English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd February 2026 Grand Committee

My noble friend thinks, and I certainly agree with her, that it is about time the Government grasped this. Her proposal is that these vehicles should be used only by people with an appropriate form of insurance. That may or may not be the right approach, but there has to be an approach that resolves these problems. The Government cannot be allowed to get through the Bill without coming up with one that is satisfactory to the Committee.

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

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb and Lady Pidgeon, for their amendments on micromobility.

I will begin with Amendments 104A and 105A. The noble Baroness is right that delivery devices such as pavement robots are used—and in the future may well be used very frequently—in Great Britain. This framework is designed to license the provision of shared micromobility vehicles. It is not designed to regulate how they are used on the streets, but I reassure the noble Baroness that all the categories that she spoke about could be included in the category of “non-passenger micromobility vehicles” in future under the Bill’s existing drafting, as it is broad enough to capture vehicles used for different purposes, including delivery vehicles.

I turn to Amendments 105 and 106. The Bill sets out clear parameters for what could be considered a micromobility vehicle for the purposes of this licensing framework and Amendment 105 seeks to remove them. The framework will initially cover shared pedal and e-bikes, but it needs the flexibility to extend to other modes, such as e-scooters, once they have been regulated for under separate UK-wide regulation. The framework must be future-proof to be fit for purpose. We must retain flexibility or risk leaving our local leaders without the ability to effectively manage their streets every time a new technology enters the market. Retaining this flexibility without being overly broad is key and the parameters and definitions that we have set out in the Bill achieve this balance. These amendments would defeat this intention to the point of being prohibitive, leaving only cycles and e-cycles in scope.

Amendment 107 seeks to remove the power of the Secretary of State to create exemptions to the requirement to hold a licence. A future-facing licensing framework for shared micromobility is essential to ensure that local leaders have the powers that they need to maximise the benefits of these schemes and decisively tackle any negative impacts. However, these requirements must be proportionate. To ensure this, it has always been our intention to exempt schemes from licensing requirements based on their scale and nature. It is not right that a community-led scheme providing five or six bikes for shared use in a village should be held to the same standard as a commercial operator applying for a licence for tens of thousands of bikes—and that it could face criminal prosecution for doing so. This power has been created to ensure that such situations are avoided.

It is not possible to account in primary legislation for all the potential exemptions to licensing requirements that might be necessary to ensure proportionality, not least as this may differ by vehicle type and usage. Micromobility is a new industry, and new business models and technologies will continue to emerge. This framework is designed to account for the shared use of these future technologies on our streets. The impacts of different vehicle types on shared street space will be different and it is impossible to anticipate these future impacts with certainty right now. Therefore, the types of schemes that it is appropriate to exempt may vary by the type of shared micromobility vehicle or business model. For example, a scheme of 10 shared cycles may be small enough to exempt from licensing due to very limited impacts, but a scheme of 10 pavement delivery devices could have significantly different impacts that may make it appropriate to require a licence. That is why the flexibility to make further exemptions in regulations is essential to the effective future functioning of the framework.

On Amendment 108, while I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, that parking density and standards are critical to the success of shared micromobility licensing, I believe that the framework as introduced already tackles this in the most appropriate way. The framework already contains regulation-making powers on what must be included in a licence. That includes the power to set specific licence requirements on parking, if deemed necessary following consultation.

On density, as with other traffic management measures, local authorities know their roads best and are best placed to consider what level of provision is appropriate and in what locations. However, we will set out statutory guidance following detailed consultation to help licensing authorities to make these decisions. Where the licensing authority and traffic authority are not the same, they will have a legal duty to co-operate on parking. I will be happy to discuss this subject, and Amendments 109 and 113, with the noble Baroness further after Committee.

On Amendment 109, regarding parking for micromobility vehicles, and Amendment 110, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, a key intention of the framework is to ensure the provision of shared cycle parking in the right spaces. So, while I appreciate the sentiment behind these amendments, I do not believe that they are needed. The licensing authority is intended to be the highest tier of local government to ensure that oversight of these schemes happens at the strategic level. However, traffic authorities are best placed to deliver effective parking solutions locally. The legal duty, as it exists in Schedule 5, has been drafted to facilitate collaborative working relationships between these bodies. These amendments would place the burden of resolving parking challenges entirely with traffic authorities, which could have the effect of making them junior partners in parking provision and would not be conducive to the genuine positive collaboration and partnership between authorities that is necessary to make schemes successful.

The proposed amendment, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, also would not add any further specificity to the duty, given the ambiguity of what is meant by “sufficient parking”. That could create further challenges and opaqueness for local authorities to navigate as part of a licensing process that is intended to make managing these schemes more straightforward and efficient. Local leaders know their areas best, and effective and constructive co-operation will look different in different places. We may well set out in further detail in guidance what constructive co-operation could look like, but it is important that that is done following in-depth consultation to ensure its effectiveness.

I turn to Amendment 111, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. Licensing authorities will be able to set licence conditions on the parking of shared cycles and enforce these through the framework. The issues that the amendment seeks to address are largely ones that are likely to arise with illegal private vehicles rather than shared micromobility. Identifying the owner of a private cycle can be challenging but, in the case of shared e-cycles, it is commercially essential that the operator is clearly identifiable and engageable. The police and local authorities in certain circumstances already have powers to remove and dispose of broken-down, abandoned and obstructive or dangerously parked vehicles. For local authorities, the powers extend to cycles and other micromobility vehicles. Indeed, as the noble Lord observed, those very powers have been used by no less than the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to seize more than 1,000 obstructively parked rental e-bikes in 2025, according to the council’s own website. Similarly, concerns about inherently unsafe vehicles are generally focused on illegal electric motorcycles rather than shared e-cycles operated by legitimate businesses. The Government’s Crime and Policing Bill will strengthen existing police powers by removing the requirement for a warning to be issued before the seizure of vehicles being used illegally.

On Amendment 112, on which the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, spoke, ensuring the safe use of shared micromobility vehicles is at the heart of this framework. We recognise the role that insurance plays in safety and accountability for operators, users and non-users of shared cycles. That is why we have taken powers that allow us to set out in regulations what insurance may need to be in place as part of a shared-cycle scheme. However, insurance is a commercially and legally complex area. Therefore, it is vital to first consult in depth to understand the full impacts of any potential requirements.

I understand of course how crucial it is that we get the insurance question right, and that the consequences of not doing so could have serious impacts on lives and livelihoods. It will be particularly important to strike the right balance of responsibility between operators and users, and it may not be reasonable or appropriate to place the burden of obtaining insurance entirely on the user, as this amendment would do. This approach would also deviate from existing approaches to insurance for other shared modes, such as rental cars or rental e-scooters. Insurance requirements will need to align with any related aspects of licensing which may be deemed necessary following consultation, such as potential processes for user identity or age verification. It is important that flexibility exists to ensure such alignment in secondary legislation and thereby that the framework is as effective and rigorous as possible.

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[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I think there were some pilots of privately owned e-scooters. Have the results of those come through? Have they been published?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

To answer the noble Baroness’s question, the original pilot e-scooter experiments were started in the days of the previous Government and there were no results. This Government have extended both the number and the length of the pilots, so there will be some results in due course that relate to current circumstances rather than the circumstances of several years ago.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I thank the noble Lord for his answers to my concern about micromobility delivery vehicles. I think I heard the conditional in his words about them, so “could” rather than “would”. I will read Hansard very carefully and then come back to him, perhaps in a Corridor somewhere or on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to my noble friend Lady Pinnock’s Amendment 238, as she cannot be here today. Local authorities currently have civil enforcement powers which enable council officers to enforce parking contraventions on the highway, such as parking on a bend, across a driveway or too close to a junction. They have the power to impose penalty charge notices. This Bill will enable these powers to be taken by a mayor, which in my noble friend’s opinion will result in a less accountable system as mayoral authorities are likely to have populations of around 1 million.

This amendment seeks to achieve a retention of civil enforcement powers by local authorities and, more importantly, contains a provision to extend the powers to other highway infringements such as speeding on local roads—those which are not A or B roads. I understand that in the past my noble friend looked to table a Motion in the ballot to enable local authorities to enforce speeding problems on residential roads, which had huge support from the Local Government Association, London Councils and many boroughs. That is why she tabled this amendment, so I hope the Minister can respond to that point.

We have had a really interesting discussion about Amendment 121A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. The noble Lord, Lord Young, made a really good point, to which I hope the Minister can respond. It is an anomaly. Outside London, while it is an offence to drive on the pavement, it is not a specific offence to park on a pavement in most instances. This amendment tries to resolve this.

We have had briefings, as the Committee has heard, from the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust, and I have had a briefing from Guide Dogs about this issue. According to Guide Dogs, four in five blind or partially sighted people have said that pavement parking makes it difficult to walk on the pavement at least once a week and over 95% have been forced to walk in the road because of pavement parking, so, as we have heard, this is a serious issue. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, refers to the fact that five years ago the Department for Transport conducted a consultation, and we had the results in on 8 January. I believe this is the legislative opportunity for the Government—that is, if they need one, and if they do not, I hope the Minister can clarify that—and it clearly has cross-party support. It is important that we look to resolve this anomaly as soon as possible.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, on Amendment 114A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, the Bill does not provide powers to combined authorities or combined county authorities in respect of parking provision. As parking restrictions inherently apply with localised variations, the same imperative for consistent enforcement does not arise across a combined authority and combined county authority area, as is otherwise the case for the enforcement of bus lanes and other moving traffic restrictions. Civil parking enforcement powers are not considered to be appropriate at combined authority and combined county authority level. The Bill provides combined authorities and combined county authorities only with the ability to take on powers to enforce on a civil basis contraventions of bus lane and moving traffic restrictions with the agreement of the constituent local authorities.

The amendment would have no effect because combined authorities and county combined authorities are not defined as local authorities under Section 45 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. That provision limits the power to make traffic regulation orders for paid on-street parking to specific bodies: county councils, unitary authorities, metropolitan district councils, London boroughs, the Common Council of the City of London and Transport for London. The use of any surplus revenue from the designation of parking places is strictly ring-fenced under Section 55 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 for local authority-funded environmental measures and public transport schemes. This important principle will apply equally to combined authorities and combined county authorities for bus lane and moving traffic contraventions, which is appropriate in the interests of consistency and already dealt with in the regulations.

I turn to Amendment 121A, spoken to by my noble friend Lord Bassam and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and others. I welcome my noble friend’s interest in this matter and I share the concerns that the amendment seeks to address. Vehicles parked on the pavement can cause serious problems for all pedestrians, especially people with mobility or sight impairments, as we have heard, as well as those with prams and pushchairs and of course in wheelchairs.

On 8 January this year, my department published a formal response to the 2020 public consultation on pavement parking, summarising the views received and announcing the Government’s next steps of pavement parking policy. We plan to give local authorities power later in 2026 to issue penalty charge notices for vehicles parked in a way that unnecessarily obstructs the pavement. That offence already exists and can be enforced by the police, but making it enforceable on a civil basis can be achieved through secondary legislation and will clearly be welcome.

In addition, and I hope this answers the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, the Government have announced our intention to make primary legislation to give powers to local transport authorities to prohibit pavement parking in their area. That will allow the highest tier of local government in an area to prohibit pavement parking, with exemptions for vehicle classes and streets where necessary. This will ensure accessibility on pavements for all pedestrians, including, as we have heard, some of our most vulnerable pavement users.

This is a complex area. Due consideration needs to be given to a range of matters, including how local transport authorities enact a prohibition, which vehicles might be excluded, permissible defences for parking on the pavement in a prohibited area and the governance by which local transport authorities decide to implement a prohibition.

I am grateful to my noble friend for his efforts to move this matter forward, and I agree that the amendment captures the overall intent of the policy to create new devolved powers to prohibit pavement parking in the interests of all pavement and road users. The Government intend to bring forward legislation to enable this at the earliest opportunity, and I believe that my noble friend’s amendment may need only small drafting changes to allow it to fully represent the Government’s position. I am happy to meet my noble friend to discuss this matter further.

In respect of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about parking on cycleways, it is already an offence to park on a cycle track.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

If it is the case that only minor amendments are needed to what is now before us, why can that not happen on Report?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

As I say, I am very happy to meet the noble Lord and my noble friend Lord Blunkett to see whether we can move this forward.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

Has the Minister finished?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

No.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

Okay—I will sum up when he has.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am sorry for sitting down prematurely.

Amendment 238, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, would have no effect because there already exists a long-established and well-established civil enforcement regime in regulations made under Part 6 of the Traffic Management Act 2004. That regime covers matters such as conditions for issuance and levels of penalty charge notices, rights of representation to the issuing local authority, and onward appeal to an independent adjudicator if representations are unsuccessful. The Secretary of State has also published statutory guidance, to which local authorities must have regard under Section 87 of the 2004 Act, to ensure that civil enforcement action is carried out by approved local authorities in a fair and proportionate manner.

With these assurances, I hope that noble Lords are able not to press their amendments.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I will be very brief because, on this occasion, the Minister has brought great clarity to a number of the debates that were initiated in this brief discussion. The sensible thing would be for us to take away what he said and consider, ahead of Report, whether there are any matters that we still wish to pursue. Indeed, I understand that there will be negotiations on at least one of the main topics that were the subject of this discussion. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

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[Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their numerous comments. I will respond to just a few, because I think some might have been a bit rhetorical. As in any family, it is about communicating and having those discussions. My view is that there is room at the table for London Councils, but we do have those conversations with the Mayor of London and the GLA and invite them down to our boroughs, et cetera.

