Shipping: Passenger Safety

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

I can assure your Lordships that, from a UK perspective, this measure meets a very high standard of safety. Both the safety required of the boats themselves and the quality required of the life rafts have been very closely examined. I have learnt in this House that the word “benign” can be wrongly used, but I think that these are generally benign waters.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister is still trying to convince the House that there is virtue in pitching British safety standards below the minimum of European safety standards. Why on earth should that be done unless it is just some doctrinaire response to Europe?

[Baroness Kramer]

Perhaps I may explain, because I think that there is some confusion here. The EU directive which would require an additional life raft is not intended for this kind of vessel; it is for steel vessels and for large-scale ferries, so it does not apply to most of these craft because typically they are fibreglass, and so on. We want to be sure that we are getting an appropriate exemption for future replacement of existing craft. As I said, the EU directive is not intended to deal with this kind of craft; they are expected to be handled through an exemption process.

Railways: High Speed 2

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, we are looking at this infrastructure project in an exciting way. Rather than treating it within a transport silo, we are looking much more at the regeneration possibilities. The idea raised by the noble Earl has real potential and I will definitely take it back.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, in the spirit of Christmas, I have two presents: two easy questions for the Minister at this stage. Will the HS2 jobs and skills strategy, to which she referred, be published and, if so, when? Will she also clarify a little more how we will protect the skills developed through Crossrail—to which she also referred—and ensure that they will be available for HS2?

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, there is never an easy question from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, but I do appreciate it. As he knows, the noble Lord, Lord Deighton, is going round the country with a series of consultations looking at the economic growth issues, of which skills are a very important part. Work is happening through many strands: HS2 itself, the work of the noble Lord, Lord Deighton—whose report is expected in the spring—and other more general work with the industry. I will see whether there is a way to pull these strands together into a more comprehensive piece that would give the noble Lord the picture he is seeking.

I have now completely forgotten the second issue. Would the noble Lord mind telling me?

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

I was concerned about Crossrail.

[Baroness Kramer]

Crossrail has done two crucial things on skills. It has played an important role in the tunnelling academy and we want that to carry over. It has also been excellent at engaging with British companies in the supply chain. By number, rather than value, 97% of contracts have gone to British-based contractors. We hope to see that repeated by using the same techniques of outreach.

Dartford River Crossings

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, on having secured this debate. As he says, it is a debate on the anniversary of the existing facility, so we should certainly think afresh.

When he quoted a figure of 50 million, I thought he was going to say every day, but he said every year. Whenever I go across the bridge, it feels more like 10 or 20 times the number he mentioned. It is a point of very real congestion at times. We know the pressure on the M25 and the efforts being made to widen sections of it. There has been significant road widening not far north of the bridge, which has helped, but the bridge and the tunnel are clearly queuing points.

I have the greatest difficulty understanding why we have not moved with some urgency on new toll payment technologies for the crossing—it seems an obvious thing to do. There is something very old-fashioned about cars and trucks slowing to throw coins into meters or show their entitlement to cross. I do not think that implementation of the new system—which after all has been tried and tested on congestion charging in London—represents an enormous technological breakthrough. I wonder that it is not done as soon as possible. I realise the date is not so far away now, but I bemoan the fact that it was not done some time ago, not least because the easiest way to ease things in the short term is to improve the efficiency of the two crossings.

The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, wants something much more ambitious than that, and I understand that. However, even with the best will in the world—which for me to attribute to the Government would be stretching things—completion of construction is a considerable period away for any such crossing, even if the case is established. The Government’s problem, quite straightforwardly, is that there are more people objecting to each of the three options than are in favour of any one of them. That is a genuine problem. We can see the pressures and the work that would have to be done there.

I hope the Minister, having carried out the consultation, will ensure that people get a clear perspective on the Government’s proposals. They may be more limited than my noble friend Lord Berkeley likes, but I fully support his continuous efforts to get as much freight onto rail as possible, to the advantage of our whole road system, and he is right to make the pitch here. However, that looks some distance away. I think that the degree of usage merits a real investigation. We all know the extent to which road usage for freight relates crucially to convenience, but the M25 is not a normal road. Normal roads have some linear quality to them. The M25 is a great circle, and therefore it is much more difficult to identify the nature of the usage.

