South West Rail Resilience Programme

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 22nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they intend to provide funding to ensure the timely completion of the works to protect the rail line at Dawlish from flooding, including Phase 5 of the South West Rail Resilience programme.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Berkeley, and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

Global Britain: Traffic

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 15th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend is asking me to withdraw from the devolution agreement for London. We have no plans to do that, and I encourage Londoners to hold the mayor to account.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on what the Government have done to get more bicycle lanes and footpaths since Covid. The problem is that so many people are getting fed up with car drivers and cycle lanes are now very full. Can the Minister say whether she has any plans to increase the number of cycle lanes in London or anywhere else?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Minister has no plans, because it is not up to the Minister to have those plans; it is up to the Mayor of London. The Mayor of London continues to invest in cycling and walking—that is his choice. The Government remain committed to cycling and walking as natural choices for the shortest journeys.

Vehicles: Headlamp Glare

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I will have to take that back to the department. It is not an issue I have come across previously. Headlight aim and bulbs are checked at the annual MoT test but, obviously, if there is not the correct equipment to do that we need to do something about it. Again, I will have to take that to the department; it is not something that has previously been brought to my attention.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, if the Government intend to bring in some regulations on glare, could it be extended to the glare from cycle headlights? Some of them are very bright and dazzle you at night. In this House many noble Lords talk about cycles with no lights, which is just as dangerous, but perhaps she could just look at the new lights that some cyclists use and check that they conform as well.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not aware that there are regulations around the use of bright lights for cyclists. I agree that they could indeed cause glare and be a road safety issue and, again, I will take that back to the department.

Merchant Shipping (Fire Protection) Regulations 2023

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

The global leadership to which this Government aspire is not just about talking big; it is about being a reliable international partner that respects laws and conventions to which it is a signatory. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the points she made. I too emphasise that this is not a criticism of the present Minister, who I know is trying very hard to catch up with these regulations; the problem goes back many years before she was appointed.

Today, the issue of fires on ships is very topical, because, as noble Lords will have seen, the ferry “Pentalina” caught fire near Orkney at the weekend and was grounded. I do not think that we know what the cause was, but, luckily, nobody was hurt. It indicates the importance that must be attached to fire prevention on ships. Its sister ship, MV “Alfred”, managed to hit a rock off the Orkney islands last summer—luckily, in broad daylight. Again, nobody was hurt, but these accidents happen, for whatever reason.

It is interesting to reflect that, while the noble Baroness’s amendment mentions a 20-year delay, the issue of lifejackets and bulkheads in river steamers was raised last year, which was 33 years after the “Marchioness” accident, in which a lot of people died. I appreciate that the Government are trying to catch up, but we have to comply with international regulations, and I hope that this work carries on. I am sure that we will all be monitoring the progress that the Minister outlined when she introduced the regulations.

I have one or two questions on some of the issues that the Minister outlined and on things in the Explanatory Memorandum. As we found when we were talking about seafarers’ wages, it is quite difficult and complicated. We are talking here, if I read paragraph 6.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum correctly, about

“passenger ships engaged on international voyages”,

which I think means being registered in the UK, and

“a small class of passenger ships engaged on domestic voyages”.

I suppose that includes the ships I have been talking about in the Orkneys. Does it include the ferries to and from the Isle of Wight? Where is the cut-off? It probably includes the “Scillonian III” going to the Isles of Scilly. I have no problem with this; I would just like to know what it applies to and what it does not. If you get a foreign-registered ship operating within the UK, I trust that the regulations still apply to it. It is terribly important that they do, of course.

I was interested to see in paragraph 6.2 the exceptions to the small ships regulations are that

“government ships and naval ships are not within scope of that instrument”.

Does that mean that it does not matter if naval ships catch fire or is there some other reason for not including them? Is there some alternative regulation? Naval ships, like any other ships, have had the habit of catching fire in the past and, clearly, preserving not only the lives of the seafarers but the government asset is pretty important.

I believe there is a sort of boundary between the 500-tonne ships included here and earlier regulations for smaller ships. I think the Minister has mentioned this before, but it would be nice to have some clarity on that.

My final point is on paragraph 7.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum. In her introduction, the Minister mentioned

“fire protection, prevention of fire and explosion, detection and suppression of fire, escape from fire, operational requirements, alternative design and arrangements and other requirements”.

That is a pretty wide-ranging definition. Presumably when the MCA gets round to the detail of this everybody will know what it is talking about but it is not very clear from this. It clearly has the right intention of reducing the risk and the scope of fire.