The other point I wanted to make is that we always work to make sure that we are moving in the right direction. We work cross-party as much as possible and when there is consensus, things can move forward.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I will begin with the proposition tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on Clause 27. I will also say what a pleasure it is to hear my noble friend Lady Dacres of Lewisham on this and other issues. Just deviating from the amendments for one moment, I will say that the noble Lord is incorrect about the devolution of rail, because the Secretary of State is currently considering the devolution of northern inner suburban trains to the Mayor of London from the national railway network.

Transport in London is devolved, with the mayor responsible for managing the capital’s transport network, so it is right that, in line with the wider purpose of the Bill, the mayor should be empowered to consent to operational land-disposal applications from TfL. The noble Lord referred to operational land and therefore it is necessary to consult Network Rail, and that is enshrined in the proposition. This will therefore simplify the existing process and better enable the Mayor of London to unlock land for much-needed housing, supporting growth in the capital. The Secretary of State does not need to get in the way of housing developments on land owned by Transport for London and suitable for housing.

On Amendments 118 and 119, on local transport plans, constituent councils of strategic authorities with responsibility for managing local highways have a crucial role in supporting the delivery of the strategic authority’s local transport plan. Clause 29 is intended to support close working between constituent councils and the strategic authority by requiring the constituent council implementing the policies in the local transport plan to have regard to the proposals in the plan. This duty already applies to some constituent councils and this clause will extend that duty to all constituent councils.

The clause aims to strike the right balance between supporting close working between authorities while not giving the strategic authority undue control over how constituent councils manage their local highway network. These amendments would undermine this balance by weakening the duty placed on constituent councils to implement policies and instead substitute “have regard to” them. As members of the strategic authority, constituent councils have a key role in the development of the authority’s local transport plan. As set out in other parts of the Bill, this includes a vote on whether to approve the local transport plan.

I turn to Amendments 118A, 118B, 119A and 119B. Constituent councils of strategic authorities with responsibility for managing local highways have a crucial role in supporting the delivery of the strategic authority’s local transport plan. As I said earlier, Clause 29 is intended to support close working between the constituent councils and the strategic authority, by requiring the implementation of policies in the local transport plan and having regard to the proposals. As I said, the clause aims to strike the right balance between supporting close working and not giving the strategic authority undue control over the way that constituent councils manage their local highway network.

These amendments would undermine this balance by requiring constituent councils to “implement” rather than “have regard to”, and would therefore give strategic authorities indirect powers over how constituent councils manage local roads. However, we recognise that there are benefits to strategic authority mayors having levers to implement agreed plans. Clause 28 and Schedule 9 therefore give mayors a power to direct constituent councils in the exercise of their functions on the key route network of the most important local roads, helping mayors to implement their local plans.

On Amendment 120A, I know that workplace parking levies can be effective in delivering local transport priorities, as demonstrated—as my noble friend Lord Bassam observed—by the successful scheme in Nottingham, the only such scheme currently in operation in England. It has both reduced congestion in the city and provided funds to support the operation of the light rail system. We therefore hear the arguments for a greater role for strategic authorities, and for mayors to make decisions such as these in their area, but we need to take time to consider the issue fully before making changes to the framework. We need to be certain that any changes are the right ones. I am grateful to my noble friend for raising this issue, but I urge him to withdraw his amendment, while reassuring him that my department is giving this matter careful consideration.

I turn to Amendments 120B and 120C. Transport and Works Act orders can be used as a single process to obtain the majority of powers to construct and/or operate a range of both transport and waterway schemes. As observed, the Secretary of State is the decision-maker for schemes applied for under the Act across England, operating within a well-established and legally robust framework. The procedure is set out in legislation and would need to be followed regardless of who the decision-maker is. Powers granted through these orders are wide ranging and can apply or disapply legislation. They have significant legal and practical implications. Creating multiple new decision-making bodies would risk introducing inconsistency in the interpretation of policy and the use of powers, creating uncertainty, causing delays and potentially increasing the risk of challenge to the schemes.

However, the new Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 recently introduced changes to this regime to improve the efficiency and predictability of delivering new schemes via this route and, in particular, to address the need for taking decisions quickly where necessary. Secondary legislation will drive further efficiencies. Very careful consideration would be necessary if such powers were to be devolved so that the benefits of the recent improvements that I have just referred to are not undermined and the necessary protections are in place for all parties.

I turn to Amendment 120D on Vision Zero. Noble Lords will remember that bus safety was discussed at length during the passage of the Bus Services Bill. The contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, helped highlight this important issue and ensured that bus safety is included in the recently published Road Safety Strategy. Published on 7 January, it is the first such strategy for 15 years. It sets out the Government’s vision for a safer future on our roads for all road users, not only buses. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, that the whole strategy is based on the internationally recognised safe system approach, a core component of Vision Zero. The safe system principle accepts that human error will happen but ensures that all road users, roads, vehicles, speeds and post-crash care work together to prevent fatalities. It is a shared responsibility. It is right that local areas, including Greater Manchester, Oxford and London, which has also been mentioned, are adopting Vision Zero. The Government welcome other local areas doing so in respect of buses, but it must be right for them.

On Amendment 120E, buses already provide one of the safest modes of road transport in Britain and we remain committed to increasing that safety further. During the passage of the Bus Services Bill, we discussed adherence to the highest standards of safety, monitored by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and regulated by traffic commissioners. This subject was exhaustively discussed then. There is already collection of data by the department, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency and the police, carried down to local authority level through the STATS19 framework. Data is also collected from PSV operators who must report incidents to the DVSA thanks to their operator licensing requirements. These datasets already provide a comprehensive picture of bus safety and, as observed during the passage of the Bus Services Bill, to require more frequent or richer data would increase the burden on drivers, strategic authorities and the police. I thank the noble Baroness for speaking to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, on this issue and I hope he will be reassured that we remain committed, as we were during the passage of the Bus Services Bill, to increasing bus safety and are taking real action to do so.

On Amendment 120F, tabled by the noble Baroness, the Government committed in the English devolution White Paper to ensuring that, for non-mayoral strategic authorities, key strategic decisions will have the support of all constituent councils. Adopting a local transport plan is one of those decisions, and the Bill therefore requires the consent of all constituent councils. Existing non-mayoral combined authorities and non-mayoral combined county authorities already have provisions in their constitutions that require local transport plans to be agreed by all constituent councils. We know that those provisions provide reassurance to prospective constituent councils. There is already a duty on local transport authorities to keep their local transport plans under review and alter them if they consider it appropriate to do so, and the Government are committed to providing updated guidance to local transport authorities on local transport plans, which will provide advice to authorities about when they should review and update their local plans.

On Amendment 121, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, at the moment concessionary travel is managed by travel concession authorities, which are also the local transport authority for their area. This means that one authority does local transport planning, secures the provision of public transport services and manages concessions. Reverting to the approach taken before 2011, as the amendment would do, would make travelling locally more difficult due to a range of concessionary travel frameworks as one moves from one area to another. Since that point, combined authorities and combined county authorities have all become both the local transport authority and the travel concession authority for their area, following a period of transition. This has proven effective, with local transport managed at the strategic level across the broader geography. With travel concessions managed alongside local transport functions, there are also streamlined benefits that would not be possible were these two separated at two different levels of local government.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Pack, for his Amendment 236. The vast majority of applications to install cattle grids are decided by local highway authorities. Only when there are unresolved objections, or objections following the consultation stage, does the Secretary of State get involved, or where the Secretary of State, via National Highways, is the highway authority. There were no appeals in the years from 2016 to 2025 and only one in 2025, so it is scarcely a huge burden on either national government or the Department for Transport. There were two in 2014 and one in the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, so I submit that this is not a huge problem for government and it would resolve only the unresolved issues arising from the primary consideration by local government. I hope that, in the light of my remarks, noble Lords feel able not to press their amendments.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I am mildly astonished that the Minister has not addressed the perfectly serious question I raised about the potential for internal conflict between the Mayor of London, acting with regard to his housing responsibilities, and his responsibility as chairman of Transport for London. No doubt we will have an opportunity to come back to that later. However, for the rest of it, the Minister has set out the Government’s position relatively clearly. We will have an opportunity to reflect on it at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw my proposition.

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[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, my name appears on two of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan: Amendments 115A and 115B. However, I also subscribe to the principle of Amendment 116 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, which was just discussed by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. I do so because it is very important indeed that highways, or proposed highways, that constitute key route networks are both genuinely strategic and accepted as such by local councils and local authorities. As it stands, the Bill is unclear on where the powers around and responsibility for traffic management—and, indeed, for the allocation of resources—lie. It is important to clarify these matters in the Bill.

I want to ask the Minister two questions as clearly as I can. First, who will decide on the traffic calming measures proposed for residential roads? Will it be the local authority, the mayor or, in practice, a commissioner making recommendations to the mayor? Secondly, who will hold the budget for such measures? Will the money for the whole area of a strategic authority be transferred from Whitehall to the mayor, or will local authorities have their own budgets for such traffic management schemes? The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said a moment ago that it is important to clarify these matters in advance. I agree with him: it is absolutely essential that these matters are clarified in advance because mayors must not undermine the powers of local authorities.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I turn to Amendment 115 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. By requiring mayors to propose at least one road to be part of a key road network, this measure would ensure that all mayoral combined authorities and combined county authorities can adopt a key route network. By establishing and agreeing these priority links across an area, authorities can work together to manage improvements and maintenance to make a difference to people’s lives. It is also important that combined authorities and combined county authorities have a consistent set of transport duties. This amendment would create an inconsistency where combined authorities had this duty but county combined authorities did not.

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[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments from the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Lansley, are really testing the provision for rail devolution for passenger rail services and its legal status. It has been a really interesting discussion.

The Government’s White Paper said:

“Mayors will be given a statutory role in governing, managing, planning and developing the rail network. In addition to partnerships with Great British Railways, Mayors of Established Mayoral Strategic Authorities will have a clear right to request greater devolution of services, infrastructure and station control where it would support a more integrated network”.


I am not sure that anything before us today goes that far. When we debated the public ownership legislation, I kept talking about Manchester being really keen to extend the Bee Network. I was doing my weekly reading of the rail press earlier today and there was a picture of a lovely branded Bee Network train up in Manchester. They are keen to move forward with that. In response to my amendments on rail devolution on Report of that Bill, the Minister said,

“this Government are absolutely committed to strengthening the role of local leaders and local communities in shaping the provision of rail services in their areas … I can reaffirm to your Lordships’ House that the railways Bill will include a statutory role for devolved governments and mayoral combined authorities”.”.—[Official Report, 6/11/24; col. 1543.]

Yet when I look in the Railways Bill and at what is before us today, I am not sure that the Government have gone as far as they promised at that stage of that earlier legislation. What has changed? Can the Minister assure us that they are not rowing back on rail devolution? Has there been a change of heart or are we all slightly misinterpreting it and will we see far more rail devolution across the country, whether to Manchester, London or other regions?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, on Amendments 120 and 120EA, via provisions in the Transport Act 1968, mayoral combined authorities with passenger transport executive functions already have the appropriate powers as envisaged by Amendment 120. These are the combined authorities of West Yorkshire, West Midlands, Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, North East England and South Yorkshire. They either have passenger transport executives acting on their behalf in relation to rail functions or have had the powers of passenger transport executives transferred to them.

Other mayoral combined authorities do not have these powers. Instead, via the Transport Act 1985, they can secure and subsidise services where the public transport requirements in their area would not otherwise be met. The Government have the powers to confer new functions on strategic authorities, individually or as a class. This includes the powers in Schedule 25 to this Bill, which enable the Secretary of State to confer new functions on strategic authorities on a permanent or pilot basis. Therefore, should an authority require these powers, there are mechanisms in place to achieve it.

Amendment 120EA, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, would not be an appropriate mechanism to enable further devolution to establish mayoral strategic authorities. The heart of the matter is that, for example, where services have been devolved, such as Merseyrail in the Liverpool City Region, this has been achieved by the exemption of services from designation by the Secretary of State under Section 24 of the 1993 Act. After the Great British Railways Act is passed, the Secretary of State will not be the franchising authority, so Section 13 of the 2005 Act will not be the appropriate mechanism. I hope that this answers the noble Lord.

It is anticipated that Great British Railways and mayoral strategic authorities will deliver a new place-based partnership model to deliver on local priorities. This will bring the railway closer to communities, enable collaboration and shared objectives and improve multimodal integration and opportunities for local investment. The depth of partnership will vary depending on local priorities, on capability and also, very significantly, on the geography of the railway, which seldom accords with local government boundaries.

The Government are open to considering further devolution of rail responsibilities should an authority make the case for it. I referred earlier to the Mayor of London’s proposal to take over the Great Northern inner suburban services. If operations are devolved, mayoral authorities will have a choice on how the operations are performed—either through Great British Railways or another operator. The Department for Transport recently published guidance on this topic. In making a decision in response to a request for devolution, key considerations will include the financial and commercial implications, the capability and the geography. The impacts on neighbouring services and communities beyond the combined authority boundary will also need to be factored in. I hope that this is clear and enables the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating discussion—at least, a very small number of us found it fascinating, others perhaps less so. This is an important topic, as everyone on all sides has acknowledged. Having listened to the Minister, I am sure that we will want to come back to it at a later stage. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Nationalised Passenger Rail Services

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what performance improvements have been delivered by nationalised passenger rail services since 28 November 2024.

