HS2 Reset

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, in the late 2000s there was an absolute cross-party ambition in the UK to build a high-speed railway connecting London and the north of England, and ultimately Scotland, and increasing the capacity of our railway was at the core of that ambition. The Liberal Democrats—and I am speaking on behalf of my Benches today—have always supported this. It is not about a nice-to-have, fast, shiny new railway line which we all love, but helping to alleviate the pressure and capacity restrictions on the existing rail network, and supporting growth.

This Statement, the James Stewart review, which is to be commended, and the associated papers set out a damning story of Conservative mismanagement. What should have been a fantastic example of investment, connecting our great cities of Leeds and Manchester with London while boosting economic growth, has in reality been a Treasury spending spree wasting billions of pounds of public money and causing years of delay, based on a political whim of the day. It is a textbook example of how not to build modern infrastructure, and the Conservative Party should be ashamed of their mismanagement.

The Conservative Government focused on a schedule before sufficient design work had taken place—a recipe for disaster that we have seen play out—and constantly changed the scope and requirements of the project. Reading the Statement about HS2 brought back many memories about what happened with Crossrail. There was no real oversight, and there were confused lines of accountability. Key people were not listening to those who were reporting that the build was not on time, and they chose to water down those warnings up the line. There was constant pressure to change the scope, an obsession with an opening date above all else, and a lack of capacity in the Department for Transport to oversee major infrastructure projects.

This reset for High Speed 2 is therefore absolutely welcome. To date, the project has failed to follow international best practice in building major projects. We on these Benches stress how much we welcome the new leadership of Mark Wild, as chief executive of High Speed 2, and his forensic work in unpicking what happened and getting the programme back on track, to a realistic timescale and budget. He took over Crossrail when it was on its knees and turned it around, motivating the team to deliver the Elizabeth Line, which is such a pleasure to use and is one of the busiest train lines in the country. I know he can do the same with High Speed 2.

The project has again shone a light on poor procurement and poor contract management within the Department for Transport. What actions will the Government take to address insufficient capability within the Department for Transport, particularly in commercial and delivery expertise, and client work on major infrastructure projects on this scale? What will the Government do to build trust with local communities and wider stakeholders in this new HS2 project? What changes will the Government make to the governance structure and financing of High Speed 2 to ensure that costs and schedule estimates are reliable? As always, we want to gain wider learnings from this. As I called for after Crossrail—in fact, I briefed a previous chief executive of High Speed 2 and Ministers about the issues we had found during the Crossrail delays—we want to build more transport infrastructure to help our regional economies grow. To do this, however, we need a structure to deliver it on time and on budget.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by emphasising the benefits of a new railway to the Midlands and the north of England. Both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness referred to the capacity of the West Coast Main Line, and it is not in contention that new capacity needs to be built. Connectivity drives growth, jobs and housing, and the skyline of Birmingham is testimony to Birmingham’s expectations of a faster link to London. Indeed, the Government have put significant money into connectivity for the sports quarter, which, clearly, would not be being proposed were it not for HS2 serving Birmingham in the future. The development opportunities at Old Oak Common are already being realised, as will those at Euston. The benefits of greater connectivity are there to see and are really important for our country and its economic future.

We can also do some big projects. The trans-Pennine route upgrade is a £14 billion project to an existing railway and is on time and budget. But it is true, as both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness said, that HS2 has gone badly wrong, and it falls to this Government to sort it out, because we cannot carry on like this. Currently, we can predict neither when it will open nor how much it will cost. That is a pretty terrible position to be in and it has to be said the consequences are as a result of actions taken by previous Governments.

I welcome the fact that both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness welcomed the appointment of Mark Wild as chief executive and Mike Brown as chair of HS2. I have every confidence that both those people will begin to put this right and fundamentally restructure the company and the approach to the project through a very detailed review of where it is now—because, unless you know where it is now, you will not be able to find out where it is going in the future.

It must be the case that the criticisms of the governance model are justified. Indeed, James Stewart’s report sets out a whole a whole raft of recommendations that the Government have fully accepted. My own department clearly shoulders some culpability. The noble Lord asked what has happened in the department and, although I do not think it is not right to delve into senior personnel, he will, of course, note that a new Permanent Secretary is about to be appointed, the previous incumbent having retired.

We need a new model, but one in which the chair and board of HS2 take a far greater responsibility for the things they should be responsible for. The noble Baroness referred to Crossrail, where it was quite clear that the chair and board were not acting in the interests of the company. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that I regard him as the best board member of Crossrail during his time as a non-executive director, because he diligently looked at the progress of the project. Indeed, the then chair of the project complained furiously, to me and others, about the noble Lord’s diligence in inspecting the real state of the project. That was as it should be and it is a shame that HS2’s boards do not seem to have done the same. It is right to have a new chair, and I have no doubt that in due course we will have a new or different board as well.

I will not go through the Stewart report. It contains a raft of recommendations, as I said, all of which the Government have accepted. It is also quite clear that, if you are going to put out big construction contracts, you should have a sponsor capability that is capable of understanding what the contractors are doing as they do it and of measuring how much is done and how much it has cost as it is happening. Mark Wild has found that HS2 itself is fundamentally unable to achieve that in its present state and will therefore change it.

What is in front of us in Mark Wild’s letter to the Secretary of State and the Stewart report is extraordinarily unhappy. Clearly, a number of really bad decisions have been taken. I helped Doug Oakervee with his review in 2020, and his strong recommendation was that the then construction contracts should not have been left in their current form because they had insufficient detail and there was insufficient design and encouragement to the contractors to perform properly and to budget. We can see the result of that here.

I will not go through the Secretary of State’s Statement in detail—because it is already in the public domain—nor the letter or the report. To answer the noble Lord’s question about Euston station, it is clear that Euston station is no longer to be delivered as part of HS2. That cannot be a great surprise because, as the Secretary of State remarked in the other place, faced with a first design that cost a huge amount more than the budget, when HS2 looked at it again, it came back with a design that cost even more—and that is without the air-conditioned platforms that were originally part of the design and were an eye-wateringly unnecessarily feature, since they do not exist even in railways in Saudi Arabia, where you would probably think they might like that sort of thing.

So, it is right for Euston to be dealt with separately. The reason the noble Lord is not aware of a separate company is that the Government have not yet got to that stage. It has taken a long and painful process to get to a stage at which all the parties involved in Euston now agree with the spatial plan, including the developer Lendlease and its new partner, the Crown Estate. The Government are now considering how best to procure that station, which includes an HS2 station and the concourse of the Network Rail station as a combined station, which it always should have been but, certainly when I started chairing the partnership board at Euston, was not. In fact, the original intention was to have two platforms numbered “1” because the HS2 people thought they were building a new railway in a separate station. How stupid was that?

So, we are progressing with Euston as a separate project to be delivered by a separate organisation. There will be more to say in short order, both here and in the other place, but the noble Lord has not missed anything. The state in which even that part of the project was left, after the peremptory cancellation of phase 2a and the statement by the previous Prime Minister that Euston should be built with no public funding, was one where it needed serious work to come to a conclusion. But I do not agree with the noble Lord that we should somehow further alter the design of Euston. We should get on with a plan that works in order to open this railway at the earliest possible time that Mark Wild can predict, at a cost he can predict, and with a delivery plan that will work.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s Statement on HS2 yesterday. It has good detail and a lot of the plans that the Government intend to do. I was also pleased that the latest cost estimate of about £100 billion to get it to Birmingham, is much closer to the one that Michael Byng and I have been peddling for some years. I also welcome the new chief executive and chair of HS2 and, of course, the Ministers, who are both relatively new.

The worry I put to my noble friend is that the four new people at the top, excellent though they will be, have an incredibly difficult job ahead of them. One of the biggest problems is to unpick or change the mouthwatering contracts that most of the contractors have been given by the previous Administration, which means it will be very difficult to know what the future output costs will be and how they will be monitored. So, can one or two people—very good people, with two Ministers in charge—plan this without a much greater root-and-branch change in the Department of Transport and HS2? I hope I am wrong, but I think there is a lot of work to be done there as well.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that. There is no latest cost estimate. One of the things we are absolutely resolved to do is not to have such a cost estimate until Mark Wild and the people he is bringing in have been through this project in such detail that an estimate can be reliable. It is not at all satisfactory to have contractors working on such huge contracts without a full understanding by a decent sponsor of what they have delivered as they deliver it, how much it has cost, and what the remaining work is. That is also a feature, because the contracts were let too early and the design was not certain, so all that work needs to be done.

My noble friend is right that four new people by themselves cannot do all this—not by a long chalk. But noble Lords will, I hope, have read Mark Wild’s letter in detail, in which he sets out that, fundamentally, HS2 is unfit for purpose and he will have to restructure that company, alongside getting proper estimates of cost and timescale. He will need some help doing it and much of my and the Secretary of State’s discussion with him in the last weeks and months has been about how many people he needs to do that, who they are, whether we can trust them and how quickly we can get them in. Those elements are all important.

One of the really important things in this is that, I think for the first time for a long time, we will have a chair and a chief executive of HS2 who are communicative, collaborative, straight and honest, and we can have a discussion with them about where this is going and what it is doing. One of the characteristics of this company so far and of the Crossrail company for most of its life is that they were both arrogant enough to believe that they knew what they were doing without any supervision and without telling anybody what was really going on. In both cases, it went badly wrong. Mark knows that he has to change the culture of the company. There clearly are some good people there, but they need to be led and directed properly.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a former Secretary of State for Transport, I think one of rather many in this House, and as an adviser for many years to the Central Japan Railway Company, which is now busy building the fastest railway in the world, the Yamanashi Maglev. It may be of some comfort to all sides of the House that it is running considerably over budget and two or three years late, emphasising the point that these gigantic projects again and again, almost for the last century, have been becoming wildly over budget and raising all sorts of issues, such as social and environmental consequences, that were not seen to start with and were not brought into the consultation. That remains the situation.