I have the colossal misfortune of living some, although not many, miles north of the M1 at the 12 o’clock position and my son lives exactly the same distance south of the M25 at the six o’clock position, so we always have a little debate about which way round it is better to go. Of course, that depends on how much work is being done on road widening on the western stretch, and that is counterbalanced by what we all know will be the likelihood of a very considerable wait at the current Dartford crossing. Therefore, I have direct experience of this, and I know that there is a feeling of great frustration at the present limitations. It looks more than a little archaic when you see the quantity of vehicles at certain times. You can even have the supreme joy of driving at normal speeds going north, whereas when going south there is a jam that lasts for eight to 10 miles while people try to get across. You thank your lucky stars when you are not in that jam, although your lucky stars are unlikely to save you on more than two consecutive journeys before you get caught.

I recognise the difficulties. However, I hope that the pressure that the noble Lord has brought to bear in this debate, together with all the representations about the options, will stir the department into realising its obligation to produce a prompt response to the consultation. I also hope that we will get an assurance this afternoon that the charging system on the existing structures will be implemented as rapidly as possible.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to address this Question for Short Debate which the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has secured on the Government’s plans for a new river crossing in the lower Thames area. We have had very thoughtful comments from the three noble Lords who have spoken today, often bringing up issues which have been raised within the consultation. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, was right to say that this is an issue not just of local consequence but with much broader implications.

The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said that he had seen the bridge built in just four years. Many of us who deal with infrastructure today think longingly of timetables such as that. However, he may be interested to know that the Government are piloting ways in which to accelerate the building of infrastructure. There are four pilots: in Surrey, on the M3 managed motorway between junctions 2 and 4a; in the West Midlands, at M6 junctions 10a to 13, which is also managed motorway; in Derbyshire, at the M1 junctions 28 to 31; and on the A160/A180 Immingham dualling scheme. We will see whether there are some good lessons to learn so that we can start to speed up the delivery of these infrastructure projects, because, as the noble Lord pointed out, that would make sense.

I know that noble Lords are concerned to know the nature and timing of the Government’s plans for a new crossing. I shall try to address that towards the end of my remarks and I hope to provide at least a measure of satisfaction.

Noble Lords will appreciate that there are serious issues at stake in reaching decisions on where to locate a new crossing and whether it should be a bridge or a tunnel. The department is carefully considering the issues reinforced during the consultation and it intends to announce the next steps shortly. I know that that response has been promised by the end of the year, before which I note that there are only three weeks left. I will allow noble Lords to draw conclusions from that statement.

I shall set out the scale of the challenge and what we have done to date. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, reminded us of the history. Fifty years ago, a tunnel was opened between Dartford and Grays. Today, the Dartford-Thurrock crossing comprises two tunnels and one bridge which carry about 140,000 vehicles daily across that part of the River Thames. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, basically said that they carry much more than they were designed to carry. They were designed for 135,000 vehicles, so they are definitely over that, but there is a little comfort in knowing that the current level is not hopelessly over. Of course, we recognise that this is a crucial part of the strategic road network linking London, Kent and Essex, as well as international destinations, with the rest of the UK.

In addition, the existing crossing is located in the area known as the Thames Gateway, which, as the noble Lords, Lord Hanningfield and Lord Berkeley, pointed out, has very ambitious plans for redevelopment and growth, which we obviously want to promote. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, gave us a very personal experience of surviving congestion at the Dartford-Thurrock crossing. I shall think of him and his son trying to decide which of them would be able to get through to the other more easily because the traffic was flowing northbound or southbound but not the other way.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

Anything more sophisticated than the toss of the coin would be an advantage.

