Railways: Line Resilience
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Kramer
I hope that very shortly we will have the terms of reference for the Network Rail study, which it intends to carry out in close co-operation with local authorities and LEPs. Network Rail has made a request to me that people pass ideas on particular routes back to it directly. However, if any Peer wishes to do so through my office, I will make sure that that information is communicated so that the study is as thorough as it needs to be.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister’s initial Answer was very welcome and we look forward to seeing the outcome of those studies. Will she take this opportunity to congratulate Network Rail on bringing the line through Dawlish back into use significantly earlier than appeared to be likely? I understand that Network Rail had something like 100 people working seven days a week on the restoration of the line, and it is to come back into use on 4 April or even earlier. I declare an interest as a member of the First Great Western stakeholder board.
Baroness Kramer
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, that that is probably the most delightful question I have ever received because it indeed gives me the opportunity to congratulate and thank Network Rail for its incredibly hard work both during the days of crisis and since. We expect the Dawlish line to be back in use no later than 4 April—well in time for Easter—and that took a very strenuous effort. While I am at the Dispatch Box, perhaps I may also thank: the travelling public, who handled this situation so well; the bus and coach companies, which provided an alternative to rail; the train operators themselves, which provided, for example, special ticketing arrangements whereby people did not lose out because they could not make advance bookings; Flybe, which doubled the number of its flights to Newquay; and probably others whom I have missed. There are many to thank and I appreciate this opportunity to do so.
High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not follow the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, in all the points he made. Needless to say, I disagree with every single one of them. On the question of cost—
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
On the question of cost, to which he referred, if he reads the speech by his noble friend Lord Heseltine to the Royal Town Planning Institute, he will find that a number of those issues are addressed and answered very fully. I draw his attention to the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, refers to the Government selling a 30-year concession in 2011 for High Speed 1 to a Canadian pension fund for £2.1 billion. I understand that something in the order of £10 billion could be realised for a similar concession on HS2, and there is a great deal more of the same.
I start by thanking the Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer—for convening the meeting for Peers with her officials last Tuesday. I certainly found it helpful and informative and left the Committee Room hopeful that this Bill and, indeed, the whole High Speed 2 project are in good hands. As we had such an excellent debate on High Speed 2 in your Lordships’ House on 24 October, there is no need for me to go over the ground that I covered then. However, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for quoting a sentence from what I said that evening.
The important thing that came out of the debate was a demonstration of the overwhelming need to add capacity to our railways as a consequence of the phenomenal growth in demand for rail transport over the past 20 years. Passenger demand has doubled since 1995. As the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, is still in his place, I will go back to 1976 and recall a conversation that Sir Peter Parker had with Tony Crosland, who was then Secretary of State for the Environment, which Sir Peter wrote about in his autobiography. He said that he was depressed by Tony Crosland saying to him:
“Peter, I see a future for BR as a smaller, sensible little railway”.
Spare capacity was ruthlessly removed throughout the 1970s and 1980s as BR desperately tried to cut costs to meet the financial objectives imposed on it by the Treasury, about which my noble friend Lord Adonis spoke so eloquently earlier. Therefore, it is no wonder that more capacity is needed for the railways now.
Given the gloomy forecasts for passenger and freight demand produced at that time, which were all proved hopelessly wrong within 10 years, I am reminded of the words of the great economist John Kenneth Galbraith, who said:
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”.
The lesson we should have learnt, post Beeching, is that you must keep your options open, retain the flexibility for future growth and never sell the track bed as it is a resource that must be protected.
At the Minister’s meeting on Tuesday I pointed out that the task of building a high-speed railway to the Midlands and the north would have been much easier if previous Labour and Conservative Governments had not closed the Great Central Railway—the last main line to be built in Britain until High Speed 1, and the only main line, until High Speed 1, built to the continental gauge. One of its routes to Rugby, Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield went straight through the Chilterns, including the towns of Amersham, Great Missenden and Wendover. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Stevenson is not here to—
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
Oh, he is here. He has moved down to the Front Bench. I expect that a number of your Lordships have been on the receiving end of lobbying from residents of these places. As my noble friend is in his place—I am delighted to see him—I say to him that this lobbying from people in the villages and towns of the Chilterns has to be balanced against the voice of the representatives, from all political parties, of the eight core cities of England outside London: Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Sheffield. In their letter to the Daily Telegraph, published on 29 May this year, they wrote:
“Research has shown that an over-reliance on the capital city is bad for national economies. England needs these eight core cities to succeed. If these cities performed at the national average, another £1.3 billion would be put into the economy every year. Unlocking growth relies on rebalancing the economy of Britain, which HS2 will help to do, bringing regeneration benefits outside the South East … High-speed rail is not just about fast trains. Increasing capacity on the rail network is critical to our economic future. There is an important relationship between growth, jobs and HS2. High-speed rail is the best way to achieve a more sustainable economic future for the nation as a whole”.
Of course, the residents of the Chilterns are entitled to express their views, although I have to say to them that the effectiveness of their lobbying would be enhanced if they wrote individually to us. For last month’s debate, the first seven paragraphs of all the e-mails I received were exactly the same, and the same happened with the e-mails sent to me about this debate—all of which, incidentally, got the date of this debate wrong. If you do a little research, you discover that they were all generated through an American company which, according to its website,
“has developed a cloud based service that solves the challenge of email delivery by delivering emails on behalf of companies”.