I welcome the moves the Government are making to pull it together with the new appointments, which I am sure are of the highest quality. I think we should all try to live with the remarks of the Minister and others that it is all the previous Government’s fault. They always say that. We should swallow our pride and recognise that if we have joint support, all round, of the least partisan and most constructive kind, we will get this project through. My Japanese friends said from the start that building should have begun from the north and come downwards rather than starting from London. There might have been rather different politics if it had.

Is the Minister aware that there will be more overruns? There will be more costs that no one had foreseen. Their efforts should be welcomed, as I said, but they must also be prepared for being quite frank in coming before this House, and obviously the other place, with the details of where the overruns are and how they fit in. There is a much bigger lesson, as my noble friend rightly said in his excellent opening remarks, that in these giant projects, we have not quite got right the co-operation between the Government, the state and the private sector. I see another huge whitish elephant coming up at Sizewell C, not because there should not be nuclear power there—I am all for that—but because it is the wrong design. It is vast. It is going to take years, and it is going to cost nearly the same sort of money in the end as we are spending on this railway. Figures of £30 billion to £40 billion are freely mentioned. There needs to be a vastly greater concentration on combining finance by the state that does not end in borrowing and taxation that we cannot afford with the private sector, where there is lots of money ready to go into well-formed and properly investable projects.

[Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Blake of Leeds) (Lab)]

I remind the House that this is an opportunity for Back-Benchers to ask questions. We have several who want to intervene, and we will run out of time if we are not careful.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord and former Secretary of State, of which there seem to be very many on the Opposition Benches, for his remarks and observations.

[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, I am sure the Minister will agree that the point of railways is moving people and freight around the country and that the railway system is not a kind of glorified train set for the great men of our age to play with. I have travelled up and down the west coast main line for more than 50 years, and during that period we have all experienced a great deal of trouble and difficulty. Can the Minister confirm that, as well as the other factors that are being taken into account in consideration of this woeful debacle, the interests of the travelling public and their convenience will be at the forefront of the consideration of what happens next?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I can indeed absolutely assure the noble Lord of that. One of the difficulties I found in coming into this position is that clearly the previous management of HS2 thought it was a construction project—I think there are some lessons from Crossrail here too. There was a view that somehow it was a big construction project and at the end you incidentally got a railway. That cannot be right. The original justification for this was the capacity constraint on the west coast main line, which is still there, and the projected inability to do anything serious about its capacity without years of disruption. What has resulted is a project that has created years of disruption, but somewhere else other than on the railway. I have it in mind constantly that this project will produce a new railway for the United Kingdom that will be regarded as part of the railway network by its customers. I refer to the ludicrous proposition that Euston should have had two platform 1s. Nobody cares anything about that. What they want is a train to Birmingham or a train to Manchester, and they want it to run reliably. We have that very much in mind. Indeed, Mark Wild, as the chief executive, knows perfectly well that he needs to turn this present construction activity into a railway, which is what he did with the Elizabeth line, and I have every confidence that he will do it again.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a necessary but pretty depressing Statement announcing, as it effectively is, that when it comes to major infrastructure projects, whether they are railways or power stations or airports, this country does them very badly indeed. I hope we learn some lessons from that. I ask my noble friend to reflect that, on timescale, the Victorians managed in a period of 30 years, from 1830 to 1860, to build the whole rail network, and we cannot deal with one line in less time than that. I remind him as well that in the international context, pretty well every other country in the world—Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and others—has been building, is building or has planned major high-speed rail systems. Will my noble friend give us answers to these questions? Why do these projects take so long when we know from our history that it is possible to do them much more speedily? What can we learn from all these other countries that do not seem to have any of the headaches, disasters, mismanagement and overspend that we have in building a very necessary railway because the old Victorian one, wonderful though it was, is crumbling?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is not quite right. We do not always do these things badly. Indeed, I deliberately referred to the trans-Pennine upgrade in my previous remarks because it is a very large project. It is very complex because it is being carried out on an operating railway. Its current value is £14 billion. It has been through innumerable scope changes, sadly, but it is now being delivered on time and badly.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am sorry. That is a slip of the tongue caused by looking at my notes. I should have said on time and on budget. We do not always do them badly.

If noble Lords look at the history of HS2 they will see not limited scope changes but enormous scope changes with miles of the railway being put into tunnels and some technical specifications that, now they are being contemplated, do not look half as clever as they did when somebody suggested the highest-speed high-speed railway in the world, which therefore has to go in very straight lines and might disturb bats and need a bat tunnel when a more modest railway would have gone around that issue rather than straight through it.

I have to say to my noble friend that it is not always true that the Victorians got it right, and I am sure that this must have happened to previous Transport Ministers too. When I got to Network Rail, I remarked that Brunel’s Great Western Railway cost three times what he suggested it would, and about a week later I got a letter in green ink several pages long from a retired engineer, who said that I was entirely wrong and had no idea what I was talking about: it was actually four times more expensive.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

When I was appointed to lead the Department for Transport, HS2 was already not in great shape, as is well known. I immediately implemented some changes to get a grip of the project by focusing the company on cost control, starting work to renegotiate those big civil contracts that the Minister referred to and cancelling the second phase—which, although controversial at the time, I notice the present Government have not changed—which freed up money to spend on projects across the country. The final thing was to appoint Mark Wild as the new chief executive. I am confident that, with his record in delivering the Elizabeth line, he will achieve great things.

I will ask the Minister two questions. First, I listened carefully to what he said about Euston. Of course, I worked closely with him in his previous incarnation as the chairman of the Euston partnership. Refocusing that as a development-led project with more housing, more business space, and more contribution from private sector investment and less from the taxpayer is the right thing. I am pleased with the progress that has been made. He said he would come back to your Lordships’ House “in short order”; can he give us a bit more detail about what that means? Is that before the Summer Recess or after? I would like to hear more detail.

Secondly, the Minister also referred to the main works civil contracts. We started the work on renegotiating them. Can he say a little more about the progress that has been made? I recognise there is some commercial confidentiality involved there. It was referred to in James Stewart’s report, and it is important to get value for the taxpayer.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for the decision to appoint Mark Wild, which was obviously a good thing. The noble Lord is absolutely right that he did take some action. In the light of what has been discovered since, we could question how much action should have been taken, because this Government have clearly now taken some really strong action. In particular, we have had a serious look at governance. As a consequence, there is a new chair and there will no doubt be a new board in due course. That is one of the issues that has needed attention for some time.

I would be less complimentary about the cancellation of phase 2, which was pre-emptory. As for freeing up money, there was no money associated with phase 2. It is true that it would have cost money had it been delivered, but it was a delusion for many parts of the country. The Network North document promised everything to everybody without evidently having money in the short and medium term to deliver it. But everybody has had a part in this, and the truth is that this Government are committing themselves to this fundamental reset. Through that, we will get phase 1 to Birmingham and Old Oak Common and Euston done.

The Government are moving fast on Euston. I doubt we will be able to put anything in front of the House before the Summer Recess, but as soon as we are able to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and I will come back about it. The noble Lord is certainly right about the main works civil contracts, but in order to have a reset of those you actually need to know where the project is. If you do not know where the project is and nobody can accurately say how much has been delivered then trying to negotiate your way out of those circumstances is really quite hopeless. Mark Wild is undertaking a granular review of how much has been constructed and how much value has been created through its construction. The noble Lord is right that we have to engage in discussion with the main works civil contractors and their consortia. We will do that in due course, but we first have to know where the project is in order to baseline those discussions.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister explain exactly what the purpose of the Infrastructure and Projects Authority is? It was created in 2016 and has presided over a number of these types of projects which have not worked out. At the moment, the police are looking to purchase a new radio system, which has gone from £2 billion to £12.5 billion. In all the political knockabout—and I understand why there is political accountability in this—it seems to have been a silent body but, as far as I can see, it was set up to avoid this type of event.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Government are creating a new body out of the IPA and the NIC. We expect it to assist those projects to help them do these jobs better. There are a number of projects through government that have not gone well either—the project that the noble Lord refers to is one of them. It is really important for a body such as that to embrace the learnings, both from the James Stewart review and from the actual experience of these big projects, and help government not commit the same mistakes again.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the problems encountered by all major projects such as HS2 is the difficulty of getting the public generally on side. I declare an interest here as a former owner of a property that was on the route of the original plans for HS2. I am sure the House will understand the issues that arise when you wake up one morning and discover that your house might have a tunnel underneath it, or worse, and the reaction you have to that.

My question is not so much about the detail of the current report, but to ask whether the department is thinking more widely about how it can get people on board prior to and during the process of planning new infrastructure of this type. Is the department aware of a scheme proposed a few years ago by members of the insurance industry to try to create a fund that would be available to remove blight from the political issues that departments face when making proposals? If he has not heard of that or had any discussions with it, would he receive a representation from me on it?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

It is right to say that the public need to be onside with these huge projects. Although, clearly, this is a high-speed rail project, I started what I said today with a reminder about the benefits of it because it is too easy just to refer to the project as a project without referring to why it needs to be done. I think there are some lessons in that. The other thing is that massive scope changes, such as the deletion of whole legs of a scheme, lead people to the conclusion that the original proposition was somehow not justified, and that is to be deeply regretted.

In detail, I have had many representations—as, no doubt, my predecessors did—from individual landowners, and it is clear that, in some cases, HS2 has not behaved properly or with due speed in what must be, personally and commercially, worrying and trying circumstances for individual landowners. We have just appointed a new commissioner for construction and residents, and I look to HS2 and to that commissioner to act with alacrity on some of the long-running claims that have clearly blighted individuals’ lives. I would like to hear further from the noble Lord about what he refers to, and I hope he will write to me.