[Baroness Kramer]

I think a lot of forecasts are as accurate as tosses of the coin. Let us see what we can do about this. Journey time reliability is important, and this is consistently one of the worst performing links in the strategic road network. We think it is going to get better, not worse.

Successive Governments at national and local level have commissioned studies on congestion and possible new river crossings. The most recent report for the department, done in 2009, identified short and medium-term measures to improve traffic flows. It also concluded that a new crossing is needed in the long term and shortlisted potential locations: option A, at the existing Dartford-Thurrock crossing; option B connecting the A2 with the A1089; option C connecting the M2 with the A13 and the M25 between junctions 29 and 30; and a variant of option C connecting the M2 with the A13 and the M25 and additionally widening the A229 between the M2 and the M20. From the start, this coalition Government have been determined to act and promises made as early as the first spending review in 2010 are now being realised.

Next year will see the introduction of free-flow charging. That will please the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I know he has been waiting for that. Motorists will no longer stop at each end of the crossing to put money into a slot machine or hand it to an attendant. Believe it or not, getting this technology right has not been quite as easy as it sounds, and nobody wants to install a technology, have it go wrong and create that kind of inconvenience. Although it was hoped to bring it in late this year, it will now be coming in 2014. I believe October is the target date.

High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, I found this debate a fascinating one and in many ways a more enjoyable one than the debate that we had only a few short weeks ago on exactly this topic. On that occasion, there was an indication in the press, at least, and in some circles of some uncertainty about my party’s position with regard to HS2. That had been generated because the shadow Chancellor, my very good friend Ed Balls, had indicated that he was very concerned at the rapidly escalating costs that were being reflected in parts of the media. Of course he was anxious about them. It is his job to look at the way in which a future Labour Government intend to spend their money.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord who spent a great deal of his time commenting on the weakness of the business case for HS2. There should be a business case. I very much appreciated the fact that the majority of my noble friends indicated their support for HS2—all of them, I think, with the possible exception of my noble friend Lord Stevenson, who had other fish to fry as far as the line is concerned. They were a little in danger of glorifying past triumphs with regard to the railway and indicating that we could take similar, easy risks today. I hate to say it but in the absence of cost-benefit analysis, a high percentage of Victorian railway lines went bankrupt. Railway mania was one of the shocking problems of the 19th century so although we glory in the architecture that was left us to us, in terms of both our great railway stations and the significant lines that we still use extensively today, particularly the north-south lines, we ought not to deride the fact that we need to be clear about costs.

When the Minister replies to the debate, I want her to address herself to this question of potential costs because we are asking the nation to commit itself to a very substantial investment in future years against the background of a very significant decline in ordinary living standards at present, with no immediate indication that there is early relief in sight. Our people—our fellow citizens—are therefore going to be concerned about costs. That is why it is important that in substantiating the issue with regard to HS2, we have a clear perspective on those costs and how they are to be controlled.

I think we all take considerable pleasure in the fact that David Higgins has become chair of HS2. We know of his achievements. After all, one achievement in the past couple of years which we all recognise and glory in is that the Olympic Games were delivered on time and on budget, without excessive use of the contingency element built into that budget, and they were a huge success for the nation. Everybody derived value from them so we can make these projects work and we should derive satisfaction from recent successes, while keeping a very close and beady eye on costs because they are so significant in terms of the commitment of the nation’s resources against a background where we all know that those resources are fairly limited.

I do not have to make the case on HS2 today, partly because so many voices around the House indicated their support for it, including a former Transport Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, on the government Benches. My Benches were very strong in their arguments. Of course, the case was made as soon as the debate opened. The magnificent opening speech of my noble friend Lord Adonis set the terms of this debate and in a very real sense put to bed any suggestion of any possible backsliding by a future Labour Government on seeing this project through. However, we want to be absolutely certain about the degree of scrutiny over costs and effectiveness.