I suppose the issue that came up in the Explanatory Memorandum, which again the Minister referred to, is the fact that there are 19 different changes under paragraph 7. This indicates that the MCA is keeping up with different changes. That is very good but perhaps she could also explain what “ambulatory” means in relation to fire on ships. I look forward to her responses and again I congratulate her on bringing this forward because it is very difficult, very complicated and going to do good when it becomes legislation. I have posed a few questions and I look forward to her responses.

[Lord Greenway (CB)]

My Lords, I think this is the first occasion we have had to welcome the Minister to her new post as Shipping Minister. My mind goes back nearly 40 years to when it was almost de rigueur for the Shipping Minister to reside in this House, so it is extremely welcome to have a Shipping Minister back with us again.

These draft resolutions are extremely important, as has been pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. Fire, as she said, remains one of the major areas of disaster at sea. Ships, thank God, are not usually built of wood any more but they carry all sorts of noxious substances that burn like hell if they catch fire and there have been a number of notable examples recently even of car batteries catching fire and sinking ships.

I should say we are almost here again. Every time we have one of these regulations coming forward, we say the same thing: why has it taken so long for this to be incorporated into British law? The original fire protection regulations were in 2003 and almost immediately there was a change in 2004. As we have heard, there have been about 20 such changes since then. Why has it all suddenly come into one thing nearly 20 years later? It hints, dare I say it, at a certain amount of sloppiness in the department that these things have not been dealt with more promptly.

Our standing is still, thank goodness, very high in the International Maritime Organization but things like this cannot help in due course. I know we do not have the merchant fleet we had many years ago but we are still an important player in the maritime scene and I think we should be acting more promptly to agree new regulations.

The “ambulatory reference” provision is most welcome because I hope it will put an end to all this complaining about delay because when new regulations come out of the International Maritime Organization it will be automatic in future.

I certainly have a lot of sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. The performance of this country has not been up to scratch in these maritime matters, but I welcome the fact that everything should be sorted out by the end of this year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Before the Minister finishes on resources, can I make a comment? Most of the detailed work on catching up falls on the MCA. I have heard quite a few comments from people who deal with it saying that it is very short-staffed. The Minister shakes her head but I have heard it from other people. They say it is partly because the pay rates are pretty low but also because there is a shortage of people with the necessary highly technical experience. Perhaps she would look into that. I hope it is not what is restraining catching up.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Obviously, the MCA is quite a large organisation and has many different people fulfilling different roles. The question is whether we have the right people focusing on the backlog at this moment. We absolutely do, and I still intend to get the backlog cleared by 2023. I think that would be welcomed by all.

On the various other issues mentioned by noble Lords, it is worth reflecting on the impact of the delays of these regulations to UK ship fire safety. The vast majority of the ships on the UK register, to which these regulations apply, trade internationally. The vast majority will have been built with these regulations in mind. They already operate internationally and therefore need to comply with these requirements in other port state jurisdictions. We have seen no evidence that delays in introducing this instrument have led to an increased risk from fire on ships to which it would apply. Indeed, looking at the MCA surveys and detentions data, we believe that compliance with the requirements of SOLAS chapter II-2 has been very good. Since 2015, 21 UK ships have been detained for fire-related non-compliance, but none of these detentions related to contraventions of the requirements of SOLAS II-2.

As I noted in my opening remarks, there are other ways for the MCA to enforce against unseaworthy and unsafe practices on ships. We consider the elements within the contravention at all times. The MCA already provides advice on the convention, whether or not those amendments have already gone into UK domestic law, because they are advising ship owners and operators about when they are travelling beyond UK waters, when they will have to comply. It is not the case that we are starting from a clean slate and have ship owners and operators who do not know that this is coming down the track. They absolutely do: these are international ships plying international waters, and therefore they will be complying. The MCA has found no evidence that they are not. There is no question that the MCA is not keeping up with the changes per se, as a noble Lord or noble Baroness mentioned. It is just that the legislation has not been put in place.

A number of noble Lords mentioned the ambulatory references. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, seemed to imply that it was a new thing but, again, it is not. We have been doing it for quite some time, particularly for maritime regulations. As the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, pointed out, that is a way that we can stop this backlog building up again in the future, because one does not then need to go back to the original secondary instrument and change it whenever amendments are made. That is why we do it. Indeed, there are many more amendments coming into force on 1 January 2024, I believe.

