Automated Vehicles Bill [HL]

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 6th February 2024 Lords Chamber

In Committee, I said that one of the things that we disabled people chant on a regular basis is that there should be nothing about us without us, so I am grateful for the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, that would ensure that disabled people will be part of the continuing review in future, particularly with the reports that he is proposing. If we do not have disabled people involved in design right from the start, and if we do not design accessibility in right from the start, the automated vehicle of the future will not include millions of disabled or elderly passengers.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond on disabled access, except Amendment 8. I should say that I added my name to the amendments, but belatedly. I think my name is on them in the online list but not in the printed listed today.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that I think my disabled access Bill is number 14 or 15 in the Private Members’ ballot yet again. It is a simple little measure that says that if a step is less than 12 inches, it should have a ramp for disabled access. Of course, it will not get anywhere; the equality department will block it, as it has blocked it every single time, because it no longer gives a damn about disabled people.

On automated vehicles generally, I am afraid that I trust no one on their safety—not the manufacturers and not the Department for Transport. The only person I trust on them is Jeremy Clarkson. I remember when he said to the chief of Audi, who was boasting about his new automated vehicle, “If you sit in the back, let your vehicle drive the Bolivian highway of death and come out the other side, then I’ll buy one”. That is my view on automated vehicles.

However, my concern today is about automated vehicles for hire as cabs. I have never used Uber in my life. I believe it is a disreputable company which does not pay its drivers properly. Its untrained drivers do not have a clue where they are going, and, if I may say so carefully, many seem to be recent arrivals in this country; they cannot find their way to the end of the street without a satnav, and then they stop wherever the satnav tells them to stop or pick up, such as on zebra crossings or in the middle of the road—the dropped kerb that wheelchair users use is one of their favourites. My main concern is that if black cabs in London, or converted Peugeots or Fiat Doblòs in the rest of the country, are wiped out by Uber’s Toyota Priuses, we in wheelchairs will never get a cab again. I do not rate Uber Access as credible if you want to hire a car this decade.

Has my noble friend the Minister heard of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee? It is part of his department. I have in my hand a piece of paper produced by the department. It says that taxi services must be fully accessible for all disabled persons. It calls for WAVs—wheelchair accessible vehicles—for all, and commends London cabs, 100% of which are wheelchair accessible. It goes on to say that, in the country as a whole, only 58% of taxies are wheelchair accessible vehicles, as are only 2% of private hire vehicles. I shall quote verbatim one paragraph from the department’s wheelchair accessible committee:

“Concerningly, the situation seems to be deteriorating. The launch of Uber and other app-based systems for booking PHVs has resulted in an increase of over 4% in the number of licensed vehicles. But they are nearly all PHVs and, in London, there has been a reduction in the number of licensed taxis which has resulted in an overall fall in the number of WAVs on the road”.


That is what will happen throughout the country if the Government permit all automated vehicles to become PHVs or taxis without building in a wheelchair accessible requirement.

Just look at the chaos in California and San Francisco in particular. Have noble Lords seen on the news a single wheelchair accessible cab there among the thousands of lovely dinky cars, such as Ford Focuses and Toyota Priuses? The Prius and the Focus are marvellous little town cars—great runabouts—but I cannot get my dodgy legs in the back of them, even when I am not trying to get a wheelchair into them.

I say to my noble friend that I do not support Amendment 8. I hope he will not push it, because it would apply to all cars and that is wrong. People must have the right to buy any vehicle they choose, even if you cannot swing a cat in the back of it. Before Cats Protection issues a fatwa, let me make it clear that I am referring to the cat-o’-nine-tails, not pussycats.

I hope the Government will insist that any new automated taxis are wheelchair accessible. If they make that clear in law now, vehicle manufacturers will design them—not that there is much to design; it has already been done. The new London black cabs are absolutely fantastic. They have excellent wheelchair ramps, there is lots of space and, for the first time, they seem to have added springs to them. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Borwick on making that happen. So we can just stick the automated computer thingy on to those cabs, or the converted Peugeots I found in other parts of the country. The Peugeot Tepee, they are calling it—what a ghastly name that is. There are Mercedes Vitos, Citroën Berlingos and Fiat Doblòs. All have wheelchair access. So with automated vehicles it is a simple matter of sticking a computer thing on to the vehicles that are there already. I do not want the Government saying, “Oh, this is going to be disproportionate cost and it is a burden on the industry”. It is not.

We were slowly getting more and more wheelchair-accessible vehicles across the country. The Government must ensure that the new technology of automated vehicles does not set that into reverse, as is likely to happen unless some of these amendments are made—but not Amendment 8.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I might add a word for the very large number of people who are not in wheelchairs but who depend, like I do, on a stick. When pavements are so awful in this country, they need a lot of consideration. They walk around at their peril, often due to the irresponsible use of scooters, which are insufficiently regulated by the department.

Pedicabs (London) Bill [HL]

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is a delight to follow my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston, who has made a very powerful case for this Bill. I give my full support to this trivial little measure, although I did feel sorry for His Majesty during the Loyal Address: he waited 70 years to make a Speech and he had to read out this little Bill. Nevertheless, I support what the Bill is seeking to do.

These things bring this aspect of London into disrepute. They are usually noisy, garish, hold up traffic already ground to a halt by TfL’s obsession with one-way streets and cycle lanes, and in far too many cases they rip off tourists. Why anyone would get into one without first checking the price and then hand over £500 without creating a fuss and calling the police, I simply do not understand. However, I accept that many foreign tourists will be scared to argue, and if they are paying by card then the crooks driving these things can easily add extra zeros.