We are also concerned about the delays built in to the present progress. Already we have seen the timetable slipping, and nothing will prevent it from slipping further in the very near future. Again, I want the noble Baroness to give us some reassurance about the urgency with which the Government are acting. I will make the obvious point. This is a paving Bill and it will get through in the very near future. However, we have not started on the hybrid Bill and the hybrid Bill procedure on Crossrail took several years. I know that my noble friend Lord Snape once served on a hybrid Bill and we lost contact with him for about 18 months when he disappeared into those wonderful committees in which one is sworn to total commitment to the Bill.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, I apologise to the House for interrupting, but in the interests of accuracy I must point out that I served on three hybrid Bills and disappeared for much longer than that.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

I am sorry if I elided them all into one, but the loss was so great in the other place at that time that it was remarked on in many quarters. We know without any doubt that my noble friend will volunteer for a hybrid Bill should any arise. I am concerned, however, about this issue. As we know, hybrid Bills are ones over which Parliament and the Government have negligible control, yet we are starting on this Bill. It was intended and hoped that we would have all the processes of Parliament covered, all legislative processes in place and all procedures completed by the time of the general election. There is no hope of that now. There is no question of the Government being able to deliver against that timetable. Of course, slippage is costly in terms of the ambitions that we all have for the successful implementation of the project on time, but delay is also costly in financial terms. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Howard, is already calculating just how much the additional length of time will impact on cost.

All the real issues have emerged in this debate. I listened very carefully to another former Secretary of State for Transport, the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, when he indicated that he still preserved a degree of scepticism about the ability of rail to impact on the economic geography of the country. There is evidence from other countries that its impact is indeed beneficial. It is certainly the case that, as so many noble Lords have emphasised in this debate, if we do not do anything, we will actually reach paralysis. Such is the increase in numbers of those seeking to use rail travel that if we do nothing, we will face a seizure.

During the time when there was a slight degree of misunderstanding about my own party’s position, when proper anxieties were expressed about rising costs, it was very noticeable that the northern cities acted. Representations came in with very considerable force from Manchester and Leeds that indicated how much importance they placed on the improvement of services to those cities, which HS2 alone can provide.

Another question hangs in the air and cannot be answered—certainly not from this debate, because no one has attempted to answer it. What is the alternative? We have a situation in which the rise in demand for rail travel shows itself in very marked ways so that we can all foresee that if nothing is done the constant problems which we see in all commuting areas will get worse. I know that when one talks about commuting people’s first thought is that one is talking about the south-east and London. However, the pressure on Birmingham and the West Midlands, on Manchester, Leeds, Yorkshire and Bradford, is just as acute for people there who want to get to work, to the shops and to other facilities in their cities. Of course, what hangs in the air is that if we do not solve this by improving rail travel we will guarantee misery for our fellow citizens, and it will represent a failure to improve society and the economy.

I hope that the noble Baroness will also comment on one other dimension. I refer to the recent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, to which my noble friend Lord Rooker referred. One of the things we all know about significant public investment is that it can lead to very significant private gains. Just look at any situation where a Tube station in the London area has been opened in recent years and what it does to house prices. There is a straight correlation between transport and private gain. Of course we want to see private gain, because we are providing these services for private people—for our fellow citizens. However, we ought also to look at the public good. These resources are invested on behalf of the nation. I hope that the noble Baroness will take away the noble Lord’s thought about the use of urban development corporations to canalise some of the gains from the investment that will derive from the construction of HS2 so that it comes to the public purse as well. That will perhaps help to reassure those like the noble Lord, Lord Howard, that costs can be kept under control.

Railways: British Rail

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

The comments of my noble friend totally resonate. It is utterly disgusting. It speaks to the fact that customer service has not always been at the centre of the railways, because I think customers are very concerned about this issue. Beginning in 2017, the current InterCity 125 trains will all be replaced by the new Class 800/801 intercity express trains from Hitachi, which will solve that problem on the intercity lines. It is a tougher issue on the local diesel trains, which are gradually going out of service, and we could use some help from the industry in tackling that problem.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

The Question was whether the Government would mark the passage of the legislation. Is this the legislation that, within 10 years, saw the bankruptcy of Railtrack? Is this the legislation that saw the franchise fiasco on the line from Paddington to south Wales a short while ago? Is this the legislation that insists that a publicly operated company, which produces £47 million of profit to invest in the railway and hands £800 million back to the Treasury as extra profit, is disbarred from competing for the franchise against German and French state railways?