This is not exactly evidence of spontaneous local initiatives on the part of the residents.
However, I would certainly support generous compensation for those affected. As the Minister reminded us last Tuesday, and again this evening, the levels being offered are far greater than those which have been paid—and, as far as I know, continue to be paid—to those affected by highway schemes.
While we are on the subject of the Chilterns and its area of outstanding natural beauty—I know about this, having been brought up, like the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in that part of England—is it possible to imagine a more destructive transport project than the construction of the M40 in the 1970s right through the heart of the Chiltern escarpment above the Vale of Aylesbury, known as the Stokenchurch Gap? That was driven through the middle of the Aston Rowant National Nature Reserve, and all pleas to the inspector to put the motorway in a tunnel or follow a different route were ignored. Still active today is the M40 Chiltern Environmental Group, which says on its website that it represents 25,000 people who live along the M40 corridor from junction 3 to junction 8, and say:
“Day and night we all suffer from intolerable noise pollution”.
By comparison, the residents of Amersham and Great Missenden are being offered a pretty good deal in terms of compensation and environmental protection. This will be confirmed by the residents of Kent, where HS1, so controversial when proposed 20 years ago, is simply no longer an issue. Indeed, it is hard to hear the trains in Kent because of the noise from the M20.
Make no mistake; if we do not build High Speed 2, we will have few options to meet the demand for transport. One would be to return to the days of the 1970s and 1980s and resume a massive programme of motorway construction. However, we should remember that the width of land required for a dual three-lane motorway is 36 metres, compared with just 22 metres which will be needed for High Speed 2. Over the entire 330-mile route, HS2’s land take will be 11.7 square kilometres, compared with 19.1 square kilometres for the equivalent length of motorway.
The other option would be to patch up Victorian railways, even though we know, as we have heard from other speakers tonight, that that will come nowhere near meeting the demand for rail travel after 2020. It is worth remembering that “make do and mend” would inflict on all of us 2,770 weekend closures, endless bus substitutions and increased journey times over 14 years —all for a capacity increase between London and Birmingham of just 53%, compared with High Speed 2’s 143%, with no increase in current line speed.
At some point I hope that the whole nation will again take pride in its railways, in the same way as other countries with modern high-speed lines do, such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, China and Taiwan. Some of our finest architecture and engineering structures are to be found on our railways. Just consider such icons as Brunel’s bridges across the Thames and the Tamar, Robert Stephenson’s Royal Border Bridge at Berwick, the fantastic Forth Rail Bridge, wonderful Victorian stations, as fine as our medieval cathedrals, such as Bristol Temple Meads, York, Newcastle, Glasgow Central, and modern treasures such as Manchester Piccadilly, St Pancras and now, again, King’s Cross. There is no reason why High Speed 2 should not be in the same league as Brunel’s Great Western Railway or Stephenson’s London & Birmingham Railway, adding to, not detracting from, the landscape, with soaring viaducts, fine stations and supremely engineered track and alignments. Above all, it is a project that will meet the nation’s transport needs in the 21st century.
Railways: British Rail
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Kramer
I can certainly confirm those comments from the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney. He is absolutely right that at the time of privatisation— 5 November 1993, which I assume is the date to be commemorated in the Question in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Spicer—the railway essentially was expected to fall into decline, having had a long history of underinvestment and of stop-and-start annual budgets. Since then, the UK has seen a doubling of passenger journeys to the highest level since the 1920s; 4,000 more services a day than in the mid-1990s; a 60% increase in rail freight; and the fastest growth of European railways. The UK railway now carries nearly 20% of the EU’s passenger journeys.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, has any assessment been made of the sort of railway that we would be enjoying today had the British Railways Board received the same levels of support and investment —much of which has come from the taxpayer, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, said, but has been made available to privatised industry—and had the railway not been subject to the negative influences of decline and contraction, to which the Minister rightly referred, largely at the behest of Her Majesty’s Treasury?
Baroness Kramer
The noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, gets to the heart of the problem. Under a system in which this was a Government-run industry, an essential feature was the constant stop-start and underinvestment. It is by putting in place a structure with the ability to set up arrangements that force the Government into long-term decision-making and long-term commitment that we have been able to rebuild the infrastructure.
Railways: Passenger Demand
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimates they have made of the cost of upgrading the West Coast and East Coast main railway lines to bring them up to the standard likely to be required to meet passenger demand after 2020.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, the only viable option for solving problems on the west and east coast main lines beyond 2020 is HS2. The Government have looked at alternatives, including upgrading these routes. The lead alternative looks to enhance all three existing north-south main lines at a cost of £19.2 billion, £2.5 billion of which is required for the west coast and £11.5 billion for the east coast. None of these alternatives delivers the scale of benefits of HS2.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister to the Dispatch Box for her first Oral Question and warmly congratulate her on that Answer. With the number of people travelling by train now higher than at any time in the history of Britain’s railways, with growth over the past five years running at 5%, does she agree with Network Rail’s assessment that a make-do-and-mend approach to the main lines built by our Victorian ancestors would require 2,770 weekend closures, endless bus substitutions and increased journey times over 14 years, and do little for economic growth for our great cities outside London?
High Speed 2
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for giving us the opportunity to debate this really important issue. I congratulate him on the way that he successfully corrected some of the more absurd misconceptions about High Speed 2 which its opponents are attempting to put about.