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

My Lords, public ownership is a vital step towards reforming our railways and rebuilding trust and pride. On average, publicly owned train operators perform better on punctuality and cancellations than those yet to come under public ownership. They are already delivering improvements, with lower cancellations on the TransPennine Express and Northern, and South Western quadrupling the number of new trains entering service. I expect all operators, both public and private, to deliver good performance for passengers.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, when the figures were published a month ago, cancellations were reported to have risen by around 50% on South Western services in the months following nationalisation in May last year, alongside a marked increase in delay minutes and late arrivals. Clause 18 of the Railways Bill places a duty on the Secretary of State to promote high standards of railway service performance. Can the Minister explain how the Government intend to incentivise and enforce those standards in practice, given that the proposed passenger standards authority appears to have no direct enforcement powers and the Office of Rail and Road’s remit in this area is being restricted?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The discussion on the forthcoming Railways Bill will happen in this House in due course. Meanwhile, the Government are pursuing reliability very strongly. If a train company is left, by a combination of the previous Government and the previous operator, desperately short of drivers, with 83 of 90 new trains parked in sidings for nearly five years, it takes a bit of time to recover from that position. That position is being recovered from, in respect of South Western. More than 30 of the new trains are now in service, and two-thirds of the drivers have now been trained to drive them. That takes time. It should have been done before, but it is now being done by this Government.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, what progress has been made to address the poor Sunday levels of service and high levels of Sunday cancellations as part of train operator nationalisation? Can the Minister say when passengers can hope to see any improvements in Sunday services?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The Sunday position, particularly for drivers in a number of train companies, is very difficult. A number of them, after 30-odd years of the previous regime, have no contractual commitment to work on Sundays and volunteer. That is unsatisfactory. In several train companies, negotiations are taking place to incorporate Sundays into the working week.

In the case of Northern, where a dispute about guards has been going on for seven years, Sunday services have never been satisfactory because there are a number of guards in that company who have never been contractually obliged to work Sundays. We have worked extraordinarily hard with the management of Northern, and I hope that will come to a conclusion very shortly.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Just to produce a cheerful note, I can tell the Minister that despite appalling South Western journeys, I travelled a fortnight ago and it was excellent.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I travelled this morning and it was pretty good.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, I have asked the Minister a couple of times about transition payments made during the renationalisation process by the Government to the private operators, and the way that happened previously when franchises changed hands. Is he yet in a position to tell us—this is nearly 12 months later, so he really ought to be—how much money has actually been paid in transition payments to the private operators so far?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I should have foreseen that the noble Lord would ask that question. I will have to write to him because I knew he would ask it, but I forgot to research the answer.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

Does my noble friend acknowledge that the spokesperson for the Conservative Party has a pretty thick skin to ask this Question? After all, the last Conservative Government renationalised no fewer than four train operating companies during their period of office because of the incompetence of the operators at that time. Can the Minister assure the House that we will not return to those days and that the improvement we have seen in punctuality and service, so far as the nationalised companies are concerned, will continue in future?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is right. LNER, in particular, has demonstrated all the excellent characteristics that a public service train company can deliver. The previous Government did not attempt to put back into the private sector any of the other train companies that came into public ownership during their term of office. All those companies are now doing better under this Government’s supervision than they were.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

Has the Minister assessed the impact of the new timetable on east coast main line punctuality? There have been some very severe delays, which are mainly infrastructure-related and therefore the responsibility of Network Rail, a different nationalised company. It appears that the new timetable does not give space to deal with delays when they arise.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am sure that I have just written to the noble Lord on the same subject, but I have been monitoring the east coast main line timetable daily since December when it went in. There have been some very good days, but he is right that there have been some infrastructure failures. There have also been some train failures, one of them really rather catastrophic. On a good day it works quite well; on a bad day it recovers reasonably well. There are a whole host of people working really hard to make it work. It is tight, but it follows £4 billion of investment in both infrastructure and trains, and it is right that the railway should operate as many trains as it can and operate them well.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree with me that it is ridiculous to expect, after the ruinous privatisation of our rail system and 13 years of neglect by the Tory Government, that we can fix something in 13 months that they took 13 years to wreck?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

One of the interesting things that has been going on since this Government took office is re-establishing some pretty basic rules about staff allocation—the numbers of drivers and guards and the way in which they are utilised—which in some of these companies was miles away from what ought to have been established. As my noble friend says, it takes a long time to put things right, but we are putting them right.

[Lord Dobbs (Con)]

If the Minister was travelling on a successful South Western train this morning, he was on a different train from the one I was on. I ask him to look back: the very first breath that this Labour Government took was to give a record-breaking, inflation-busting pay rise to train drivers. One would normally expect, in a public service, for that to bring about better punctuality and improvement of service, yet all those have gone backwards and there has been an increase in the number of complaints. I know some people suggested at the time that it was all to pay for the Government’s friends; we can dismiss that with a wave of our hands. But what is, and was, the point of an inflation-busting pay increase to train drivers if there is no improvement in public service?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Let us reflect on the effect of the continuous dispute with train drivers, which cost £700 million or £800 million in revenue; on the fact that the pay increase was about 2% more than the previous Government intended to pay; and, particularly, on the fact that there were no productivity proposals on the table at the time it was paid, because the previous Government had wasted their time having a discussion with the owners about what percentage of those productivity benefits they took for themselves and, in consequence, there was nothing on the table to put forward. We have changed all those positions.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, there is nothing more annoying than being on the platform early, trying to go to work, when it comes up saying, “Staff didn’t turn up. Train cancelled”. This is happening regularly on TfL, on the line from Elstree & Borehamwood to London. What can be done about that?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I think the noble Lord will find that that goes via Thameslink, which will be taken into public ownership in four months. It is one of the operators whose management tries modestly hard, but it has a problem with a number of drivers. In due course, the Government will take steps to fix it.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, last time the trains were nationalised, they were dirty and late, and the sandwiches were so old that they were curling up at the corners. Why is it going to be different this time?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

That is a sort of music hall view of railway life, is it not? The truth is that the system this Government inherited had got to the end of its life—that is a polite way of putting it. You can prove that it did because the train companies that they took into public ownership stayed in public ownership. They chose to keep LNER, which had three failed operators, in public ownership because, frankly, it ran better. That is what we are trying to achieve. The growth in passenger numbers, which is greater in all the publicly owned train companies over the last year than it has been in privately owned operating companies, is testimony to that.

Number Plates Intended to Defeat Enforcement Cameras

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to prevent the manufacture, sale and use of number plates intended to defeat enforcement cameras, including automatic number plate recognition systems; and whether they plan to strengthen regulation or enforcement in this area.

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

The Government recognise the urgency and importance of tackling the use of illegal number plates designed to evade enforcement cameras. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is working hard with the police, other enforcement agencies and the industry to address the manufacture and misuse of such plates. This includes tightening application, inspection and audit processes for number plate suppliers. In the recently published Road Safety Strategy, the Government have set out proposals for reviewing standards, tougher enforcement, tougher penalties and the potential use of AI to help stamp out illegal plates.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister join me in congratulating Sarah Coombes, the Member of Parliament for West Bromwich, on pursuing this matter in the way that she has? Does he agree that the fact that anyone can apply to be a number plate issuer on a payment of £40 to his department, and that 36,000 people or companies have already done so, is an open incentive for fraud so far as motoring is concerned? As the penalty for non-compliance with number plate regulations is £100, does he further agree that it is a better bet to take a chance with a false number plate than it is to properly insure your own vehicle?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I second my noble friend’s congratulations to Sarah Coombes on raising this important subject. The DVLA is already on the case to strengthen the application process to become a registered number plate supplier and to make it more robust. Options being considered include, as my noble friend remarked, the fee level, the structure, eligibility criteria, and much greater enforcement.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, what discussions are the Government having with major online retailers about preventing the sale of illegal number plates, and what is the Government’s assessment of the scale of this problem?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The actions taken by the Government include considering online sales of number plates, which is clearly one source of illegal number plates. As to the scale and for an example: in 1,000 vehicle checks carried out by the Metropolitan Police with Transport for London in March 2023 using cameras which are able to detect ghost number plates, 41% of licensed taxis and private hire vehicles were found to have non-compliant plates.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Snape, raised a really good point, together with others. The ANPR system is very good. It is fixed in various places around the country, it is also in many police vehicles, and it helps to spot people who commit crime, particularly those who have no insurance. Some people pass that off, but 70% of those who are uninsured are criminals, so it is a really interesting group to keep an eye on. People in that group are five times more likely to have collisions, and when they have them, it is nine times more likely that they will be serious. This is a really important piece of kit. There are two things the Minister might want to look at. One is that the scientific support that was available to the police has been subsumed within the defence realm, and I am afraid it has reduced in its significance and the expertise has been lost. Secondly, and probably as importantly, the people who deliver these registration plates to us all are registered, so somebody needs to check that they are doing what they say they are doing. I am afraid that that is not happening.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Of course, the noble Lord has huge experience in policing and enforcement. I have to say that I was not aware of the point that he makes about scientific support, but the department is working hard on understanding the technical characteristics which prevent these plates being seen by ANPR. I answered the point about registered makers on a previous question.

[Viscount Goschen (Con)]

My Lords, given what the Minister has quite rightly said about enforcement, why do the Government and the police appear to tolerate the use on our streets of illegal, high-powered electric motorcycles, particularly by delivery companies, which bear no registration marks and whose riders carry no insurance?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Viscount is straying some way from illegal number plates, but that subject has been discussed in this House before. The enforcement is of course a matter for chief police officers, but the Government are very seriously considering the sale of such motorcycles.

[Lord Spellar (Lab)]

My Lords, I echo the comments from my noble friend Lord Snape regarding the Member of Parliament for the neighbouring seat to my old one, Sarah Coombes in West Bromwich, but I also highlight the point that this is linked to lots of other crime. It is linked to petrol theft, which is an enormous problem for retailers, to county lines drug dealing, and to robbery and car boot sales. There is a real problem with this. Therefore, should we look not just at increasing the penalties but at the confiscation of improperly plated vehicles?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and the Government are considering precisely those two things, among others.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, is the legality of number plates checked during MoT inspection?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

That is a very good point. The legality of number plates is checked during MoT inspection, but my understanding is that many of those who use false number plates have a proper set for the MoT or other examination and an illegal set which they then change afterwards.

[Lord McLoughlin (Con)]

My Lords, bearing in mind that the Question relates to enforcement cameras, would the Minister like to inform the House as to the reliability of those cameras, bearing in mind the recent story about Highways England failing to monitor them correctly?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I refer the noble Lord to Hansard for yesterday, when we discussed precisely that issue at Questions.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, as noble Lords have made clear and illustrated, we are living in an increasingly lawless environment on the highway: everything from bicycles at red lights to uninsured vehicles—a number of things have been mentioned. The Department for Transport seems to regard its role as quite separate from that of the enforcement authorities. When the department is devising new regulations or changing existing ones, what engagement does it have with the police but also with local highways authorities, who are there to enforce those regulations, as to how realistic it is and what resources they have to be able to deliver the enforcement?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I refer the Lord to page 40 of the recently published Road Safety Strategy, where there is a lot of text headed by:

“Continuing to work closely with the police and other enforcement agencies to ensure the outcomes of the Roads Policing Review are fully considered”,


and underneath it is text that indicates very clearly that the department is working very closely with the police, other enforcement agencies and highway agencies to get the law enforced on our roads.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful that the noble Lord is showing such an interest in the pilots for illegally operated, privately-owned e-scooters. Can I urge him to show a degree of urgency? When will the pilots come to an end, and when will the Government bring forward legislation to implement regulations?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I absolutely guarantee that this Government will show more urgency than the last one, who started an experiment a very long time ago but concluded nothing from it, and we have had to virtually start again.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, while I understand what the noble Lord opposite said about a “lawless” society, it is irresponsible to use such terms? In fact, we live in a much safer society than in many parts of the world and live in the great city of London, and I think we would all admonish some people in other parties who refer to London as an unsafe city.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I certainly support my noble friend’s statement in that regard. We are dealing here with a particular issue, that this boil needs to be lanced. It is not indicative of our whole society crumbling.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, in other parts of the world, bicycles for hire—Lime bikes—are required to have small number plates attached to them so that perpetrators of crimes and offences can be easily identified. Can we adopt such plans?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

This Government and previous Governments have looked at identifying cycles on the road and concluded that it is really quite a difficult issue and would be disproportionate to the results, but the noble Lord must know that the Government are taking action about bicycle hire schemes, because their proprietors bear responsibility for the safety of the cycles and some responsibility for the behaviour of the riders. That is being considered by the Government and will come before this House.