I was warned about taxi scams when I monitored the elections in Turkey a few years ago, and I was told to video with my phone any notes I handed over, since the cabbies would say that I had given them only 10 liras instead of 100 liras.

Many years ago, when I could still walk, I came out of a restaurant in Regent Street at about 10.30 pm and could not find any black cabs anywhere. I broke my usual rule and took one of those cars from shifty, little guys offering cheap taxi services. We agreed £8 to get me from Regent Street to Marsham Street, but when we were on Victoria Street, he said that it was now £24. I said, “Not on your life, pal”, but he insisted that it was £24. So I said that I wanted to change my location and asked him to drop me off at the junction of Caxton Street and Broadway. When we stopped there, I pointed out the revolving, triangular Scotland Yard sign and said that I was popping in to report him. He told me to get out of the taxi immediately, and he drove off without taking any payment. I accept that the Bill can clamp down on similar pedicab rackets, and I therefore support it.

But are there any good points about pedicabs? They move slowly, unlike e-bikes and e-scooters. You can usually hear them, because they make an infernal racket with loud, raucous music, unlike e-bikes and e-scooters. Of crucial importance, they have not killed a single person —as far as the department knows, according to a Written Answer to me—as opposed to the silent killing machines of e-scooters. That is why I call this a trivial little measure: we have in front of us a full-blooded government Bill, which will go through all stages in both Houses of Parliament, to deal with a menace that has not killed a single soul, while we are doing absolutely nothing about banning e-scooters, which have killed more than 25 people over the last four years and seriously injured over 100 more.

These are statistics I have on a regional basis: in the east of England, there has been one death and 11 serious injuries; in the east Midlands, three deaths and 24 serious injuries; in the north-east, one death and three serious injuries; in the north-west, five deaths and 24 serious injuries; in the south-east, including London, 10 deaths and 36 serious injuries; and in the south-west, four deaths and 15 serious injuries. I do not have the figures for the West Midlands, but I think that they are almost the same as for the south-east.

What we can say for certain is that, since 2019, more than 25 people have been killed by e-scooters, with more than 100 seriously injured and about 400 with other injuries. By serious injuries, I do not mean broken legs; I mean life-changing injuries with permanent brain damage or being confined to a wheelchair. Many of those were children, mown down by thugs on e-scooters authorised by government trials or used illegally as privately owned vehicles. I have a full Excel spreadsheet with all the statistics across the regions that I will forward to my noble friend the Minister. I will not mention the number of dogs killed and injured, since that would make me too angry in this noble House.

I want to amend this little Bill to tackle the far greater problem of innocent people not being ripped off financially but being killed and injured by e-scooters and e-bikes, and the scourge of them being abandoned all over the pavements. Just pop across the bridge to St Thomas’ Hospital across the river, where the pavement is impassable because of e-bikes blocking the pavement—although they do not block the pavement after I go past, since I can bulldoze them into the road with my big wheelchair. What I and other pavement users have to contend with are the Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats fast-food bike riders, who drive down the pavement at full pelt all the time, delivering to unsuspecting customers food that they think has been prepared in top-quality restaurants but has actually come from some grubby bulk-cut kitchens under the arches. I am big and ugly enough to fight them off, but tens of thousands of more helpless pedestrians, including the frail, elderly and blind, are now risking their lives daily in London, and some of our other cities, because of e-scooter hoodlums driving at speed on our roads and pavements and abandoning their vehicles on the pavements.

In submitting evidence to the Commons Transport Select Committee in March this year, Sarah Gayton of the National Federation of the Blind of the UK said:

“It is very clear the e-scooters trials have failed, turning pavements into terrifying rat runs for e-scooter riders and dumping grounds for e-scooters when not in use. The trials have shown that even with strict regulations, e-scooters cannot be regulated safely for the rider, for pedestrians and pedestrians who are blind, visually impaired, disabled or vulnerable. Some of the trials visited have mercifully been shut down, along with others not visited which have been turned off and there is an urgent need to shut all remaining ones down as they are still not safe, cannot be regulated safely and are a danger to the public”.


That was the organisation’s conclusion after visiting 18 cities, some multiple times, where e-scooter trials were taking place. Trials in Rochdale, Birmingham and the West Midlands, Coventry, Slough, Kent and Barnstable have already been shut down because of the carnage they were causing.

Now, anytime you raise this with the department, it says that enforcement of the law is a police matter. Of course it is, but this is Pontius Pilate writ large. As we saw last Wednesday night, the Met stood by and did nothing as a baying mob barricaded MPs and Peers into Parliament and no arrests were made of any of those demanding the destruction of Israel and the death of Jews, so do we seriously think that the Met will devote time and resources to chasing after hoodlums riding on the pavement? Of course not, and, to be fair to the Met and any other police force, dealing with terrorism, rape, robbery, murder, housebreaking and the frightening new levels of anti-Jewish hate are far more important than dealing with e-scooters on the pavement. The Department for Transport knows that, and therefore the responsibility now falls on it to legislate to save lives where the police cannot.

The police in Paris, who know a few things about how to knock heads together, could not handle the e-scooter problem, so Paris banned them. What joyous relief it is now to be on the pavements of Paris with no death-dealing e-scooters anywhere in sight or blocking the pavement.

Therefore, in conclusion, I want to amend the Bill to ban all e-scooters in England from any public highway, including pavements, and give police powers to immediately confiscate any they find being used on public roads. All rental e-scooter trials should cease immediately, with greater penalties imposed on cyclists riding on the pavement, especially if they are commercial couriers.