First, though, I should like to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, to the Dispatch Box for her first debate in the Chamber. Hers is a promotion much deserved and we look forward to her speech greatly.
The case for High Speed 2 is not primarily about the length of time that it takes to travel from London to Birmingham, although it is obvious that if we build a new railway, it should be built to 21st-century standards using technology that is tried and tested throughout Europe and Asia, rather than that of the Victorian age, and that means high speeds and shorter journey times. No, this debate is about something much more important: it is about what sort of transport infrastructure we are to bequeath to our children and grandchildren. We could go back to the thinking of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when it was assumed that private motoring and heavy lorries would reign supreme. The transport imperative then was to build motorways on a predict-and-provide basis to serve them. The railways at that time were expected to decline gracefully, with many more lines being closed and services replaced by buses, passengers being discouraged by ever higher fares, and the rail freight business being largely abolished except for heavy-haul bulk loads and some container traffic.
However, the British public were not prepared to see their railways decline and die, and by July 2001 the distinguished City correspondent Christopher Fildes was able to write in the Spectator:
“Railways are a growth industry. Their most sustained attempts to drive away their customers have not succeeded”.
Let us look at what has happened since then. In July this year, Network Rail published a report, Better Connections—Options for the Integration of High Speed. Let me quote one or two of its findings. First, it says:
“Over the last decade the number of journeys made by rail has increased by almost 50% … But demand is still increasing. By 2020 another 400 million rail journeys will be made every year”.
Indeed, there are a million more trains running each year, while the busiest stations individually handle more passengers than Heathrow Airport. Network Rail makes the point, as the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, did, that it has done its best to make the best use of its remaining capacity and squeezed every last incremental change out of what it has. To quote again from its report:
“As demand continues to grow, this becomes harder and in some places impossible ... parts of the existing network will be unable to accommodate the forecast demand leading to significant overcrowding; in the peak, passengers may not even be able to board a train on some routes. Further, there will be no opportunity to accommodate the expected levels of increased freight traffic on the network”.
There you have the essential case for building High Speed 2—not as a separate line, physically and operationally away from the current railway, but as a crucial part of a reshaped and improved national network.
Some of those opposed to High Speed 2 argue that the money it will cost would be better spent on upgrading the present network and in trying to add capacity piecemeal to the west coast and east coast main lines. To add to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, let me remind those opponents that the last time we upgraded the west coast main line it was supposed to take six years, cost £2 billion and deliver 140 miles per hour trains. What actually happened was that it took nine years, cost almost £10 billion, and we still have 125 miles per hour trains, with unimaginable disruption of existing services in the process, with endless closures and bus substitutions at weekends, and sometimes longer. Does anyone believe that more than a fraction of the funds allocated to High Speed 2 would ever find their way to funding new investment on the existing network if High Speed 2 were to be abandoned?
Let us be clear: many of those arguing against High Speed 2 have no interest in growing the railway. The author of the Institute of Economic Affairs’ pathetic publication on HS2 makes clear his preference for an investment in roadbuilding—a transport policy which is 20 years out of date—and rubbishes the construction of the Jubilee Line and High Speed 1. It is inconceivable that London could function now without the Jubilee Line and the success of High Speed 1 is also clear. The economics consultancy Volterra produced a report in 2009 showing that the benefit to the UK economy of High Speed 1 over 60 years is estimated at £17.6 billion, plus a series of development, trading, housing and transport benefits.
I have no doubt that the benefits of High Speed 2 will be even greater. Looking just at the jobs which will be created in the life of the project, Albion Economics, working for Greengauge 21, estimates the total job years to be almost 890,000—the equivalent of creating 89,000 full-time jobs. We have to recognise that the future of inland transport in Britain belongs to high-speed rail and in having a world-class transport system that brings Scotland, north England, the Midlands and the south closer together; that drives opportunity and economic growth; and that makes sound environmental sense too. After the success of High Speed 1, it is time for the whole of Britain and for your Lordships to embrace High Speed 2.
Transport: Bus Services
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, I thank your Lordships for the debate so far. It is an extraordinary privilege for me to be here today. I could not open in any other way than to thank the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, who so stalwartly responded to questions, many of them from people present at today’s debate. He may not have a large shoe size, but his are nevertheless large shoes to fill; I feel that as I stand here.
I also had a joke to open with. However, the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has taken advantage of me and talked about my facing two debates today already. Instead, I will make just one statement, because I want it to be absolutely clear: this Government have no plans to withdraw concessionary fares for older and disabled people. They are enshrined in law and that remains the position. I want to make that clear before we discuss any other issues.
We can all agree that buses play a vital role in our economy: 4.6 million bus journeys were made on local buses in England in 2011-12. They are essential for people to get to work and to education. They are a lifeline for many people, enabling them to socialise. Over half of those outside London who rely on the bus do not have access to a car. Studies such as those from the University of Leeds have reinforced the importance of buses to a healthy and growing economy, and that is surely something we all support.
While there has been some suggestion, particularly from Lord Rosser, that the situation is bleak, I suggest that there is evidence to the contrary. Customer satisfaction with bus journeys is high: 84% of passengers are satisfied with their service. We all want to see that figure improved, but let us not deny that that is a mark of success, particularly compared to the past. Under-21s make up a third of bus passengers; as a group they are often fascinated by the car, yet they are accepting the bus as a way to travel. Use among the over-60s is also increasing, especially as a result of the national concessionary pass.