Self-driving Vehicles: Disabled Passengers

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what provision there will be for disabled passengers in the pilots for self-driving vehicles announced on 10 June.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Secretary of State must, by law, consider whether and to what extent granting a permit for an automated passenger service is likely to help improve understanding of how these services should best be designed for and provided to disabled and older passengers. Accessibility considerations will be set out in non-statutory guidance, and related permit conditions can be enforced through the permitting process. It would be counterproductive to specify detailed requirements in regulation for innovative new services.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, but the key problem with the Government’s announcement is that the consultation is happening at exactly the same time as the specification and the manufacture of the driverless vehicles that are due to be launched early next year. This is literally a once-in-an-era moment: new driverless vehicles hitting our roads. The Government need to ensure that taxis and bus-like taxis will have accessibility designed into them. Otherwise, it will be like everything else for disabled people: reasonable adjustments after the event that are expensive for the manufacturer and never perfect for the user. Can the Minister say whether the contract with Wayve and Oxa will ensure that ramps, audio and visual announcements are designed in right from the start?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness knows that we consider the implications of transport for people with disabilities extraordinarily seriously. Whatever individual providers have said—and some of them have said something following the recent announcement by the Secretary of State—it will still be up to the Secretary of State to grant permission, under the conditions I described. For taxis and private hire vehicles, they will need local authority consent and, of course, that will all be subject to the public sector equality duty.

I think the noble Baroness is assuming that all these services will be provided by newly designed vehicles, when in fact the likelihood is that, in the very short term, they will be the same sort of vehicles used for taxi and PHV services. In the medium term, clearly there will be new designs, and there are already some that are suitable for wheelchairs and people with disabilities. We have to acknowledge that automated vehicles are part of an exciting future, but they have to be implemented safely, and she is right that they have to be implemented to benefit all parts of the community.

[Baroness Griffin of Princethorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, what provision will there be for disabled passengers in all HMG’s transport plans?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. The Government are consulting on an integrated transport policy, which will of course include provision for disabled people. In the various modes of transport, there is extensive work going on in all cases to accommodate disabled people as fully as we can in the provision of public services going forward. Some of them are more difficult than others. The railway is 200 years old this year—some of its facilities are equally old—but the Government are striving to achieve what my noble friend looks for.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, it was a great pleasure to get the Automated Vehicles Act on the statute book before the last election. It puts Britain in a globally leading position to get investment and technology and be global leaders in this important technology. I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said: we should be ambitious about making this technology accessible for everyone. Automated vehicles have the potential to improve the life chances and the independence of all those who have a disability that means that they cannot drive themselves. I urge the Minister to be as ambitious as he can and to go as fast as he can to get this technology on to our roads. It is safe, we are leaders in it and it is a real opportunity for Great Britain.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

There must have been a shadow of a question in there somewhere, but I agree with the noble Lord that it is an exciting prospect. He is right that the potential here is to increase mobility for the community and for people with disabilities, if we get it right. I have great sympathy with the noble Baroness in striving to make sure that disability is treated in the mainstream, but if we are going to do this quickly, we have to recognise that the early adoption under this Act is likely to be using the same sorts of vehicles as are used now. What we are looking for in the medium-term future is new designs, which should have the facilities such as audio-visual equipment and facilities for people in wheelchairs that she would expect.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, can the Minister comment on what licences will be given to rural areas? We are very short of buses, both for people with disability and for the ordinary population. Surely these kinds of vehicles would be ideal in small, remote villages so that people could access essential services.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is entirely right. One of the really good prospects here is the provision of public services to people in rural areas where buses, with the best will in the world and despite the Government’s ground-breaking bus legislation, will not serve every need of the community because of the sparse population. That community is also getting older and many people there cannot drive, so there is a real opportunity here for autonomous vehicles fulfilling the need for public services in a way that conventional buses and taxis really cannot.

I go back to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, which is that we have to design in—as far as we can—facilities for disabled people among this. But we also, as the noble Lord opposite said, have to get going with this, because it is such an exciting future.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, as well as the area of accessibility, what work have the Government carried out to determine liability in collisions involving self-drive vehicles as part of this pilot, given that human error will be removed from the equation?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right: safety has to be the first priority here. There has been a great deal of work worldwide on this. Clearly, the primary consideration for the adoption of autonomous vehicles is safety, so that people are not endangered by new technology but assisted by it. I will write to her about the precise steps that the Government have taken in the UK on this, but it is of course being addressed on a worldwide basis.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister spoke in the other place of the importance of getting disabled people into work. I ask the Minister in what way the retro, ad hoc inclusion of disabled people facilitates the realisation of that worthy goal. Can he also confirm that the Minister for Social Security and Disability in the other place was specifically consulted on the points that he has made?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Government are really committed to including people with disabilities in mainstream life and work, and I think the availability of autonomous vehicles ought, over time, to enable that more fully, as we have described—in rural areas, for example—than happens now. The Government have consulted extensively over where to go and what to do in this respect, and I will make sure that my department has consulted with all other necessary departments on this, but I would believe that to be the case, without doubt.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and other noble Lords have made some very important points, but I draw the Minister’s attention to an account in the Daily Telegraph this week of a report from the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism suggesting the real likelihood that these automated vehicles could be programmed by terrorists so as to launch mass attacks on pedestrians in our streets—so-called slaughterbots. This is a grave matter. Has the Minister read that report, and can he give an assurance that these vehicles will not be allowed on our streets unless that risk has been eliminated?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have no doubt that the noble Lord spends far longer reading the Daily Telegraph than I have time for. As it happens, I did not read that particular article, but I do know of the subject. Of course, we have to be concerned in all aspects of national security that things controlled by clever computers and technology are not misused by those who are enemies of the state anywhere. It is also a common issue with these vehicles around the world. I am not going to say any more about that now, other than that the Government know perfectly well that this is a possibility. When and as they take action on this, they will make sure that the risk to the public is absolutely minimised.

E-scooters, E-bikes and Pedal Bikes: Legislation

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to introduce legislation to provide for the registration, insurance and other matters relating to privately owned e-scooters, e-bikes and pedal bikes.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have no plans to legislate for the registration or insurance of e-bikes or pedal bikes. This would be likely to put many people off cycling, with negative environmental and health benefits. However, it is illegal for private e-scooters to be used on public roads. The Government will consider both registration and insurance for e-scooters in any future legislation. I look forward to further exploring this important subject with the noble Baroness in our forthcoming meeting.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, and I look forward to meeting him tomorrow. Presumably, the Government are seeking a safe space for all road users, including pedestrians, car drivers, e-scooters, e-bikes and bikes. Currently, 1 million e-scooters are being used illegally on public roads without insurance. Damage caused by their accidents is recovered through Motor Insurers’ Bureau claims, 47% of which involve e-scooters, including pedestrians between the ages of seven and 80 being struck by an e-scooter. Although I share the Government’s aim to increase and improve micromobility at every level, will the noble Lord ensure that the Government apply the law as it currently stands and review the possibility of extending to e-scooters, e-bikes and bikes both registration and insurance? It is inappropriate that only car drivers are currently covering the cost of this insurance.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I feel that this is a rerun of the noble Baroness’s previous Question. She is right that the road network, including the pavement, should be safe for all varieties of road users, including all the people she mentions and pedestrians. It clearly is an issue, and I respect her view, and that of other noble Lords, that it is an issue. The previous Government started a rental trial in 2020 and announced primary legislation in May 2022 but failed to deliver it. This Government are giving serious consideration to these issues, including the issue of insurance, and I am sure that this subject will come back—probably weekly—until this legislation.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister consider banning e-bikes and e-scooters on pavements and introduce a special lane on the road for these vehicles to rescue pedestrians from what is currently a major risk?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

We have limited road space in the towns and cities of the United Kingdom. I have wrestled with this issue personally, when I ran Transport for London for nine and a half years. It is extraordinarily difficult. The answer is a set of laws, and people conforming with those laws, that leave pedestrians safe, disabled people safe and road users of all sorts safe. There is an issue about enforcement—the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, raised that issue in this House a few days ago and produced the very competent Sergeant Ford of the City of London Police, who has done a lot on enforcement regarding illegal e-cycles. The answer is proper behaviour, a road network that copes with all its users and proper enforcement.

[Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Lab)]

My Lords, phone thefts using e-bikes and e-scooters, and general antisocial behaviour by those using such vehicles, plagued the residents of Stratford City in my former constituency, spreading fear and intense feelings of unease. What sanctions can be deployed against such bike users, and are there any plans to increase the sanctions?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Government understand that position completely, and there is enforcement. Last year, the City of London Police seized 324 e-cycles for having no insurance, and the Metropolitan Police seized 1,076. Of course the issue, as my noble friend relates, is not merely illegal use of the cycles; it is the disorder and crime that goes with them. My noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint stood at this Dispatch Box a few days ago talking about the additional measures the Government are putting in place to allow easier confiscation of these bikes when they are used in the wrong way. We encourage police forces to follow the lead of the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police in understanding that the use of these things illegally leads to further crime.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware of the investigative reporting by Jim Waterson at London Centric on Lime bikes, and the huge increase of broken legs and serious injuries at A&Es, known locally as “Lime leg”? What plans do the Government have to ensure that comprehensive insurance is in place for hire bike operators?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises a good point. I and the department have read the investigation by Jim Waterson. It is concerning that these bikes apparently seem to cause so many breaks of the lower limbs, and I will write to her about the actions that can be taken both about insurance, which hire bike schemes should have, and with the company about the design of its bikes and the damage that they seem to cause on a regular basis.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, on at least two occasions recently when I have asked questions about e-bikes and e-scooters and the Labour Government’s policy towards them, the Minister has replied by telling me about the previous Conservative Government’s policy towards them. It is becoming increasingly clear that the reason for that is that this Government really do not know what their policy towards them ought to be. Will the Minister answer the question I asked last time? Are the Government, essentially, happy for the current state of drift and danger to continue on our streets pretty well indefinitely?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Last time the noble Lord said that to me, I repeated the answer I gave him on 1 April, which is that

“I do not … care to be lectured about drift by somebody who represents a party that did an experiment in 2021, published some results in 2022 and then did nothing”.—[Official Report, 1/4/25; col. 117.]