There are safeguards that should be in after consultation with the industry. We are satisfied that we have very good consultation routes into the industry around SOLAS changes. If there are objections and the UK Government decide that they want to object to something, we would pass further secondary legislation to exempt that particular thing. In general, we believe that we have a high standing within the IMO, and we nearly always agree with the changes that go through. Therefore, we feel that putting in ambulatory references is absolutely the way to go.

I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, to the SLSC. I do not know whether I should be more or less terrified now as my secondary legislation goes through that committee, but I am sure that her immeasurable experience will be very helpful in that scrutiny. As I noted, there will be a few more to come before the end of the year.

I cannot give a timeline on the review of the domestic legislation and regulations for domestic voyages and ships. In maritime, there are different regulations for different types of vessels on different types of water, which is why it is so very complicated and needs to be reviewed and why we did not simply lump all the domestic vessels in with these regulations; that would not have been right. If I have any further information on the timeline, I will certainly write.

Which regulations cover other vessels is hugely varied. It never ceases to amaze me how many classes of ships there are. There are regulations relating to workboats, fishing vessels, domestic passenger vessels and so on, so I cannot provide a specific example covering all possible types of vessels. In general, naval ships will follow these regulations. However, they may have certain exclusions because of their need to carry out warfare, so they might be slightly different. The MCA still inspects naval ships, but they have a slightly different arrangement with the MoD, given the different tasking of those vessels.

I briefly want to cover the retained EU law point. Obviously, the retained EU law Bill is continuing its passage through Parliament. My department has the resources available and is starting to plan the legislative programme that will follow that Bill when it comes into law.

I am convinced that there are other things that I have not yet answered, but I will be very happy to write. In doing so, I will include a copy of the letter that I wrote to the SLSC on a recent update. I look forward to discussing maritime secondary legislation again with noble Lords in the future.

Network Rail: Funding and Reliability

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

If I may, I will explain to the noble Baroness what the process actually looks like. It is one that goes on for the whole of the year. The statement of funds available has been set and the Secretary of State has set out very high-level objectives. That is then given to Network Rail, which spends the process of the year doing the business planning. It does not do that in isolation; it does it under the scrutiny of the independent Office of Rail and Road. There are two determination periods—one that will happen in June and one that will happen by the end of the year, by when we will see how the £44.1 billion, which is quite a lot of money, will be spent, and what the performance outcomes will be.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

Has Network Rail really run out of money, or have some of the new projects been paused—or has all the money been put into HS2, leaving nothing for the rest of the railway?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, none of the above.

Public Transport in Towns and Cities

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness and speak in this debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for starting it off and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for finishing the report as chair. We also need to thank all those who gave evidence, written and oral. They were very interesting, long and useful pieces of evidence, which helped us come up with an extremely useful report—although I suppose that I would say that, would I not?

Let us be clear that public transport enables people to move around easily, quickly, safely and cheaply. It covers a whole age range—old and young, those going to school and college, as well as those with jobs and families. It affects everybody. How do we achieve that? The report speaks about the need for integration of modes and road space, which covers cars, deliveries, rail—suburban rail, anyway—buses and other means, such as scooters and things, which I shall come back to. But they need integrating in a way that includes allocation of space, costs and safety. I shall not say much about buses, because the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, spoke about them, and I spoke about them in a debate just before the recess.

On space on streets, I spent a day in Paris last week cycling on a green hire bike and I was amazed by the changes in that capital city over the past few years. Many noble Lords have probably been there in times past and know that trying to drive through Paris was a bit of a challenge, frankly. You never knew where you were going, who was going to hit you, who you were going to run over and everything else. It has changed completely. They have banned most scooters, which some people think is a good thing. There were too many before. But what I found so interesting was that van and car drivers gave way to pedestrians and cyclists without any hassle at all, and they all obeyed the traffic lights—which, again, does not always happen. The Parisian authorities have managed to educate mainly their drivers but scooter and cycle riders too, as well as pedestrians, to behave and work together.

I hope we could do this in future. I am sure that when she responds, the Minister will tell us that the legislation on electric scooters is imminent—even if she does not, I hope it is. As part of the legislation, I am convinced that there needs to be education here, not just in London but in many other cities, for cyclists, pedestrians and scooter drivers so that they all work together. It does not make much difference to the end result—you are still going to get there on time—but you will not have the hassle that we get at the moment.

There are examples in other cities as well, but the other issue is the cost of public transport, which the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, also mentioned. We have seen evidence of what is happening in Germany, with very low-fare season tickets, and just last week, another batch of season tickets covering regional trains and buses was announced. Austria and Switzerland have done the same. Apart from the benefits of simplicity and flexibility, there is the benefit of cost.