Moreover, the Government remain committed to improving bus services, and expenditure on buses reflects that. This year the Government spent £1 billion on the concessionary travel entitlement and £340 million on direct subsidies to bus operators in England. We have allocated over £300 million to major bus projects in the last year, and we have provided £70 million, through the Better Bus Area fund, for improvements in 24 local authority areas.
Let me pick up the issue of demand-responsive transport, raised by my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market. We have allocated £20 million to support community transport. This is an area of real interest and challenge because it is going to take an intelligent and innovative approach to work out how to provide transport to areas where demand is irregular and sporadic. It means that local authorities will have to bring together the community, so that many others in the community—the voluntary services and stakeholders—can try to look for answers to this. It is one of the reasons why the Government have said that the answers have to be found in the local community, which understands the local problems, rather than imposed constantly from Whitehall. She also raised the home-to-school transport issue. I need to understand that better, and I promise to try to do so.
The Government have provided £600 million for the Local Sustainable Transport Fund and £95 million for four rounds of the Green Bus fund, but we can still do better. The Government’s Green Light for Better Buses sets out our plans for buses. The proposals include reforming bus subsidy, improving competition, improving local authority capability in tendering—and let us not underestimate the difference that can make—incentivising partnership working and multi-operator ticketing, which is a particular interest of mine, and making access to bus information and ticketing easier for all. Perhaps some of that is a result of my London experience.
There is no doubt that we are operating in challenging economic times. The Government must ensure that the bus market is still attractive to all operators, large and small—precisely the point raised by my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. They must find ways to allocate funds fairly, while keeping in mind the best value for money for taxpayers. There is a balance and it is not necessarily an easy set of answers.
The bus service operators grant, paid to bus operators, has historically been provided in a blunt, untargeted way, related to fuel consumption. But from January 2014, the bus subsidy previously claimed by operators of non-commercial services will be devolved to local authorities. I hope that that will drive forward that kind of innovation and new thinking. That money will be ring-fenced until 2017 to ensure stability and will allow local authorities to make the best local-level decisions about the provision of non-commercial bus services.
As several noble Lords around this table have said, some local authorities have argued that they can make the bus subsidy deliver better value for money by working in partnership with their bus operators to grow the bus market. We can all agree that Reading and Nottingham are fine examples of the sort of excellent bus service that can be achieved through that kind of partnership. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, acknowledged that. It is precisely what the four new Better Bus Areas, which I announced today in a Written Ministerial Statement, are intended to test; I thank my noble friend Lord Bradshaw for his kind comments on that. The policy relies strongly on partnership with commercial bus operators, rather than contractual relationships. That is a significant element of a more positive approach.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, has said, Better Bus Areas are quite distinct from quality contract schemes, where, in effect, the local authority follows something much closer to a London model. I feel very strongly that local authorities and local communities should be making the decision about which way they should go on this. If I understood the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, he took that position as well. Some will go one way and some will go another, but I believe that it is absolutely vital that Whitehall does not try to pretend that it understands the needs of each local community. Providing that flexibility to go in two directions seems to be something that we should see as a strength, not as a weakness.
I also want to stress that the Government are committed to protecting the national bus travel concession. I talked about that and made a very clear statement. I love my freedom pass; I suppose I should declare that I have one in case that could be considered a conflict of interest. I know that it changes people’s lives.
A number of people, including the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, recognise that there is a serious issue of young people’s travel, and it is a complex area. While there is no statutory obligation to provide discounted travel to young people, many commercial and publicly funded reductions are available. I make it clear that this is an area that I want to explore. I think that we could do a lot more work in this area and see what possibilities there are, because I take on board many of the issues that have been raised here. I congratulate those local authorities—I think that Brighton is one example—which have provided discounted fares to young people. We therefore have a beginning point for seeing what the impact is and for putting a great deal more thought into this.
Let me try in the minutes that I have left to make sure that I have covered some of the issues that were raised—where I have not, I will of course write to noble Lords. My brain is not yet trained to grasp every point in the way that it should be and, I hope, eventually will be.
On the reimbursement of concessionary fares, the underlying principle, as the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said is: no better off and no worse off. It is an EU regulation and there is plenty of guidance around all this. I am very happy to meet those who think that it is not working effectively, but I should point out that, at the end of a process, bus operators can appeal to the Secretary of State on this issue—indeed, during the past two years, the number of those appeals has fallen, so this may be less of a problem than we might initially fear. I agree, however, that getting that sorted is very helpful if we are going to start thinking through the issue of concessions for young people.
On traffic commissioners and their role in competition, I am sure that I was handed a note and, if I was, I cannot find it. However, I shall pick that up; I am not yet familiar with the issue of traffic commissioners and what they do. Obviously, because they are regional, they can have an impact in a way that I should be aware of, so I will come back and answer that question.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, talked about bus lane enforcement. In London, on TfL roads, that is obviously a matter for the mayor; otherwise, it is a matter for local authorities. From personal experience, I think that most people seem to regard enforcement as ruthless rather than soft. There are certainly successful examples, such as in York, which has employed enforcement officers. This is another area where we must look to local communities to work out how it can be done within their own community. I would be hesitant about Whitehall trying to suggest that there is one way to carry out enforcement, but I take the point that the noble Lord makes.