As an aside, I urge our parliamentary authorities to tell the Met Police that, although people have a right to protest, parliamentarians in both Houses have a far more important right, which is to go about our duties free from intimidation, threats and barricades at Victoria station but especially around these Houses of Parliament.

I apologise to have made most of my speech talking about what should be in the Bill, but I am only partially sorry, as I can see no other opportunity in this Session of Parliament to prevent another 25 deaths and hundreds more life-threatening injuries.

E-bikes

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Yes. The Government are extremely active in this area. As I said previously, the DVSA has a market surveillance programme. Each retailer must check that the EAPC is compatible with the regulations. To date, five retailers have been prosecuted and there have been fines and criminal convictions, while many other investigations are ongoing. Such retailers are instructed to recall and remedy any non-compliant products. There is a system for catching these products. If there are products out there that have an off-road capability, for example, where you can switch it to more than 15.5 mph, we believe that those products do not comply with the regulations and we would encourage the DVSA to take appropriate enforcement action.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My noble friend the Minister is right that this is a matter for police enforcement, as other noble Lords have pointed out. However, she knows as well as I do that not a single police force in the country cares about this issue or is doing anything about enforcement. Will she use the powers of her office to gather every chief constable together for a conference and tell them to enforce the law for the safety not just of the riders but of the pedestrians who get mowed down on the pavement every day of the week?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Department for Transport, the Home Office and the leaders of police forces across the country speak frequently about road safety. The messages about e-scooters and e-bikes are passed on, as are wider issues around road safety. As I say, these are operational decisions for the police; we must leave it to them to make those decisions for themselves.

Avanti West Coast

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My goodness, on that last point, I completely agree with the noble Baroness, although I have had a go in a simulator and was not very good at it.

I agree that recruitment of train drivers is essential. The average age of a train driver is 51. The average retirement age of a train driver is 59. We must get some youngsters and a more diverse group of people into driving trains, because that is the future of a modern railway service that operates purely and solely for the benefit of passengers and freight, which we are very much focused on.

Turning to how we hold the train operating companies to account, I am sure that all noble Lords will have read the ERMAs, which are published. In those agreements are the criteria that we set out for the train operating companies to meet various standards in order for them to receive any performance fees. The noble Lord mentioned a performance fee of some £4 million. That relates to a period donkey’s years ago, way before the period that we are talking about. For example, in the period from September 2020 to March 2021, Avanti received no fee at all for customer experience.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that, since I was elected in Penrith in 1983, I calculate I have done the Penrith-London journey, to and fro, at least 2,600 times? Is she aware that I thought British Rail was atrocious, Virgin was a magnificent breath of fresh air and Avanti, I can honestly say, is 10 times worse than British Rail on a bad day? It has cut the trains in half. You cannot book until a few days in advance, and then it is at an exorbitant price with no cheap tickets. When you do book, your seats are double-booked, because bookings are cancelled overnight. Food is often not served. The only thing that works well is disabled assistance, the “cripple buggy” and the people in Penrith who help me out. That works remarkably well. So, now that my right honourable friend the incompetent Mr Grant Shapps has gone, will she ask my right honourable friend Anne-Marie Trevelyan to remove this franchise immediately and give it back to Virgin, which ran a ruddy good railway line?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Well, I am pleased that my noble friend is pleased with the disabled service, which has received a huge amount of investment and insight recently. It is critical that our trains are accessible to everybody, and being able to onboard and offboard a train is a key element to making them accessible. I hear what he says about the service to Penrith, of which he is a frequent user. We all want it to be better, but we have to play on the pitch we have got. In this situation, if there are not enough train drivers to drive the trains, we cannot have the services. We are holding Avanti to account in looking at its plans to recruit more train drivers, and of course we are looking at its performance. No decision has been taken about whether Avanti has a role to play in the future of Britain’s railways. That will be taken by the new Secretary of State. All options remain on the table and evidence is being gathered as we speak.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands–Crewe) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords & Report stage
Monday 30th November 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

5: After Clause 58, insert the following new Clause—
“Biodiversity net gain
The scheduled works must achieve 10% biodiversity net gain.”

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as in the register as the deputy chair of Natural England. Amendment 5 stands in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Randall of Uxbridge and the noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I will also speak to Amendments 6, 7 and 11 in this group. I give notice to the House that I will seek votes on Amendments 5, 6 and 7 unless the Government see light on the road to Damascus or even on the line to Crewe.

First, I thank my noble friend the Minister for the numerous meetings she has held with Peers proposing amendments. If we have not been persuaded, it is no reflection on my noble friend—it is just that some of us are difficult blighters at the best of times. However, on this occasion we think we might have some merit on our side. Noble Lords may consider this an unusual grouping of Peers, but we are all united in our desire to protect and enhance UK biodiversity, which has declined drastically over the last 50 years. We are not seeking to stop or slow down HS2a, but we suggest that a flagship construction project should be a flagship regeneration project for our flora and fauna too, and it can be done at little cost.

Amendment 5 would insert a new clause stating:

“The scheduled works must achieve 10% biodiversity net gain.”


The Government’s policy is that all new developments must achieve 10% biodiversity net gain. This has been welcomed by developers who see it as a selling point for their properties. However, the policy does not apply to national infrastructure projects, which in my view should be leading by example. Indeed, even Network Rail and Highways England have committed to net gain in the future.

Clause 92 and Schedule 14 to the Environment Bill, currently in another place and which this House will get next year, lays down a requirement for 10% net gain, but the HS2 policy is just no net loss. Leaving aside the point that when one destroys an ancient woodland there is an irrecoverable loss, that policy is now way out of date. In 2015, no net loss might have satisfied the public and the then Government, but it is out of step with what the Prime Minister has announced in the last few months and out of step with the mood of the times on to our environment.

