Industrial Action on the Railways
Lord Berkeley Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I recognise that my noble friend is trying to be helpful here, and I appreciate it, but the Government are committed to working with the train operating companies to put in place as many services as we can to minimise disruption to both freight and passenger operations where possible. Shutting the railway for the entire week would be shooting ourselves in the foot. We absolutely need to provide those services for as many people as possible, because we know that so many people are reliant on the railways.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I get the impression that this crisis has just occurred in the past week, but that is not the case. The trade unions have been talking about this for a long time; the Government have been talking about Great British Railways for a very long time. We do not really know the extent to which these two issues are combined and whether the noble Baroness’s wish for change and the examples she gave will be included in legislation, but it seems very odd that we are now waiting until the last day before anything significant is happening.
I do not buy this business that the Government are not a principal. Since Covid, for very good reasons, the Government have been micromanaging the railways, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said. They are not allowing the train operators or Network Rail to negotiate. I do not know whether they mind about that but if they do not, the Government should take it on themselves.
I ask the Minister: what next? We have three strikes this week and, if there is no solution, what happens next? She and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, mentioned agency workers, but the last time we had an issue with agency workers related to P&O Ferries. Ministers were quite critical of P&O, to the extent that the Secretary of State said that he would sack its chairman. Whether he actually had the power to sack the chairman is a different matter, but if this goes on and agency workers are brought in, how can the Secretary of State sack himself? That really would not work. I hope that next week or by the end of this week, whatever the reasons, the Government encourage everybody to sit around the table and start talking about change and how it can be implemented while keeping the services going at the same time. As the Minister said, in France—I have a lot of experience of what happened on the railways in France—there is a rule that the trade unions allow one train in four to keep going, whatever the strike, so that there is at least a minimum service.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked: what next? The most important thing, to my mind, is for the unions to come back to the table—to sit down with the train operating companies and Network Rail to reach a resolution.
Hovercraft (Application of Enactments) and Merchant Shipping (Prevention of Pollution) (Law of the Sea Convention) Amendment Order 2022
Lord Berkeley Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Lord Mountevans (CB)
My Lords, I have no comment to make on the hovercraft provisions but should like to raise two points. I am concerned about possible creeping criminalisation for seafarers. A pollution incident could take place due to a fault in a valve, a pipe or some such—work that could have been done by a shipyard or other third party—or something for which the crew are arguably not specifically responsible. I want the Minister to be very careful about extending to seafarers in this way criminalisation which might not be appropriate.
The second point is that shipping is a reserved power, but the legislation will generate different actions depending on the registered port of the vessel, so that a vessel registered in Aberdeen would not be liable to action, whereas a vessel registered in Southampton would. It would not matter per se whether the incident happened in the UK or elsewhere in the world, but the provisions in Scotland appear to be different and, if the ship is registered in Scotland, British ships could incur different penalties for a similar offence.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her introduction of this very interesting SI. My first question is: why now, apart from the fact that Brexit has happened? We have all been travelling on hovercraft for 40 years or more, and one could assume, therefore, that it has been all right to pollute from hovercraft for 40 years without anyone worrying and you need only one person on the bridge because the regulations do not apply to hovercraft. Can the Minister explain why hovercraft are different? There are other types of fast passenger boats around these days—they are probably called “jet boats”, or something like that. I am not sure why a hovercraft is so different, apart from the fact that it gets its lift from air which does not leak out. It is still a craft and therefore obviously still needs to be subject to the pollution regulations and the manning rules.
On manning, is the intention to make rules for hovercraft the same as for any other passenger vessel, where, I think, the rule is that if you do not have more than 12 passengers, you can have one person as the crew, whatever the size of boat? But then there are various rules according to the number of passengers, size of ships, weather conditions and everything else. Hovercraft generally do not operate in bad weather in the way that many ships can. Perhaps the Minister can explain how the manning regulations would be different on a hovercraft from an ordinary ship in the number of crew wanted.