That answer is still the same. The Government, as the noble Lord heard in answer to the Question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, are considering what to do. It is a complex problem. I have explained to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, among others, that we have to make some decisions about what needs to be in legislation. It is not a simple thing to do, and it is a great shame that his Government did not contemplate and do something about it.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, somebody has to speak up on behalf of pedal bikes. I say that as somebody who cycled from London to Vienna and back many years ago, when I was younger, and somebody who was also knocked down by a pedal bike two or three years ago. Is it not the right policy to encourage the widest possible use of pedal bikes? It is healthy and good for the environment.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. I have cycled only as far as Amsterdam on a pedal bike, so I admire him for going to Vienna and back. I am not sure that I could do it now.

The reason why I answered the original question the way that I did is that it is very important not to put people off a mode of transport that is environmentally friendly and safe and, when done in the right way, is a huge benefit to our society. That is why registration and insurance of pedal bikes is such a difficult issue, because it would undoubtedly put people off cycling. But we also have to recognise that there are behaviours about cycling in general, and the use of e-bikes and e-scooters, that are very threatening and damaging to pedestrians and can cause very serious accidents and death. That is why the Government intend to introduce appropriate offences to the Road Traffic Act 1988 about the more serious offences caused by dangerous, careless and inconsiderate cycling.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, many of us have children and grandchildren. To go on from the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, can the Government confirm absolutely that there is no move at all to register bicycles for anybody, but particularly for young people? Otherwise, we will have six and seven year-olds who want to learn to ride a bicycle being registered for some foolish reason, when the only person they are a danger to, sadly, is themselves.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I share the noble Lord’s enthusiasm for teaching kids to cycle, which is why I said to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, that the Government have no plans to legislate for the registration or insurance of e-bikes or pedal bikes.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister keeps telling us that this is complex and difficult, but meanwhile he is not doing anything either. Does he understand not only the dimensions of the harm that is being caused, particularly to pedestrians, of riding on pavements, dumping on pavements and sailing through red lights, as well as the corrosive effect that this normalisation of anti-social and unlawful behaviour is having on public confidence in tackling lawlessness?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The one thing that I did not say was that the Government are doing nothing. The Government are considering very seriously what needs to be done to deal with this issue, and noble Lords will know—because I put it in the Library—that the range of legislation affecting particularly e-bikes and e-scooters across Europe and beyond gives us some difficult and serious choices about how to legislate and in which way. In the meantime, as my noble friend Lord Hanson of Flint said in response to the Question last week from the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, the Government are taking serious action on dangerous and inconsiderate cycling as well as about confiscating bikes when they are used for crime. I have sympathy with what the noble Baroness says, and we are doing something about it.

European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2025 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on securing this debate. This has been an important discussion, and I welcome the opportunity to respond. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, I was not aware of EGNOS until recently. I am afraid that I have also concluded that it is imperative to use acronyms in this speech because I cannot spell it out every time over 12 minutes, which is a shame. The topic has been amply explained by noble Lords and I do not need to explain it again. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Berkeley for setting out the history of EGNOS, with which I concur. It understandably attracts interest, particularly from the aviation sector and those with an interest in its future success.

I begin by reaffirming this Government’s unwavering commitment to maintaining a safe, modern and innovative aviation system. I welcome the noble Earl’s endorsement of those principles, too. In answer to the question of why this department is here and why I am speaking, the Government recognise the importance of positioning, navigation and timing technologies for our security and prosperity. That goes much wider than EGNOS and aviation, impacting all parts of our lives. DSIT is leading on this wider work with the Government’s framework for greater PNT resilience, but my department is working across government to understand the requirements for transport.

We recognise the value the sector places on services such as EGNOS in supporting aviation safety and reliability, particularly during difficult weather and at smaller aerodromes. Since the UK’s withdrawal from the programme as a result of leaving the EU, as noble Lords have heard, flights have continued to operate safely with no degradation in our overall safety regime. We are carefully examining all available options for supporting the continued operation of safe and reliable flights, which could well include membership of EGNOS. My noble friend Lord Berkeley is right: we are talking to the European Union and a better relationship will enable us to participate if we choose to. That answers the question of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about whether we could join if we so wished, but it depends on whether we choose to or not. He also made a point about Galileo, which I am not equipped to answer, but I will speak to my noble friend the Technology Minister so that he can have an answer in due course.

It is critical that any solution is based on clear operational needs and a strong value-for-money case for both users and taxpayers. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that, if the previous Government had considered paying for the system, they could have done so during their time in office. This Government are continuing this work and we will continue to work closely with industry experts and stakeholders to find the most effective and sustainable solution. If noble Lords have further evidence to contribute to a value-for-money case, my department will be pleased to hear it. I note the suggestion from the noble Earl that we should ask the aviation industry whether it would be prepared to contribute to the costs of joining.

On safety, we must be clear that we have a highly robust safety regime in place in the UK supported by navigation aids and procedures that remain fully compliant with international safety. The Civil Aviation Authority continues to ensure that all procedures are managed appropriately. We recognise that EGNOS or a similar SBAS could have operational benefits for small, regional and general aviation airports. It would provide greater resilience in poor weather and support access but, as the noble Lord Davies, said, ILS is used at larger airports which are not affected and this would not be useful to them.

The Government appreciate the frustration of those facing delays and disruptions to their flights from poor weather as well as the importance of reliable connections, especially for those living in more remote areas of the United Kingdom. Since I took office, I have heard several times from my noble friend Lord Berkeley about the needs of residents of and visitors to the Isles of Scilly, and I respect his continuing advocacy on their behalf. The Government are already taking important steps to support the connectivity of communities, and we are continuing to look closely at this issue to see what more can be done.

It is also important to be clear that emergency medical and search-and-rescue operations have continued safely and effectively since our withdrawal from EGNOS. These services have access to a range of procedures and capabilities, such as point-in-space approaches, which greatly assist in increasing the utility of air ambulances and helicopters in poor visibility conditions. SBAS services, such as EGNOS, are not currently widely used across Europe to support operational capabilities. We are determined to ensure that the UK’s aviation safety regime remains world-leading, which is why we are continuing to consider the best option for the United Kingdom. This work is continuing, and no decision has been made.

It is clear that noble Lords who have contributed today, and others, deeply care about having an SBAS such as EGNOS, and we fully recognise that it can have benefits. However, it is also important that every penny of taxpayers’ money, particularly in a time of tight finances, is spent responsibly, efficiently and wisely and that any decision made represents value for both users and taxpayers. We are continuing to consider what an effective, impactful and deliverable solution that works for the UK could look like, and no decision has been made.

The Government recognise the importance of positioning, navigation and timing technologies for our security and prosperity. That is why we are implementing the policy framework for greater PNT resilience and developing proposals for a national timing centre and enhanced long-range navigation systems. The work around UK access to a satellite-based augmentation system is an important part of that, which is why we are continuing to consider the best option for the UK’s specific requirements.

I turn to the future of flight because there are constant developments in emerging technologies—

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

Before the Minister moves on to another subject, given the particular circumstances in Scotland, which the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, referred to, and the many islands, if the Scottish Government wished to make a service agreement with the European Union for this purpose, but the United Kingdom Government had chosen not to, do they have any scope to do so?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. Rather than filibustering for a few minutes while I refer to the knowledgeable officials behind me, I think I had better write to him about that. I can see an answer coming: it says, “Not sure. We’d need to check”. That is very wise.

I turn to the constant developments in technologies, particularly in drones and uncrewed aircraft. This is an important, evolving area, and the full range of requirements are still being mapped out. There may well be applications where SBAS and EGNOS could be useful. As the Government have ambitious plans for the UK to be a global leader in creating a future-of-flight ecosystem fit for the future, ensuring that we can fully realise the social and economic benefits of new and emerging aviation technologies, we must continue to think about this work. It could be said that I am saying that we are just not doing anything, but we are doing something. These rapid developments, particularly in drones used beyond the line of sight, may well provide an increasing case for this technology and for EGNOS in future.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend has given us a very interesting progress report on any discussions taking place with the European Union, the CAA and others, but no decisions have been made. Can he give us any estimate about when the next decision might be achieved?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. It is a good question because developments in drones, particularly drones beyond line of sight, uncrewed aircraft and flying taxis have been much in the news recently. There are many applications way beyond traditional air applications. There is activity for drones beyond line of sight not only on the railway but in better policing. Those things would affect a judgment about an investment in this and whether the continuing cost of it is worth investing in. I urge my noble friend not to ask us to be too peremptory in making a once-and-for-all decision when technology is changing as, because of that, the justification for doing this might increase and we might get to the answer that my noble friend wants.

I am grateful to all noble Lords for their thoughtful and constructive contributions, which reflect the strong interest in maintaining the UK’s continued leadership in aviation safety and innovation. We remain committed to ensuring safety and efficiency. We recognise the real value of systems such as EGNOS, but we must also consider the financial implications and seek solutions that offer the best value for money.