Just last week, the Prime Minister said in the national infrastructure strategy that we must build back better and greener. He made the 30x30 pledge and recently launched a massive programme of nature recovery networks. Therefore, the old HS2 policy on the destruction of habitats and wildlife is way out of tune with the Government’s new thinking on nature recovery.

I pay tribute to the Government and to my honourable friend Andrew Stephenson MP, the Minister in charge in another place, for pushing HS2 to do more than just achieve no net loss. This amendment is designed to help my noble friend the Government by putting HS2a under an obligation to achieve 10% overall biodiversity improvement when the project is complete. HS2’s green corridor ambition can contribute to the project’s environmental legacy, but it is unlikely to deliver net gain on its own.

The main misconception about net gain, and this has been said in Committee, is that it would involve more compulsory purchase of land adjacent to the line. That is absolutely not the case. Achieving net gain in this project is similar to the environmental land management schemes being designed for farmers, launched this morning. That would mean HS2 offering incentives for landowners and others to develop biodiversity projects. These may be adjacent to the route or even many miles away. HS2 could fund new woodlands, peat restoration or wetlands improvements and these do not have to be tied to the route. It could fund landowners or organisations such as the RSPB, the Woodland Trust and local wildlife trusts to carry out nature recovery work elsewhere, so long as by the end of the project all the works had achieved a 10% net gain overall.

Natural England calculates that the cost of net gain over the whole HS2 route would be 0.01%, or £100 million. Here we are dealing with a section one-third of that length and a guestimate of costs would therefore be about £35 million. That would be a one-off cost. The wage bill for the 1,389 HS2 staff last year was £109 million, and that will be a recurring cost for 15 years or so. Thus, achieving net gain is a very small cost but a huge environmental gain. We should expect HS2 as the Government’s flagship infrastructure project to lead the way and go above and beyond the minimum and achieve what we will legislate for next year in the Environment Bill.

HS2 is unnecessarily antagonising organisations which would love to weigh in behind it if it would do a little bit more for biodiversity. There will be some who will always be opposed to the project, but many highly respected NGOs would publicly support HS2 if it achieved net gain and saved ancient woodlands.

That brings me on to Amendment 6, and my proposed new clause:

“The scheduled works must not destroy any ancient woodlands, either directly or indirectly.”


A number of ancient woodlands would be damaged or destroyed by the current proposed route. No matter how many new trees we plant, we cannot replace the biodiversity lost when an ancient woodland is destroyed. These are not just old trees. When habitats have been left to develop for 500 years or so they become complex ecosystems holding a wide range of flora. Ancient woodlands have declined dramatically over the years and now cover only 2.4% of the UK. That is far too small a size to sacrifice even more.

I quote from the Government’s own National Planning Policy Framework, which instructs councils that

“development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats (such as ancient woodland and ancient or veteran trees) should be refused, unless there are wholly exceptional reasons and a suitable compensation strategy exists”.

Of course, the Government then list as “wholly exceptional” any old national infrastructure projects where they exempt themselves from the rules they apply to everyone else. In this day and age, I do not think Governments will get away with a policy of “Everyone must obey the rules, except us.” That mood is changing.

If ancient woodlands have to be destroyed, Natural England proposes a replanting ratio of 30:1. That seems high but it is a recognition that you have to plant a lot more new trees if you are going to try to ameliorate the damage done by the loss of ancient woods. I shall say no more on this subject, on this amendment, because I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, who is an absolute expert on this matter, will talk about ancient woodlands. I look forward to hearing what she has to say about this amendment and her Amendment 13.

My last amendment, Amendment 7, seeks to insert a new clause stating that:

“All plants and trees planted on any of the land on which the scheduled works take place, or in mitigation of the effects of those works, must be … British native species, and … sourced in the United Kingdom.”


This is not a little Englander new clause, suggesting that I do not want nasty foreign trees when we have left the EU, but a recognition that our native wildlife needs native plants and habitat to survive. For tens of thousands of years our native fauna has survived and developed in a habitat of native British flora. Putting it simply, we cannot have native red squirrels unless we have the native trees producing the nuts, fruits and seeds on which they survive. The Back from the Brink project, to recover 20 species from near extinction, depends on native habitats.

This new clause is necessary because HS2 plans to plant one-third of the plants and trees from latitudes of up to two degrees south of the midpoint of the route. Planting trees from further south may make sense for commercial forestry, guarding against climate change, but does nothing to help our native fauna survive. Eucalyptus trees from France may be very good for timber but I understand their leaves are toxic and that only koala bears and possums thrive on them and we do not want those species running around our woods. Thus, we need UK native trees and plants to support our native wildlife. However, I mention that as an extreme example and I do not expect to see these exotic species from France, but it is highly likely that the one-third will be sourced from the largest supplier of trees and plants in Europe: the Netherlands. Last year, we imported £1 billion of trees and plants from Holland.

As colleagues will know, we face an increasing threat from diseases unwittingly imported along with plants sourced from abroad. Even if we step up biosecurity when we leave the EU, there will still be an enormous risk of bringing in destructive bugs and diseases. For any imported seed stock, HS2 must follow the relevant hygiene regulations as set out in the Plant Health (England) Order 2005 and it must comply with the latest biosecurity certification standards on planting and importation. But that is what is supposed to happen at the moment for all imported seeds and plants and yet we have ash dieback, oak processionary moth and spittlebugs, and God help us if Xylella fastidiosa gets here because it can destroy 500 different tree species. Of course, many bugs and diseases are hidden in the soil.