Lastly, I think that, as the Minister said, the only service now in the UK is the one across to the Isle of Wight, but there used to be one across the channel. If that re-emerges in some shape or form—between the UK and France or another EU country—will we get into the same knot as has happened with P&O Ferries with manning and everything else? I hope that will not involve coming back here with some more regulations; I hope it is already covered. I look forward to her answers.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
I thank the Minister for her introduction, and the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, for pointing out that the situation will be different in Scotland. It will also be different in Northern Ireland, so far as I understand it from my reading of the SI.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
No, the situation will not be different in Wales; as so often, it is a case of “England and Wales”.
I join the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in asking why this is happening at this point. My research suggests that not only is there only one public hovercraft service left in Britain, but there appears to be only one commercial hovercraft service left in the world. If that is the case, hovercraft really are yesterday’s technology. They are even less likely to make a comeback following the huge increases in the price of fuel, because they consume very high amounts of fuel as well as being unreliable as a passenger service, of course, because they are difficult to operate in bad weather—and we get a lot of that in the UK. In modern terms, although hovercraft are exciting and interesting to travel on, they are environmentally unacceptable because of their high fuel consumption.
My suspicious mind led me to wonder whether there was a specific Isle of Wight issue. I would be grateful if the Minister would address in her answer whether specific aspects will be applied to the Isle of Wight service, which, despite all that I have said, is an important part of the infrastructure connections for people living on and visiting the island.
When I had stopped wondering why the measure was being introduced now, after all these years, I wondered whether this was part of the major catching-up exercise that the Minister has bravely embarked on in her department. We know that the Department for Transport has a backlog of marine legislation that long pre-dates her coming into her position there. Is this part of a routine catching up to ensure that we can apply rules to hovercraft that apply to other types of seagoing vehicle? I would be grateful if the Minister could answer my questions now, or in writing afterwards if she is unable to do so immediately.
Ryanair: Afrikaans Language Test
Lord Berkeley Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I will certainly take that idea away and see whether it is a route that will achieve the quickest resolution to this matter.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, following on from my noble friend Lord Foulkes’s question, could the Minister have a look at the processes at Prestwick Airport? I am told that passengers can go through without any delay whatsoever. Maybe they have got something to teach the rest of us.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
If we are talking about specific experiences at specific airports, I landed at Gatwick on Friday afternoon and 30 minutes later, I was standing outside waiting for my minicab. The point is that it is not happening at all airports at all times. There are certainly peaks when things are falling over a little, and that is the thing we really have to tackle. As I say, the Government are well aware of the issues and we are looking to see what we can do.
Electric Vehicles: Supporting Access
Lord Berkeley Excerpts(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, the Government are doing an enormous amount to make sure that the take-up of electric vehicles is as swift as possible. We have introduced plug-in grants, we will be spending £1.6 billion in total to support charging infrastructure, and there are favourable tax elements relating to zero-emission vehicles. At the moment, the Government do not have any plans to introduce a specific zero-interest loan scheme for the purchase of electric vehicles, although there are various loan schemes on the market that people may wish to look at. On the zero-emission vehicle mandate, we are currently conducting a technical consultation on the design parameters for the mandate, which is open until 10 June.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness said that it is cheaper to run electric vehicles, but that rather depends on the price that people have to pay for buying the current. Would she agree that those who are in most need of cheaper vehicles will probably be paying the highest price for their electricity, depending on where they get it from? In addition, when will she insist that all the plugs and sockets for the different makes of cars are interchangeable?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The noble Lord was quite right to say that it depends on where people get the electricity from. It is the case that, for many people who are able to charge at home using off-peak electricity, prices can be as low as 2p per mile for the running costs of an electric vehicle. However, the Government are very cognisant of the fact that we need to introduce charging infrastructure in more places other than peoples’ driveways, which is why we reformed the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme in April 2022 to provide more help for those in flats and in buildings owned by others.