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, Network Rail plans to invest £38 billion into the system between 2014 and 2019, which will shortly bring into the system Crossrail, the upgraded Thameslink, a northern hub cross-Manchester link that will provide electrification linking the core centres of the economy in the north, the West and East Midlands and Yorkshire. Today, the south of England has 75% of passenger miles on electric trains. I assume that the noble Lord was talking about the east coast main line franchise and, as he knows, it was always intended by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that this would be in public control only temporarily. He said:

“I do not believe that it would be in the public interest for us to have a nationalised train operating company indefinitely”.—[Official Report, 1/7/09; col. 232.]

The public sector—DOR—has done an excellent job of stabilising the system, but now returns it to a period of investment, which requires private sector engagement.

Railways: Passenger Demand

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, the Government—and I—regard HS2 as a vital project. As I said, the underlying rationale is capacity. We are out of capacity on critical lines going north out of London and those are essential for the economy. We must also continue to build the economy of the north of England rather than just constantly focus on the south. I believe that the project has found a good balance between the environmental challenges—of course, they are many—and value for money. This is an absolutely essential project and most of those in this House who specialise and focus on transport and rail will confirm the view I have just expressed.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, why is the public operation of the east coast main line not allowed to continue or bid for the franchise when bids from the German and French state railways appear to be welcome?

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, I am delighted to find that HS2 has now become so uncontroversial that questions on other topics enter into this brief exchange. I just repeat what I said on the future of the east coast main line. It has gone through a period of being stabilised by the Government. That has meant that new investment has not come in on the scale that passengers on that route require. We wish to see a strong future for the east coast main line.

High Speed 2

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, I express my gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and congratulate him on his opening speech. As my noble friend Lord Snape indicated, we have not always been in agreement with the noble Lord, but his opening remarks today set this debate off in a most constructive and interesting fashion.

The Opposition support HS2. We believe that a new north-south line is needed. The issue of speed or whether it is a trophy has nothing to do with it. We need the speed because it increases the capacity. It is not a trophy because we did not ask and are not asking the nation to embark on this major construction because we wanted some kind of trophy like the French or Germans had with their high-speed lines. That is not so: it is because there is a real need. The need, which is quite clear, is one of a dramatic requirement for additional rail capacity in this country. This is one clear, strategic way— in fact, it is the only clear, strategic way—in which we can increase that capacity.

Various figures have been cited in this debate. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Faulkner who, in his usual hard-headed manner, indicated some crucial figures. The growth of rail has been double that of gross domestic product in the past 30 years. As the country has expanded over that time, rail has expanded much faster. Even in this past decade, when we all recognise the difficulties there have been in the economy, there has been a growth of 4% per year in the demand for rail services in terms of passenger numbers. This is not a passing fancy; it is a real need, to which we need to address the resources of the nation.

My noble friend Lord Faulkner, expressing it in his usual cool manner, and my noble friend Lord Grocott, in his rather more expansive way, compared to this project with the 19th century. It is the case that the Victorians faced great challenges to their infrastructure projects as well but we have to face up to that challenge, too. People might say that the Victorians had a head start and all sorts of obvious advantages. Even the Great Exhibition, which was one of their triumphs—although the Crystal Palace did not survive too long afterwards—has been surpassed by the success of the structure and organisation of the Olympic Games in 2012, so we can do it too.

The Games were an infrastructure project that was delivered on time and on budget. It had a contingency element in it, of course, as indeed this project has. What people often talk about as the enormous expansion of costs is a contingency of £14 billion, which may not be called upon. Of course, the pessimists will say, “Oh, but it will be”. They said that about the Olympic Games but the Games were delivered on budget. They were a much smaller project than this but we should not underestimate our capacity as a nation to rise to this challenge.