I again apologise if I have missed any points that noble Lords may have made. I will cover them in letters—we will go back through Hansard and make sure. I assure the Committee that the Government believe in buses. Our vision is for a better bus service with more of what passengers want. We want punctual, interconnected services; we want them greener; it is essential that they become fully wheelchair-accessible; and we need widely available smart ticketing. I know from the experience of London what an impact some of those “soft issues” can have on the effectiveness, the attractiveness and the success of a bus service. A more attractive, more competitive and greener bus network will encourage more passengers, cut carbon and create growth. I believe that those are grounds on which we can all agree.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
I am afraid that I shall have to ask noble Lords to contain their impatience until 4 pm. The rules of the Grand Committee do not allow the next debate to start before the appointed time, even though I look around and see that every speaker is here. I am afraid that I have no discretion on that.
Airports: Passenger Numbers
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Earl Attlee
My Lords, as I tried somewhat clumsily to explain, we have to make sure that air passenger duty is not a tax on fuel. Therefore, we cannot tax per mile because, effectively, that would be a tax on fuel and we would fall foul of the Chicago Convention. It is, I accept, a fairly crude calculation and you can get peculiar results, as my noble friend suggests.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
Can the Minister give an assurance that the claims of Birmingham Airport will be considered in the airport review, bearing in mind that it is the one airport in the country that has spare capacity; that there is not the degree of opposition to expansion and building new runways there that exists at Heathrow, Gatwick or Stansted; and that it will be less than an hour from London by high-speed train?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that the Airports Commission will take into account the benefits of Birmingham Airport and, in particular, the arrival of HS2, because that will make a big difference. I am certain that that will be within its calculations.
Public Bodies (Abolition of BRB (Residuary) Limited) Order 2013
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, I intend to speak very briefly about this order. I agree completely with the Minister in his tribute to the work of the board of BRBR and its staff over the 12 years or so of its existence. The Minister may remember that I spoke about the inclusion of BRBR in the Committee stage of the Public Bodies Bill on 14 December 2010. The Minister has referred to how the British Railways Board (Residuary) has gone about fulfilling its responsibilities since 2001, and I agree with him that its record has been excellent in many respects. I have been particularly impressed by how it has dealt with the 6,400 or so industrial injury and other health claims from former BR employees, to which the Minister referred in his speech. I hope that these will continue to be dealt with as expeditiously in future as they have been by BRBR until now.
BRBR has also done really well in discharging its railway heritage responsibilities, and I thank the Minister for his reference to this issue in his speech. I speak as a former chairman of the Railway Heritage Committee and the current chair of its successor body, the Railway Heritage Designation Advisory Board, which as part of the Science Museum Group has taken on the RHC’s statutory powers of designation. This is partly thanks to the efforts of the Minister, who supported us in resisting its abolition under the Public Bodies Act 2011.
Very many significant railway artefacts have found their way to BRBR stores. The Minister referred to the drawings, which are literally priceless, but there are also some wonderful paintings from the railways’ art collection. Many of those are now on public display in museums and galleries all over the country as a result of, first, the statutory designation, and then the disposal procedures of the RHC and the co-operation of BRBR.
The other great contribution that BRBR has made in this area is in supporting the Railway Heritage Trust which, under the chairmanship of Sir William McAlpine, plays a huge part in restoring and preserving historic railway buildings. BRBR has been instrumental in securing third-party funding for the Railway Heritage Trust, particularly from Network Rail. In this context —I hope that the Minister will allow me to do this—I should like to put on record my own tribute to one of the unsung heroes of Britain’s railways, Peter Trewin, who is the legal and secretariat director of BRBR. He was also the secretary of the British Railways Board. He is a lifetime career railwayman, whom I knew first when he worked with Sir Peter Parker more than 30 years ago. He has played a crucial role in ensuring that the railway takes its heritage responsibilities seriously. I should like to thank him on the record for that work.
There is one further matter that I wish to raise with the Minister. He talked about burdensome estate— the structures that were once part of the operational railway—and that in the main these will be transferred to the Highways Agency. Can he give an assurance that this will not lead to roads being built on these remaining railway track beds? He will know from reading my recently published book that once the infrastructure has been built on, the opportunity to reopen railways on it is lost for ever. There are a number of heritage railways—I declare an interest as president of the HRA—that are looking at long-disused lines as future potential routes. We may also wish one day to restore some lines to the national network, as the demand for rail travel grows. That will not be possible if the infrastructure is converted into a road and we must not close down those options. I hope that the Minister will agree.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I add my appreciation to that expressed by the Minister and my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester for the work done by BRBR, and for the staff of that organisation. I thank the Minister for explaining the background to the order and the reasons for abolishing BRB (Residuary) Ltd, and transferring its functions to the Secretary of State for Transport and Network Rail (Assets) Ltd. The property rights and liabilities of BRBR will then be transferred to successor bodies in the transfer scheme, so I understand that it will be laid before Parliament after being made.
