Great British Railway Plans

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend should not read too much into media reports on the front page of—I think it was—the Yorkshire Post. The Government continue to consider all options for Northern Powerhouse Rail as part of the integrated rail plan. Once that plan is published, we will work with Transport for the North to finalise a business case for Northern Powerhouse Rail. This will need to be consistent with the IRP’s policy and the funding framework.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the East West Rail link, certainly between Oxford and Bletchley, needs to be electrified from the outset because of the heavy freight traffic from Southampton to the west coast main line passing through Bletchley? It would be a crying shame if electrification were postponed until after the passenger service started.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The case for electrification of East West Rail is being considered. A review is being undertaken by EWR Co, looking at all the options, including full electrification along the whole route as well as the various options for partial electrification, including battery-electric hybrid rolling stock.

Britain’s Railways

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (The Earl of Kinnoull) (CB)]

The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I believe it is very important that a clear distinction is made between what Ministers do and what Great British Railways does. It is important that they do not tread on each other’s feet, because that will lead to disputes and trouble. A clear financial target, preferably for three or five years so that the industry can make trade-offs without constant Treasury interference, will give the freight railway a chance to do what it does best. An electrified freight railway will make huge inroads into the amount of fuel we burn with lorries. Lastly, we need to follow best practice in using data to improve the passenger experience. Do not level down to the standards of the worst performer; rather, level up to the standards of the best.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Those were some very interesting observations from the noble Lord, who is clearly well versed in the railways. He is right that we need to make sure that Ministers’ responsibilities are separate from those of Great British Railways, which is why we are proposing strong levers to hold them to account, but will not meddle in the day-to-day running of the organisation. So there will be statutory powers and the ability to issue binding guidance in specific areas, which will be important.

The noble Lord mentioned planning, and I have already pointed out that there will be five-year business plans within the 30-year strategy. He also mentioned freight, which is a very important part of this. It is often a forgotten area of the railways, and we believe that it will benefit from the national co-ordination that Great British Railways will bring. His last point was on data, which is one of the key areas where we feel that we can improve customer satisfaction. Historically, data has been held by the train operating companies and not shared as well as it should have been. By putting all this data and responsibility for revenues within Great British Railways, we will necessarily bring together all the data. We believe that from that we will not only simplify tickets but think of better ways to use that data to provide more value-for-money services for passengers.

Hitachi Rail: Rail Travel Disruption

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

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

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, is it not a fact that 95% of GWR trains ran on Monday? In fact, the company expects to run an extremely high proportion of services. Would the Minister do something to stop all these prophets of doom, who seem to make public transport a kicking boy and put people off resuming their journeys?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I absolutely agree with the noble Lord. GWR is operating an amended timetable, and passengers need certainty nowadays, so that they can plan when to travel. GWR has every confidence that its amended timetable will run. Of its 93 class 800 trains, only 21 remain out of service. I therefore encourage passengers to travel and travel safety.

Railway Industry Association Report

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Great Western electrification programme is now substantially complete. However, I recognise that some parts of the network will still need to be electrified. As with all projects within the rail system, each one is looked at from the bottom up, and analysis is undertaken and development work done. If it meets value for money and is affordable, it will go into the RNEP system and therefore be done in due course.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

When the Minister’s colleague Chris Heaton-Harris met the Rail All-Party Group, he was presented with a package costing less than £100 million which would enable 2 million train miles a year to be hauled by existing electric locomotives instead of diesel—the equivalent of decarbonising 80 to 100 million HGV miles a year. Has any progress been made with this?

Rail Disruption: Social and Economic Impacts

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the question of compensation arises here. Is there a liquidated damages clause in the agreement between the Government and Hitachi about these trains? If not, can Hitachi be pressed to make some ex gratia compensation payment for the huge damage that this delay is inflicting on both passengers and railway staff, through no fault of their own?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Of course, we are in conversations with Hitachi, and we welcome its decision to put safety first and take the trains out of service while we properly understand what is going on. As noble Lords will be aware, 122 Hitachi trains are procured via the intercity express programme, while the remaining 60 are under conventional rolling stock leases. We will look into what potential compensation may be forthcoming from Hitachi, but the train operating companies are offering refunds to their passengers for cancelled services.

Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill [HL]

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments & Lords Hansard
Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am pleased to support the Commons amendments as technical changes necessary for the functioning of the Bill. The aviation industry is critical to the UK economy, and since any recovery will no doubt be prolonged, I hope the Bill will provide legislative backing for a modernisation strategy that supports that recovery. Any restructuring must be supported with a transitional strategy, for workers and our regional economy, that capitalises on the opportunity to grow industries in green technology. I look forward to the House revisiting this in the future. I am grateful that the noble Baroness, Lady Vere of Norbiton, has engaged with the Opposition Front Bench during the passage of the Bill. I also thank all those from across the House who have taken part in its stages.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I too would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, for her gracious apology on behalf of the department for its omission. Of course, I accept that the amendments are necessary and, like the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, I thank all the people who have been associated with the Bill during its fairly long passage. I hope it may now pass into law.

[Lord Craig of Radley (CB)]

My Lords, I too support these amendments. Finally, this Bill, which started its passage through Parliament in January 2020 is to reach the statute book. I am sure that, with a justified sense of pride and relief, the Minister and all those in her Bill team, who worked so hard to achieve this outcome, deserve the commendation received from all sides of the House.