Motorway Speed Cameras

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

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

This Government are working to fix an anomaly dating back at least to 2021 affecting how some speed cameras interact with variable speed signs on some motorways and A roads. A small number of motorists have been impacted, and the police are contacting each of those affected. The public must have confidence in technology on our roads, which is why my department has announced an independent review into how the anomaly occurred, its handling and the changes needed to ensure that this cannot happen again.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. National Highways is clearly doing all it can to remedy the injustice done by the erroneous recording of speeding offences. Is the Minister satisfied that all those involved have now been contacted, with fines repaid and points restored? What about those who had to take time off work to attend speed awareness courses and, more importantly, what about those who lost their licences because of the accumulation of points, and thereafter lost their jobs? What compensation will be offered to them?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

We estimate that approximately 2,650 incorrect activations took place between 2021 and now, and we are checking further back. The number of drivers affected is considerably lower, as not every activation resulted in enforcement. The relevant police forces will contact those affected directly with details on what action is being taken to provide redress. All those notified by the police will receive details on how to contact National Highways if they have evidence of costs associated with this incorrect enforcement—for example, those associated with licence loss.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, will the independent review look at how long the highways agency has known about this defect in its speed cameras? What confidence do the Government have that speed cameras on other roads are not affected?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I can confirm that the review will look at the time it took between first knowledge and public action. We remain very confident that this is both a subset of speed cameras and a subset of variable speed signs, and that it applies only to some motorways and, I think, two A roads.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, there is considerable concern at the vast numbers of different speed limits that are now being applied in this country, both fixed and variable. I understand that the rules are being changed regarding the implementation of 20 mph speed limits in rural areas and some urban areas. Can the Minister update us on the present position regarding the 20 mph speed limits?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The 20 mph speed limit is utilised in areas where local highway authorities believe that road safety would be enhanced by its imposition. The Government do not intend to try to write the rules for all those circumstances; it is for local highway authorities to make judgments about speed limits and the road safety that is derived therefrom.

[Lord Geddes (Con)]

My Lords, in his initial reply to my noble friend Lord Young, the Minister mentioned the importance of maintaining public confidence. I declare an interest in having been done for doing 60 mph in a temporary 50 mph motorway limit in broad daylight with fine weather, no roadworks, no obstruction and no accidents. Can the Minister persuade the highway authorities not to abuse these temporary limits?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is subject to the same legislation about driving properly as all the rest of us. The variable speed limit signs are particularly used on busy urban roads to even out the flow of traffic, because stop-start jams, particularly on motorways such as the M25, both create some dangers themselves and, crucially, lower the capacity of the road. My advice to people when the speed limit goes down is to follow it, because that will save them getting into a huge jam.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, what confidence do the Government have in the agency when the software upgrade that led to this issue took place in 2019 yet the Department for Transport was informed only last September, some six years later?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I think the date was October, not September, but we can confirm that. The purpose of the review, which is a serious activity, is to make sure that this does not happen again. In the process, we will discover how long it took to identify, whether that should have been done faster, how it has been handled and what changes are needed to avoid such a thing happening again. The noble Lord is right: we should have confidence in government agencies, and it is important in these matters that people follow the signage and have confidence in the enforcement that goes with it.

[Lord Burnett of Maldon (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, has identified some of the financial costs that might flow from being wrongly picked up for speeding, and it is good to hear that the Government are working on a plan to compensate people. In this context, points do not mean prizes. They mean increased insurance premiums, and it can be extremely difficult for any of us to understand precisely why an insurance premium has increased from one year to another. Will the Government be sympathetic to those who are unable to produce precise figures because their insurers will not give them to them?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I understand the point that the noble and learned Lord is making. The Government have to be a good custodian of public money and therefore should understand whether there is a loss and what it is, but if I were a claimant I would think the evidence of one year’s premium against another, if it related solely to points and not to any other form of driving, was admissible.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

Anyone who drives north out of London on the M1, as I do twice a week, knows that there is always a 60 mph variable speed limit throughout Bedfordshire, whatever the traffic conditions and whatever the weather, which are usually identical to the weather and traffic conditions north and south of Bedfordshire. Can the Minister inquire why Luton needs to have the traffic going so slowly past it, and does the department occasionally question highway authorities to see whether some are not tempted to use variable speed limits plainly as a way of raising revenue by way of fines?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I defer absolutely to the noble Lord’s knowledge of the M1 in Bedfordshire and will, of course, ask National Highways officials whether it is the case that it is permanently at 60 mph and, if it is, why. The reasons for variable speed limits and speed limits in general are road safety and traffic management, not revenue raising.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

My Lords, I assure my noble friend the Minister that there is nothing wrong with the speed cameras on the M5 motorway in the West Midlands, as those of us who have recently completed a speed awareness course will testify.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

If that was a question, all I can say is that the noble Lord has given his own answer.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, the highways agency and the police forces have acted responsibly in this case by paying compensation, but in London responsibility for enforcing moving traffic offences is almost entirely devolved to the boroughs. I believe those powers have been enacted and made available in the rest of the country as well. In cases where cameras are used for the enforcement of moving traffic offences—I appreciate that they do not have very many variable speed limits—what audit are the Government undertaking of the systems being used to ensure that they do not have bugs and problems as well?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

It is important to note that this is an issue because of the interaction of two systems. The technology used for camera enforcement is obviously checked and there is an audit process—I cannot describe it to the noble Lord in detail. The matter we are discussing about enforcement of variable speed limits has come about because of the interaction of two systems, and the noble Lord is describing circumstances about cameras used only either for speed enforcement or, more often, yellow boxes and suchlike.

Great Western Railway: Infrastructure

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Gower]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the condition, maintenance, and long-term resilience of rail infrastructure on the Great Western Railway network; and what steps they are taking to ensure its reliability following recent flooding and extreme weather.

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

My Lords, Network Rail has robust plans in place to deal with resilience because of climate change. The Wales and western region will see a £2.6 billion spend on asset renewals and £1.6 billion invested to maintain assets from 2024 to 2029. There is also a comprehensive weather resilience and climate change adaptation plan focusing on safe- guarding assets, embedding resilience into daily operations and adapting to climate change impacts along the route.

[Lord Davies of Gower (Con)]

My Lords, recent months have seen the western region suffer delays and cancellations through infrastructure issues. Signalling failure is partly to blame, but inclement weather frequently causes severe flooding. In particular, Chipping Sodbury tunnel, built in 1902, has been plagued by flooding issues since the day it opened. Successive Governments have funded remedial work over the years on a piecemeal basis, but, as the Minister is aware from his former role at Network Rail, this has not provided a solution to the ongoing problem. Can he therefore commit to resolving the issue in order to bring travel in the western region into the 21st century? As the operator, can he take steps to ensure that GWR provides a full set of rolling stock on its intercity services, as opposed to the frequently provided overcrowded half-set of carriages?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord knows more about Chipping Sodbury now because I arranged for the route director for the western route to talk to him. He is right that it was opened in 1902. Great Western Railway built the cutting and the tunnel straight through an aquifer and it has been flooding ever since. The good news is that remedial work over the past five years has significantly reduced the delays created by flooding in that location. However, there are many other examples of flooding due to climate change, including, as he knows, one recently in Neath, which has never flooded before.

[Baroness Brown of Cambridge (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change. My sub-committee’s recent advice to the Government was that we need to prepare for 2 degrees of warming by 2050. That implies that, in many areas, typical weather will be rather like the extreme weather we see today, and extreme weather will be much more extreme than that, with maximum temperatures potentially towards the mid-40s. Can the Minister assure the House that the HS2 line to Birmingham and the recently announced Northern Rail developments will be ready for this weather?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The truth is that the whole railway network has to be adapted to weather that was once exceptional and is now common- place. The budget for Network Rail, as the current infrastructure owner, was at least quadrupled compared with 2019 to 2024, precisely to cope with that. I am sure that the new lines, such as HS2 and the Liverpool to Manchester line, will be built with that mind, but our greater preoccupation at the moment is our existing railway and its reliability.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, recent reports in the press have highlighted the serious shortages of carriages on Great Western Railway services, with one in three engines not functioning properly due to fuel pump issues. What are the Government doing to ensure a fully operating service now, as well as when the Government start to directly run this part of the railway?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is completely right. At one stage, out of the total train fleet for long-distance services, with 400-odd engines in those trains, some 110 of them were not functioning due to a fault that appears to be something to do with fuel supply and fuel pumps. The good news is that the number is now down to 38. I am very frustrated by the time it has taken to fix them, but they are being fixed.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, I am confident that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, will join with me in praising the care of the GWR staff. Nevertheless, both he and I suffer on our journeys, often together, from Swansea, because of the delays. Can my noble friend the Minister say where the GWR stands in the comparative performance rates of all the railways in this matter?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

It was pretty good. It has got worse because of the engine shortage. Reliability has been very poor. I am expecting it to now recover. I am on its back.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, about the quality and care that GWR staff take in looking after their customers, of whom I am one.

I take the Minister back to his Written Answer about Chipping Sodbury. He knows that I raised that issue when I was Secretary of State and he was chair of Network Rail, and I was assured that work had been done to solve the problem. It has improved it, as he said. It delayed the flooding impact of Storm Claudia by 27 hours. He says that more work is going to be done in 2026-27. Is that work planned to fix the problem once and for all?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I think the noble Lord is a bit optimistic. If mother nature continues to pour water into the railway infrastructure, because of the way it is built, any fix will be related to what the climate is actually doing.

Network Rail is very confident that there can be further reductions, some of which will be through big infrastructure, such as building small reservoirs and fitting more pumps. So, I cannot guarantee that the tunnel will never flood, but I can guarantee that every effort is being made to reduce the delays when it does.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, the points that have been raised by the noble Lords, Lord Davies and Lord Anderson, are absolutely right. In particular, west of Cardiff, there are severe problems going through to Carmarthenshire. This is probably due to underinvestment over a number of years. Can the Minister give a commitment that he will look at the situation running through to west Wales, in view of the recent experiences?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have spoken to the Welsh regional manager of Network Rail in the past 24 hours to ask him what the incidence of flooding was in south Wales, in preparation for this question. As I said earlier, there are several sites which have never flooded before—Neath and west of Swansea—and Network Rail it is looking very urgently at dealing with those issues in order to keep the reliable railway running.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, Brunel built the South Devon Railway in 1842, alongside the River Exe estuary and down past Dawlish—a very scenic route. By 1860, it was realised that that route was unsustainable, and an alternative route was planned over the Haldon Hill. Over recent years, we have seen the line collapse in Dawlish and, on an almost monthly basis, overtopping along the Powderham banks alongside the Exe estuary. What plans have the Government to reroute that line to one that is sustainable in the long term? I note my interest as a local resident.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Since the collapse of the line into the sea in Dawlish in 2014, about £140 million has been spent on resilience to keep the railway running. There is work left to do, in particular on the cliffs at Teignmouth, but there is no practicable, affordable alternative route that can be provided any time soon. So railway colleagues have to keep going on keeping that line open, whatever the weather.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I warn my noble friend that this morning the Environment and Climate Change Committee took evidence from three water companies. We discovered that storing water in reservoirs is very expensive; it is a lot cheaper to store it in aquifers. So what are the prospects of extending the aquifer that is the cause of the problem to the railway?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I could do without anybody storing water in the aquifer next to the Chipping Sodbury tunnel and cutting. If they try it, there will be some serious legal action. The water companies have their part to play in managing surface water, just as landowners do and just as Network Rail does. It is an increasing problem, it needs to be treated seriously and a lot of public money is going into dealing with it.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I appreciate the difficulties for the Minister. However, changing the subject slightly, if there is so little money available for rail infrastructure and so many demands on it, why are the Government persisting with this plan that Great British Railways should build its own retail website and app for selling tickets when that is done perfectly well by the private sector already? Is it not time to abandon this vanity project?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Nobody said that there was too little money. A lot of money is being spent on railway infrastructure. The problem has been that the climate has changed faster than adaptation of the railway infrastructure. The noble Lord is quite wrong about ticket retailing. There are currently 14 websites from train operating companies. They are very confusing. Many people do not think that you can buy a ticket for First Great Western from South Western, but you can. The objective of GBR is to replace this system with one that people can trust and will use to increase rail travel.

Northern Powerhouse Rail

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, as we have heard, the northern powerhouse initiative was launched in June 2014 by the then Chancellor George Osborne. Featuring new and significantly upgraded railway lines, it should be the region’s single biggest transport investment since the Industrial Revolution. Twelve years on, despite various promises by various Prime Ministers, all that seems to have happened so far is lots of talking and planning, but no concrete plans.

On these Benches, the Liberal Democrats fully support measures to grow our economy across every nation and every region. We are supporters of delivering Northern Powerhouse Rail and a new Liverpool to Manchester rail connection. But the only solid information in this Statement, as we have heard, is just over £1 billion be spent over the next four years planning what should be in the final plan, not on spades in the ground.

I absolutely accept that the previous Conservative Government failed to deliver infrastructure projects such as this and High Speed 2, but surely our northern towns and cities were hoping for so much more. Can the Minister confirm that while we can hope that there may be some upgrades to rail infrastructure at some point in the 2030s, there will be no new trains running on new tracks until 2045 at the earliest? Can the Minister assure the House that the Government are not falling into the trap of the previous Government’s playbook of stop-start funding and delay on rail projects?

Safe, reliable and affordable railways are vital for employment, quality of life and economic growth. This is particularly true for the north of England, where the need for investment in infrastructure is clear. How will the Minister ensure that this major transport infrastructure project, no matter how welcome, secures the funding that is needed and does not go wildly over budget and end up years behind schedule? Will some clear strategic thinking by shadow Great British Railways be undertaken now to avoid costly feasibility studies being undertaken by other parties and to ensure a grip on the project?

Northern Powerhouse Rail, if delivered properly, will unlock growth, connect communities and boost employment opportunities. I hope the Minister can provide clear answers that help us all understand what is being promised in this Statement and when it will be delivered.

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

My Lords, the Statement by my honourable friend the Secretary of State in the other place last Wednesday set out a practical and deliverable set of railway improvements in northern England related to an economic plan for the northern growth corridor across either side of the Pennines. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, have set out some of the more tangled history of Northern Powerhouse Rail over the past 10 years.