Nor should we underestimate the need, which is often expressed in terms of the enormous pressure of commuting. For the London conurbation, it is always expressed in these terms because we know about the vast numbers of people who commute into London. Anybody would think that Birmingham is a speck on the map, yet the West Midlands have a commuting problem as acute for the people involved in it as at London Euston and the other great terminals of London. The West Midlands have had massive growth in commuter traffic. The demands of rail passenger numbers have increased by 105% in the past five years. Let us not pretend that this is an issue solely for London and the south of England; the pressure is exerted elsewhere, too. That is why we need to address those issues, and this is the most obvious way to do it.

I also agree in every way with what my noble friend Lord Rooker indicated. On major infrastructure projects, which are bound to extend way beyond the lifetime of any one Parliament, there is no hope for this country unless we have a commitment across the parties and across Parliaments to deliver. Otherwise, we are trapped within a four or five-year perspective for the great needs of this nation. We will be selling everybody short if we fail on that.

We can deliver. Crossrail has been an infrastructure project for more than a decade. It is still some way off completion, but it has survived elections and changes of Government because the commitment is there to meet an obvious and clearly expressed need. Some doubting Thomases in the House may say that is because that expressed need is among the London and south-east community with their greater leverage. The important thing about High Speed 2 is that it recognises the leverage that is being exerted from the regions and the cities of the north. That is why, when my right honourable friend Ed Balls, with his usual judiciousness, examined the figures of this enormous and significant increase in the projected costs, settled down and said that he wanted to look at the figures very closely and intended to scrutinise them in the future, he was doing what we would expect any responsible shadow Chancellor to do, let alone a Chancellor.

Examining the figures and making sure that budgets are adhered to and that Governments are meeting the requirements of the projections is different from suggesting that there was any reneging on commitment to the project—far from it. From this Dispatch Box today—and I know that this will be done in a debate very shortly in the other place, too—we will reassert our commitment to HS2.

However, I have words of warning for the Government because, my goodness, they are skilled in the arts of delay. We saw this exercised with regard to the problems of airports in south-east England. We have delay built into that until after the next election, even for any definitive stance on the matter. I am concerned about the delay on the HS2 project. Do the Government realise that HS1 was in Committee for two years and one month on the hybrid Bill? Anyone who has been anywhere near a hybrid Bill, either at this end or at the other end with regard to issues, knows how difficult hybrid Bills are. On HS1, it took more than two years to get the Bill through. On Crossrail, it took more than three years—in fact, nearly three and a half years—to get the hybrid Bill through; and we have not seen the hybrid Bill yet because we have not even got the paving Bill through Parliament. Therefore, as this construction was meant to start in 2017, the Government are already taking great risks on the timetable. I hope that the Minister will be able to give some reassurance that he and the department appreciate this point.

This has been an absolutely fascinating debate, one of many that we are destined to undertake over the next few months and years. I very much welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, to the Dispatch Box, for the first time on an occasion where I have addressed these issues, and we all look forward to her response.

Railways: East Anglia Network

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, on securing this debate, but even more so on the trenchant way in which she made her opening remarks and set the scene. She posed a series of questions that I hope the Minister will respond to because they established a position that was greatly reinforced by subsequent contributions in the debate. I also welcome the Minister and congratulate her on her new position. I am sure that she will enjoy the role enormously, although I have to say from bitter experience that I always found these debates the most difficult to respond to, given the constraints of time. I will therefore make my points fairly brief and give the Minister the maximum opportunity to concentrate on the real issues.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Berkeley for ensuring that in this debate about rail we have discussed the issue of rail freight as well, because it is particularly important to the eastern region. After all, there is the obvious claim that the eastern region is a net contributor to the Treasury, and Felixstowe bears a considerable responsibility for that. That is why we should cherish that area of the developing economy and the successes of recent years, and ensure that it goes from success to success. My noble friend is also right to identify how important the issue is with regard to Sizewell.

