E-scooters: Trials
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 year ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I refer noble Lords to the Private Member’s Bill that I have before the House at this time, creating new offences for illegally used e-scooters.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
The last evaluation of the e-scooter trials took place in 2021, and the results were published in 2022, but, despite saying that they would, the last Government took no further action. As travel patterns have continued to change, the Government have decided to undertake a second evaluation, due to start this spring. This evaluation will be important to collect up-to-date and robust evidence on safety, mode shift and usage to inform future legislation. It will finish in May 2026.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, while I am grateful for that Answer, it begs the question: how many evaluations do we need? There are 1.2 million e-scooters currently illegally used in general circulation, and 47 people have been killed since 2019. The status quo cannot continue. E-scooters are mounting pavements at speed, terrorising pedestrians. I urge the noble Lord and the Government to ensure that, if the current ban on illegally operated e-scooters is not going to be observed, they look to introduce a regulatory framework with proper insurance, otherwise it is going to be a complete drain on the resources of the Motor Insurers’ Bureau.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Your Lordships’ House will know that there have been several Questions on this subject in recent weeks, and certainly in one of them I referred the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, to the regulatory regimes of 21 European countries, which, sadly, have huge variation between them with regard to minimum ages, whether you have to wear a helmet, and so forth. So the Government need up-to-date evidence. Evidence raised in 2021 could have informed legislation in 2023 and 2024, for example, but that did not happen, but now we have to inform ourselves. In the meantime, it is quite clear that hazards are involved as the noble Baroness describes—although, of course, enforcement is a matter for local police chiefs.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that half the trouble with e-scooter and e-bike rentals, and with buying them, is the batteries, which catch fire for no particular reason when they are not linked to the equipment concerned? Is not it more important to have some proper standards for quality and for the way in which batteries are fixed to cycles and scooters so that they do not cause the trouble that they have done; for example, causing TfL to ban non-folding electric bikes from its trains—and why non-folding? I hope that the Government will be able to look into this soon.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that question. On batteries, last October, the Department for Business and Trade launched the “Buy Safe, Be Safe” campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of buying faulty and unsafe e-bikes, e-scooters and components such as batteries, for the very reason he suggests. Noble Lords who have seen the recent film of the spontaneous e-bike fire at Rayners Lane station will understand perfectly well why Transport for London has taken that view, because anybody standing remotely near that incident would have been severely injured, if not killed, by the spontaneous explosion and subsequent fire.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, given that these rental e-scooter pilots have been running for some five years, since 4 July 2020, what is the Minister’s definition of a trial? Or is this in reality the legalisation of e-scooters by the back door?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
It is certainly not legalisation by the back door. As noble Lords will know, there are many of these things on the streets and, sadly, on the pavements of towns and cities, where they should not be, but to frame the appropriate legislation—bearing in mind, as the noble Baroness knows, that there is considerable variation in regulation across other countries—it is right to understand how they are currently used and how best we can regulate them. There is no intention to let this drift, because it is an important matter, and many people, including vulnerable and disabled people, are badly affected by the way that these things are used—and not used, being left on pavements to be tripped over and cause injury.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, there may be no question of letting it drift, but the Government are letting it drift until May 2026, with the prospect of legislation no doubt in the second half of 2026 or early 2027—who knows, we might be into a general election before we get to anything. This is all a distraction from the real experience of e-scooters, because the trials that will be examined are highly artificial constructs where particular areas and locations are designated for legal use of specific hired scooters, which are usually clunky and highly coloured. Examining the evidence from the trials will tell one almost nothing about the real experience of the use of e-scooters by private individuals. Is it not time that the Government simply got on and legislated for both standards of behaviour and technical standards, such as on batteries?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Gosh—I do not much care to be lectured about drift by somebody who represents a party that did an experiment in 2021, published some results in 2022 and then did nothing. In any event, these things are becoming part of life, whether we like it or not and whether they are brightly coloured or not. The point at issue is to discover how they are used—rental trials in various towns and cities are as good a way of finding out as any—and then to work out what the legislation should say. It is a challenge for anybody, including the noble Lord opposite, to work out what the right standards are from the variety of regimes in the 21 European countries. We shall work that out carefully.
Lord Rogan (UUP)
My Lords, earlier this year from the Dispatch Box, the Minister, with his customary good grace, committed to
“consultation with all the enforcement authorities”
before any changes in the law on e-scooters. He also gave an assurance that any new law
“is framed in a way that can be enforced both in Northern Ireland and elsewhere”.—[Official Report, 7/1/25; col. 612.]