This Government are drawing a line under some uncosted and, frankly, undeliverable plans, of which Network North was the worst, although the Integrated Rail Plan for the North came near it, because there was a little bit of funding but it was not prioritised in any way. We are setting out a realistic plan for the delivery of a better railway for the north of England, which will include more frequent trains—so frequent that you do not need a timetable—more reliable trains, faster journey times and a mixture of using existing lines, upgrading existing lines and, as has been pointed out, a new railway between Liverpool and Manchester.

It is also phased. Noble Lords will note that, on the east side of the Pennines, improvements can come more quickly, because the upgrading will be to existing lines. The line across the Pennines is already being significantly upgraded: the trans-Pennine route upgrade has not so far been mentioned, but £11 billion-worth of railway improvements are being carried out now, with capacity, electrification, reliability and journey time improvements. The plan then sets out a new railway between Liverpool and Manchester, using the northern part of the stalled powers for HS2, which are languishing in Parliament at the moment, together with a new railway from Millington to Liverpool.

Thirdly, upgrades will be made later from Bradford to Manchester and Sheffield to Manchester. The Government believe that the plan, set out in that way, is much more deliverable and practical than any previous plan has been.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, asks about abandoning a new railway across the Pennines. Yes, there will not be a new railway across the Pennines because, in effect, the trans-Pennine route upgrade will deliver what is virtually a new railway but on the existing alignment. He also asked about the proposition that, somehow, Northern Powerhouse Rail will not be effective without the delivery of HS2 to Manchester. He will note that one of the things in the Government’s plan and the Secretary of State’s Statement is the reservation of the existing purchase of land from Birmingham to Manchester, because more capacity—note that phrase; it is more capacity, not a high-speed line—is likely to be needed at some stage. It will therefore eventually complement the part of the HS2 alignment that will be used as a result of the new railway from Liverpool to Manchester.

The £1.1 billion-worth is in this spending review period, rather than to 2030, which was referred to last week. It will deliver some enhancements, too: for example, the cost of the new station in Bradford, subject to its business case, will be part of that £1.1 billion. We expect delivery to be well started, because the site is nearly agreed and the proposition is sound. We are also expecting improvements to Leeds station, which is a critical block to having more trains on either side of the Pennines, as a result of this expenditure. But it is true that a lot of that money will be spent on planning, because one of the lessons from HS2, to which this House will return fairly shortly, was the foolishness of starting to build a railway without specifying it and with contracts that make the contractors money whatever they are building and however long they take to build it.

The funding envelope of £45 billion is a very sensible proposition, bearing in mind the experience of HS2, by which government can limit the costs and give some budgetary pressure to those specifying the improvement. As the House will hear fairly soon, one of the difficulties with HS2 was the zealotry with which the original specification was written and the consequent enormous cost. We are not going to make that mistake. The last point of course is that the £45 billion is a sum to be spent after the end of this spending review, so the first part of it will be in this Government’s term.

The Government are working very hard to produce a practical programme of improvements that can be delivered by both the railway and its supply chain. I say to the noble Baroness that we do need to plan first; it is sensible to do that. She asked whether GBR would be involved. It will: very much so. One of the mistakes of HS2 was to regard it as a completely independent railway when, actually, it has to be regarded very much as part of the railway network, which is certainly what this Government envisage Northern Powerhouse Rail to be.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, can I press the Minister on the timetable? Obviously, I have a vested interest as a resident of the north. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced that the benefits will be felt by the early 2030s, but I understand that the final project will not be finished until the 2040s, and there may be a change of Government in that time. Can the Minister give a clearer setting out of the timetable, and in particular when the stretch from York to Middlesbrough might benefit?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that railway improvements, sadly, take a very long time. They take a long time to be delivered safely, unlike in the Victorian era when hundreds of people were killed during their construction, and many of them have to be done on the operating railway, which can tolerate some closures but cannot tolerate everything.

The Chancellor spoke correctly in saying that the benefits will start to be felt in the 2030s. In fact, I think some benefits will be felt before then, because we must improve Leeds station and a new station in Bradford will make a significant difference to Bradford’s economic prospects. I cannot tell the noble Baroness precisely when all the parts of the improvement will be delivered, because we need to plan this out properly, but the Government hope that, with a general consensus about the economic prospects of the north of England being improved by better transport, we have for the first time seen a plan that sets that out in a progressive way that enables it to be delivered. The hope is that, whoever the Government are—hopefully, this Government will be here for a long time—it can be delivered over the course of a number of Parliaments.

The noble Baroness will of course recall that the most difficult occasion in the recent history of railway planning was the peremptory cancellation of phase 2a of HS2, which was done, sadly, without any contemplation of a replacement. If future Governments were to modify this plan, one hopes they would contemplate the effects of what they were doing, in order to be able to deliver the plan roughly as it is set out today.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a great deal in this Statement that I warmly welcome: in particular, the bit the Minister has just referred to about what was HS2, the link from Crewe to Manchester. He has repeated, and it is clear in the Statement, that

“we will retain land … already purchased between the west midlands and Crewe”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/1/26; col. 931.]

The only point of retaining the land—I strongly welcome the fact that it will be—is that a railway will be built on it at some stage.

I would like the Minister’s confirmation that, welcome as these improvements to east-west connectivity are—they are very welcome and probably should be taking precedence—they will not in any way help to solve the capacity problems on the west coast main line, which are being solved in part as far as Birmingham but need to be solved between the West Midlands and Manchester as well. What hope can the Minister offer me that a new railway—he can call it HS2 or whatever he likes—will be built to replace HS2 to Manchester and correct the huge mistake that was made when it was cancelled?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is right: the Government are retaining that part of the land between the West Midlands and Crewe that they have bought for precisely that purpose, because they know that at some stage a railway will have to be built. It will probably not be a high-speed railway. It is certainly not a railway to the specification of High Speed 2 phase 1, which has cost an extraordinary amount of money because of its specification. It might be that only part of that route is needed sooner than the more northern parts.

It is clear that the west coast main line is full of trains. There is no space left. The Office of Rail and Road declined all the open access applications last summer, simply because there was no timetable space on the railway to accommodation them. It is right for the Government to think about the future and to plan to deliver this new railway at a time when it is needed.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, I worked at No. 10 as Tony Blair’s strategy adviser in 2005 when an in principle go-ahead was given to an ambitious high-speed rail network for the whole country. Twenty-odd years later, we do not even have one small part of that plan in place. In the same period, since 2008 China has built 48,000 kilometres of high-speed rail.

I am a Liverpool supporter, so I regularly go—

[Lord Birt (CB)]

It has been a difficult weekend. I regularly visit the north-west of England, as I did at the weekend. I am involved in an east of Pennines business, so I am very familiar with the 19th-century infrastructure of the whole of the north of England. Are we remotely ambitious enough with our rail infrastructure?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The simple answer is yes. What the north of England needs is better, more reliable connectivity, most importantly at a frequency at which a timetable is not needed. This is the intention of this Government’s whole plan. It can be delivered as a consequence of finishing the trans-Pennine route upgrade and carrying out, in sequence, the plans set out by the Secretary of State last week.

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

May I remind noble Lords that this is an opportunity to ask questions of the Minister? Can we keep comments succinct? There is plenty of time for everyone to get in if we all keep our questions sharp, so that he can answer them.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for recognising the success of the trans-Pennine route upgrade—which was, of course, started by the last Conservative Government, when a lot of significant work was done. The Minister also had responsibility for that in a previous role.

I have two specific questions. Is the £45 billion pound cost envelope that the Minister mentioned calculated in 2026 pounds, or is it going to be uprated for inflation? That is a very important question, given the length of time HS2 has taken and the significance of that. Secondly, is the delivery authority for the Northern Powerhouse Rail project going to be GBR?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The £45 billion is in 2026 pounds. I think the noble Lord will recognise that, for example, we have been accounting for HS2 in 2019 prices for a number of years, which is clearly a ridiculous proposition. I expect GBR to take responsibility for much of this, except that the Government may well decide to deliver building a brand new route between Liverpool and Manchester separately, as with East West Rail. We have to regard the whole thing as part of the national railway network and not as something dreamt up, delivered from Mars and imposed on the railway, with the consequent loss of connectivity and the ability to change trains at stations for all the journeys people want to make.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I accept the incrementalism of the plan, but can the Minister give us a little more detail about how it will be managed? What will be the role of the northern mayors? Is funding to be solely from the Treasury, or will it be regionally based? Are the Government exploring how the railway can benefit from the development value of the surrounding land, which will then increase greatly in value?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for raising a really important point. First, the mayors are party to the proposal, and there is a compact with each of them in the northern growth corridor. This is really important, because previous proposals have been done to those mayors and not with them. They play an important role because, as it says in the announcement, although there is a funding cap, which has been discussed already, they should have the ability to change or improve the specification in line with the aspirations for their region’s economy, jobs and homes. If they do, they should be able to raise some money, and the Government are going to pursue that with them discussions.

The noble Lord is right that one of the underused features of infrastructure funding so far is not buying into the inevitable rise in value of the land. One of the most difficult things to witness and not comment on is that, as you approach Birmingham, the skyline is full of cranes and buildings but none of the owners or developers of the land has paid a penny towards the railway. That cannot be right.

[The Lord Bishop of Newcastle]

My Lords, I have spoken in the Chamber before about the Leamside line, which is a modest 21 miles of railway in the north-east. Would the noble Lord agree that it illustrates the disconnect between statement and construction timeline? Would it be worth considering prioritising projects such as the Leamside line in order to power up the northern powerhouse, particularly in the north-east, which sometimes feels on the edge of plans?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am delighted that the right reverend Prelate has raised that, because I discussed this very subject with Kim McGuinness two or three times in the last month. The extension of the metro to Washington, which is the northern part of the Leamside line, is proceeding anyway. The development of the southern part of the Leamside line will be pursued alongside the first tranche of Northern Powerhouse Rail, with a view to deriving economic growth, homes and jobs benefits from extending services southwards. I hope I have answered the right reverend Prelate’s question very positively.

[Lord Lennie (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord’s statement regarding Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Bradford. There is also Newcastle, as the right reverend Prelate just said. The journey time from Newcastle to Manchester is longer than from Newcastle to London. Is the plan designed to improve that particular journey?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The answer to my noble friend is yes. The trans-Pennine route upgrade will make a significant improvement to the journey time across the Pennines. In addition, the intention is to have trains at higher frequency, which means less waiting time. That journey time will be improved in both respects.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted that the right reverend Prelate raised the question she did because, by pure chance, I have a Question on tomorrow’s Order Paper about east coast main line capacity. What impact, when delivered, will the Statement, which I welcome, have on the east coast main line, as well as on the points raised by other Members about capacity from the Midlands to the north and to the west coast?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will not spoil the Answer to my noble friend’s Question tomorrow, except to say that the east coast main line has a better timetable with more trains on it. The Government do not see the end of their aspirations for railways in the north to be solely the announcement from last week. There may well have to be further improvements to the east coast main line; if there are, they will only enhance its capacity, both in journeys north-south and in the connections between Newcastle, York, Leeds and places to the west side of the Pennines.

[Lord Kempsell (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the update on this important cause. Let us assume that the cap will be busted. If that is the case, and the Treasury’s £45 billion envelope is broken, what assessment have the Government made of the impact on local authorities and businesses that will have to shoulder the local funding uplift?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Let us not assume that the cap will be busted, because the progress on the trans-Pennine route upgrade demonstrates pretty satisfactorily that, planned properly, you can make substantial railway enhancements without limitless additions to the budget. We will come back to this House and the other House in short order about the costs and timescale of HS2, but there are some really substantial lessons to be learned from starting a project with no specification and giving contractors, in essence, a licence to print money. There is no way that this Government are prepared to do that with anything that has been announced in the past few days. One of the consequences of that is to allow ourselves time to plan what needs to be done properly, to cost it properly and to contract for it properly. I do not think that we can tolerate assuming that caps will be busted, because we have a terrible example of it at the moment, and we should leave that example in isolation and deliver projects properly, having planned them first.

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank every noble Lord who has spoken in this exchange and warmly welcome the Statement that was made last week in the other place. I congratulate the Minister on getting his head around the facts and being able to explain what is happening with such clarity—for example, to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle on her remarkably technical but important question about the Leamside line. Did the Minister see the press coverage at the weekend on the completion of the Chiltern tunnel for High Speed 2, and does he agree that it is time that we started to celebrate such engineering feats? When it is built, the railway is going to have some marvellous engineering—not just tunnels but viaducts as well—which I think will make our railway the envy of the world.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I agree with my noble friend. There are some remarkable structures, either in the ground or coming out of the ground, for HS2, but he would have to agree with me that you have to be tinged with sadness to stand here and not know how much they have cost so far. That is a shocking weakness, which we will come back to and no doubt debate at some stage. My noble friend is right that British engineering can produce some extraordinary feats, and the tunnel that was in the newspapers at the weekend and the viaduct across the Colne Valley are very elegant structures.

Incidentally, if noble Lords who take a train journey between Manchester and Leeds would like to give me prior notice, I can arrange for them to travel in the cab with the driver, and they can see the extraordinary amount of work that is being done on an operating railway, which is neither trivial nor simple, and get some understanding about what is going on there. My noble friend Lord Faulkner is right to highlight these great structures on HS2, but, equally, what has been going on between Leeds and Manchester and out to York is extraordinary, and it has been done with relatively little disruption to the train service. If any noble Lords—within reason—would like to see it at some time, I will arrange for them to be able to do that.