I reinforce the point that additional investment in our rail service is necessary. Difficulties on many lines have been identified today, along with the inadequacy of the service that is provided at present. Anyone who travels in East Anglia will be all too aware of those difficulties. In a moment I shall comment on an area that has not thus far been commented on, but I have every sympathy with the points that have been made. The expectation is that rail passenger numbers will increase by more than 40%, which makes one realise the level of necessary investment that we have to make just to stand still. The trouble is that at present the trains do stand still on occasion, which is not much help to any of us. We want an improved passenger service and we want the trains to run on time.

I have to say that one despairs. In the area where I am, which I would guess in comparison to Suffolk, Norfolk, Broxbourne and the East Anglia area would be looked upon as Hertfordshire, the line up through Harlow might be considered to be somewhat blessed. After all, Stansted is a crucial dimension of the line. Any idea that having an airport as one dimension of the line improves the service on it has to be thought about again. It certainly sets a benchmark which the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, identified. He said that it is a benchmark for service to the airport, which makes very great demands upon the service. After all, it is the only airport in Britain where over 50% of its passengers arrive by public transport. We need to build upon that. While we realise just how significant the rail is, if you have a line to Stansted that is not a dedicated one—far from it—but has to give considerable priority to the Stansted Express, the implications for the other areas along the line are quite critical. Mention has been made of the significance of places such as Harlow, which is an important economic development area of the eastern region. However, Harlow finds its service affected, as do so many others, by the fact that many trains which are destined for Stansted do not stop there.

We have to recognise that where there is the possibility of additional capacity, we should exploit it. The great bottleneck, as ever for East Anglia, is access to the London terminals for so many of its operations. All the London terminals were created in the 19th century and the bottleneck problem is reflected in them all. Yet it is the case that, coming out of Liverpool Street into the area over which the Stansted line operates, there is extra capacity in the form of land that is spare and owned by the railway. Surely we could follow the pressure of local authorities and communities to bring an extra line or two into that area that would lead into Liverpool Street and thus free up Stansted. It would certainly give priority on a line which serves not just Stansted but, of course, King’s Lynn. I was on a train heading for King’s Lynn the other evening—mercifully, I was only going as far as Bishop’s Stortford—when I heard the classic apology that you get on really good trains: “We apologise for the fact that this train is running late. There is a slow train in front of us”. Wow—what a delight it was for us all to have a slow stopping train in front of a supposedly important express that was going quite a good distance. Liverpool Street to King’s Lynn is one of the longer journeys that one can make in East Anglia.

I hope that the Minister recognises that real issues have been raised in this debate. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, that if it is a question of good management, then how about looking at this test? The directly operated railway on the east coast main line—the one which is in fact being run by the department after that franchise collapsed—has returned a very significant profit. Yet there was no consideration by the Government that that should be used for the two-year period which emerged once the franchise collapsed as far as National Express is concerned. I wonder why? If the Government took the management issue and the targets referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, to heart, it might be that they could learn a lesson from them. They could then do a better job on franchises in the future than has been done in the recent past.

Airports: Passenger Numbers

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Monday 15th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, the Minister must have noticed considerable activity by airport interests in putting their case before the public. When the Minister travels by Tube, as I am sure he does, in recent weeks he must have left this House and walked past advertisements raising that issue. What reply do the Government give to those important interests? Is it the same lame reply of long delays that we get in this House?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I am confident that the Airports Commission is well able to see past an advertising campaign.

Cyclists: Safety

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, of course cyclists should obey the Highway Code, but the Question with which we started reflected on the fact that deaths and serious injuries for cyclists have increased during the past three years. Several months ago, the Times newspaper launched a campaign on cities fit for cycling and established eight points which have been largely endorsed by the cycling organisations. Are the Government supportive of those points and, if so, what action on them have they taken?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, we are generally supportive of the Times campaign; I have the list of all its suggestions here and we are measuring our performance against them. Not every single one can be adopted, but we are trying as hard as we can to reduce the casualties.