We have to understand that getting around the city—or villages, for that matter—is an essential part of life. Having buses cancelled outside London is really serious for people. We must recognise that many of us, as politicians, rightly set out our experience of travel, but many people cannot do what we do because they cannot afford it. They cannot afford a car or to get there by other means. Apart from the issues of poverty and shopping, there is getting a job. We need some regulation in the bus sector to support the continuation of the whole system, as noble Lords have mentioned, rather like we have on the railways. As the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, many more people use buses than use railways, but we do not get the same policy input into them that we should.

Sadly, a vociferous minority of politicians and business leaders like to use their own motor transport to get around, and they would rather have extra road space for them, with the effects on charges, safety and pollution, than succumb more to what happened during the Covid restrictions, which I thought was a really good change to the use of road space.

I hope we can get back to a situation, that probably existed in some of our lifetimes, whereby many people cycled long distances to work because it was the only way to do it and it was cheap. Now, you would probably get run over before you got back after your first day at work.

I am very pleased to have been part of this report. We have said some good and useful things but it is only a start. In future, I would like discussion about scooters, bikes and walking—active travel, as we call it—and the changes that will happen to freight distribution in cities and elsewhere. We need to look at what happens in the countryside, because if people cannot get around, there are no buses and they are imprisoned in their own home, that is just as bad as anything else.

I think the committee—it is not for me to decide, but I shall make my arguments—has a long way to go, but we have started. This will be a very interesting debate and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Transport: Investment Plans

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Berkeley]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how bus and rail passengers will benefit from the investment plans for the transport network announced on 9 March.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to have the opportunity to talk about this subject today. I promise that I shall say something different in the next debate, which has been fixed for the first day when we come back after the holiday. It is a mistake—I do not know whose mistake it is—but I shall make sure I do not repeat myself, and I am sure the Minister will not either.

I was persuaded to put down this subject for debate because of the launch by the Secretary of State on 9 March of a big investment plan in

“transformational transport schemes over the next 2 financial years across the country”.

I thought that was rather good, but when I looked into it, I had the feeling that there is lots of talk and lots of big figures—which we hear not just in transport but from many other people—but I want to question whether those schemes actually happen on the ground, where people want them to happen.

On the £40 billion over two years, it was confirmed in a Written Answer I received, HL6611, that it was the same budget over two years, and that included an extra £200 million for potholes—I am sure that is welcome. As for the rest of it, is the transformation growth or a cut? On the railways, the Midland main line electrification to Sheffield has been cancelled or postponed. For major roads, the statement says that they have cut £8 billion. We can have opinions on all this, but is it “transformational”? I am told that active travel has been cut by £3 billion, and lots of bypasses are referred to in the press release as being cut.

On buses, which are really important and on which I want to concentrate to a large extent today, the Confederation of Passenger Transport says that grants will now be 20% lower in real terms than they were 10 years ago. It may be that HS2 is mopping up all the budget, but leaving that aside, do all these cuts deliver for the customers?

I want to explore what the customers want, who they are and how they will benefit—this is transport customers all the way through. People need to travel—short, medium and long distances, and several times a day sometimes—to school, college, work or shopping, and sometimes once a year for a holiday. They also need to travel for important things such as doctors and hospitals, to visit friends or for caring et cetera. They are very similar to the needs that the NHS provides for. Many of those transport journeys are pretty essential.

We can walk, cycle or use scooters—I will leave that aside—but public transport is what everybody else will use for distances greater than the smallest ones if they do not own a car or cannot afford to run it. It needs to be safe, affordable and reliable.

It is always my impression when travelling around Europe that the charges and reliability of public transport are very much better than in this country. Some of it is very cheap. It seems to be the best way of getting around safely—and towards net-zero carbon—but we do not seem to care so much about those with no access to a car.

I welcome the Government’s new bus plan, as far as it goes, but to some extent it is another short-term fix. It does not enable people to plan where they might go to school, shop, work or live, and it does not cover all of England. When people want to use buses, they need certainty. The Transport Committee report published this morning commented of the bus service improvement plans:

“Local areas were asked to be ambitious, but the Department has not matched this level of ambition in the funding it has made available, pitting local areas against each other for a share of an inadequate pot.”


It also says that half the country has missed out. I hope that is not the case; perhaps the Minister has an answer to that.