To that end, has any representative of His Majesty’s Government been in recent contact with the PSNI to inquire about the ongoing experience of e-scooters in Northern Ireland, where they remain banned on public roads?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
If the noble Lord is accurate, I must have been correct in what he reports I said, so I am sure that I did. I cannot immediately answer him on whether and to what extent there has been consultation in Northern Ireland, but I take his point. I will take it away and write to him about it.
Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)
My Lords, they glide among us on illegal, uninsurable vehicles, delivering our groceries and our takeaways. What are the Government going to do to help the workforce who use these types of vehicles and go after the faceless bosses who employ them, rather than the low-paid workers themselves?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My noble friend makes a really good point. That is one of the subjects which the Employment Rights Bill seeks to remedy. I do not think that we cannot do it directly through road traffic regulation, although when there are rules for these things, it will be incumbent on the employers of the people who ride them to comply with the rules as well as the people who ride them.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I am very glad that the Minister raised the issue of poor parking of hire e-scooters and e-bikes. At Aldwych Kingsway, it is now almost impossible to get access to the bus stop, not just if you are in a wheelchair or with a guide dog but for a passenger as well, because there are sometimes as many as 100 of those vehicles parked around them. What powers do the police have to corral—perhaps that is the wrong word—these bikes and scooters and make sure that access to buses continues?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes an excellent point. I strongly sympathise, as she knows, with the difficulties that people with any sort of disability have boarding and alighting buses and using pavements. The intention is that local authorities correctly control hire schemes so that the people who run them are obliged to make sure that the bicycles or scooters they hire are properly parked, collected and moved on.
RHS Garden Wisley: Roadworks
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 year ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and, in doing so, draw attention to my non-financial interest as a vice-president of the Royal Horticultural Society, RHS.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, the impact of the M25 junction 10 scheme on RHS Garden Wisley was considered from the project’s early stages in 2016. National Highways incorporated mitigation measures where possible and has considered major planned events at Wisley in its plans. Major weekend closures were scheduled to avoid conflicts with key events and extensive signage was installed to guide visitors through the works along the most direct and convenient routes.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. The RHS Garden Wisley is a centre of excellence for horticultural science. It provides a green lifeline to over 30,000 schools, 5,500 community groups and 25 NHS trusts. This work relies on visitor income, but the ongoing M25 A3 roadworks have caused visitor numbers to fall dramatically by 25%. So I ask the Minister: what commitments can the Government give to ensure the RHS can continue its vital work by supporting the ability of environmental charities such as the RHS to deliver public benefit? Will the Minister agree to meet me and the RHS to discuss the long-term impact of the roadworks and ensure that this charity can continue to thrive?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
To answer the last part of the question first, I would be delighted to meet the noble Baroness. It would be a pleasure to talk to her and the Government. I talked this morning to my noble friend Lady Hayman about the RHS and the importance of the work that it does and we recognise the important part the garden plays. So I would be pleased to meet her.
The Government are not able to use taxpayers’ money for direct compensation, but there are two further issues. One is that there is some land-take, which RHS Wisley has a claim for and could—and should—pursue. The other is that there may be other ways of helping the gardens recover from this event. Of course, the benefit of the highway scheme will be to make access permanently better, because the old junction was congested for years. I would be delighted to meet the noble Baroness, with National Highways and the contractors, to see what else we can do that is legitimate and will help the gardens in their very brilliant work.