BRB (Residuary) Ltd is wholly owned by the British Railways Board. Perhaps the Minister can say what will happen to the BRB following the abolition of BRB (Residuary) Ltd, what functions and responsibilities it will continue to have, and for how long. The Explanatory Memorandum says that liability for handling claims in respect of industrial injuries, employment and environment-related claims, resulting from BRB activities as an operator of trains, ships and hotels, will transfer to the Secretary of State. Can the Minister give an undertaking that this will not result in a harder or a more long-drawn-out approach being adopted to such claims as a result of this transfer? How many claims are still in the pipeline and how many individuals do they cover?
I also support the request of my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester that the assurance given in the Explanatory Memorandum that the abolition of BRB (Residuary) Ltd will not result in any change in the current process for releasing land designated for rail use, disposal, or for alternative non-transport use should be repeated by the Minister and thus placed on the record, including in the very specific terms that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, was seeking.
The order deals with the abolition of one body. How many other bodies for which the Department for Transport has overall responsibility are still awaiting the outcome of a review of whether they should remain in existence or be abolished? A few weeks after we questioned whether taxpayers were getting value for money with four separate publicly funded motoring bodies, the Government announced that they were reducing the number of agencies from four to three. Is the department now looking at other issues concerning the number of bodies for which it is responsible, including whether we need even three separate government agencies delivering services to motorists, and whether we need a separate company to deliver HS2 when we already have Network Rail, which is responsible for rail infrastructure? In view of the fact that some rights and liabilities of BRB (Residuary) are being transferred to LCR, do the Government see a long-term future for London and Continental Railways Ltd and, if so, is that in its current role or a changed role?
We are certainly not opposed to the order and I hope that the noble Earl will be able to provide the answers and assurances that have been sought by my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester and me.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Greenway
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 75B, 77ZA, 77ZB and 77ZC. The amendments are to do with safeguarding port land.
Amendments 75A and 75B to Clause 22 are intended to preserve the possibility of special parliamentary procedure in relation to compulsory acquisition of land of certain types of transport statutory undertakers. Clause 22 relates to Section 128 of the Planning Act 2008, which provides for development consent orders authorising the compulsory acquisition of land of local authorities and statutory undertakers to be subject to special parliamentary procedure. As currently drafted, Clause 22 would repeal the whole of Section 128. The amendments would instead remove the reference to local authorities and the general reference to statutory undertakers in that section and restrict its application to land of harbour and railway undertakers. These are providers of infrastructure for public benefit, and it is important that land required for these purposes should continue to enjoy the additional level of protection which this procedure confers. Since Section 128 is not to be repealed in its entirety, Section 129 of the Planning Act, which relates to the operation of Section 128, will continue to need to apply. Amendment 75A would also remove its repeal.
Amendment 77ZA would delete subsection (4) of Clause 22, which repeals provisions which also relate to Sections 128 and 129 of the Planning Act. The proposal that these provisions remain makes repeal unnecessary.
Amendments 77ZB and 77ZC follow on from the previous amendments. Clause 23 modifies and limits the scope of special parliamentary procedure in relation to compulsory acquisition of land in certain cases where the Bill is not removing the process altogether; that is, in cases where special parliamentary procedure is triggered under what the Bill describes as a “special-acquisition provision”. It is accepted that if special parliamentary procedure is still to apply under Section 128 of the Planning Act in relation to land of transport undertakers, it should be subject to the same limitations. These amendments would include Section 128 in the definition of special-acquisition provision. This means that the modifications to the procedures would apply to any case in which special parliamentary procedure was triggered by Section 128.
These are in the way of probing amendments. I am seeking assurance that the Government realise the importance of safeguarding port land. If the Minister can give me reassurance on this, and says that the amendments are unnecessary and that the Government are content with the status quo, I will be happy with that. I beg to move.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, I start by thanking the Ministers—the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon—for taking the time to see me with their officials last Thursday to talk about the amendments I have tabled to Clause 23 in the next group and also about my objections to the inclusion of Clause 22 in the Bill.
Your Lordships may recall that I spoke about special parliamentary procedure—SPP—at Second Reading. That was based on my experience of serving on the Rookery South Joint Committee. I shall not repeat the arguments that I used then, other than to repeat the point that SPP has been triggered very rarely—only three times since 1990. While the eventual majority decisions of the Rookery South Joint Committee were not ones I supported—both the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, and I felt that the promoters of the resource recovery facility had a case to answer in terms of demonstrating the need for such a large project—I believe that the public interest was served in our deliberating in a Joint Committee. Had this Bill been an Act last year, with Clauses 22 and 23 contained within it, the Rookery South Joint Committee would not have taken place.
Since Second Reading, I have been sent two pieces of briefing on why Clause 22 should be removed from the Bill. The first relates to a battle against road-builders in High Wycombe in 1965. The redoubtable Kate Ashbrook, general-secretary of the Open Spaces Society, has described what happened on her blog, from which I shall quote some extracts:
“Wycombe Rye is a stretch of public open space on the east side of High Wycombe, Bucks, extending alongside the River Wye … The rye is a treasured spot, 68 acres of land vested in Wycombe District Council and its predecessor body … since 1927 … Looking at it now you might think it had always been safe. Not so. In 1962 part of the land was threatened with a compulsory purchase order, to enable the inner-relief road to be built across it”.