No doubt noble Lords with more expertise than I will correct me if I am wrong, but is it not the case that every single bug and disease which has devastated our trees and plants has come in from abroad despite the best efforts at port control with phytosanitary measures? Do not take my word for it on the risk. In July 2019, the Dutch Federation of Agriculture and Horticulture issued a warning to all its members saying that they had to take special care that they did not export the oak processionary moth to England along with all the English oaks they exported to us. If even the Dutch exporters are warning about the dangers of their products, should we not exercise a bit more caution? The one-third foreign planting advice satisfies the technical advice from the Forestry Commission and Natural England, but I am suggesting that we should be more cautious than the technical advice. The danger is not foreign eucalyptus but foreign English oaks.

At this precise moment—or he may have finished now—my noble friend Lord Gardiner is upstairs in the Grand Committee taking through a large SI on protecting us from invasive non-native species. A week today, he is taking through a massive SI with 13 annexes on plant phytosanitary conditions. Defra is well aware of the threat but it seems that the Department for Transport is not. That is why a requirement on acquiring plants from UK sources is so important. It will also be good business for UK nurseries that can easily supply all that would be required. We have a huge range of UK native trees and there is no excuse not to use them. One has just to look at the Woodland Trust website to see the full range and all animals, birds, butterflies and other species that depend on our native flora for survival.

I have just read, this weekend, the Woodland Trust publication, published this month, called Tree Provenance Choice in a Changing Climate, which addresses this biodiversity argument. The Woodland Trust says:

“For woodland conservation, resilience, and enhanced biosecurity, evidence suggests that tree seed sourced from local UK provenances will be best adapted for UK sites in the long term … Wherever possible, trees should be sourced from within the UK in order to prevent further introductions of damaging pests and diseases.”


Again, I say simply: do not take my word for it but listen to the experts on this occasion.

I want to say a few words on Amendment 11. The noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, has drafted—in my opinion—a more detailed and better amendment than mine. I look forward to her speaking on it, but I will seek a vote on Amendment 7 if the noble Baroness does not seek one on Amendment 11.

I cannot see any downside to the Government accepting Amendments 7 or 11. They carry no extra cost, give a big boost to UK plant growers, provide native trees and plants for our native wildlife, and are a 100% cast-iron guarantee that we will not bring in another devastating plant disease. It is a win-win-win-win for all of us but especially our tress and wildlife.

I apologise that I have spoken at length on these amendments, so I will not try the patience of the House by speaking to any other amendments today, but I do support Amendments 10 and 13 in another group, when they are reached.

In conclusion, the cost of what we propose here for this short part of the route is infinitesimally small in comparison with the overall cost of the project. Our amendments would not slow down construction. If we are to have a world-class new railway, we should preserve our existing world-class woods and wildlife—what remain of them. HS2 should guarantee a substantial environmental legacy that is commensurate with the status of a flagship government infrastructure project. I hope that the Government might accept these simple amendments of mine or that of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone. I beg to move.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is an extremely great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Blencathra. He has made a very eloquent case for all the amendments in his name and those that I have signed with him. First, I draw attention to my environmental entries in the register of interests.

--- Later in debate ---

I hope my intervention has provided some clarity to the House, and that my noble friend Lord Blencathra is feeling satisfied and will therefore withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, naturally I am grateful to all noble Lords, both here in the Chamber and online, who have spoken both for and against my amendments. Since I spoke at length in moving them, I shall be as brief as possible now.

On Amendment 5 on net gain and Amendment 7 on native-sourced trees, I feel that the Government have not really won the argument. I have seen a note from the Government today—and my noble friend the Minister repeated the point—saying that Amendment 5 would be disproportionately expensive, could entail redesign of the scheme and would turn valuable farmland into biodiversity sites. That really is a bit desperate. Disproportionately expensive? We estimate £35 million out of a total HS2 cost of £106 billion; £35 million is just a four-month wage bill for HS2 staff.

The suggestion of redesign of the scheme is just nonsense. There is no redesign of the scheme involved in offering incentives to farmers and NGOs to voluntarily do some biodiversity schemes, either near the route or elsewhere. What redesign is involved in giving the Woodland Trust, say, £2 million to restore some ancient woodlands—or in giving the RSPB £2 billion to develop wetlands somewhere else? There is no redesign involved at all. God help us if that is what the Department for Transport officials think “net gain” means. At this stage, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson: HS2 boasts that it is trying to achieve no net loss. I have never seen anything that says that HS2 will achieve net gain. If it were achieving net gain, none of us would be speaking in favour of these amendments; they would not be necessary.

The other argument against Amendment 5 is that we would lose valuable farmland to biodiversity. Does the Department for Transport never talk to Defra? Today, Defra has launched the most massive scheme in our history to incentivise farmers to use land for biodiversity purposes. The Secretary of State, my right honourable friend George Eustice, said that it is the most significant change to farming and land management in 50 years. All my Amendment 5 on achieving 10% biodiversity net gain seeks to do is to replicate that voluntary scheme for HS2 phase 2a, and get other volunteers near the route or somewhere else to do some biodiversity net gain.

With regard to Amendment 6 on ancient woodlands, I accept that if every ancient woodland were to be avoided, that would result in route changes. That is unlikely to happen, and I accept that; I accept that this was my weakest amendment. However, I want to vote on it to signal to HS2 that we do not want this to happen with further legs. As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and maybe the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, we will be here in a couple of years’ time—or six months’ time, according to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis—looking at the next leg, another leg that will bulldoze through more ancient woodlands, and when we complain about it the department will say “Oh, it’s too late to change it now, it would mean route redesign and greatly increased costs.” I would like Peers to vote for Amendment 6 as a signal to HS2 that we do not want more ancient woodlands destroyed, up with which we will not put.