Buses: Safety and Security

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what work they are undertaking to ensure the safety and security of buses.

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

This Government are committed to ensuring that buses are safe and secure for all passengers and road users, and we expect the bus sector to uphold the highest possible safety standards. The Bus Services Act 2025 helps to deliver safer, more reliable and more accessible bus networks, and we have just published the new Road Safety Strategy, setting out the Government’s plan to make our roads significantly safer for everyone.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, given that there are around 700 Yutong electric buses in operation across our country and that concerns have been raised internationally that these buses can be stopped or made inoperable through remote interference from China, will the Government issue clear guidance for procurement of such electric buses, including new security requirements, such as firewalls, to prevent our buses being hacked?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My department and other parts of government are looking into the media reports on this from Norway, and the Secretary of State has already committed to updating the Transport Select Committee on this work as soon as we can. We cannot legally mandate that funding given as subsidy is used to purchase British-built buses, but where local authorities are running their own procurement to buy buses directly, they can design these exercises in a way that maximises the wider economic benefits offered by domestic suppliers. We also launched last year the UK bus manufacturing expert panel to support UK bus manufacturing. Through that, we are actively encouraging mayoral combined authorities—many of which will shortly procure bus fleets to support their new bus franchising programmes—to embed best-practice social-value criteria within their procurement.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister explain how the roads can be made safer for buses? In the press today, there are reports of two accidents involving school buses and quite a few children injured. Is it not time that we had a system to make the roads safe for buses and for everyone, in the way that happens in many other countries?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I refer my noble friend to the Road Safety Strategy that has just been published—the first for many years—which sets out a whole variety of actions to be taken with vehicles, drivers, pedestrians, other road users and infrastructure, which he refers to, in order to reduce deaths and serious injuries on the roads. Nevertheless, travelling by bus is a very safe mode of travel.

[Lord Grayling (Con)]

My Lords, given the current weather conditions, buses on icy roads are obviously an issue. Does the Minister know whether we mandate bus companies to have winter tyres on buses? If we do not, should we do so?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I have never heard of any mandate for winter tyres. The speed at which the weather changes, given the climate change just discussed in this Chamber, would make changing tyres overnight a seriously impractical activity. What is needed when the roads are frosty and temperatures are below freezing is adequate gritting and care by local transport authorities. Ministers in my department in the other place have this week been looking into the adequacy of gritting across the country.

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, Covid had a big impact on the number of people using our buses. What is the Government’s latest assessment of take-up of bus use post Covid, and what are the Government doing to promote the use of buses to the public?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is quite correct: Covid had an effect on all public transport demand. The Government have taken a series of actions, including the Bus Services Act 2025, which changes the landscape to enable local transport authorities to provide services designed for the people who live and work in their communities. I refer the noble Lord to recent funding announcements, which include funding for every transport authority in England—unlike the previous Government’s selective funding—and we have now guaranteed funding over the next three years. Consistency of service will encourage the increase of passengers on buses, and we are determined to achieve that.

[Lord Harper (Con)]

My Lords, can I take the Minister back to the Question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon? My understanding is that officials in his department, in conjunction with the National Cyber Security Centre, have already carried out an analysis of those Chinese-made buses and confirmed that there is a security flaw which enables them to be remotely dealt with, although there is no evidence that it has happened. Can he confirm that to your Lordships’ House and say what the Government are doing with not just buses but all transport technology to make sure that it is not vulnerable to attack by our enemies?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord is clearly in possession of information that I do not have, because my department and other parts of government are still looking at this. But it is a fact of life that all modern vehicles, including buses, are using software to support safer driving, improve diagnostics and provide a host of other services, and updating this software remotely is an effective and efficient way of doing so. That has been the practice for years, but it is a concern and that is why we are looking at it. If something needs to be done, of course this Government will do it.

[Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)]

My Lords, what will the Government provide to the UK electric bus industry to ensure competition in the bus sector and real choices for local authorities and transport authorities? What additional safety features will the Government require for bus fleets across the country to work towards Vision Zero, as initiatives in London and West Yorkshire are doing at present?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I already referred to the UK bus manufacturing expert panel, which has been set up by this Government precisely to support the UK bus manufacturing industry. I also said that we are actively encouraging those mayoral combined authorities which will procure bus fleets to embed best-practice social-value criteria so that they are more able to procure buses made in Britain. If the noble Lord looks at the Road Safety Strategy—I am not suggesting that he is remiss in not having done so, because it has been published only in the last few hours—he will see that it includes real commitments to the safe system, which is the rather less-interesting title of Vision Zero, devised in Sweden. It looks to embed that in every aspect of road safety in Britain, including the operation of buses. We had some discussion here about the safe system in the debates on what became the Bus Services Act. I think the noble Lord and others will be very pleased to read what is in the strategy when they are able to do so.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I must confess that, when I saw this Question on the Order Paper, I envisaged a discussion about safety in buses as much as the safety of buses, so I hope my noble friend will forgive me for asking an adjacent question to do with safety in buses. What can he tell us about the way that the training of drivers and the design of buses is now being taken forward to ensure the safety of young women in particular travelling in buses, especially at night?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The Bus Services Act 2025 mandates training for all bus drivers, to make buses part of the safer streets initiative to deal with violence against women and girls. The department is actively producing guidance for bus operators and local authorities about how that is done so that every bus driver in Britain has the ability to spot what is going on and deal with it. Some 96% of buses in Britain now have CCTV, which is a means of providing both evidence and reassurance to passengers that their safety is being considered. I am looking forward, as I am sure my noble friend is, to this training being rolled out to every driver in Britain.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, it remains the case that very large numbers of people are injured daily though accidents inside buses, especially elderly people, in large measure as a result of sharp braking. Nothing has been done to reduce this number over the years. The Minister is very aware of it. What can he say that this new strategy that we have the benefit of today is going to do to make a real difference to that number?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I would take issue with the noble Lord in saying that nothing has been done. There has been a lot of individual work. In particular, Transport for London, post his and my time there, has spent a lot of effort and activity in interior bus design and specification of vehicles themselves. But he, too, when he sees the Road Safety Strategy will see words in there about better driving and infrastructure, which was previously referred to, and about the use of Vision Zero, all of which must make a difference in how people drive and, consequently, the effects of braking. Of course, you want vehicles to stop when the vehicle in front of them stops, or there is some hazard, but sharp braking is, of course, as he says, particularly damaging to older people and vulnerable people. We want to avoid it, which is why the Road Safety Strategy has to affect all users of roads.

Channel Tunnel Infrastructure: Reliability

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 6th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with Getlink about the reliability of the Channel Tunnel infrastructure given the recent failure of the electrical supply and the subsequent cancellation of train services between London, Paris and Brussels.

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

My Lords, it is important that there is a full investigation into the three separate incidents which disrupted tens of thousands of passengers’ journeys on 30 and 31 December last and saw some passengers stranded throughout the night, which is clearly unacceptable. I am therefore commissioning the relevant authorities—the binational Intergovernmental Commission, the IGC, which oversees the Channel Tunnel, and the Office of Rail and Road—to review last week’s incidents and also the implementation of recommendations from previous reviews of similar incidents, to ensure that urgent lessons are learned for good.

[Lord Snape (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for that response. Am I correct in thinking that, when these occurrences happen in and around the Channel Tunnel, it seems to take twice as long to restore services on that part of the line which is the responsibility of HS1 or Getlink as it does on the other side of the channel, where the infrastructure is the responsibility of the French and Belgian railways? Does he agree with me that the latest outage ruined the new year holiday for thousands of people? Could he assure the House that the Government will do what they can to ensure that proper compensation is paid to them for having their holiday ruined? Finally, could he assure me and those of us who are interested in these matters that companies such as Eurostar and Getlink have proper resources, not only to own the infrastructure for which they are responsible but to repair it when things go wrong—something that obviously did not occur promptly on this occasion?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I share my noble friend’s concern about the disruption caused to travellers, in particular those whose holidays were spoiled or at least delayed. There is appropriate compensation made by Eurostar and Getlink, which are private companies, for that.

I take a particular interest in the noble Lord’s last point about ownership and proper maintenance, because there have previously been similar incidents and they do seem to take a long time. I am not sure that I can distinguish between incidents that take five hours on our side of the tunnel and, for instance, one last summer that took seven hours on the French side—but all that time is too long. My concern in this review, which is why I specifically mentioned the review of previous recommendations, is that it is not currently clear to me that all the previous recommendations for better maintenance, fewer incidents and for dealing with incidents when they occur have been followed through to completion by any of the parties that the noble Lord mentioned.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, while I welcome the review the Minister has mentioned, given that there is widespread support for increasing competition and international rail travel from the UK to other European destinations, what assurance can the Minister provide to passengers that the infrastructure is capable of running more services for both passengers and, indeed, freight in the future?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The review that I have talked about already will look at the resilience of the infrastructure and at previous recommendations to make sure that the infrastructure is resilient. Obviously, everything that we are talking about is certainly less than 40 years old, which, by railway standards, is like yesterday. There should be no reason—I cannot think of any good reason—why the infrastructure cannot support the much-increased level of service.

To that end, as the noble Baroness knows, the Government are committed to expanding the use of the tunnel for both passengers and freight trains. She will know that Virgin has been granted access to the depot in London, which it believes is necessary for its competitive activity with Eurostar. She will also know that Trenitalia, which is the Italian state railway, has found a funder to independently start additional competitive services with a depot in France, but not needing one in London. So, I am confident that all the infrastructure she mentions can support those services in the future.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned compensation in his response. The Government want people to travel by train rather than by plane. He will know that the compensation available to the Eurostar passengers mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, is much less than the compensation offered to air passengers, such as those disrupted at Heathrow recently, leaving many of the Eurostar passengers severely out of pocket. Is there not a case for aligning the compensation regimes between the two modes?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord will know that we used to have far more influence over Eurostar and its commercial policies because we were once part-owners of it, but, sadly, a previous Conservative Government sold their 40% share in Eurostar to what has turned out to be the French state railway 10 years ago. So, we have no commercial influence over what Eurostar does.

If there is a case for what the noble Lord suggests, it would certainly require some examination, but I am not sure that we particularly want to interfere in people’s commercial businesses. What I do want to do is make sure that the infrastructure provided by Getlink, HS1 and SNCF on the other side of the tunnel is reliable, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, said, so that the services that currently run and additional future services run reliably.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the attempt by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, to hold a private railway company to account. Can the Minister tell us how we will hold Great British Railways to account when it is in operation, given that it is only obliged to “have regard” to guidance from the Secretary of State rather than to comply with it, according to the Railways Bill currently being considered in another place?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

We are quite a long way from the New Year’s Eve disruption in the Channel Tunnel, but never mind.

The noble Lord knows perfectly well that the principal means by which the Government hold arm’s-length bodies to account is by control of the appointment of the chair and the board. That is a pretty reasonable level of control. If he reads the Bill that is currently in the other place, he will see that there is a variety of mechanisms for the Secretary of State to make sure, on behalf of customers and passengers, that Great British Railways does what the Government want. I do not think there is any defect in those arrangements, but no doubt we will discuss them further when the Bill comes before this House.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, it is rather curious that we have a situation where many providers would like to join in and provide services to the continent through the tunnel. However, I am concerned —and I would like the Minister to respond—by the limitations and regulations that seem to be being applied, which are preventing the speedy setting-up of these new services. Is he happy that there are no impediments whatever to further commercial services being provided?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am happy, because the principal constraint is actually the availability of trains compatible with the infrastructure on both sides of the channel and in the tunnel itself. They are very specialised; there are few manufacturers who can make them, and the constraint on Virgin starting its services will be the availability of trains. My department is working very hard to make sure that the depot facilities needed in London are provided for it. The relatively recent announcement from Trenitalia that it believes that it can also provide competitive services without a depot in the UK—and it may have access to trains sooner because it has already ordered some for other services in Europe—is a very welcome development.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether we will get a report back on what happened in late December? Whether it is an electricity failure that knocks out the Channel Tunnel or an electricity substation fire that knocks out Heathrow, the national grid is an absolutely priceless part of our critical national infrastructure and I am sure the House will want to know that everything is being done to prevent these events taking place again.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend. I think it is a distraction to regard the electricity suppliers as the principal reason for the three separate failures. In fact, the first failure, we believe—or it is believed—was a train failure which brought down some of the wires. The second failure was an alarm on a freight train that suggested that the train had a seized wheel, although that proved not to be the case. The third was some form of failure, but it does not look like a particularly strong failure of the electricity supply. That needs to be fully examined. I agree with my noble friend that all these failures are unacceptable. The review I have already mentioned, along with previous reviews, ought to do their very best to make sure that these failures are obviated in future.

Space Industry (Indemnities) Bill

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 12th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, this is the second Bill this week that, in effect, transfers risk or cost away from private investors to the taxpayer or the fare payer, to help put Britain on the path to industrial success in the future. I say to the Minister, who supports the Bill, that this is a long way from the days of the railways, when private money without government support and without any transfer of risk—and sometimes with private investors losing their funds—built our great railway network. However, it turns out that this is necessary for our success in space and so we support the Bill and congratulate my noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns on bringing it forward and to a successful conclusion. Like her, I thank not only the Minister for his friendly and open engagement but his civil servants, who have been supportive in this process.

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

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to and support for the Bill. I offer particular thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for steering the Bill through this House and to John Grady for bringing forward this short but important Bill in the other place.