On the contributions of noble Lords about the cost of it, or the cost when it was around £35 million—I cannot confirm whether that might be the current cost or not—if the previous Government could not justify it, in these difficult financial circumstances we have a duty to justify public expenditure. However, noble Lords will have heard me say that we are considering it not only for the benefits from EGNOS for the purposes described in the discussion today but because the future of drone and uncrewed aircraft technology is rapidly developing. I hope noble Lords will appreciate that we are strongly considering it. I am grateful for all that they have said.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the Minister’s response, but what representation has the department had from the CAA on this issue?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The department is in constant discussion with the CAA on this issue. I do not have any evidence that the CAA believes that reimplementing EGNOS is a matter of the greatest concern, but as the noble Lord asked the question, I will go away, find out what the current position with the CAA is and write to him about it.

Driving Test Delays

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 10th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce delays in taking a driving test.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, this Government continue to work hard to tackle car practical driving test waiting times. They provided 1.95 million tests last year and have so far recruited a further 170 driving examiners nationally, but further action is needed. In April, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State announced further measures to tackle the test backlog. This included DVSA’s fast-track consultation on improving test booking rules, launched on 28 May, to prevent learner drivers being charged excessive fees and to combat test-buying bots.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

The Minister may recall our earlier exchange on the subject, when he said:

“The real answer is to reduce the length of time it takes to get a test. Currently in England, it is nearly 21 weeks. The Government have a target to reduce that to seven weeks by the end of December this year”.—[Official Report, 13/1/25; col. 909.]


Since then, waiting times have gone up, the December target has moved back to summer next year and, recently, the 60-plus driving test centres in and around London had no slots available at all. Into this chaos, we now have ticket touts using bots to hoover up the available slots at £62 a time and then reselling them to desperate learner drivers for £200 or more. This is not selling tickets for Glastonbury; this is a government service for people who need to drive to get to work. The only people who should book tests are those who want to take them, and if they cannot take the test, the slot should go back to the DVSA. This is a racket ripping off learner drivers. Why do the Government not stop it?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government’s inheritance in this matter was that, as of July 2024, there were 532,782 car practical driving tests booked. That number has gone up, as the noble Lord remarks, but the series of actions taken by this Government is far greater than any set of actions taken by the previous Government—in fact, I cannot find any actions taken by them, other than two disputes with driving examiners, which pushed down the number of tests. This Government have done several things, and the consultation I referred to previously, launched a few days ago, is about putting a stop to the exploitation of learner drivers. The previous Government could have done more, but this Government are doing it now.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister outline whether the Government are considering using AI to better detect and block bot-driven booking abuse; for example, monitoring booking patterns and identifying suspicious activity in real time to help prevent bots monopolising test availability?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. The Government are using modern technology to do just that. As a result of some of the actions taken since the Government took office, there has been a further number of warnings, suspensions and closed accounts. That is a consequence of monitoring what is going on. However, it has to be said that the people who use the bots are always one step ahead, so the consultation launched recently is about changing some of the rules to make sure it is not worth using bots. We have to make sure that people who want to book tests themselves, and driving instructors and the businesses they run, both have the opportunity of booking tests so as to get people working and contributing to the economy.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, having listened carefully to what the Minister said in response to my noble friend Lord Young, I will make two points. First, when we left office, we had reduced the backlog from a 20-week delay at its peak to 15 weeks. Since then, it has got worse, not better. Secondly, if the Minister looks more carefully in his folder, he will see that we did have a comprehensive plan, with a number of steps that we took—remarkably similar to the steps that the Government themselves have laid out—and that had some success in bringing down that backlog. The simple question to the Minister is: why has it got worse on his watch?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I welcome another former Secretary of State for Transport to the House, and I look forward to my interactions with him. Looking back at the numbers of tests booked, in fact he is right: there was a modest change from 2023 to 2024. The 2023 figure was 548,000 tests and the 2024 figure was 532,000. This is not an easy issue to solve, and the truth is that behaviours have changed, but what we are concentrating on here is a series of measures, including the latest consultation—which was clearly not planned by the previous Government because it is as a result of the call for evidence from December last year, which had 27,000 responses. This fast-track consultation is about changing the rules to make sure that people who try to profit through bots do not succeed.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, the last time we discussed this question in your Lordships’ House, I told the House how I had personal experience from a member of my family on this issue, who paid way over the odds to get a timely test. While I welcome the consultation that the Minister described, can he also say something about what the Government are doing to recruit more driving examiners so that more slots can be made available? The secondary market is thriving because what ought to be a government service that is easily available is not.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness. Of course, it is not right that people should be paying a premium for something that is a public service. Since July 2024, 287 recruits have been taken on board and started a training course, of which 170 have completed training successfully, 74 failed to complete the course and 43 are in training, and a further 178 are either booked for a training start or are in pre-employment checks after accepting an offer. The Government are working hard to increase the number of tests, but, as I said previously, people’s behaviour is changing: because they know that currently it is quite difficult, they are booking the test almost when they start and get a provisional licence. We have to increase the number of tests available through having more driving examiners—and there is more work yet to do to increase the number of people who can train and test prospective driving examiners—but we also have to do things to the booking system to reduce the prevalence of bots being successful.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, how does that figure for driving instructors compare with the 450 that, in January, the Minister stood at that Dispatch Box and pledged to recruit with a view to eliminating the problem by December?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Well, if the noble Lord adds the 287 who have been taken on board and started the training course to the future training pipeline of 178, I think he will see that it gives 465, which is extraordinarily close to the figure that I cited last time.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

If we had proceeded with identity cards, some of the fiddling which is now taking place would never have been able to happen. Is it not a great regret that the coalition Government and the two parties opposite abandoned that, and is it not time that when we come round again to review our position on immigration right across the board, we need to return to looking at identity cards?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I would defer to my noble friend Lord Hanson, sitting next to me, who probably has a far greater grasp of whether that is a good thing to do. In a sense, I am not sure that that will help here, because the one thing that you must have to book a driving test is a provisional driving licence, and with that you get an identity. The difficulty is not that the original bookers do not have an identity; it is the test being swapped around—in some cases, several times, up to 10 times—and not being able to be utilised in the end by people who need them.

[Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)]

My Lords, I completely appreciate that my noble friend is trying to clear up the mess that he was left with, but is he aware of a problem whereby for those who have passed the theory test, because of the delays in getting the practical test, the passing of the theory test runs out? Is this something that he is aware of, and could he look at extending the validity of the theory test so that when people get the practical test, they do not have to pay twice for the theory test?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that; I am aware of this. What we must not do in all this is reduce the safety content. The rule about theory tests and their expiry after two years is designed to make sure that when you take a practical test, you have a really up-to-date grasp of the basics of road safety and driving. The Government are not currently planning to relax that. The solution, which we have talked about already, is to have more tests with more examiners and more people training examiners in order for people to be able to get their test faster.

Channel Tunnel: International Rail Strategy

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they are supporting the Campaign for Better Transport’s proposals to create an international rail strategy to increase the usage of the Channel Tunnel from the existing 50 per cent for passengers and 10 per cent for freight.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, we welcome the recent report. This Government support a thriving international rail passenger services market, given the benefits of greater choice, new services and lower fares, as well as the opportunity of serving Ashford, Ebbsfleet and Stratford with international trains. We are also keen to see the growth of international rail freight, which supports the Government’s growth mission; we are working hard to increase freight flows through the tunnel.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that encouraging Answer, but he will know that in 2010 Deutsche Bahn brought one of its ICE trains through the Channel Tunnel to St Pancras with a view to starting through services to Germany from 2012. Other companies have indicated a similar interest, but nothing at all has happened. Does my noble friend agree not only that it is important to increase the use of stations that are now out of use, such as Ebbsfleet and Ashford, but that the tunnel access charges need to be reduced if these services are to be competitive? On freight, is he aware that the amount of freight currently going through the Channel Tunnel by rail is less than went on the train ferries operated by British Rail more than 30 years ago?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. I think I was there when the Deutsche Bahn train was at St Pancras in 2010; sadly, as my noble friend says, that did not materialise. There is currently a real opportunity for more passenger traffic to more destinations, and this Government are determined to seize it. For example, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State recently signed a memorandum of understanding with her Swiss counterpart to explore the setting up of a direct connection with Switzerland.