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, as one who opposed the original plans before they were ever put into practice, I feel very angry that the views of the RHS and of any of us who felt the same were not taken into account. As a result, the RHS has lost no less than £6 million because of visitor decline and, by the time these roadworks are finished, it will be £11 million. Will the Minister elaborate on what possible measures might be taken to recompense the RHS, including perhaps in the longer term having a better compensation scheme for National Highways, which has a scheme that is ill-suited to a charity such as the RHS?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The questions about compensation schemes are obviously about the wisdom and appropriate use of taxpayers’ money. I cannot answer for the design of the original scheme, because it is nearly 10 years old. But, as I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, I am very happy to sit down with the RHS, National Highways and the contractors to see what else we can do, in particular as regards a better future for visitors, more visibility of the gardens and more signage and so forth, when the works are completed.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, all these issues are about the past. Can the Minister remind us who was in charge in the past? It seems that Ministers made no decisions on all these matters and it sounds as though they were getting their money under false pretences.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
That is an easy answer, is it not? It was the previous Government, not this one.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, although I acknowledge the initial response, does the Minister agree that the existing methods used by National Highways to assess the impact that roadworks have on charities such as the RHS are in need of a review, and will he request such a review?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I am not sure whether the procedures are appropriate, but I will go away and get the department to look at them in order to see whether they are appropriate.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, the RHS is clearly very well represented in this place, and rightly so, but perhaps I might put in a good word for rural communities, and businesses in rural communities where you have road and lane closures. The public and business see these roads that are closed, but there is no indication of when they will reopen and, although the roads are closed, there is no work or activity being done during the road closure. So I have a suggestion. When the local authority planning department or the highways department closes the road, it could put an indication of when the work will be completed and, if it cannot do that, it could give a telephone number that the public could phone to find out why not.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I will not go down the cones hotline route—that did not seem to be a tremendous success. That point is well made. It is a continued frustration for drivers of all sorts that apparently unattended road works last for so long. The power to levy lane rental was started in London and it is rolling out. That is a way in which local authorities can put pressure because, frankly, they are not usually highway works but utility works, and the number of utility works that are left open for a long time is legion. So there is a point there and lane rental is one of the solutions to it.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I live down the A3, so I use junction 10 quite frequently. Can the Minister confirm that we have seen the last full weekend closure of that junction?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
This is a new version of doing travel information in the House. I believe that there is a closure in April. The noble Lord probably knows where Painshill is better than I do. Then there are planned to be four more, one on the M25 and three on the A3, and that will be it, so far as I understand.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I understand—perhaps the noble Lord could confirm this—that the works are due to continue until the middle of 2026. Is that the case? Returning to the Royal Horticultural Society, what assessment has his department made of the effect on the long-term sustainability of the gardens after such damage to their visitor numbers?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The works on the M25 will continue until this autumn. I believe the works on the A3 will continue into 2026, and they have been delayed by bad weather. I am sure that, if the noble Lord asks hard enough, he will discover whether his colleagues in the previous Government did that assessment about the RHS. We inherited this scheme. The best thing that we can do is to finish it. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, I will meet her and the RHS with the contractors and National Highways to see what else we can do for the future of what is a much-prized and very valuable institution—which I go to quite often, despite the roadworks.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that the Highways Agency, as the client, has a major responsibility for ensuring that roadworks are undertaken as quickly as possible? The massive level of disruption on our national highway network affects individual drivers, but also commerce travelling around the country. What is it going to do about improving the performance of the contractors and ensuring much shorter times of works on these roads?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My noble friend is quite right that it is very important to do them quickly. In recent years, the safety of highway maintenance workers has been much considered, because it has hitherto been a very dangerous occupation. Therefore, some of the works last longer because they are better protected for safety. I cannot believe that this House would not sympathise with that aim, but I agree with my noble friend that it is incumbent on National Highways, which manages the works, to deliver them as quickly as possible.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, the Minister talked about lane rental being rolled out. It has been being rolled out for the last 20 years, has it not? When will it actually going to operate?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I will be very happy to write to the noble Baroness and tell her exactly what the position with lane rental is. It is complex and needs administration, but the intention is to force particular utilities to do their work in an effective and timely way.
Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill ExcerptsWednesday 26th March 2025
(1 year, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Bus Services Act 2025 View all Bus Services Act 2025 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 72-I(a) Amendment for Report (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (25 Mar 2025)
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 1 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to have regard to the purpose of the Act—namely, the improved performance, quality and accessibility of bus passenger services. I am grateful that His Majesty’s Opposition has taken onboard the amended wording from my noble friend Lady Brinton to include accessibility in the purpose of the Bill.
At face value, it is impossible to disagree with this statement. It is fundamental to this legislation, and the range of areas covered in it, that it is about improving bus services across the country. As we heard in Committee, in many parts of the country our bus services have reached a crisis point and are virtually non-existent. Therefore, improved performance, accessibility and quality of bus passenger services must surely be a clear aim of this legislation.
My noble friend Lady Brinton’s Amendment 61 would extend the public service equality duty to cover all aspects of bus services, and it is really important. Whether bus services are run commercially, as is the current situation, or as part of an enhanced partnership or a future LABCo, there is the potential that not all aspects of bus services are fully covered. This will ensure that buses and bus services are covered by the public service equality duty. It is an important amendment.
On the other amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, regarding service permits, I am not convinced by the arguments put forward and see them as trying to compete with the franchised service in a problematic way. These feel like they are creating unnecessary bureaucracy and diktat from the centre, rather than allowing local transport authorities to provide the best service that suits their local communities and letting local government thrive. It feels at odds with what this Bill is trying to achieve. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, before I begin to address the amendments, I thank noble Lords for their continued contributions to the Bill. It remains clear to me that we share a common goal to improve bus services for passengers. This is precisely why the Government introduced this Bill: to empower local areas to design the bus services that their communities need, and to reverse decades-long nationwide trends in declining patronage and services.