One really bad example of the failure of buses is the community transport Dial-a-Lift funding in Northern Ireland. I know that the Minister is not responsible for transport there, but she could advise her colleague who is. They have cut the funding for Dial-a-Lift completely from the end of April and all the staff have probably been given the sack. This is because of the trouble with the Windsor Framework; I will not go into that, as we heard plenty about it yesterday, but it is a serious problem.

I will give an example. A young single mother in south-east Fermanagh has a 52-mile journey to hospital with her acutely ill six year-old son. She has no money or car; there is no public transport and the taxi service is a £60 to £65 fare. What happens to the child if she does not get there? A female wheelchair user had the same problem; a return fare in a taxi would cost £100. Previously, community transport provided all this. I have a bit of experience of this in Cornwall. The community transport people are really good; they are an essential part of the lives of people who do not have a car and cannot afford one. They reminded me that the Northern Ireland scheme was set up 25 years ago, which is a significant date in the Northern Ireland calendar. I hope the Minister can follow that up with her colleague and make sure that it does not happen here.

Our real challenge is in spending money on the railways, which I will not say much about. The National Audit Office has suggested that there needs to be a reset button on Euston; I suggest it should be a “Delete” button and send everyone to Old Oak Common, which everyone knows is a much better place. The key for railways is that there needs to be a much greater improvement in the services that people want to use every day to get to work, school, shopping or whatever. I have always had an ambition that this country would have a network of local services in the Midlands and the north as good as what we have in the south-east of England. But we do not have that yet, or any budget for it. It is very sad that HS2 seems to be swallowing all the money.

In conclusion, we need a long-term bus strategy. Who will provide it? That will depend on the next election. The Labour Party has produced some really excellent ideas about who should own it. The key is that it should be reliable, affordable and properly funded, delivered locally but with one consistent policy, and not dependent on how well the local authority has submitted its application—they are strapped for cash and time. It needs to provide a service for those who need it and do not have a car or do not want to use one—it is good for the environment, anyway. We need a long-term plan for the railways in the Midlands and the north, as many of us have said for a very long time.

I wonder whether some of the problem with transport is that politicians—we are all politicians—whether local or national, need to understand the needs of their electorate for local, cost-effective public transport and to put their regular daily journeys into a better state, rather than going once a week or once a month to places such as London.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I will of course look very carefully at the National Audit Office report. I do not know that it is saying that it believes that the line is unlikely to go beyond Birmingham; again, I would not know where its evidence would come from for a statement such as that.

We have an opportunity to improve the rail and local transport networks and to adapt to the needs of passengers today. There is a rare chance of some sort of redesign so that the system is fit for the future, because, as I said at the outset, I think all noble Lords want the same thing.

I will now turn to comments about HS2. The Transport Secretary has been very clear that Old Oak Common will act as a temporary London terminus while Euston is completed, but I do not think that any noble Lord should be under the impression that this will somehow be substandard. It will be probably the best-connected and largest new railway station ever built in the UK; it will have 14 platforms—six high speed and eight conventional—and it will be a transport superhub, providing connections to Heathrow via the Elizabeth line and, of course, high-speed rail services through to various parts of the country.

It was already planned that Euston would open later than Old Oak Common. However, we have decided not to proceed to full construction of Euston station in the next two years, which is the period that the Statement looked at, due to affordability and profiling issues. There is an opportunity to look again at the Euston station design to ensure that it is affordable and delivers for both the local community and passengers.

Following this debate, I will set out in a letter as much as I can about the phasing for the different elements of High Speed 2, including going to Crewe and beyond. It is important to put that on record.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her offer to write a letter. Will she also comment on the lack of a firm design for not the station itself but the approaches to Euston? My information is that there is no option that is actually safe to build, and that is quite critical.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I will certainly include that in the letter. I do not have anything with me today.

I turn now to buses, which, as many noble Lords have pointed out, are the absolute backbone of our public transport system. The national bus strategy, which we published back in March 2021, is a long-term strategy. It is important to understand the role of the BSIPs—bus service improvement plans. We asked all local transport authorities to prepare one, which they did, and we used them to look at how to prioritise funding. To a certain extent, there was no bidding process: we did not ask for bids but to review all the bus service improvement plans.

Noble Lords may ask themselves, “Where did these bus service improvement plans come from? Who inputted into them?” We were clear in the national bus strategy that they must have the input of local people; there had to be a passenger board, or whatever they wanted to call it. Listening to the input of local people and businesses allows the bus service improvement plan to have local accountability. I have heard two different things today: that we need to give more powers to local authorities but also that national government should take control of the bus network, as some noble Lords have suggested. Local accountability is really important.