On Amendment 7, I just do not understand where the Government are coming from. We are talking about woodland to support native wildlife, not simply planting commercial forestry for timber. I accept that the advice of the Forestry Commission, on one-third of seeds from warmer climates to guard against climate change in future when you are looking at a crop lasting 50 or 70 years, may be perfectly valid to support commercial timber growing, but in the woodlands we are looking at a lot of trees that will be short and stumpy things, since Network Rail hacks down anything above 20 feet in any case if it gets too tall and interferes with the lines, which is fair enough. Is it seriously suggested that we need trees from warmer climates since one-third of our species will not survive the next 20 or 30 years? In this sort of planting for native wildlife, we are looking at the natural regeneration of rowan, holly, birch, wild cherry, hawthorn, blackthorn, alder, crab-apple and things like that. I have seen no evidence that climate change—which I agree will happen—will be so drastic that the species I have mentioned will not survive the next 20 to 30 years or so.

I listened with great care to the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Carrington and Lord Lucas. I am happy, if we can guarantee that no plants come in from abroad, that we are going to get biosecure seeds that will be grown in this country. That is an improvement. I simply do not trust HS2 to go for that option. If some big supplier in the Netherlands does a deal for plants that are a fraction of the price—I have bought plants from the Netherlands for my gardens over the years at dirt cheap prices; unfortunately, half of them died but that was probably my fault—then HS2 will go for that. So I would like to push that amendment to a vote too.

My noble friend Lord Caithness was right: I should not have said that by taking nothing from abroad we are 100% guaranteed not to get new diseases, but we will have severely diminished the risk. I accept that some may come in airborne or in timber, but if we do not import plants or trees from abroad, at least we will 100% guarantee that we will not get soil-based or plant-based bugs or diseases, although the risk of airborne ones is still there. We cannot catch every disease that we may import but we can severely reduce the chances.

It is with regret that, for the first time in nine years in this House, I wish to push my Amendment 5 to a vote—against the Government’s advice—as well as, I am afraid, the two amendments afterwards.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Blencathra]

6: After Clause 58, insert the following new Clause—
“Preservation of ancient woodlands
The scheduled works must not destroy any ancient woodlands, either directly or indirectly.”

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

We now come to Amendment 7. Does the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, wish to move it?

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

In view of the fact that we are running very late, and there is an important Covid Statement coming up, I do not wish to try the patience of the House—or of the Chief Whip, for that matter, so I shall not move Amendment 7.

Amendments 7 and 8 not moved.

High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, after I put this amendment down, it was slightly taken over by events in the form of an interesting letter from the Public Accounts Committee to the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Transport dated 4 November. I was interested in the comments made during the various stages in the Commons on this Bill, when many Members of Parliament were critical of the way HS2 handled issues in their constituencies. This came from all parts of the House. From what I have read and heard, this criticism was much more justified because the situation seemed to be much worse than in the case of the promoters of HS1.

One issue was the lack of information, so I thought that it would be reasonable to ask that HS2 and the Government provide quarterly reports that include overviews of the project, the programming schedule, the community and environmental impact of the whole project and more details of each phase. Since then, or probably at about the same time, Ministers have started to produce six-monthly reports, which are a great step forward. I thank Ministers for that. Whether they should be quarterly or six-monthly can be debated, but certain things are missing from all of them—they are identified strongly in the Public Account Committee’s letter. I will summarise one or two, because I think that they could go into the reports. I hope that Ministers will agree to do this, because we do not want to have to divide the House on something like this.

The PAC talks about the programme uncertainties within HS2. There seems to be evidence of that and it is frustrating that there are so few signs that HS2 and the department are taking PAC concerns about transparency seriously. It asked for information and did not get it. There were questions about phase 2b—my noble friend Lord Adonis mentioned this—and the implications for rail connections in the north as well as decisions on Euston Station.

Then there is the question of value for money. We have talked about that before, but it relates to the post-Covid potential demand for travel. The letter points out that, in giving evidence to the committee, the Permanent Secretary, Bernadette Kelly,

“appeared to assume that travel patterns and growth will return to, or be the same as, those before the pandemic. This assumption should be thoroughly tested and explicitly justified, if it remains the Government’s best estimate.”


There was then something that one does not often see in letters from the PAC: a recommendation, although some people would call it a demand. It suggested that,

“you perform an up to date assessment of the different scenarios that could affect the long-term business case of HS2 as a result of the pandemic … Please write to us within six months”.

I have raised in the House on various occasions the question of future demand for all railways. My impression is that Ministers are not taking it seriously at the moment, or perhaps they do not have an answer. Well, nobody has an answer, but I suggest that at least it should be part of some scenario planning: we are not going to get one answer, but we can probably get a range. It is reasonable to ask for the revenue forecasts and the cost-benefit analyses, whether it is every three months or every six months. I hope that the Minister can say that, as part of the six-monthly reports that they are now providing, they will in future add in some of the things that I suggest are missing. They would fit in nicely with the response that, presumably, Ministers are going to give to the PAC. I beg to move.

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I perfectly understand the need for the Committee to have a break and a stiff drink after any of my speeches; it is just a pity that we cannot get the stiff drinks any more. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, on this group. I wish the Government had implemented his report rather than the Oakervee one, but that train has long since left the platform.

I will speak first on Amendment 9, on which I declare my interest as in the register. I am embarrassed to be so high up in the speakers’ list when there are so many experts, such as the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, and my noble friend Lord Randall, who are better qualified than I am to talk about ancient woodlands. This is a modest little amendment, calling simply for an annual report on the impact of the work on ancient woodland. I also support Amendment 4 in this group, which is much more demanding than the modest request in Amendment 9.