On the charging situation, the access charging framework for the Channel Tunnel provides for an incremental reduction in unit charges as traffic levels increase. Eurotunnel also operates a discount scheme for new routes; HS1 is currently consulting on a similar scheme. Those are important for new entrants. The recent review of the control period charges by the Office of Rail and Road reduced them by 10.4% for passenger trains and by 66% for freight trains. The volume of freight needs to increase; it would be good if it were greater than what the old train ferries coped with.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, when the Channel Tunnel opened 31 years ago on 6 May, the forecast for freight traffic was between 8 million and 10 million tonnes. It peaked at 3 million tonnes then fell to 1 million tonnes. As the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, said in his Question, there is enormous scope for taking freight off our roads and putting it through the tunnel. What specific measures do the Government envisage taking to achieve this?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that those statistics are disappointing. As she notes, the aspiration then was for far more than currently exists. In answer to the previous question, I said that real reductions in charges, particularly for freight on HS1 and the charging regimes for both the tunnel and HS1, will help to encourage freight traffic. I am spending a lot of my time speaking to potential Channel Tunnel users to demonstrate to them the Government’s enthusiasm for more freight through the tunnel.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, given the report’s finding that better international rail links could replace 6.5 million short-haul flights per year, will the Government commit to cross-departmental work to actively shift passengers from air to rail for short international travel? That has the potential to cut CO₂ emissions by up to 680,000 tonnes annually.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right about the environmental benefits of travelling by train and of replacing short-haul air traffic. That is why we are putting in so much effort to create opportunities now for greater use of the tunnel to more destinations and by more operators. I have recently seen all but one of the potential competitors for Eurostar. The noble Baroness may know that the greatest difficulty is the availability of depot space in London. The Office of Rail and Road recently concluded an interim report, and I have asked the department to look urgently at other sites that can be used to increase depot capacity and therefore the number of passenger trains through the tunnel.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, the only high-speed line we have in this country is the 70-mile line from London to the Channel Tunnel, which opened in 2007. In the meantime, countries all around the world have been developing high-speed rail, while we, under the previous Tory Government, simply cancelled two of the high-speed lines that were being prepared. First, can my noble friend at the very least protect the routes of the planned lines to the north-west and the north-east? Secondly, is it not time that this Government developed a strategy for high-speed rail, which is being done by so many comparable countries across the world?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to refer to the peremptory cancellation of phase 2a of HS2 by the previous Government. One of the first questions I answered in this House was from the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, who asked me what the alternative was. The truth is that the previous Government cancelled phase 2a without regard to any alternative, and this Government have to devise what they will now do. We have an even more urgent job than that, because the present state of HS2 as a project is not where any of us would like it to be. It was neglected by the previous Government, so we have to fix that—which the new chief executive is in the course of doing—and we then have to persuade ourselves that investment in railways of this sort is good because it will allow us to manage them properly.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister reveals himself, in his answers, to be a great enthusiast for competition and open access on the HS1 line. Why then have eight of the last nine applications for new open access routes on the Network Rail services been turned down?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord will know that those decisions, at least on open access, are currently made by the Office of Rail and Road. He also needs to note that the Government have not subsidised HS1, Eurostar or Getlink, unlike the national railway network, which receives billions of pounds in subsidy at the taxpayer’s expense. Therefore, when looking at open access applications, we have to consider the net effect of the railway subsidy for this country as a whole. He is also ignoring the fact that the Channel Tunnel is underused. The report to which my noble friend Lord Faulkner referred says that it is only half used by passengers and that only 10% of its possible freight capacity is used. That suggests that we should be enthusiastic about its greater use—unlike most of the national railway network, which is very nearly full. I referred to the question to me from the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin, about the west coast main line. There are very few paths and, consequently, we should be very careful in their allocation, especially to competing train services other than those franchised by the Government.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome what the Minister has said about encouraging greater traffic through the Channel Tunnel, but what can be done to convince the north of England, Scotland and the more distant parts of the United Kingdom that this will not be of benefit just to London and the south-east? At the moment there is a tremendous growth of long-distance sleeper services on the continent. Could these not be encouraged by the Government?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. He will remember that the original idea was to have through services from the Midlands, the north, Scotland and the west of England, and sleeper services too, but they were discontinued before many of them started operating because the business case and the economics of them were quite weak. For the moment, we think the best thing we can do is to encourage a multiplicity of destinations with reasonable speed and frequency, which will generate traffic and encourage people to travel by train, even though they might need to change in London.

[Lord Cryer (Lab)]

Is my noble friend aware that a single goods train journey can remove 70 HGV journeys from the roads, and in some cases even more? That being the case, would not expanding the rail network—and that includes high-speed rail—free up capacity on the road network, therefore making the road network significantly safer?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that rail freight is extremely environmentally friendly; that is why this Government are spending a lot of time and effort to encourage rail freight. This includes setting a target for the new Great British Railways to increase the level of freight, but also remembering that freight needs its own space on the network for train paths. That refers back to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, about open access and is another reason to be careful about allocating all the space on the railway to competing passenger operations.

Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2025

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 14 March be approved.

Relevant document: 21st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, I would first highlight that this debate deals with both the statutory instrument and the regret amendment laid by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and I will cover both in my remarks.

These draft regulations aim to support the transition to zero-emission vehicles, to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses and to unlock economic growth on our journey to becoming a clean energy superpower. Businesses and families are choosing to make the switch to cleaner, greener vehicles that are cheaper to run and reduce noise and air pollution on our streets. The UK was the largest electric car market in Europe in 2024 and, so far this year, demand is up by over a third, according to industry figures. While demand for zero-emission vans is also increasing, this Government are determined to go further to give businesses and consumers the widest range of options, which is exactly what these regulations will do.

Zero-emission vehicles can be heavier than the equivalent petrol and diesel vehicles because of the weight of their battery or fuel. This can push them into a higher driving licence category than their petrol or diesel equivalents. Other than their weight, these vehicles are almost identical in size, design and payload to their petrol and diesel counterparts. Regulations to partially solve this problem were proposed by a previous Government and passed in 2018, allowing category B licence holders to drive alternatively fuelled vehicles weighing up to 4.25 tonnes if they fulfilled additional requirements. “Alternatively fuelled” meant vehicles powered by electricity, hydrogen and gas. These requirements include five hours of additional training from an accredited instructor, driving only for the purpose of transporting goods and no ability to tow. E-fuels and other synthetic fuels were not included in this regulation, as they are no heavier than conventional petrol or diesel. However, with the rapid advancement of zero-emission technology since 2018, the existing regulations now represent an unnecessary barrier to switching to zero-emission vehicles.

This instrument will enable holders of a standard category B licence to drive a fully electric or hydrogen-powered vehicle up to a maximum weight of 4.25 tonnes without these additional requirements. Existing category B rules on ages and passenger numbers will apply. Category B licence holders can usually also drive minibuses weighing up to 3.5 tonnes, providing they fulfil some additional requirements, including the driver being over the age of 21. These requirements will also apply to zero-emission minibuses weighing up to 4.25 tonnes. These regulations also allow zero-emission vehicles up to 4.25 tonnes to tow a trailer, in line with rules currently in place for their petrol and diesel counterparts, provided that the total combined vehicle and trailer weight does not exceed 7 tonnes. To ensure that disabled people are not excluded from the benefits that the statutory instrument allows, an eligible zero-emission vehicle may weigh up to five tonnes if the extra weight is attributable to specialist equipment for the carriage of disabled passengers. This additional weight allowance also applies to minibuses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Earl Russell (LD)]

I apologise—the amendment. This seeks to broaden the scope of these regulations to include alternatively fuelled vehicles that are not zero-emission.

I question the perceived need for such a change, to be honest, and what benefits would flow were it to be passed. The Government’s policy, which we support, is rightly focused on promoting zero-emission vehicles in line with our climate targets. Diluting this focus to extend the weight uplift flexibility to vehicles that still produce CO₂ emissions would undermine the clear objectives of supporting the transition to the cleanest vehicles.

Furthermore, alternative fuel vehicles are not subject to the inherent weight disadvantages as they have no need for heavier battery packs, so are not caught out by the previous regulations. They do not have the same excess weight. Gas-powered vehicles such as vans are the main type of alternative fuel vehicles which were in scope of the old regulations but not in scope of the new ones. But, as the Minister has said, the Government’s impact assessment found that as of December last year there were only 28 of these vehicles on our roads in the whole of the UK. Presumably, those drivers have already undergone all their training needs.

The Government’s impact assessment also highlighted that manufacturers do not have provisions to manufacture great numbers more of these vehicles. Therefore, the Liberal Democrats will support the government regulations, but we call for a full safety review to be completed in the next two years. If the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, calls a Division, we will not support it—we will abstain.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their consideration of these draft regulations. Having listened closely to the concerns expressed, I will respond to the points raised.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, started with the state of the roads and potholes. I admire his brave actions in driving around the roads of Oxfordshire at the weekend. He says the Government are doing nothing about it. That is far from true. The Government announced a £1.6 billion investment in the state of the roads and remedying potholes only in April. Incidentally, the damage to the roads is an exponential function of vehicle weight. A heavy lorry does far more damage to a road surface than an electric car, or indeed one of these vehicles at 4.25 tonnes rather than 3.5 tonnes. The noble Lord noted that he accepts the principle of these regulations on safety grounds.

The message to synthetic and alternative fuel manufacturers is not that they do not matter—what they are doing is valuable. The noble Lord knows, and he quoted paragraph 5.6, that it reduces carbon emissions, but in the end does not eliminate them.

The noble Lord is—or his party and the previous Government were—committed to decarbonising transport. Earlier this afternoon my noble friend Lord Katz answered the noble Lord’s question with the quotation:

“I believe that the struggle for decarbonised transport, clean development and clean air is as important as the struggle for clean water was in the 19th century”.


They are the words of Grant Shapps, the former Conservative Transport Secretary, and were as apposite a response to the earlier question as they are now to this debate. Decarbonisation is really important and prioritising vehicles that have zero emissions is really important for this Government.

The noble Lord also referred to driving tests, and he is right that the position that this Government inherited was dreadful—there were many, many people waiting for them. I have already answered questions in this House about reducing waiting times and recruiting more instructors, but it will take time to do that because remedying this position is not immediate. The Government’s aim is to reduce waiting times to seven weeks by summer 2026, and we will achieve that.

The noble Viscount, Lord Goschen, referred to the effects of kinetic energy. He is right that mass matters in road accidents, but the Government have looked into this quite seriously and the available data suggests that 3.5 tonne to 4.25 tonne electric vehicles are no more likely than their 3.5 tonne petrol and diesel equivalents to be involved in collisions.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, I was not making that point at all. I was saying that if the noble Lord’s ministerial car broke down at a roundabout and he was hit from behind by a 3.5 tonne vehicle and a colleague was hit by a 4.25 tonne vehicle, the latter would involve 20% more energy transfer and therefore 20% more potential for severity. Would he accept the simple physics of the argument? I am not suggesting that one is more likely to have an accident than the other.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I certainly accept the simple physics. I am mostly not in the ministerial car; I am mostly on public transport. I accept his point, but the frequency of such collisions is so low that the Government are proposing to monitor what happens in the knowledge that, regarding that difference in weight, there were nine collisions involving these vehicles between 2020 and 2023, with six of them being slight. I accept completely the proposition of the physics, but not only is the real effect of this very small in terms of the total number of accidents but the Government are committing to monitor road accident data as it becomes available in order to know what will happen as a consequence of these changes. If something happens, then we will do something about it.