Queen’s Speech
Lord Berkeley Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, it is a real pleasure to be debating this evening on the three issues which come so well together: levelling up, communities and transport. I welcome the fact that we are to have maybe one or more Bills—I am not quite sure but it does not really matter, as we will have plenty of opportunities for debate. There are many other things, such as maritime EVs, buses and air, which have not been mentioned.
Before I move on to more transport things, I have one question on housing. When the Minister comes to reply, can he say a little about whether the right to buy from leaseholds is to be included? That was something which the Law Commission produced in an excellent report several years ago. It was promised after the first leasehold Bill and I am wondering whether there is to be another, because I have a lot of friends with an interest in that.
The other interesting thing which the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, said in her introduction was about low-speed machines—I think she called them something like that—which seemed to be an excellent summary phrase for pedicabs, other e-bikes, scooters and the delivery of freight by bikes, electric or otherwise, some powered and some not. It may even cover what the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, said about wheels to work.
The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, mentioned in her speech the connectivity of people. I am pleased to be a member of her Select Committee on the Built Environment. I can understand how both she and the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, were pretty angry about and critical of pedicabs and e-scooters. The solution is probably some form of education, persuasion and discipline to make people use these things and park them in places which are reasonably attractive, without getting rid of their usefulness. I have been trying out one or two scooters in London—legally, with my driving licence—and I invite the noble Baroness to join me one day on a scooter. My noble friend Lord Snape gave an invite to the Minister too. I can see she is shaking her head, but they are actually very good.
The great thing is that when you get off a train at a station or off a bus somewhere and you want to go a couple of hundred yards very quickly, you can just jump on these things and off you go. Of course, I do it on the road; I pretend I am a cyclist most of the time. I think the idea of having something like that for personal transport and connectivity is terribly important and I look forward to the debate on this and the Bill when it comes out.
The next thing that the noble Baroness mentioned in her introduction was the commitment to net-zero carbon. Well, they are good words but, to me, the Government’s actions to date have, frankly, been the opposite. They seem to have reduced the need for road vehicles—cars and trucks—to comply with some reduction of carbon that should happen. Fuel duty has stayed the same for many years and rail fares keep shooting up with very little comment about the relative contribution to net zero.
On Great British Railways, the noble Baroness said that we are going to have a world-class transport network. Those are fine words but there may be some way to go yet. I need convincing of the benefits of Great British Railways. This all started with the Williams review in 2018, which is four years ago now. He produced a very useful demand analysis which is still missing. Perhaps we will have a new one when the Government publish the Bill alongside it.
I go back to what must be 20 years ago when the Government created the Strategic Rail Authority. Ministers were fed up with making decisions on very small details on the railways so they created the authority that was going to run the railways, the track and the operations—ticket sales, buying, maintaining and operating rolling stock, et cetera—so that the rail sector was in charge and not subject to the then Department for Transport mismanagement. They created it but then a few years later, not very long after, the Strategic Rail Authority did something that the Ministers did not like. What did they do? They abolished it and went back to micromanagement.
I was involved in rail freight at that time. There were two or three years at the start and finish of the SRA where nothing happened at all. There was no investment and no changes. I hope that is not the intention this time. The whole problem at the moment is money, and because of that the Treasury is running every detail. I would like to know—I probably will not hear it this evening—where will this change?
Most people agree now that investment in the railways is primarily needed for local and regional services. This is why it is so sad that very little electrification has been announced in the last five years. I know there was a problem with the Great Western line but I think that has all been solved by the industry. Electrification is where we are going to get much greater quality of service and better frequency, et cetera, but we do not have it.