Funding is absolutely key. The Government are spending an additional £3 billion. This is the largest investment in buses in a generation, and it is on top of funding that still goes out to local transport authorities or bus operators to support fares, such as the bus service operating grant of £250 million a year, and the concessions payment of about £1 billion a year. Local transport authorities also get funding in the block grant for tendered services. Unfortunately, some local authorities, particularly rural ones, decide not to use that money on tendered services. That is a disappointment, and local people should be holding those councils to account for those things.

Therefore, with the bus service improvement plans and subsequently the enhanced partnerships, which are a partnership between the transport authority and the bus operator taking into account what has been said by the passengers, that is how bus networks are planned locally. So it is not quite right to say that it is left to the market, because local transport authorities have quite a significant amount of leverage over the bus operators in agreeing what the enhanced partnerships should say, and 75% of enhanced partnerships have now been “made”—that is, they are in existence. Of course, if the enhanced partnership is not working or it is not what the local authority wants to do, it is at liberty to start franchising, and we know that places such as Greater Manchester have already done that. So there are many ways in which local transport authorities can exert power over the bus network to provide what their local people want.

I accept, as I did earlier today in the Oral Question, that the funding is short term at the moment, until 30 June, and that there is an enormous amount of analysis to be done: the impact of the £2 bus fare cap will be important—but also some of the BSIP funding, the revenue side of it in particular, is being used to support fares in places such as Manchester, Liverpool, West Yorkshire and Lancashire, so that will be important. The capital spending from BSIP will take slightly longer to come in, because that is all about bus priority, bus lanes and all those sorts of things, so we need to give that a little more time. However, the market is still in transition, so we are analysing where we are and looking at what any long-term future support might look like.

I know that the right reverend Prelate is a great champion of rural areas, and he was concerned that rural authorities would not have the resources to be able to do the BSIPs that we ask them to do. In fact, we gave them the money to provide the resources for that. We gave them £23 million to work up their BSIPs and enhanced partnerships and, subsequently, we gave all the local authorities that were not successful in getting funding—about half of them—£11 million to make sure that they could roll out the bus service improvement plans that they had. There are many things that they could do to improve services which do not necessarily require funding.

The right reverend Prelate will have heard me speak before about demand-responsive transport in rural areas—the bus fare cap is very good for rural areas, particularly on longer routes—and the BSOG really supports fares in rural areas as well. In addition, community transport is important in rural areas, which is also taken into account in any BSIP.

I am very conscious that I have 45 seconds in which to do rail. I recognise the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, in this area and his great interest in rail, and from a DfT perspective we recognise that performance needs to improve across the system. We have had numerous conversations about Avanti and TPE, and we know the impact of removal of rest-day working there. However, at the heart of it are the passengers, and GBR, the transition team for Great British Railways, is looking at that 30-year vision for our railways. We continue to invest billions of pounds in our railways for the sorts of local railways that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, wants to see. Now we have to look through the RNEP, make the correct decisions based on current passenger numbers, which again are not the same all over the country—some areas are seeing higher passenger return then others. Therefore the RNEP is being reviewed by Ministers at the moment and that will be published; the investment will continue, and that is part of the £40 million.

I note that I have gone over my 12 minutes. I know that there are many things that I have not been able to cover but I will certainly write a letter. Once again, I am always grateful to talk about railways and local transport—both subjects that are very close to my heart.

Bus Industry Support

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Snape, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

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

My Lords, on 17 February the Government announced that they will provide up to £80 million to extend the bus recovery grant until 30 June 2023. The department is evaluating the impact of this funding and working with local transport authorities and bus operators to develop sustainable solutions.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for her Answer, and I welcome the money that has been allocated. However, given that 80% of people who use buses have no alternative—in fact, in Northern Ireland, the community bus service has been completely cancelled from the end of April—is it not time for the Government to devolve the subsidy and funding of local bus services to local transport authorities to get a consistent and long-term service which will provide what people need and at a lower cost, and spread over the whole country the benefits that the Minister has provided?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not entirely sure that I follow the noble Lord’s thinking that, just by devolving it, the same amount of money will provide services at a lower cost. It is the case that local authorities get funding to support bus services, including from the fare cap, the bus recovery grant, BSOG and concessions. The simple answer here is that we have to make local transport authorities and bus operators work together more effectively.