In answer to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I certainly commit to saying what the incident thresholds will be. I will write to the noble Earl and put that in the Library.

The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, raised the question of small electric cars. I admire his keenness to travel around the roads of Eastbourne in tuk-tuks—actually, I admire his being brave enough to travel around the roads of Eastbourne in any vehicle of that sort—but I do not think anybody has produced an electric tuk-tuk. There are several vehicles available as an alternative to large electric cars, including the Citroën Ami, Fiat Topolino and BMW i3. I can vouch for that one because I have one and I use it. It is a very small car. We do not need large electric cars; small electric cars are easily purchased.

I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Russell, for his support for the statutory instrument generally. I have said that I will write to him about the thresholds we will use to decide whether accidents are material or not. I will also write to him about the timetable for safety guidance. On the dissemination of safety guidance, fortunately there are some strong trade associations for small and medium-sized commercial vehicles. We would take their advice, as we always do. I am familiar with them and they have been involved in these discussions.

On the noble Earl’s last point, on the applicability of this instrument in Northern Ireland, we will of course continue to discuss this with the Northern Ireland Government because it is important. I agree that it would be unsatisfactory for there to be inconsistency, without a similar measure in Northern Ireland, but it is for them to do it.

The instrument, although technical, represents a common-sense step that supports industry to make the switch to zero emissions and to decarbonise our road transport as we make progress towards net zero. It will cut transport costs for businesses, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and further accelerate our progress to becoming a clean energy superpower.

I hope I have reassured noble Lords that this instrument in no way disadvantages non-zero emission fuel types, so much as it levels the playing field between technologies. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, feels able to withdraw his regret amendment. I trust that noble Lords have found this debate informative and that they will join me in supporting this legislation.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lucas for raising the interesting point about an electric tuk-tuk for passenger use. I listened with great care to the Minister’s response. I have to admit, a few years ago, I looked at the possibility of purchasing a BMW i3. The cost at that stage was £33,000. I do not know what the Minister paid for his. I do not think, however, that my noble friend Lord Lucas is thinking about a vehicle of that sort and that cost. That is one of the principal—

E-scooters: Insurance

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I refer to the Private Member’s Bill that I have before the House on road accident offences caused by bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

The Government regularly speak to the Motor Insurers’ Bureau and insurers as we develop our policy on e-scooters. This includes discussions about personal injury and property damage costs being covered by motorists, through the Motor Insurers’ Bureau’s uninsured drivers agreement, where an illegal e-scooter is at fault in a collision, ensuring that victims are fairly compensated. The e-scooters in the department’s rental trials, managed by the relevant local transport authorities, are covered by insurance.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his Answer. He will be aware that the cost that all motorists pay for the losses of all victims of uninsured vehicles, including illegal scooters, is £530 million. How do the Government intend to close this gap, where there is no insurance offered by the market for illegally operated e-scooters and other such vehicles?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is rightly persistent on this subject and, as she knows, I have offered to meet her on it. The previous Government commenced trials but did not develop or introduce legislation. We recognise the depth of public concern and are actively considering next steps. In the meantime, the vast majority of MIB claims related to e-scooters are of less than £50,000, so are likely to be a small proportion of the £530 million that she mentioned.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, e-scooters are incredibly quiet and therefore dangerous on pavements. What action are the Government taking to prevent e-scooters being used on pavements?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The use of e-scooters needs legislation to regulate it. This is a question which I have answered in the House before and which no doubt will continue to come up until we produce draft legislation. The issues are complex. Noble Lords will know that I have replied to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, putting in the Library a résumé of the legislation applying in all European countries, where there are vast differences in where you can use them, whether you should have a helmet, whether there is an age limit, whether they should be registered and whether they should be insured. We are working hard through those issues. They are not easy to solve, but the noble Baroness is right that determining what can be used on pavements and what is safe in a world where people with disabilities are, rightly, very worried about this, is very important.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, even when things are made legal, they can be abused. There must be enforcement. E-bikes are supposed to travel at a maximum of 15.5 miles per hour and not be throttled up to that speed. Yet around us all the time we see employees, in effect, of multinational companies delivering our groceries and our takeaways being exploited on illegal and uninsured vehicles. Will the Government take that into account when considering any regime for e-scooters?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The speed limit of 15.5 miles per hour determines the point at which an electric bicycle, capable of more speed than that, is a vehicle that needs to be licensed. The enforcement of the law is a matter for chief police officers, but we are considering what we can do in this area. I recognise as much as everybody else in this House that these alleged bicycles travelling at 25 or 30 miles per hour silently, and with the logos of quite major companies on the back of their riders’ rucksacks, represent a significant challenge to the legal use of the roads system.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite correct to ask the Question about illegal e-scooters, but, likewise, cyclists, who seem to have an ever-expanding space on our roads, do not pay road tax or insurance. Do the Government have any plans to look at that issue?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I do not recall whether the noble Baroness was one of the speakers in the debate that we had before Christmas on this subject. There are significant challenges with putting forward legislation about the licensing and insurance of bicycles. We want to encourage the safe and sensible use of bicycles, because active travel is good for the health of the nation. We will consider that further in the road safety strategy, but not to the extent that it deters people from cycling.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the Government came to power promising to do better than their predecessor. There is a perfectly respectable libertarian argument, I suppose, that you should not have any regulation of e-scooters and e-bikes, and that, irrespective of product safety, they should be allowed to go where they want at whatever speed they want. People might want to make that argument. It seems to me that that is, in practice, now the Government’s position. There is no regulation, there has been no regulation for a long time, there is no regulation coming and there is very little enforcement. I pay credit to the police forces that do occasionally take enforcement. Will the Government just be honest and say that they are happy with that position and intend to let it run?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Well, I refer the noble Lord to my answer to a very similar question he asked me on 1 April. I said to him then that I did not much care to be lectured about drift by somebody who represents a party that did an experiment in 2021, published some results in 2022 and then did nothing, and that remains the case today.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, we currently have a perfect storm with e-scooters. There has already been reference to the fact that there is no need to register them, it is illegal to use them on public roads and pavements, and there is no registration when you buy the e-scooter either. Would the first step for this not be to ensure that, when somebody buys an e-scooter —because you are supposed to have a driver’s licence, provisional or full—they have to give their driving licence details, which would then be logged with that particular e-scooter?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I very much respect the noble Baroness’s view about the safety of these things, particularly from the point of view of anybody with a mobility difficulty or disability. But this is only one of the things that needs to be contemplated carefully in introducing legislation, simply because the legislation has to work in practice. We are learning some things from the controlled trials that the department has sponsored—the noble Baroness will know that the e-scooters concerned are identifiable in a way that those purchased from retailers are not. We also have to be realistic about what we can expect retailers to do in these circumstances. We are, as I said, deeply considering this. I know it is an issue of great concern to this House; it is the subject on which I have answered questions most frequently since I came here. We are working hard at it, but it is a difficult area and the rules we put in place have to have some chance of being enforced in a way that controls behaviour.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, I fear that the Minister will have even more questions. I have just managed to secure an Oral Question on 10 June about exactly this issue. I wonder whether, in between, he would be interested in visiting the City of London cycle enforcement group, which has come up with some quite creative ways of getting people points on their driving licences. They are able to spot, as the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, mentioned, where vehicles have been adapted to exceed 15 miles per hour either by pressing a button that maintains the power consistently or merely by the size of the motor on these vehicles. It begs the question of why other forces are not able to have the same enforcement rigour that the City of London has managed. He might want to visit and see how the group is doing it.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am pleased to know that I shall have to answer further questions on this in June. In the meantime, I am absolutely delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, has raised this issue. It is very important to publicise the good work of the City of London Police, and he is absolutely right that it is very encouraging to discover that, as a result of people riding what are in fact illegal motor vehicles, they can have their licence endorsed or, if they do not have one, the points will be put on it whenever they get one.

I will try to go to see them, but I know exactly what he is talking about. It is a great model and I would encourage other chief police officers—I hope that he, with his previous connections, will too—to go and witness it, and then do the same. We also know that these things are being used for crime of various sorts. In fact, the reason why the City of London Police is cracking down on it is mobile phone theft, in particular. It is a very effective enforcement methodology.

Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

3rd reading
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill]

That the Bill be now read a third time.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make a brief statement on legislative consent in relation to this Bill. The Government accept that legislative consent from the Senedd would be required for Clause 22(6)(b) and Clause 24(4) in their current form. The Government are considering options to ensure that the constitutional requirements for consent are met. This includes either amending the clauses to remove the provisions in question or by seeking consent. My expectation is that this issue will be addressed during the Bill’s passage in the other place.

A privilege amendment was made.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill]

That the Bill do now pass.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a great privilege to take this Bill through the House. I am grateful for the scrutiny, challenge and wisdom from all sides during the debates on this important legislation.

The Government are clear in their ambition to reform and improve transport for passengers. Better connectivity—and the bus is the predominant mode of public transport—delivers growth, jobs and housing, in line with this Government’s plan for change. Ensuring that local leaders have the powers they need to have the best bus service for their local areas and communities is a critical step.

Your Lordships’ input as the Bill has progressed through this House has meant that it leaves this place a better Bill than when it was introduced. I hope that, in turn, the Government have shown themselves willing to listen and able to work with your Lordships.