It is a piece of legislation that will not stand still. The announcement that the CAA has approved trials of beyond-visual-sight operation of drones will need to be reflected in the instructions for policing unmanned aircraft presently set out in this legislation. That process will continue, I hope smoothly, as technology and experience help to chart the way ahead. Meanwhile, I join in commending the efforts made to enact this important business, for air traffic management in particular.

Domestic Air Travel

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I would love to help the noble Lord. I fear that I am unable to explain it, and the irony in this Question is very clear to me; investment in High Speed 2 is clearly good for the environment and should be continued. As he identified, the journey time savings can be significant as well as capacity.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, yesterday I obtained the figures of the cost of travelling from London to Manchester and Newcastle, and from Paris to Lyons and Marseilles. The costs in France by train in all classes are at least half what they are here, and in France you go twice as fast. You get a double benefit for the money spent. A lot of answers need to come from the Treasury as to why rail fares in Britain are so much higher than they are elsewhere.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The noble Lord is quite right that customers could and should make various decisions based on price. That is why the Government asked for the Williams Rail Review to be done; I recognise that it has not yet been published, because of the pandemic, but it will come out shortly. The way we reform our railway systems should have a very positive impact on fares.

National Bus Strategy: England

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My Lords, I think good ideas should not be party political. The noble Lord, Lord Snape, mentioned the £5 billion. If he were to read the—I would say “small print” but it was not small print—document, the £5 billion was for cycling, walking and buses, so there was £3 billion for buses and £2 billion for cycling and walking. However, the noble Lord makes a very serious point. I am delighted that the strategy is out of the door, but I am under no illusion: the hard work is about to start because we have £3 billion and we have to think about exactly how we spend it. At the moment we cannot decide that because we do not know what sort of bus service improvement plans are going to be coming forth from the local transport authorities.

The timeline looks like this: by 30 June, each transport authority will say that it is going to have either an enhanced partnership or franchising and that the bus operators are willing to take part; they will then have to work very hard indeed to prepare a bus service improvement plan by 31 October. On the basis of those bus service improvement plans and the amount of funding that is needed in order to provide the sort of revenue funding and capital funding required for those plans, the funding will be distributed. Of course, it could also be the case that bus lanes could be bolstered through a levelling up fund, so there is a lot of opportunity for local transport authorities at the moment to take buses by the scruff of the neck and bring them into the 21st century and beyond.

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I give this document a very cautious welcome because it puts a lot of good ideas forward. How they will be carried out I do not know, but we have to be aware that the motoring industry is engaged at the moment in selling young people cheap motor cars, probably end-of-the-line motor cars. It is like the way tobacco companies engage young smokers. Once you have hooked them, you go on exploiting them for the rest of their life.

The Government must make the new buses very environmentally friendly. I make a special plea that they use clean air so that in future we are not recirculating dirty air into buses, which we do now, as it will give us a lead over the Chinese if we can do that. It is important that bus priority measures are given the Government’s full authority. There will be lots of people who will try very hard to stop priority measures going in, often misguided chambers of commerce and local authorities. Priority measures are essentially because we have no choice but to deal with pollution, which is one of the biggest killers of our time. It is unseen but is steadily going on with its work of killing people. I am very pleased to see that moving traffic offences are going to be decriminalised, which will help matters no end.

The last thing I want to mention is that right at the end of the report concessionary fares get some attention. They are out of control. If the Government want an idea that may work and perhaps will not cost too much, maybe they will have to get to a situation where younger pensioners do not get a free pass but are able to purchase a concessionary pass. Older or disabled pensioners will still be able to get free passes. A lot of people who use the concessionary fares could very well afford to make some subscription to a better service.

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his somewhat lengthy contribution.

Hauliers

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the international logistics industry is very complex, competitive and efficient. The trade and co-operation agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom does not make provision for the industry’s very time-sensitive arrangements, which are expensive and, almost inevitably, take up time. Can the Minister tell the Committee whose advice was sought in drawing up the agreements? Did they have intimate knowledge of how the logistics industry works? It seems as if many issues were swept under the carpet with scant regard for the effects on commerce. Reference was made by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, to an FTA circular. I certainly have not seen it and it has not been widely circulated because the FTA does not communicate with the general body of opinion.

Rail Freight: Channel Tunnel

Lord Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Bradshaw]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the barriers to using the Channel Tunnel for the conveyance of rail freight; and what plans they have, if any, to overcome such barriers.

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

My Lords, the Government engage regularly with the international freight sector to discuss a range of issues and are keen to see the expansion of rail freight services running through the tunnel. It is ultimately a commercial decision for rail freight operators whether to facilitate new services, but the Government are open to engaging with industry-led proposals and potential new operators where there is a commercial proposition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bradshaw (LD) [V]]

I thank the Minister for that reply, but what needs to change to make it feasible to see more rail freight using the Channel Tunnel and the HS1 route to London?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

As I have just explained to the noble Lord, this is a commercial decision by the freight operating companies. The Government certainly stand by to support where we can. For example, we are developing and, indeed, have developed, bespoke customs regimes for rail freight traffic through the tunnel. We have already approved regimes at Barking, Dagenham, Daventry, Scunthorpe and Widnes. We are also looking at, for example, gauge clearance for alternative access routes to the Channel Tunnel. At the heart of all this, the industry has to demonstrate to government that if we put these interventions in place it will come forward with commercial proposals.