Transport: South Wales

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

That was because assessment of that electrification project showed no significant journey-time savings. In 2018, the National Audit Office concluded that it is right to assess investment decisions about upgrades to make sure that they give passenger benefits. We have to put our funding where it can have the largest passenger benefits.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, in addition to the helpful comments from the Minister on south Wales and investment generally, what about rail connectivity between the south and the north of Wales? That is one of the worst links—it is the longest and I believe it goes through England—so will there be some investment for that?

Railways (Penalty Fares) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Lord Berkeley Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Lords Chamber

We were told that all this was going to change. As long ago as 2018, whoever was the Transport Secretary at the time—it is probably half a dozen Transport Secretaries ago—promised a simplification of the ticket system, which is as complicated as I have just outlined. Mr Grant Shapps, ever modest, during his spell as Secretary of State for Transport added his name to somebody else’s report to show how keen he was to simplify the ticketing arrangements on our railway system. He has been airbrushed out, a bit like the photo he published recently where the Prime Minister had been airbrushed out. He has had more jobs since than he has had aliases over the years. The fact is that since 2018, when his promises were made, nothing has been done to simplify the railway system and there are no signs of anything being done to simplify it in the future. We are committing fraud on the travelling public and fraud on the taxpayer with the current system. I beg to move.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow my noble friend Lord Snape. His speech was very interesting but I am afraid that everything he said about the problem with getting tickets is true. It is very tempting to refer to Spain, where I believe they have just announced that they will offer free travel to everyone on the trains. That would solve all the problems except those of the Treasury, so it is probably not worth even talking about. It comes down to the failure of the TOCs. They have no incentive because all the income revenue goes to the Treasury. That is where we are at the moment, and we have to find a solution. It must be a way of encouraging more people to use the trains and it must also, I hope, increase the revenue to the Treasury and to the operators in a way which does not put people off. My noble friend’s comments about Birmingham International and everything else were frightening.

We also look forward to hearing from the Minister on where the legislation is; it is part of the SI. She will probably be able to tell us that when she comes to respond.

I have been talking to one or two experts on the ticketing issue. I understand that a year ago, in January 2022, a ticketing system for the whole country was ready to be put in legislation. It is called CORS—the consolidated online retail system. The Department for Transport approved it. It is basically an online system that would allow anyone to buy a ticket between, to and from any station on the network remotely on their iPad. It is guaranteed to give you the cheapest ticket. It means that, with a little bit of checking, it would reduce the need for a large number of ticket inspectors and booking clerks. Obviously, there must be facilities for people who cannot use it—I accept that—but such a system has the great advantage of guaranteeing people the best deal for whatever journey they want to take, and they would be able to check it.

What this system needs, I am told, is for the Department for Transport to put it out to tender. Apparently, it does not need legislation, so why are we bothering to wait for the legislation and other things to come in? If it went out to tender, quite a few companies would want to run it and to make sure that the information they provided was 100% reliable and available to all the different ticket retailers—there are several hundred of them, I think—in this country. One can see that this system would also give people continuous information on their journey, which would certainly help people on Avanti routes, so that they knew what was going on.

During the train strike a week or so ago, I had to come to London from Cornwall, so I caught the National Express bus. The IT system for it was actually rather good. It is probably better than for many of the rail systems that we have because not only does it give you a map of where the bus stop is, saying whether there is a shelter and things like that, but it gives a progress report on where you are going and where you can get off. It was generally very customer-friendly. I believe that something like that, or even better, could be available on CORS. It would also help with something that my noble friend Lord Snape did not mention: if you want to go from, say, Plymouth to Glasgow, it is often much cheaper to buy several tickets for the different sections rather than one complete ticket. There are ways round that if you know them but, again, a computer would in effect do it for you.

There is a solution to this, which would require the Government to get on and put this CORS thing out to tender before the legislation we have all been promised for a long time comes into effect or is even discussed. It needs looking at as a way of not only protecting revenue but doing the most important thing, which is getting passengers back on the train. It is now a year since the system was apparently approved; although the legislation is delayed, there is no reason why this scheme should be delayed. I hope that the Minister will encourage her colleagues to put it out to tender, get on with it and tell us all about it, because I think that it is a really exciting system.

[Baroness Randerson (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Snape, for giving us an opportunity to debate this issue.

In principle, I fully accept the need to update penalty fares in line with inflation. However, if you look at the £20 fine that was fixed in legislation in 2005, the rates of inflation have been very low in the intervening years since 2005. It is highly unlikely that overall prices have multiplied by a factor of five in the past 18 years. Such a swingeing increase in the level of the fine or penalty fare is tone-deaf in a period of such massive disruption; for example, through strikes on the railway and, leaving the strikes aside, a very poor service from several train operating companies—including TransPennine and Avanti, to name but two. I fear that customers are totally fed up with the service they are getting in some parts of the country. Faced with fines of this size, they are likely to lose their temper with staff; I am not happy with the risks that that might pose.