I hope that when we get some legislation—if we do—on what I suppose is called localism in the regions, they will be able to drive investment in the railways. Will local leaders be able to do this? At the moment, it is the opposite. I support the Mayor of Greater Manchester in suggesting that a station should be an underground station for HS2 at Manchester. However, whether I am right or wrong, the mayor and a lot of the other mayors around there want that underground station while the Government want a surface station. Nobody has produced any costs as to which is better. Certainly internationally, through-stations at capital cities are much more efficient and much less land hungry and probably cause much less disruption. That is happening at Stuttgart in Germany at the moment. My question, really, is: why are the Government insisting, against the wishes of so many people in the region, on having something that the people apparently do not want, although of course they would probably rather have it than nothing?
The other problem is that the integrated railway project has allocated £96 billion for the regional projects, but that will all be taken by HS2, so there is no more money for electrification. That is not good for the regions.
On the Minister’s statement that this new structure of the railways will avoid spiralling costs, the only spiralling costs in the railways at the moment are for HS2, which the Government control. There is no electrification and we have nothing on fares; they keep on going up, but we do not have any new ideas on that. We have to encourage a system where people use the railways, and I suspect that the people who run the railways, including from the commercial sector, are better at deciding that than civil servants.
When we finally get the new Bill, I hope we will see some evidence of demand and of the changes that have happened, and that we will have a little more transparency. At the moment, the only forecasts that I know of are connected with rail freight. There is a forecast of how much rail freight is needed north of Crewe on the way to Cumberland and beyond, compared with the HS2 and west coast main line. That forecast is commercially confidential. I hope that Ministers will publish that—it is only two years old—along with a lot of other information to support the view that Great British Railways will actually be worth the hassle.
High Speed Rail (Crewe–Manchester) Bill
Lord Berkeley Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That if a High Speed Rail (Crewe–Manchester) Bill is brought from the House of Commons in the next session of Parliament the Standing Orders of the House applicable to the bill, so far as complied with or dispensed with in this session, shall be deemed to have been complied with or (as the case may be) dispensed with in the next session.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I would like to speak very briefly to this Motion. I emphasise that I am not suggesting that I oppose it; it is a normal procedure Motion, and it should in my view carry over. However, I want to raise two issues of some concern about the progress of a Bill that will start in the other place and eventually come here.
First, I detected serious disagreements between different authorities in the Midlands and the north about what is in the integrated rail plan and the present Bill, which concerns Crewe to Manchester. There were quite public disagreements, and I am not sure how they can be resolved, but they clearly do need resolving to meet the objective—which the Government have rightly followed —of prioritising east-west improvements in the Midlands and the north. I am hoping that the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, who has just been appointed chair of Transport for the North, will be able to help with this.
My other concern is over budgets. The integrated rail plan budget of £96 billion was designed to set out the rail improvements that need doing as well as HS2, but it includes the HS2 budget. If you deduct from that £96 billion what is already going to be spent on HS2 from London to Crewe, there is actually no money left at all for other projects. That is really serious from the point of view of the people in the north and Midlands who want improved east-west connections. One of the main questions is whether the Manchester terminal for HS2 should be a surface station or underground so that you can carry on through to other places. I think the second option is more important and modern. But that is not the point; it needs agreement between all the parties.
One of the problems with a hybrid Bill is that once Second Reading has been agreed in the other place, it is very difficult—in fact, almost impossible—to make any changes. I know that some colleagues from all parts of the House of Commons would like to kill the Bill. This would be a very great shame. I am not saying I support what they are doing. It would be a shame to kill it, because so much work has gone into it.
I think it would be useful if the progress of the Bill were paused until there were proper agreement between all these authorities and the Department for Transport about what is really wanted. Is there a sufficient budget to achieve it? If that were to delay things by a few months, so much the better. It is difficult to start a Bill in the other place at this stage when one, if not more, of the major mayors in the area is highly critical of what is being done. I hope that this can be resolved. I am sure the Minister will have some views on this and I look forward to her comments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, I simply do not recognise many of the noble Lord’s concerns, particularly around things such as budgets. I am well aware of his feelings about the HS2 project. We have had many conversations and debates, both in your Lordships’ House and beyond, about it. His views are well known. I am not surprised that the noble Lord has raised these issues in the manner in which he has done, and I am sure that he would like to see the Bill paused—but it is not going to be.