Network Rail’s Enhancements Pipeline

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

Will the Minister appoint me to run Network Rail? I will bring to bear exactly the same skill set: I will lie about the initial cost of projects by a factor of four, just to sucker the Government into approving them; I will deliver them five, 10 or 15 years late; I will let the costs rocket out of control and not care; and I will have a salary of half a million pounds please, which is a big cost saving. Am I suitably qualified?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am sure that my noble friend would like me to say that I will of course appoint him to lead Network Rail, but, unfortunately, he is going to be disappointed. He slightly underplays the huge developments in recent years as we established the RNEP. It was established only in 2018 and what it tried to do—and indeed does—is to put in one place, open for scrutiny, all the projects that we are considering, whether they are at the initiation, development, design or delivery stage. We provide updates every quarter; that is good transparency and provides for good scrutiny.

Electric Scooter Trials and Traffic Signs (Coronavirus) Regulations and General Directions 2020

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Tuesday 29th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, we come to the second debate this afternoon on dangerous goods. It is unusual for me to find myself in complete agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. I have already apologised to my noble friend the Minister for being thoroughly unhelpful to her on this subject.

After four months of staying inside and on my first afternoon back in London two weeks ago, in the short journey from my flat to this House, I was nearly hit by a big e-scooter on the pavement outside the Department for Transport in Marsham Street. A few minutes later, another thug on one of these almost ran me down on Millbank, on the pavement just by Black Rod’s Garden.

When I used to go to Paris last year with the Council of Europe, I had first-hand experience of these things. Most Parisians do not ride them on the pavement but a large minority do, and everyone abandons them all over the pavements in their tens of thousands. Some 20,000 of these things are now causing what the Mayor of Paris described as “complete anarchy”. Even the French Financial Times said:

“An electric scooter scourge is stalking Paris”


and the French Transport Minister said that Paris was experiencing the “law of the jungle”, although that is unfair on nature behaving properly in its habitat.

That is what is coming to every city in this country. These scooters weigh up to 55 kilograms, and with an average male of another 83 kilograms, that is 28 stone of solid mass hitting pedestrians at 15 miles an hour. The Department for Transport’s road death research shows that a pedestrian hit at 15 miles per hour stands a 3% risk of death and a much larger chance of serious injury.

To those who say, “That’s all overseas; it’s the French and it won’t happen here”: it already has. Just five days after starting a trial in Coventry, the company Voi had to stop all operations because its managing director said:

“I think we have a British antisocial behaviour issue across the country … We haven’t seen this level of antisocial behaviour in any other market. We have had great experience of it but the volume of it in the UK was quite surprising.”


He said that people were riding the scooters on the pavement and had a disregard for the law. If the company trying to get us to use these killing machines says that, we should stop this experiment until we have proper control of them.

If the Government are determined to push ahead, these regulations must be changed to reduce the weight to no more than 25 kilos and the speed limited to 10 miles per hour. Even then, these scooters are still silent killing machines when driven on the pavement. Therefore, the Government must copy Voi and insist on number plates, or some sort of numbering system, so that cameras can identify them. There is then a slight chance of enforcement.

We see cyclists blatantly riding over zebra crossings with pedestrians on them and through red lights, and there is no enforcement. There must be strict enforcement for these e-scooters. People will dump hired machines anywhere but will safely park their own dearly bought scooter. The policy there is wrong, too.

I do not know how Paris has got it so wrong with scooters, given that it and Strasbourg—which I also visit regularly—are so civilised about cycling. There is not a single helmet or bit of Lycra in sight. People ride upright with the handlebars higher than the seats. They can ride on the pavements and I feel perfectly safe among them. What a contrast with London, where you can see nothing but Lycra-clad bums in the air as wannabe Bradley Wigginses mow you down on the crossing at 1 Millbank.

If the Government persist with introducing this measure, I hope that an instruction is given to every police force in this country to enforce the law. There should be none of this nonsense of engage, explain, encourage, pat on the head, sympathise or bend the knee. If the police turn a blind eye to enforcement, I hope that they will ignore me when I use my stick to get one of the scooters off the pavement or when I chuck an abandoned one from the pavement under the wheels of a 30-tonne lorry. I say to the police: do your duty and enforce the law, or the law will be brought into disrepute with every other law. They should do their duty or we will see the same anarchy as in Paris.

Brexit: Road, Rail and Maritime Transport (EUC Report)

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, as one would expect from the EU Committee, containing so many distinguished members with considerable experience of these matters, this is an authoritative report. Of course, as has been pointed out, it is now two years old and a great deal has happened since then.

I will speak relatively briefly on road and maritime matters. On road haulage, it seems that there are two outstanding problems that I read about. I read that a group of eight logistics organisations wrote to the Government recently expressing concerns about IT systems and paperwork, as well as about keeping the supply chain going. Personally, I think that they exaggerated the concerns about food shortages. That is nonsense. Do your Lordships remember about two years ago, when the Opposition demanded a statement about the food catastrophe that we would not be able to get iceberg lettuces from Spain? “So what?” I thought, “They are tasteless rubbish in any case”. The supermarkets brought them from California instead. There will not be shortages of food, but we may not get strawberries from Morocco in December as easily as before.

The media and too many politicians believe that trade happens because politicians and Governments make it happen. Not so; trade happens because there are people wanting to buy things and people wanting to sell them those things. We have seen how Covid-19 has changed the way businesses have managed to get round obstacles to acquire and sell goods. Do we seriously expect French cheese sellers not to find a way to get their products to the UK as speedily as possible, or for our retailers not to similarly find new suppliers and new delivery routes? The same goes for all EU food manufacturers and suppliers, so let us not exaggerate the dangers of food shortages.