That road had been approved following a public inquiry. She goes on:
“There was a further inquiry into the appropriation of 2.4 acres of open space, but on the inspector’s recommendation, the minister”—
of the day—
“confirmed the appropriation order, under the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) Act 1946, on 5 February 1965. Fortunately no land was offered in exchange, so the order was subject to special parliamentary procedure … That meant that objectors could petition parliament and present their case to a joint committee of both houses ... Magnificently, the committee ruled that the orders be annulled. The rye has remained intact to this day, saved by legislation which gives parliament the final say on the theft of open space where no suitable alternative is provided”.
However, that protection will disappear if Clause 22 remains in the Bill because,
“instead of such cases being referred to a parliamentary committee, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government himself can decide the fate of open space. In future, when compulsory purchase of open space is proposed for development which the government thinks should go ahead quickly, and there is no suitable exchange land or that land is considered to be too expensive, the minister can cast aside SPP and rule that the development proceeds without regard to the open space”.
Powerful arguments in favour of retaining SPP have also come from the Inland Waterways Association, which makes the point that the Canal & River Trust, the body set up following the passage of the Public Bodies Act, holds the waterways it cares for in trust on behalf of the nation in perpetuity. If the CRT is threatened by a compulsory purchase proposal, it has at present the option to go down the SPP route. This, says the Inland Waterways Association, makes the authority threatening compulsory purchase treat the CRT with greater respect and encourages constructive discussion. It claims that if the Bill is passed, the CRT will lose the right to request an SPP. Will the Minister confirm whether it is right in that assertion? If it is, how does he explain the anomaly whereby the National Trust retains the right to call for an SPP on its own land but the Canal & River Trust is denied that? It appears to be the case that the Government are, by their amendment to Clause 22, strengthening the position of the National Trust but at the same time doing nothing to give protection to other bodies with heritage responsibilities. As the Inland Waterways Association puts it, how can the Minister justify the situation where the River Wey Navigation, which is owned by the National Trust and dates back to the 17th century is protected, but the River Lee Navigation, which is five centuries older, is not?
Finally, if Clauses 22 and 23 stay in the Bill, a decision, which was vested in Parliament, will now be taken by the Executive. I caution the Minister to take care in what he wishes for. One advantage from the Government’s point of view about SPP is that it cannot be subject to judicial review and does not apply to decisions taken by the Secretary of State, which can be challenged by JR and will take far longer to resolve than SPP. Certainly, if the Government are threatening open space, they should anticipate the possibility of numerous judicial reviews. I suggest that the Government should now drop Clause 22, take it back for further consideration and perhaps come forward with fresh suggestions on Report.
Lord Jenkin of Roding
My Lords, Amendments 76 and 77 are in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and myself, and this perhaps is the moment when I should make my contribution to the debate. I read the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, at Second Reading and his reference to Rookery South. I approach this issue from a rather different angle. If one looks at the history of that energy-from-waste project in Bedfordshire, the SPP—a post-consent process; planning consent had already been given—simply allows the objectors a further opportunity to object. A lot of people feel strongly about energy-from-waste projects.
The noble Lord says that that gives rise to parliamentary accountability. I have to say that until I had studied the briefs on these two clauses, I had been entirely unaware as a Member of Parliament of the activities of the noble Lord and some of his colleagues—the noble Lord, Lord Geddes, was mentioned. I know that my noble friend Lord Brabazon has been involved in similar SPP processes and has regarded them as very long and drawn out.
This Bill is about encouraging growth and investment in the infrastructure. It really cannot make sense to continue with these, as it were, statutory procedures for delaying decisions and action on applications for which consent has already been given after the normal processes. I have to confess to the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, that I have not studied closely the condition of the waterways, as he obviously has, or, perhaps I may say to the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, the ports.
These two amendments are concerned about, as am I, the application of the special parliamentary procedure for what is called common land,
“open space, fuel or field garden allotment”.
The Planning Act currently provides that a development consent order which authorises compulsory purchase of open space land or a right over such land will be subject to the SPP unless the Secretary of State has issued a certificate confirming that certain prescribed circumstances will apply. I have already said that this is a post-consent approval stage that certainly has the potential to result in—and in some of the cases, not least that of Rookery South to which the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has referred, has actually resulted in—very considerable delays for a project that had already achieved planning consent. The procedure can be very costly for the applicants—and, I dare say, for some of the objectors—and hold back the provision of infrastructure projects that support economic growth.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for the amendments they have tabled, in particular the noble Lords, Lord Greenway, Lord Jenkin and Lord Berkeley, for setting out their proposed amendments to Clause 22. Questions have been raised about the Government’s position in putting forward Clause 22. It may be helpful if I first set out the issues that the Government are trying to address through this clause.
Clause 22 amends the provisions in the Planning Act 2008 which set out when special parliamentary procedure will apply to a development consent order which authorises the acquisition of specially protected land. It also repeals the separate certification process required in certain cases. The Planning Act 2008 brought together a range of different consent regimes for nationally significant infrastructure into a single development consent order. The overall aim of this regime is to provide a more efficient and quicker consenting regime for very large infrastructure projects. Development consent orders can include authorisation for the compulsory acquisition of land, but when certain categories of specially protected land are acquired, special parliamentary procedure can be triggered. The decision by the Secretary of State that such land is to be compulsorily acquired is then transferred to a Joint Committee of Parliament for confirmation. While the special parliamentary procedure is undertaken, the development consent cannot come into effect and work on the infrastructure project cannot start.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, talked about the reasoning behind such measures. Delays to infrastructure projects can have a significant knock-on impact in delaying benefits to the local and, indeed, national economy. In the case to which the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, referred—the Rookery South project in which he was involved—the special parliamentary procedure was triggered for an infrastructure project under the Planning Act. The special parliamentary procedure added more than a year to the consent process. I understand that during this period no work was possible on the project, delaying the creation of up to 300 construction jobs and 80 permanent jobs that would have resulted when the project was up and running.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Has he any estimate of how long it would have taken if the decision had been taken by the Secretary of State and been subjected to judicial review, which was the alternative to the SPP?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
That would be speculating but I will come to the specific issue of judicial review in a moment and perhaps address the question at that time.