This hybrid Bill will probably take three to four years to complete its parliamentary passage, which is perfectly normal for a hybrid Bill. The noble Lord raised important issues about getting people to agree and understand. The petitioning process is part of that process, to ensure that we make people as happy as we possibly can in the context of building a very substantial transport infrastructure project. So, no, the Bill will not be paused and I beg to move.
Motion agreed.
West Coast Main Line
Lord Berkeley Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, had I turned up late to the Dispatch Box, obviously I might have had to resign—but not today. It should be remembered that we understand that there have been various issues relating to services. We work extremely closely with all the train operating companies, as the customers come back to the railways, to make sure that they run on time. There has been an issue around cancellations regarding staff-related absence, but we are working through that and things are improving. Of course, part of having these contracts in place means that we will be able to get better service for customers.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I have heard the same stories as my noble friend about the pretty appalling customer service from Avanti, and I reflect on the fact that the present structure seems to require the Treasury to micromanage everything—even if Network Rail wants to paint the railings on a station, it has to get Treasury approval. This is probably not a very efficient way of working. Can the Minister assure the House that, when we hear details of the Great British Railways, which is going to save us all from appalling services, that will be taken into account and somehow there will be some delegation and authority for the railways to run on their own with incentives and not too much bureaucracy?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I absolutely agree with what the noble Lord has just said. Of course, the Great British Railways transition team is already focused on delivering improved services for customers and driving revenue recovery. At the moment we know that passenger demand is about two-thirds of what it was pre-pandemic. It is looking very closely at boosting strategic freight again which is really important and developing this whole 30-year vision for how we want our railways to operate in the longer term.
P&O Ferries
Lord Berkeley Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I reassure the noble Baroness that we are reviewing all of our relationships and contracts with both P&O Ferries and DP World.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, following on from the questions from my noble friend Lord Snape and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, can the Minister explain the difference in employment rights and arrangements between the various ships operating in UK waters? What are UK waters? Do they include Dover to Calais, Northern Ireland to Scotland or England, and—I think probably not—Dublin to Holyhead? How do these arrangements vary or differ from the contracts for ships which may be registered in the UK but are longer distance and still international, carrying containers or oil? There seems to be a lot of confusion, which I suspect P&O directors are trying to take advantage of by various devious means.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The noble Lord has highlighted the complexity of employment law in the maritime sector. The International Labour Organization has the Maritime Labour Convention, which sets out the minimum standards for some key employment and working conditions policy areas. However, it does not go nearly as far as we are able to go from a UK perspective for seafarers who are UK residents, work on a UK-registered vessel and are ordinarily working in the UK. We are able to offer them the same levels of protections as they would get if they were working onshore.
Payments to Train Operating Companies
Lord Berkeley Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I am always thinking about Yorkshire. The noble Baroness raises an important point. There is an amount of money that will be going into the system, which will be used to service what is at the moment a lower number of passengers. That is where we must get the balance right. We must work with industry to support it on the initiatives and boost demand, also ensuring that the services are there when they are needed. The increase of 3.8%, compared with what inflation is currently, is not significant, given that we could have had a more significant increase had we used an RPI from a later month.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I press the Minister a little more on the question asked by my noble friend Lord Rosser about Network Rail’s costs. I understand from many in the industry that Network Rail has been told to cut its costs by 40% in the coming year. That seems an enormous amount, compared with what it is doing at the moment and the need for safety. Can she confirm whether that is true or completely wrong?
Bus Services: Covid-19 Emergency Funding
Lord Berkeley Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Berkeley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to extend the COVID-19 emergency funding for local bus services beyond the end of March.
Lord Snape (Lab)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Berkeley, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.