As for new routes, can the Minister update us on the progress being made on enhancing alternative ports for import and export in addition to Dover? As for the IT problem, I simply do not know—I suspect that most of us do not—but I look forward to the Minister reassuring us on that point.

Finally on road haulage, I turn to the question of Brussels’s refusal to grant British truckers wide-ranging access to the EU. Britain wants truckers to be able to continue picking up and dropping off goods inside and between EU countries. I understand that we also want transit rights for drivers crossing to places such as Turkey. In return, I understand that we have offered the right for EU trucks to travel to Ireland via the UK. I would like the Minister to update us on those discussions as well.

Surely we have a very strong hand to demand reciprocal rights. The vast majority of Irish/EU trade goes through Holyhead, with only a small amount directly moved between the Republic and EU countries. Quite simply, if the EU does not permit our truckers to pick up return loads in EU countries, it will suffer more if we refuse to let its truckers do the same on journeys to Ireland. I hope that the new Minister, my noble friend Lord Frost, will make that threat abundantly clear, in the nicest possible way, and that he will also point out that we have no intention of doing it unilaterally, so the EU should sensibly play ball here.

Turning to maritime, it was refreshing to read the committee’s report showing that the UK is in an excellent position and that maritime transport is largely regulated by international rules, not the dead, bureaucratic hand of the EU. Every day in coming to this House I see the wonderful International Maritime Organization building on the other side of Lambeth Bridge, which is a symbol of the UK’s leading role in maritime matters and rule-making.

The report of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, quotes the Government’s White Paper:

“The maritime sector is liberalised at a global level. On that basis, UK ship operators will be able to serve EU ports largely as now, following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.”


The report goes on to say:

“Maritime transport is generally liberalised and underpinned by an extensive body of international law. Post-Brexit, UK and EU ship operators will in most respects be able to access each other’s ports as at present.”


However, the report raises concerns about cabotage—mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty—which is regulated at EU level, and says that some companies could be affected. Can the Minister confirm how much that would be on a worst-case scenario and how many companies would be affected? I read somewhere that it would be very few, as it is a small part of our business.

Surely any losses in that area can be more than compensated for if we push ahead with free ports. I am a huge supporter of free ports, and I quote the International Trade Secretary Liz Truss, who said:

“Freedoms transformed London’s Docklands in the 1980s, and freeports will do the same for towns and cities across the UK. They will onshore enterprise and manufacturing as the gateway to our future prosperity, creating thousands of jobs.”


Supporting this claim, the construction group Mace says that free ports could help create 150,000 new jobs, while annually contributing £9 billion to the UK economy. I understand that the British Ports Association has joined forces with a number of organisations—the Port of Milford Haven, the Port of Tyne and the Institute of Export and International Trade—to create a new trade campaign called Port Zones UK. In September, the alliance published a report outlining a number of areas of intervention the Government should look into if they want to attract international investment as part of their free port programme. The study also promotes

“regional growth centred on key UK transport hubs, through the designation of enhanced ‘Enterprise, Development and Free Trade Zones’.”

In conclusion, can the Minister comment on the progress we are making in pushing ahead with free ports, and does she agree that the jobs created and money invested would far outweigh any losses caused by cabotage?

I commend the Government on the robust stance we are taking on negotiations with the EU and all the excellent preparations being made for a no deal, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.

Public Service Vehicles (Open Data) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I join my noble friend Lord Holmes in paying tribute to those unsung heroes: the bus drivers, taxi drivers, lorry drivers and shelf-fillers who have kept the country going during Covid-19.

I totally support these regulations—they seem like a jolly good idea, creating a sort of Trainline.com for buses. My interest today is in what the Government will do with the information they collect. It seems that they will put all the information on a website, but will they develop any apps for users? According to my understanding of the regulations, anyone else can take that information and invent an app, so long as they credit the Government as the source of the data. Is that correct? Are there any circumstances in which the department might wish to develop its own app, albeit that that seems a risky policy these days? When does my noble friend the Minister expect the Government’s website service to start? Will the Government wait until they have every bit of information from every operator, or will they kick off when they have, say, 50%?

One can buy train tickets from the train company or from Trainline. Would there be any bar to an app provider selling bus tickets? With regard to the Secretary of State’s liability, I know that the app developer has to state that he accepts that the Secretary of State cannot guarantee the integrity and quality of the information, but will that hold up in court? We know that lawyers are now piling in by their thousands to sue over Covid-19, and to sue for any excuse. Could an app developer sue by alleging that the department was, say, too slow in putting timetable changes on to the website? Suppose an app provider breaches some of the conditions in Clause 16: what can the department do to stop him or strike down his app? I cannot see any provisions for that.

The review period is every five years. I suggest that the first review should be after two years, with subsequent reviews at five-yearly intervals.

Finally, I have a couple of asides, prompted by what the Minister has said. She said that missing a bus may result in a delay of 20 minutes, or two hours in Yorkshire. Up here in Cumbria, if you miss the bus you wait another seven days until the next one comes along. I am not surprised that 51% of UK buses are in London. Every day when I was in London, I would see hundreds of empty, diesel-polluting buses clogging the streets. The boast that there is a London bus every 12 minutes reminds us just how mollycoddled Londoners are and how much the rest of the country needs to be levelled up. That said, from what I saw of the carnage in Paris the last time I was there, I suppose that diesel buses will kill fewer people than the e-scooters when they start this weekend.