In more general terms, there is also the strong argument that has been made about the threat of delay, for whatever reason, impacting on the confidence of investors and developers. We are, after all, looking at infrastructure which is supporting the economic growth of our country. In total, new infrastructure creates thousands of new jobs and billions of pounds of new investment, as we all know. Consents for such infrastructure must be provided as quickly and efficiently as possible. We cannot afford to lose those jobs and investment because of delays in finalising consents.
The Government are committed to reform of the SPP and want to ensure that in future SPP is used only in cases where there is a genuine need for further scrutiny by Parliament of a particular ministerial decision. We therefore consider that SPP under the Planning Act should be limited to cases where there is a need for further scrutiny, as I have said. As my noble friend Lord Jenkin rightly said, it should be invoked where there is a real need for further scrutiny based on public interest and, indeed, a general need to weigh up competing public interests of allowing infrastructure development and the protection of certain types of specially protected land.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 77ZE and 77ZF. I have also given notice that I wish to oppose the Question that Clause 23 should stand part of the Bill. This is, in a sense, a continuation of our previous debate on Clause 22. Perhaps I may first respond to the Minister’s generous offer to convene a meeting with the Canal & River Trust. I am delighted to accept, as, I am sure, the trust will be; I look forward to the meeting.
I shall not repeat the arguments that I put forward regarding Clause 22 but seek simply to state that what the Government propose in Clause 23 goes further than what the two chairmen—the Chairman of Ways and Means in another place and our Chairman of Committees—recommended in their special report on the Rookery South order, when they considered the promoters’ challenges to the locus standi of the petitioners against the order. In paragraph 28 of their report, the two chairmen concluded:
“We urge the Government to amend either the Statutory Orders (Special Procedure) Act 1945 or the Planning Act 2008—or both—so as to ensure a consistent statutory framework for the consideration of future Development Consent Orders subject to Special Parliamentary Procedure. In drawing up revised provisions, the Government will need to consult with the relevant authorities of the two Houses. In the meantime, no further orders of this type should be laid before Parliament until the statutory framework has been amended to resolve these inconsistencies”.
In its proceedings on Rookery South, the Joint Committee decided at the outset that it wished to hear evidence on the whole of each of the petitioners’ cases. The amendments proposed by Clause 23 would have prevented the Joint Committee from doing so. It is likely in future cases, once Clause 23 is in force, that any attempt to petition on issues that are not related to the acquisition of the special land are likely to be challenged at the preliminary stage before the two chairmen.
Despite that, it remains to be seen whether petitioners will be able to raise issues that are not directly related to the acquisition of the land. It has always been a central tenet of compulsory acquisition law that the applicant for the powers must demonstrate that there is a compelling case in the public interest for the land to be acquired compulsorily—a point made with great force by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, in the previous debate. Those words are embodied in Section 122(3) of the Planning Act. In order for a petitioner to demonstrate that there is no compelling case in the public interest, he should be able to bring evidence to bear about the benefits of the proposals as a whole, compared with the injury that he will suffer when losing his land.
As I said, Clause 23 goes further than the request made by the two chairmen, who limited their remarks to the 2008 Act. No issue has been raised as regards the compatibility between the Acquisition of Land Act 1981—and other statutes that authorise compulsory acquisition—and the 1945 Act; yet the clause seeks to limit the scope of SPP in the 1981 Act and the other examples in the same way as it does for 2008 Act cases. I should be grateful if the Minister can explain why the Government have decided that this should be the case. My amendments would have the effect of limiting the changes proposed to the SPP procedure so that they apply only to development consent orders under the Planning Act 2008. I beg to move.
Lord Greaves
My Lords, I wish to put on record that I support the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, I can start with the easy bit, which is to thank the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for his support. What the Minister has said is incredibly complicated. I will need to read it with great care and, I suspect, take advice from people who are much cleverer in this area than I am. I am grateful for the trouble that he has gone to in explaining the Government’s position and, indeed, the whole approach of the Government on the SPP in Clauses 22 and 23. I think that I am in a minority in your Lordships’ House about the need to preserve the significant elements of the SPP operation. However, for the moment, I am happy to withdraw the amendment if the Committee agrees.
Railways: Fares
Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Earl Attlee
My Lords, this is largely a matter for the train operating companies. The difficulty for them is enforcing the quiet carriage rules. I like a quiet carriage, but some people do not adhere to the rules.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester
My Lords, the Minister is right to draw attention to the availability of advanced tickets, which represent decent value for money in the great majority of cases. Does he share my irritation when one discovers that it is cheaper to buy tickets for a journey by buying two or three tickets rather than a through ticket?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I was not aware of that particular anomaly, but I hope that the fares review will look at that.