This is apparently to be called not a “fine” but a “penalty fare”. That invites the question of whether the penalty fare should relate to the size of the fare that you should have paid; surely it should. You might have been going to pay a fare of as low as £5 to go from one stop to the next, or you might have been due to pay a fare of much nearer to £50 or £100. So the £100 fine—let us call it a fine because that is what it is—becomes totally disproportionate if you were due to pay only £5, whereas it is very reasonable if you were due to pay £50.

My belief—it echoes the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Snape and Lord Berkeley—is that the promised reform and simplification of fares must come first. I am frustrated by the delays to government plans. The reform of fares has been promised to us year after year. At the moment, it is only too easy to get the wrong fare by mistake. For example, I believe that there are three different definitions of “peak time” for trains going through Birmingham; Birmingham is featuring largely in our debate this evening.

I draw the Minister’s attention to the principles of punishment. When he was about to set up the police force, Sir Robert Peel coined the concept that it is not the severity of the punishment that deters criminals but the certainty of it. He said that at a time when we were deporting people to the other side of the world for minor theft. The police force was supposed to increase the certainty of being caught; indeed, it did so by a considerable amount. The problem on the railways now is the lack of certainty of being caught and the lack of inspectors on trains. Also, in many stations, gates are left open because there are no staff to supervise them; this happens often late in the evening or early in the morning. There is also a lack of staff to ensure that ticket machines are working. I urge the Minister to ensure that the Government incentivise train operating companies to employ additional staff and enforce ticketing rather than imposing what is clearly a haphazard fine regime.

Finally, I want to refer to the complexity of devolution. The Explanatory Memorandum refers to it; however, I have read and reread it, but I do not understand it, so I want to ask the Minister about it. It states:

“If a passenger is travelling on a train in England but is travelling to Wales … then the penalty fare of £100 … can be issued and an authority to travel for the section of the journey within England only. Penalty fares issued within … Wales are a matter for those devolved administrations to determine.”


It goes on to say that:

“Where a penalty fare is issued within England and the passenger wishes to travel to the next station which the train calls at and this is within Scotland or Wales, they should be issued with the penalty fare of £100 reduced to £50 if paid within 21 days but not an authority to travel as part of the penalty fare.”

--- Later in debate ---

I recognise the point that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, made about fatalities. When a fatality occurs on the railways, or on the roads, one always wants to get the system up and running again, but the police often advise, because the circumstances of the fatality may not be known, that they need to take their time to ensure that they have the evidence that they need so that, if there is any injustice, it is properly investigated.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness. She has given us a very interesting response to many of the questions that noble Lords have raised but, so far, has not mentioned what has happened to the Bill that was promised and mentioned in my noble friend’s Motion, which we are debating. Can the Minister give me some indication of why the Department for Transport has had this proposal to simplify ticketing, by using IT and everything else, for a year? It would save a great deal of money and give people a lot of confidence. According to some people I have talked to, this does not need legislation. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, has also said that parts of the Bill do not need legislation, so why can we not do that? I appreciate that the Bill is late—we could have a long debate about that—but what is holding this up, if it does not need legislation? I am told it is opposition from the train operating companies, but who is in charge? Minister, you are in charge.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Oh, good! I take the noble Lord’s point. I was going to spell out a number of things that do not require legislation. We want to legislate and we must do it when parliamentary time allows, but there are many things that we can do without legislation. I will take back the specific point about the ticketing system and maybe write to the noble Lord and all who spoke in the debate to see if I can find a little more clarity on that.

While I am on a roll on this, the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, mentioned long-term planning, which is one of the things that we do not need legislation for and which we have been thinking about. We are developing for publication the first draft of a long-term strategy for rail. I am sure noble Lords will appreciate the opportunity to debate that when it is published, because it sets out a long-term vision for our rail system over the coming decades.

To conclude, the vast majority of passengers who travel on our railways have the right ticket. If they do not, there are understandable circumstances. We accept that there is flexibility in the services that the train operating companies offer. However, we believe that the increase in the penalty fare is a sensible measure to discourage travel without a valid ticket, because it is simply not fair on other passengers or the taxpayer.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, for the debate today. I have no doubt that I will be back at this Dispatch Box to discuss the railway system again, and I look forward to it.