure—questions such as “When will it be published?”—is probably not particularly helpful and leads to an awful lot of speculation. As I have said previously, we are taking due consideration of what stakeholders are saying and we are working very hard to come up with a robust, deliverable plan. That is exactly what this Government are going to do.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is right about the Shanghai maglev, which I have been on. It is very fast and very noisy, but the technology, and therefore the costs, are very tight, because the track has to be kept within plus or minus half a millimetre in both directions, vertical and horizontal. She is absolutely right to reject it and I hope that the Government stick to their promises.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Now we are all very jealous—I too would love to go on that maglev. The noble Lord makes an important point: it is not just about the cost of infrastructure, but of operation, because it has a very high electricity consumption and can therefore be more costly to operate. I know that the Japanese system will be using superconducting electromagnetics, which should be cheaper but, although maglev has some great applications, it is not applicable everywhere.

Human Rights at Sea

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Oh, my Lords, with modern standards for lifeboats and search and rescue, I would very much hope that such a situation would not arise today. The shipwrecked seafarers would be rescued long before any decisions would need to be taken on who to eat. Modern-day search and rescue services are equipped with an astonishing range of technologies that aid both in alerting the rescue services that there is an issue and in locating persons in distress or potential distress.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

Nautilus International has stated that some crews in ships registered under flags of convenience, including Panama, are having their internet access restricted to maybe 25 megabytes a month. Does the Minister agree on the importance of internet access to the welfare of effective and motivated crews, especially when they have been away for a very long time? What action will the Government take to ensure that all ships entering UK ports provide unlimited broadband on their ships all the way through their voyage?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for raising this issue. I will write to him with any further details of conversations that are ongoing where limits on broadband might be detrimental to a seafarer’s mental health.

Great British Railway Plans

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to integrate (1) HS2, and (2) the East West Rail project, into their Great British Railway plan.

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

My Lords, HS2 Ltd and East West Rail Ltd are currently separate from Network Rail and are delivering important additions to our rail network. The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail is clear that they will retain their current roles and work closely with Great British Railways as it takes over responsibilities for integration.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification, but it seems that the statement in the Williams report that it will bring together the rail

“network under single national leadership”

is not correct. The report also states that there will be “a new focus” to deal with

“escalations in cost, gold-plating and over-specification”,

which clearly applies mainly to HS2 as the worst offender. Can the Minister explain why there are plans to remove funding from Northern Powerhouse Rail and give it to the bottomless pit of HS2?

BA and Ryanair: Customer Refunds

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, this issue of refunds applies to holiday lets as well as airlines and other travel providers. Does the Minister agree that if members of the public book a service in good faith and the Government subsequently change the law so that using the service becomes illegal, surely the Government should compensate those who are out of pocket—or is it only for those who have shouted loudest?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I think we can all agree that the travel industry has been fundamentally changed by the Covid pandemic. There is no doubt that travelling now is very different from what it was a year ago. We are encouraging all consumers to be as flexible as possible. They must read the terms and conditions because in certain circumstances, guidance from the Government may change and a refund may not be due. However, as I said previously, if something is cancelled, a refund should be given.

Hitachi Rail: Rail Travel Disruption

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I reassure my noble friend that of course Hitachi has the experience to undertake these repairs. It comes with a good track record of safety and a high-quality engineering pedigree. I reassure my noble friend that LNER will do whatever it can to keep the timetable going, potentially by using slightly shorter trains to ensure that services continue, as much as they can.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, two weeks ago, all the trains were stopped for safety reasons, with serious reports of long cracks in aluminium. Now most have started again; presumably they are safe. Will the Minister commit to producing an urgent report on the cause of this, what has been done to put it right and how the longer-term safety of these trains will be assured?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I commit to the noble Lord that the ORR will produce a report on the safety lessons from this incident and on how passengers have been impacted.

Rail Disruption: Social and Economic Impacts

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, the agreements in place to use the affected trains contain provisions that protect the taxpayer. We expect those who have contractual performance and train availability obligations to fully compensate the taxpayer.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for asking this Question. I understand from the technical press that 86 out of 93 of these affected trains have either a failure of the yaw dampers, which connect the bogie to the body shell—they are quite important parts—or the lifting points, with cracks of up to one foot long. On the routes affected this clearly means that there are very few, if any, trains. These are trains designed and procured by the Government—

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but could he keep his question succinct?

Cycling: Bells

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend that perhaps a little more could be done around making sure that motorists do not stop in those boxes because they are really key for cyclists. It is about educating the drivers of motor vehicles as well. I reassure my noble friend that this goes back to the hierarchy of road users, about which we have consulted. We have got 21,000 responses on that. That has the capacity to fundamentally change the way we think about fellow road users, in whichever mode they choose to travel, and how we keep ourselves—and them—safe.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the biggest hazard for cyclists is actually unsafe drivers? They may be anti-social and some of the cyclists are anti-social, as other noble Lords have said. Does she agree that the common problem is the silent approach, be it by cyclists or electric cars? Surely the answer there is to make people use bells. Personally, I use a horn when I can because it is even better. It wakes up people who are probably on a mobile phone in their car.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I very much hope that they are not on their mobile phone in their car; otherwise, I shall have words. The noble Lord makes some incredibly important points. It is a question of making sure that the balance is right between the actions of the motorist and the actions of the cyclist. I think I have been able to set out what the Government are doing. We are focused on ensuring that the right balance is achieved and we need to make sure that motorists as well as cyclists behave in the way that they should.