The Government recognise that the question of liability and insurance is of utmost concern to the space sector, given the value that the industry places on having legislative certainty on this matter and the concerns that it has raised about the use of the word “may” in Section 12(2) of the Space Industry Act. I am therefore grateful to the noble Baroness for the Bill, which, by amending Section 12(2), will meet a key request from the sector.

Bill passed.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill

Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 10th December 2025 Lords Chamber

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

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for this group of amendments. Amendments 1 and 6 would require the Secretary of State to enter into at least one revenue certainty contract with a SAF producer that is using power-to-liquid technology. The Government recognise the potential that power-to-liquid fuel may have. These fuels will have high greenhouse gas emissions reduction potential, with a low risk of environmental issues such as land use change.

However, adopting these amendments would limit the Government’s allocation flexibility by setting criteria in advance, which could ultimately reduce value for money in the contracts agreed. It is important that the allocation strategy is able to reflect different technologies as they develop. The Government will establish a fair and transparent process to assess each project’s key costs, benefits and risks. This process will be developed over the coming months and will involve consultation with stakeholders.

The decisions on contract allocation will be determined during the contract allocation process. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is right that we do not want perpetual subsidy, but we have to establish over time the opportunity for different technologies to develop.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, is right in his remarks about contract lengths; there is no humiliation there at all. The length of contracts is not set out in the Bill, and the amendments other than his Amendment 2 would extend the time in which the contracts could be entered into, not the length of the contracts themselves. We are engaging a range of stakeholders on contract length because it obviously makes sense to talk to the market about that. No final decisions have yet been made.

Contracts issued under similar schemes are generally for a period of 10 to 15 years, which reflects a standard debt repayment period. Limiting the contract to 10 years may not be sufficient to attract the investment necessary to construct these plants, and I contend that it is premature to decide the contract length until the market has advised what it would need to construct the plants that would make the fuel.

The Bill allows the Secretary of State crucial flexibility to adjust any standard contract length in between allocation rounds in the light of emerging market evidence. It also preserves optionality for the potential needs of emerging pathways—for example, nuclear-derived SAF. The addition of a no-fault break clause would, of course, undermine the certainty provided by the contract and seriously risks losing the investor confidence that the Bill aims to increase.

In respect of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, the learning from the energy market is that the contracts need to be long enough to secure the investment that we are talking about. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, asked what the right contract length is. I think we have to establish that by talking to the market, so it is premature to determine it now.

On the contrary, Amendment 3 seeks to extend the time in which revenue certainty contracts can be allocated from 10 years to 20 years. The purpose of the Bill is to kick-start the industry in this country. The revenue certainty mechanism is intended to be a time-limited measure and to stimulate the early market. Once investors have confidence in the market price and the first-of-a-kind technology has proved itself at commercial scale—to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan—the mechanism should no longer be needed.

The Government contend that Amendment 3 is not the right way to go. However, if the Government find in due course that it is necessary to extend the provision, Clause 1(8) will allow the Secretary of State to extend the period by which contracts can be allocated in five-year increments by making regulations by the affirmative resolution, so that Parliament can take a view about the applicability of that extension at the time that it is proposed.

Amendment 5 from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, seeks to include a contract allocation framework in the Bill. The Government will need to carefully consider and work with industry on the specifics of contract allocation. This will ensure that there will be a fair and transparent allocation process that evaluates the key costs, benefits and risks of each project. This will be developed over the coming months and will be rightly subject to consultation with stakeholders. The amendment as it stands would reduce the Government’s leverage in negotiations by setting criteria in advance and limit the ability to secure the best value for money in the contract signed.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, referred to the Energy Act 2023. The allocation framework was included in the Energy Act 2013 and the Energy Act 2023 to ensure that the Secretary of State could effectively regulate the activities of an allocation body where one is appointed under that legislation. In this Bill, the Secretary of State will carry out the allocation process, so it is not necessary to set out an allocation framework to govern the activities of an allocation body.

I hope that my explanations have answered the concerns and that noble Lords feel able not to press their amendments.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

The Minister’s response to Amendment 6 is appreciated, but there is a risk that if the amount of third generation SAF or power-to-liquid that needs to be produced is not set out, then the Bill would not, in effect, align with the SAF mandates, which have clear percentages on power-to-liquid fuel requirements. Does he accept that there is a bit of a gap between this legislation and delivering the SAF mandates, in that one does not support the other?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. If he is willing, I will take that point away and contemplate it further.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

I thank the Minister. This has been an excellent short debate and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and the Minister, certainly provided the clarity on contract length that we were missing. I was pleased to hear that the allocation process will be fleshed out through a consultation. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support Amendment 18, to which I have added my name, and the other amendment in this group. As has been said, it is important for the Government to consider setting out the definitions in the amendments of what manufacture means and how it is going to be supported in making sure that this is all UK-based. As the noble Lord, Lord Harper, said, that is the point of the Bill.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I join the noble Earl, Lord Russell, in sending the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, our good wishes for him and his family. I congratulate the noble Earl on his recent nomination for a life peerage. That is an odd sentence to say, but there you go. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has got lucky by signing this amendment, as she will shortly hear.

The revenue certainty mechanism is intended to support only eligible SAF plants in the UK, and this will be ensured through the allocation process. This Government are committed to supporting the UK SAF sector through our advanced fuels fund, which is supporting projects across the UK, and through the revenue certainty mechanism. The UK SAF sector will create jobs and growth opportunities in the UK, help secure a supply of SAF for UK airlines and enhance energy security.

On Amendment 4, SAF projects that use imported precursors still offer significant economic benefits to the UK because of the investment needed to construct them and the employment that they would provide. I fully recognise the strong points made by noble Lords this evening around UK production being in the Bill, and I will seriously consider this point ahead of the next stage of the Bill. I will invite noble Lords who have spoken tonight—or rather those who tabled the amendments—to meet me and my officials ahead of the next stage. I therefore invite the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 4 in the name of my noble friend Lord Grayling.

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[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, my Amendment 10 and my consequential Amendment 12 are in this group. This amendment to Clause 6 would replace subsection (3) with a requirement for a standardised levy on aviation fuel, uniform across suppliers, publicly displayed on invoices and expressed in pence per litre.

At the outset I want to make two quick points. First, on these Benches we support this Bill and the principle of the revenue certainty mechanism. Our concern is in relation not to the levy but the method of its deployment and use. As drafted, our worry and the worry of industry is that it is not clear and, in some cases, it creates burdens and frictions in this process for industry, which it would be useful to find a way to avoid. Secondly, my amendment comes from conversations I have had with Valero Energy, one of the UK’s major aviation fuel suppliers. I have no connection with the company. It came to me after the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, was tabled. It believes that the proposed text that I have tabled here offers the most effective remedy to the Bill’s flaws.

Having said that, I support the noble Lord’s amendment, and my amendment is very similar. I do not want to repeat the arguments that have already been made here, but I will just reinforce a couple of them. Industry is concerned about this. It feels that it creates fiction, is an inefficient way of doing these things and could slow down investment in the market. It will discourage new entrants, and suppliers will have difficulty planning as they will not have certainty and will need to settle bills at later dates. The department says that this is administratively simple. It might be for government, but industry feels that the opposite is the case and that disincentive is enough that some companies are thinking about the levels of investment they want to make. That, I know, is an outcome that we do not want and the Government do not want either.

I am extremely grateful to the Minister and his officials for having a quick meeting with us. I am fully aware that consultations on this matter are ongoing and was greatly reassured by the conversations we had with Ministers. I know that officials are working extremely hard to find a way forward. I am hopeful that between now and Report, with this amendment, a government amendment or some fresh thinking, these issues can be looked at again. This is genuinely to help make sure that the Bill works not just for the Government but for industry and does so in a way that does not create unnecessary friction.

I turn to the other amendments in this group. We are generally supportive of Amendments 7 to 9 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Grayling, and would be interested in the Minister’s response to them.

However, we have concerns with Amendments 24 and 26, which were spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Harper. As he said, they would include a sunrise clause in the Bill. These are very large investments that we seek these companies to make in large and substantial plant in this country. I do not think that I would make that level of investment with such conditions attached. I would worry that delaying the payments will create uncertainty and fear for those who want to invest in the jobs and growth we need in this country. It could create a downward, damaging spiral for the investment we need.

However, there may be a need for the Government to have a bit of a further think about how the early days of the levy will operate, and how to talk about reporting back on those processes of early investment—we have already discussed reporting—to show that investment is happening and is on track. That could show that that investment is being monitored and going towards the end process that we all want, with the plants being set up and running, and producing the fuel.

Before I sit down, I point out that we support the Government’s own amendments that have been tabled. If the Minister could just give an update in relation to Scotland, we would welcome that.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I thank all noble Lords for the brief debate on this group of amendments.

Amendments 7, 8, 9, 24 and 26 seek to address how funds from the levy are used. I first reassure noble Lords that moneys raised through the levy will be used only to support eligible SAF plants in the United Kingdom. The purpose of Clause 6 is to provide a power to place a levy on aviation fuel suppliers to meet the costs of payments made by the counterparty to SAF producers and to cover the counterparty’s administrative costs.

Clause 6 restricts the costs incurred by the counterparty in carrying out its functions under the Bill and, under this clause, the levy funds will be used only to meet the costs of the RCM scheme. The majority of the costs will be incurred only once SAF is being produced and sold by producers who have entered into RCM contracts. It is important that the counterparty be able to recover its costs, which include the costs of administering the contracts, the levy and the payment of surpluses. I hope noble Lords will agree that the counterparty should be self-sustainable.

Amendment 9 intends to ensure that there is a specific mandatory point at which the supplier becomes liable to pay the levy. However, the Government’s view is that it is unnecessary, because the Bill already provides that a person becomes liable to pay the levy at the same point when they become liable to an obligation under the SAF mandate. This aligns the levy to the point at which aviation fuel is eligible for certification under the SAF mandate. The Government think that this simplifies the process for fuel suppliers. I remind noble Lords that the regulations made under Clause 6(1) to set out how the levy will work will be subject to scrutiny under the affirmative procedure, which will give Parliament the opportunity to continue to consider the approach.

On Amendments 10, 11 and 12, as has been noted this evening, we are currently consulting on the detailed design of the levy, including the length of time—it certainly will not be years—which will help inform the drafting of levy regulations. The current levy design consultation will conclude on 8 January 2026, which is of course before any levy regulations are laid in Parliament. Final decisions on the levy design will be informed by this consultation and, to be clear, the Bill as drafted does not specify a particular mechanism and allows the Secretary of State to consider a range of options for calculating the levy paid by individual companies.

To reassure the Committee, the Government are alive to the potential impacts of different levy designs. We are working closely with stakeholders to develop a levy design and engage with them regularly to understand their concerns. We recognise industry’s desire for certainty and transparency. We are looking to design the levy in a way that ensures this, while also ensuring fairness and affordability for the consumer. We recognise that the levy must be dynamic and responsive to the changing market, while also ensuring that the counterparty has funds to make payments under the scheme.

The Government are clear that the levy will not be used to generate unnecessary funds and will raise only sufficient moneys to cover the counterparty’s costs under the revenue certainty scheme. While final decisions will be informed by the open consultation, we are exploring options that deliver this. Many of the proposals and options set out in that consultation could help provide greater certainty and transparency. As I have said, the secondary legislation will be laid by affirmative procedure, allowing both Houses to scrutinise its contents.

In addition, as a consequence of the short debate we have just had, I commit to noble Lords that I will brief them before then on what the levy is and how we currently believe it will work. That is in advance of the consultation closing and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, is right: it will have closed by Report. I think we will then be clearer on how it will work. I hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance on these points for noble Lords not to press their amendments.

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Moved by

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill]

13: Clause 6, page 4, line 38, leave out subsection (7)
Member's explanatory statement
This leaves out the duty to consult about levy regulations under clause 6 since I am proposing a new clause that brings together (and extends) consultation requirements under the Bill. See my new clause to be inserted before clause 15.

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[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, this stand part notice is interesting, and the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, explains why it is tabled. It seems to be almost wrecking the Bill if you are trying to remove the mechanism. The purpose of this Committee is to look at the concerns and issues, and to try to find the best system in this complex area. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to this, because our view is that it is important to keep the mechanism in the Bill. Clearly, a committee has expressed some concerns, and it will be useful to hear from the Minister.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on his forthcoming appointment as a life Peer.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, raises the correspondence from the Constitution Committee. I did in fact reply; the copy of my reply does not have a date on it, but I did reply because it has been reprinted. A full reply was sent to the Constitution Committee, and it referred to what we were just talking about—the current levy design consultation, concluding on 8 January 2026. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, says, without a levy we would not be able to deliver the revenue certainty mechanism. We continue to work closely with industry on the details of the levy’s operation. The current levy design consultation will conclude on 8 January 2026, before any levy regulations will be laid in Parliament. Final decisions on the levy design will be informed by this consultation.

It is appropriate that the levy provisions are set out in regulations made by the Secretary of State, so that there is flexibility to respond to changes in the sector. Flexibility is required so that the levy is set at the appropriate level to ensure that the RCM can be delivered effectively and the counterparty’s costs are recovered. The Government have set out the potential costs and benefits that may arise from the RCM scheme, including the levy and the cost-benefit analysis published in May 2025. The Government will actively monitor and control scheme costs, including through the setting of strike prices and by controlling the scale and number of contracts awarded. I assure noble Lords that the regulation under this clause will be subject to the affirmative procedure, so there will be further opportunities for scrutiny as to how this power is used.