I move to thanks. First, I give my gratitude to my noble friend Lady Blake of Leeds, who has given me her guidance and supported me on the Front Bench. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. I may not always agree with him—he seems to believe this Bill to be some sort of anti-enterprise activity, when it is not, and I must admit that I am still surprised by such a strong advocate of local authority independence over so many years having such a new-found desire for government intervention—but our engagement has been well-humoured and, more importantly, has given rise to some important issues that we have explored in your Lordships’ House. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, who has provided his views in his customary eloquent and courteous way.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton, Lady Grey-Thompson and Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, have all campaigned effectively to improve accessibility and highlight the importance of inclusive transport. This has resulted in the Government tabling a package of amendments and supporting those brought forward by my noble friend Lord Blunkett on Report. I am very grateful to my noble friend for his constructive and pragmatic approach to the issue of floating bus stops.

There have been other notable contributions. The noble Lords, Lord Bradshaw, Lord Goddard of Stockport and Lord Burns, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, have provided wise words and, as ever, I am grateful for their contributions. I have enjoyed discussing the merits of bus safety with the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, who has raised issues of critical importance. As ever, the wise words of my noble friends Lord Snape, Lord Whitty and Lord Berkeley have added value, and I extend my thanks to them for sharing their counsel.

I particularly want to mention the late Baroness Randerson. I spoke in remembrance of her at this Dispatch Box at Second Reading, and I am sure I speak for others, as well as myself, in saying how sorry I am that someone who had such passion for and expertise in transport and such passionate support for this Bill was not here to lead her party in scrutiny of it. Thus, I am pleased that we were able to make the provision in the Bill on zero-emission buses even more comprehensive. I extend my gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, for stepping in for her party, and for our constructive and positive discussions through the Bill’s passage.

Finally, I extend personal thanks to all the officials who have supported me, especially the Bill team, legal colleagues, the drafting team in parliamentary counsel and everyone else—to name but a few of the many excellent people involved, I thank Nicola, Kenny, Jenny, Hamish and Saskia.

I look forward to following the Bill’s journey in the other place. I expect we will reignite some lively debates on its return to your Lordships’ House. With that said, I truly believe that this Bill is the most substantial and positive change in years for the bus network, passengers and the bus industry. This is the right way forward. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, it has been a privilege to lead the Lib Dem Benches on this important legislation, and somewhat daunting to have to follow at short notice our great friend Baroness Randerson and her work in the area of transport, specifically her passion for buses.

I believe the Bill is stronger for our detailed scrutiny and amendments, particularly on cleaner buses across England and the accessibility of the bus network as a whole. I thank the Minister and his Bill team for their genuine engagement at every stage of this legislation. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and his Back-Bench colleagues for their contributions, though sadly not always their support for our amendments. Likewise, I thank in particular the noble Lords, Lord Hampton, Lord Blunkett and Lord Holmes, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for their contributions.

Particular thanks go to my noble friends Lady Pinnock, Lady Brinton, Lord Goddard and Lord Bradshaw for their strong support and contributions, and huge thanks go also to Adam Bull, our legislative support officer, who has supported our Benches every step of the way.

The Bill now moves to the other place, where I hope the wider issue of funding our bus services will be picked up in order that we can see the transformation of bus services across the country that we all desire.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my voice to the many noble Lords who have thanked my noble friend the Minister. It is his first Bill. He is a real expert on buses and transport generally, and the House owes him a debt of gratitude for the way he has dealt with the Bill. We have made changes, as other noble Lords have said. It has been a very friendly and useful debate. The key thing is for us all to try to encourage more people to use the buses, whether that is in the countryside or in towns. That is the key; the Bill will go a long way to encouraging people to do that.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall of course be far more enthusiastic than the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on this excellent Bill. I expect it will be back, but this is the briefest of replies. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, on the floating bus stop issue, my honourable friend the Minister for Local Transport is, in colloquial terms, “on it”, and I will write to the noble Lord about how far he has got following this session.

Bill passed and sent to the Commons.

Cambridge South Station: Car Parking

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they have had discussions with Network Rail about the provision of car parking spaces at the new Cambridge South station.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)]

My Lords, the answer, at least recently, is none. From the first design of Cambridge South in 2016 by AstraZeneca, the station has never had a car park due to lack of space. It has been designed as a sustainable transport hub to provide direct access to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus while respecting the surrounding green belt. The station will have 1,000 cycle spaces, pedestrian access and strong connections to local transport networks, including nearby park-and-ride sites.

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer and point out that, as he says, this is next to the medical campus, which is an ever-expanding area with an ever-expanding need for transport. At the moment, there appears to be no parking provision for disabled people and, despite a multiplicity of local authority involvements, there is still a lot of frustration locally that, apparently, we are going to have a station without any car park. Can the Minister look yet again —I do not blame him, because this problem has been there for years—at calling the different parties together to see whether a more acceptable solution can be found?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I say to the noble Lord, first, that there will be disabled car parking spaces, and, secondly, that the Cambridge Biomedical Campus executive director said, and stands by this today:

“Currently, there are around five times as many visits to the site as there are car parking spaces. We have to find ways of making it easier for the thousands of staff, NHS patients and visitors arriving daily to get here without needing to use a car”.


In addition, the green belt adjacent to the site of the new station is Hobson’s Park and the planning inspector who conducted the inquiry said that, in the event that the design had taken in space in the park for car parking, it is highly unlikely that the station would have received planning permission at all.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree with the recommendation of the Climate Change Committee in its seventh carbon budget that, by 2040, all diesel freight and passenger trains should be phased out? If he does agree, could he confirm that east-west rail, which is due to be completed in the mid to late 2030s, will not run any diesel-powered passenger or freight trains?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The length of life of railway rolling stock is between 30 and 35 years, so proposed dates for the elimination of diesel and other forms of traction have to respect the economic lives of the rolling stock that is currently running on the railway. In respect of east-west rail, the non-statutory consultation which has currently gone out is proposing discontinuous electrification, so that the rolling stock to be operated on the east-west railway when it opens would be a combination of electric traction and battery operation.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

While the new station at Cambridge South is welcome, there are some concerns about the layout for passengers using the station, particularly around buses, as the bus stop is some distance from the station entrance. Will the Minister commit to review how the layout is working once operational and agree to make any adjustments to improve the passenger experience?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I respect the noble Baroness’s views—she has had a more detailed view of the design of the station than I have—but that will alter as a consequence of her question. I thought I might have got away from that sort of thing after my last job. But, of course, it will be reviewed, because if you have no car parking, access via public transport is completely essential.

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum, and, of course, Cambridge South Station is in my former constituency. Does the Minister agree that the object is that Cambridge Biomedical Campus is a major destination, we want people to get there by public transport and we want to reduce traffic congestion in south Cambridge and not see it increase with cars trying to park at the station? What is key is to continue the investment in sustainable transport in south Cambridgeshire. To that effect, will the Government look at approving the second gateway review for the Greater Cambridge Partnership for projects such as the Cambridgeshire south-west and the Cambridgeshire south-east travel hubs?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I certainly agree with the noble Lord that good public transport is vital for a growing, developing city such as Cambridge. But, of course, he will not expect me to endorse any particular use of public money in advance of the current spending review.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend raised a very interesting question about Cambridge South, which is more Hobson’s choice than Hobson’s Park as far as motorists are concerned, but there is a general question about railway stations around the country. In York, the long-stay car park is now closed permanently. It is more and more difficult for people to have access to collect passengers from trains—or, indeed, to travel. Would the Minister comment on the general approach that we should take about getting a proper balance between those who travel by rail and those who travel to rail by car?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I completely agree with the noble Lord that access to the station is just as important as railway travel from the station. In respect of existing stations, the Office of Rail and Road has specific powers to protect car parking space. I know a little bit about the situation in York, where the previous long-stay car parking will be replaced by new long-stay car parking. The noble Lord will also know that there is a development outside the station to make all interchange easier at the station for all passengers who want to use trains.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, in his initial response, my noble friend mentioned the relationship between Cambridge South and the local park-and-ride facilities. As somebody who once used those park-and-ride facilities frequently and found them very effective, perhaps I might ask: what are the links between the nearest park-and-ride facility and the new station, and how are they maintained?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I clearly should have gone to the site in preparation for this Question. The station will be adjacent to the Cambridgeshire guided busway, which is the one that gives access to two nearby park-and-ride sites, so I think this has been quite carefully thought through by the combined authority, by the City of Cambridge Council and by the Greater Cambridge Partnership.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, it is all a bit of a shambles, really, is it not? It is perfectly obvious from what the Minister is saying that a great deal of buck-passing is going on between too many different authorities having their say and nobody being able to agree, which makes me think that he should be saying yes to the question from my noble friend Lord Balfe when he asks, “Will you pull things together, actually take an interest in this and get everybody around a table?”

I have a brief question following up on what my noble friend Lord Kirkhope said, which is that the Government go on a great deal—very correctly—about the importance of intermodal transfer at transport hubs. Is the Minister effectively saying that the private motor car is no longer a mode that should be taken into account in intermodal transfer policy?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Much though I respect the noble Lord, almost everything he has just said is wrong. There has been a remarkable consistency of view among all the partners about Cambridge South, from the combined authority, which used to have a Conservative mayor and currently has a Labour mayor, from the Greater Cambridge Partnership, from the City of Cambridge itself, and from the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, AstraZeneca and the other big employers represented on it. They all agreed that a station without a car park was what was both feasible and wanted. There has been no dissent from that. The only dissent recently has been in the media, and it does not respect the fact that providing a car park would be impossible. I also say to the noble Lord that this is an exception, and I think I just answered the question by saying that, in respect of existing stations, the Office of Rail and Road has a responsibility to ensure that there is always station car parking space respected, even when the proposal is to develop public land and replace it in such a fashion.