Transport: Zero Carbon Target

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the electrical power requirements needed to enable reliable (1) hydrogen, and (2) battery, availability, in order to meet their zero carbon transport sector target.

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

My Lords, the recent energy White Paper, published in December, considered the potential future reliance of transport on electricity and clean hydrogen. It also included nearly £500 million of funding that will be made available in the next four years to build an internationally competitive electric vehicle supply chain.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply and the energy White Paper is certainly a contribution. Does it include all the power needed not only to produce batteries but to source the raw materials? The demand for lithium, one of the main contributors, is forecast to go up by 10 times, I think, in five years. Manufacture of hydrogen takes double the amount of electricity than it would it if you just drove a train or anything else directly by electricity. Then there are all the changes to the grid required. Can the Minister confirm that all this is included in the White Paper?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I can confirm that all these things are under consideration at the current time. It is a complex picture and there are many uncertainties as to what we will need our energy for. We are absolutely committed to ensuring a sufficient supply of low-carbon electricity. We need to ensure that the grid can cope and that we make the best use of smart energy solutions that are able to make use of plentiful renewable supply.

Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Temporary Exceptions) Regulations 2021

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am very pleased to follow the noble Baroness and to speak to my regret Motion on these regulations. I share many of her concerns. I find the Explanatory Memorandum particularly arrogant and vague on the reasons for the need for this regulation. Paragraph 7.2 says that

“disruption to … supply chains could occur at very short notice.”

There has been no evidence of this happening—I shall come on to the number of vehicles going through in a minute—or even of any fear of it happening ever since the new regulations came in at the beginning of January.

Everybody knew that there were new regulations. We had spoken before in this House about the fact that many people were unprepared and that the Government were pretty unprepared as well, but there is no change likely to happen at the moment. As for the situation having worsened substantially during the last month, how has it worsened?

The Explanatory Memorandum says:

“Some usual mitigations (such as training more drivers) are not available.”


There has not been a need for more drivers because the traffic has dramatically dropped. Then it says:

“The situation is exacerbated by the impact on vehicle flows of changes to border controls following the end of the transitions period of the UK’s exit from the EU.”


Where is the evidence for that? There have just been fewer trucks because a lot of people are deciding not to go, for reasons that we have debated.

The noble Baroness talked about the extension of hours permitted in these regulations. On the face of it, it is not very great but, on the other hand, it comes on top of some pretty long hours limits anyway. As she so rightly says, this is actually a serious road safety issue. Can the Minister tell us whether there is any evidence of further accidents due to this? How much enforcement of the longer hours has taken place, and has any action been taken? I suspect that, as with most other tachograph issues, it is done only very rarely.

I think the real issue here is that we have fewer drivers, and we also have many fewer trucks. I want to spend a minute or two looking at the chaos that I think there has been over the statistics of how many trucks have been counted going out of the UK. The Government published a press story on, I think, 7 February disputing the figures published by the Road Haulage Association. The Road Haulage Association looks after its members’ interests, and it suggested that the loads to the EU— I quote from its press release—had

“reduced by as much as 68 percent”

since January this year. It wrote to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster explaining this, and the Government are basically saying it is not true. Somebody must be able to count; it is surely pathetic. I tend to believe the RHA because it has an interest in looking after its members’ interests—they do not want to see delays—whereas the Government are trying to say that everything is all right. This has gone on, with an argument in a letter between the Office for Statistics Regulation and Richard Laux, the chief statistician of the Cabinet Office, talking about whether the data is published or not. The Cabinet Office then published a note to accompany the original press story. In other words, this is damage limitation. The key, to me, is a quote from the Port of Dover on 8 February that said:

“Traffic continues to flow smoothly through the Port of Dover post-Brexit transition.”


Does that not tell us that there is no problem that needs to be cured?

As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned, I hope the Minister will assure the House when she responds that this will be the last time that they try to extend these regulations, and there will be no more of these because, as the noble Baroness said, this is a road safety issue. The limits that were necessary before the Covid epidemic and before Brexit are still necessary now. It seems to me that, in the eyes of the Government, the supply chain is more important than road safety, and that is a very serious issue.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Lord Berkeley]

That this House regrets that the Drivers’ Hours and Tachographs (Temporary Exceptions) Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/58) will allow the continuation of relaxed restrictions on the normal rules on heavy goods vehicles drivers’ hours without evidence having been provided of the need for such a continuation or of its effect on road safety.

Relevant document: 44th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument)

Motion not moved.

Hauliers

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, all the speakers in this excellent debate have identified real problems that I suggest could have been thought about four years ago when we had the first Brexit vote. They can all possibly be solved, but it will take time, and at the moment it is a complete disaster. What have the Government learned from these issues and how will they change the procedures, documentation et cetera? More importantly, how do they intend that these improvements will be communicated to the industry? How will they work when we have the extra lines of problems coming in on 1 April and 1 July? Lastly, what consultation has taken place with the equivalent people in the European Union—or is it just us working on our own?