We have engaged with the Constitution Committee; I now have the date of my letter, which was sent on 17 November. Following this debate, I will ensure that copies of both the Constitution Committee’s letter to me and my reply are sent to all noble Lords who participate in this debate.

Clause 6, as amended, agreed.

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Moved by

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill]

14: Clause 10, page 6, line 13, leave out subsection (4)
Member’s explanatory statement
This leaves out the duty to consult about regulations under clause 10 since I am proposing a new clause that brings together (and extends) consultation requirements under the Bill. See my new clause to be inserted before clause 15.

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[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government contend that Amendments 15 and 16 are unnecessary as they duplicate measures that already exist in the SAF mandate.

There are existing statutory powers in Sections 124 to 132 of the Energy Act 2004 that enable the Secretary of State to amend obligations under the SAF mandate, subject to consultation with those affected and scrutiny by Parliament. Maintaining certainty throughout each obligation period is vital so that suppliers can properly prepare to meet their requirements. It is essential that those impacted by any changes to the mandate are given the chance to be involved and have adequate time to adapt, especially considering the early stage of the sector. This would need to be taken into account when considering any amendments to the obligations under the SAF mandate. The Government already publish annual SAF figures, with a comprehensive report for each year typically released in the winter following the reporting year. A formal review of the SAF mandate legislation is required, with the initial review scheduled to occur by 2030.

The Government also consider Amendment 17 to be unnecessary. Many airlines already publicly disclose information on their decarbonisation initiatives, and we will continue to encourage them to do so. The Government will publish data on the supply of SAF under the mandate, including information on the proportion of SAF relative to the total aviation fuel supply.

In answer to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Harper, about an update on plants in the UK, I will certainly write to noble Lords who have taken part in this debate on where we have currently got to. I apologise to the noble Lord for not having included that in my previous letter.

On Amendment 19A, I certainly recognise the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about land use and deforestation. However, the amendment duplicates existing measures in the SAF mandate. SAF supplied under the SAF mandate cannot be derived from crops and must adhere to strict sustainability criteria. Sustainability criteria in the RCM will align with the criteria in the SAF mandate. The SAF mandate already makes provision for the publication of detailed statistics on the supply of SAF, including feedstock, country of origin and carbon and sustainability data.

We will continue to review the evidence and update the eligibility and sustainability criteria on a regular basis. In line with this commitment, this Government recently published a consultation on the development of a common biomass sustainability framework, which includes proposals for strengthening existing biomass sustainability criteria, including those for woody biomass, in line with the latest evidence. The SAF mandate will be subject to regular reviews to help ensure that it is delivering on sustainability outcomes, with the initial review scheduled to occur by 2030. I hope my explanations are sufficient for the noble Earl to withdraw his amendment.

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[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, I shall talk about Amendment 19 and the impact on airline tickets, which I think is really important. At Second Reading, a number of noble Lords raised the impact on passengers, and it goes to the whole theme of our discussion this evening, which has been about transparency at every level of the Bill.

We should talk, maybe outside the Chamber, about what sort of comprehensive report we could produce on the impact of this legislation, whether that is the direct impact on the passenger, through the price of their ticket, or in all these other areas we have been discussing today. There is a cost as we transition to the greater use of SAF through the revenue certainty mechanism, and it is really important that passengers and the whole industry understand the true cost of the Bill, so I will be interested in the Minister’s response to the points that have been raised.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government want to ensure that flying will remain affordable for UK holidaymakers and travellers while supporting a United Kingdom sustainable aviation fuel industry. A report on the impact of the Act on ticket prices within a year of its enactment would be premature. Costs need to be negotiated and signed, plants built and SAF produced and sold before any real impact on ticket prices can be measured, but the Government can control costs by controlling how many contracts are issued.

I cannot tell the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, what the effect on ticket prices from other countries producing this will be, but the Government’s cost-benefit analysis of the revenue certainty mechanism, which noble Lords have referred to, published in May this year, will remain the best estimate of the Act’s impact on passenger air fares over the next period, pending the mechanism working and SAF being produced in some volumes here. The Government take reporting to Parliament seriously. Where appropriate to undertake it, we can present an assessment of costs and benefits reflecting the latest available evidence, but that evidence is not there yet.

Amendments 23 and 25 would require the Government to publish an assessment on the UK’s comparative advantage in the production of SAF. The Government believe that this would be counterproductive and would delay the good progress that we have made for decarbonising the aviation industry through the SAF mandate and the advanced fuels fund. The Government and other noble Lords, including someone on the same side as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, are certainly more confident about the ability of UK industry to produce SAF than the noble Lord. The points from the noble Lord, Lord Harper, about security of supply are germane here.

The SAF industry has been calling for support to overcome the investment barriers. This Bill will help to drive our missions to kick-start economic growth and make Britain a clean energy superpower, delivering the Government’s manifesto commitment to secure the UK aviation industry’s long-term future. The Bill is a crucial step to establish a SAF industry in the United Kingdom and to drive investment, growth and jobs. I hope that the noble Lord is persuaded to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

My Lords, before I go any further, I just return to paragraph 4.23 of the cost-benefit analysis, where I read out something earlier thinking that I understood it, but now I do not think that I understand it at all. Perhaps it is a bit late procedurally for the noble Lord to explain it to me now; he might write to noble Lords. It says that

“the likely impact on ticket prices is between -£1.5 and £1.5, on average, per year”.

What is “per year” doing there? Surely, it is on average per ticket. Why does this say per year? That would assume that maybe you fly once a year. However, if you fly more than once a year, it would not be per year at all; it would still be per ticket, but it would not be per year. Explaining to me what that means would be extremely helpful.

What we wanted to hear—what the public wanted to hear—from the Minister on this particular question was that he put himself and the Government squarely behind £1.50 as the upper estimate of the cost of the measures in this Bill. He did not do that, and we have noticed it. It will get around. On this occasion when he had the chance, he could have said £1.50, as my noble friend Lord Harper said. Of course, it could be a bit more, it could be a bit less, but it is of the order of £1.50. He could have said, “That is what we the Government believe. I, Lord Hendy, on behalf of the Government, am putting myself behind that estimate: £1.50, not £10, not £15, but something of the order of £1.50 is what we are backing”. He did not, and we have noted that. We are not going to let that matter drop.

Concerning comparative advantage, the Minister made what I thought was an uncharacteristically sneering remark, implying that I did not think that Britain was capable of producing SAF. He was trying, I think, to draw a wholly false distinction between my views and the views of my noble friend Lord Harper. Britain can do anything—of course Britain can do anything. Britain can particularly do anything if we throw millions of pounds of subsidy at something. I think back to the day when Britain could produce vans at British Leyland because it was being given very large amounts of subsidy. That was until we found a way of producing cars in this country that did not require those subsidies and we became a leader in car production here under the flag of the Japanese, who invested in order to make a profit, not simply to farm subsidies. It is not a question of whether we can do something.

The whole point of comparative advantage is that you are comparing things. The question is whether this is the best thing we can be doing with the very limited money we have available, or are there other things that would be more productive and would bring greater prosperity to the country? What is the particular advantage we have in relation to this, which means that it is the thing that the Government should be backing?

Doing that does not need to hold up the Bill. It would if it were constructed as a commencement blocker, as it is at the moment, but we could of course all reach agreement around a table on a commitment for the Government to do this within six months of the commencement of the Act. It would not have to hold things up. It is a contrived objection. It is the complete lack of interest in the question on the part of the Government that is so depressing.

Despite those comments, I am grateful to the noble Lords who have contributed, and I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 19.

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Moved by

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill]

20: Before Clause 15, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to consult about regulations(1) Before making regulations under this Act the Secretary of State must consult any persons the Secretary of State considers appropriate.(2) In the case of regulations under section 1, 3, 10 or 11, that must include—(a) the Welsh Ministers,(b) the Scottish Ministers, and(c) the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland.”Member’s explanatory statement
This requires the Secretary of State, before making regulations under the Bill, to consult any persons the Secretary of State considers appropriate. In the case of regulations under section 1, 3, 10 or 11 (which may contain devolved provision) the devolved authorities must be consulted in addition to anyone else.

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[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their amendments; this is one of the really interesting groups. In response to what the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said about knocking out fuels, I can probably sum up my speech by saying that I am not certain that knocking out fuels is the best thing to do in the transition; we might need to limit the time the revenue certainty mechanism applies to certain fuels. That might be where I am coming from.

Amendment 21 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, seeks to

“include nuclear-derived power-to-liquid fuels in the scope of sustainable aviation fuels for which Revenue Certainty Contracts can be offered, and remove food crops, using the same definition of ‘relevant crops’ as the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations Order for surface transport”.

While we recognise and support the ambition behind this amendment—promoting nuclear-derived and more sustainably-derived stuff, thus reducing carbon emissions —we would welcome the Government’s response to the idea of including nuclear-derived power-to-liquid fuels. Our questions relate more to the complete removal of biomass from the revenue certainty mechanism.

I suspect the Minister might say that this technology in relation to the nuclear side is not ready, and we would not disagree. But my question back to the Minister would be: how do the Government plan—if they do indeed plan—to bring these into the revenue certainty mechanism? How will that be done, what is the timescale for doing that, and is it something that can be done by secondary legislation?

We recognise that biomass has some use as a SAF, particularly in the early stages of SAF use. At the same time, we recognise the limitations of biomass as a sustainable fuel and its impact on any use at scale. This amendment raises some fundamental questions about the plans for the revenue certainty mechanism, its role in relation to different technologies for SAF production and how it is best used to advance the aim of zero-carbon flight.

I will be honest: we have some difficult challenges and questions to answer, and this group has certainly raised those. It can certainly be argued, as the noble Lord has done, that crop-based biofuels should not be given long-term support under the revenue certainty mechanism, as production pathways for these fuels are already commercialised at scale, as has been said. It can also be argued that crop-based biofuels offer relatively small CO₂ carbon savings compared with fossil fuels, that they compete with food and can create biodiversity loss in other countries. However, crop-based fuels offer some CO₂ savings when there are very few other options available today at scale.

However, with very few alternatives to reduce carbon emissions from aviation today, the revenue certainty mechanism could also be an important intermediate step in this continuous journey of decarbonisation. So, while we support nuclear derived power-to-liquid, and we share a desire to limit the use of the RCM to support bio crops, this amendment opens some complex policy decisions which need a lot of careful thought. What we are doing here is planning a journey. On that road, we will have different fuels that will jump in and out as we move along it. A lot of the questions that are being asked in this group are around how the Government plan to have those fuels come in and drop out, how that that be done and scrutinised and how the mechanisms will change. The same is true in relation to Amendment 22, on HEFA. The arguments I would make around that are the same.

This is a really important group of amendments, and there is a lot to think about in this space.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, asked some questions in relation to Amendment 19 in his closing remarks. I will write to him and provide a copy to all noble Lords about standing by the cost-benefit analysis on ticket prices and how we can control the cost to passengers by controlling costs through the allocation process. For good measure, I will also clarify the phrase “per year”.

On Amendment 21, I understand the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, to exclude crops from the revenue certainty mechanism. Several other noble Lords also spoke about their concerns on growing crops for purposes other than food at Second Reading. The noble Earl, Lord Russell, just now, was realistic about some of the practicalities of doing so. The sustainability criteria in the revenue certainty mechanism will align with the criteria in the SAF mandate.

As I mentioned before, there will be a call for evidence shortly, focusing on the potential benefits, risks and trade-offs of using crops in SAF production. The scope of the call for evidence will include different types of crops, including feed crops, dedicated energy crops and cover crops. While this call for evidence will neither propose any changes to the SAF mandate nor signal the future direction of the mandate, we would not want to expressly exclude SAF derived from relevant crops from the scope of the RCM if they might be included in the SAF mandate in the future.

We will, of course, continue to engage with industry on these issues. I echo the words of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, that this is developing and things will change over time. We need to understand it, and that call for evidence is part of that process.

The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, referred to nuclear eligibility. We will match that in the SAF mandate. We are already supporting nuclear through the advanced fuels fund, which we believe to be right.

Turning to Amendment 22, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that HEFA SAF—I hate these acronyms—has already overcome many of the barriers to investment. For that reason, in our response to the first consultation on RCM, we announced that HEFA SAF projects will be excluded from the first round of contract allocation. I hope what I have said is sufficient to persuade the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

Just to clarify what he said, could the Minister just confirm that nuclear-derived fuels are eligible under the SAF mandate and that they are also eligible under the revenue certainty mechanism, please?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Yes, that is what I meant to say in answer to the noble Lord. I do clarify that.

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

I was hoping that the Minister would simply and explicitly state that the Government do not intend to see the mechanism used to support all the fuels that appear in the Energy Act 2004 that are currently in scope and that he would look to an amendment to eliminate some of those to give assurance that this mechanism is going to be directed at the fuels we have been discussing and not at that broader list. Would he take advantage of this last moment of Committee to give that assurance that he will be happy with such an amendment and contribute to drafting it?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

In answer to the noble Lord, I will not do that at this stage, but I will consider what he has just said.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

I thank noble Lords for this short debate. In terms of eligibility of crop-based biofuels, as the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, this is a journey we are going on and, absolutely, crop-based biofuels are part of that journey. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan said, and made the case quite strongly, that we have not heard any rationale for why those fuels should specifically get support under the revenue certainty mechanism, but I look forward to those further conversations. We have had the clarification on nuclear-derived fuels. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.