Contrary to what the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said earlier, there are real choices in the Bill for local transport authorities, and rightly so. Nor is the Bill a threat to good private sector operators in the way the noble Lord implies. He referred to the entrepreneurial period in my own career. He should note that it was very largely in the provision of contracts for one of these evil public sector authorities—none other than London Transport—that the company I ran made a modest amount of money.
Your Lordships have provided insightful views and challenge throughout the Bill’s passage through this House. As I noted in my letter to all Peers, the Government have taken the time to reflect on the arguments put forward by noble Lords to strengthen the Bill’s measures in detail. I will speak to amendments that have been tabled in my name during this session. It is my view that these amendments would improve the Bill, and I hope they will be welcomed by your Lordships.
I thank the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for the recommendations in its 13th report. I note that the Government have welcomed and taken on board the suggestions therein.
I will take this opportunity, if I might, to briefly update the House following an exchange in Committee about the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency reporting channel for bus safety incidents and standards in the sector. I noted in Committee, in response to an amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, that this channel could be more user-friendly. I have since written to the DVSA, which has confirmed that it is in the process of updating all online reporting forms to improve accessibility and streamline the reporting process. Changes will be designed to allow direct reporting to the DVSA intelligence unit, including from the staff of operators, which should enable more timely interventions. Following updates to heavy goods vehicle reporting, the DVSA will be prioritising public service vehicle and coach reporting. This will include carrying out user research, to ensure that the revised forms enable the accurate and timely reporting of issues. I hope this is a helpful update and that it addresses any outstanding concerns about the adequacy of this reporting channel.
I thank the noble Lord for Amendment 1. This would place a direct requirement on the Secretary of State to have regard to improving the performance, accessibility and quality of bus passenger services in Great Britain as the main purpose of the Bill. As I stated in Committee, I understand why the noble Lord has drafted this amendment. I absolutely share the aim to achieve a better bus network that is more reliable, improves accessibility and performs well.
During the passage of what is now the Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024, the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Gascoigne, tabled a similar amendment. At the time, I explained that the Secretary of State’s and the Government’s wider plans and objectives for the rail network included improving performance, but that this was not the sole purpose. I offer the House the same rationale for this Bill.
The objectives of the Bill of course include improving reliability, accessibility and performance; these are important aims. However, the Bill seeks to improve safety, provides local leaders with the powers to make the right decisions for their local areas, supports reaching net zero and puts passengers at the heart of what we are trying to achieve. To single out a limited number of objectives would undermine the message that the Government are trying to convey to local authorities, passengers, operators and the wider industry. I would not support this idea or place it in the Bill.
Extending this requirement across Great Britain, as the amendment seeks to, would presents significant difficulties with devolution. In tabling the amendment, the noble Lord appears to be seeking to apply all of the Bill’s measures across the whole of Great Britain. That would raise the potential of cutting across the powers of the Scottish and Welsh Governments to decide how to run their own bus networks and what is best for their local communities. I am sure noble Lords opposite would not want this outcome. As some noble Lords will be aware, the Welsh Government are due to introduce their own Bill into the Senedd in the coming months. I hope the noble Lord understands the reasons why I do not believe this amendment should stand, and therefore will withdraw it.
I will briefly address Amendments 2 to 8, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, on service permits. As the noble Lord knows, the Bill introduces new tests which franchising authorities can use to assess service permit applications. These applications are made by operators seeking to run commercial services in a franchising area, including cross-boundary services. The new tests set out in the Bill give franchising authorities more scope to grant service permits. They do so by allowing authorities to consider a wider range of benefits that the proposed commercial services could provide, and then to weigh these up against any adverse effect on franchised services.
While some of the noble Lord’s amendments would remove these new tests and others would alter them, the impact would be the same: franchising authorities would be significantly restricted in their ability to take into account any adverse impacts on franchised services made by the proposed commercial service. This would open the door to authorities being compelled to grant service permits for commercial services which directly compete with franchised ones, undermining the coherence and financial viability of franchising schemes.
I underline again that I recognise the additionality that commercially operated services can provide and how they can complement franchised networks; that is why the Bill gives authorities more freedom to tap into this provision. However, these amendments would diminish franchising authorities’ ability to control their networks, and they would likely make franchising as a model unviable. This is not in the interests of places with franchising schemes or of providing all local transport authorities with a range of tools to deliver the best possible bus services.
Amendment 61, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, seeks to prevent bus services being provided in a manner which discriminates against disabled people. I hear the noble Baroness’s concern about the barriers that disabled people continue to face when making day-to-day journeys on local services, and I absolutely share her determination that they must be overcome. As she says, we have had several substantial discussions about this topic.
However, as I know the noble Baroness will be aware, Section 15 of the Equality Act 2010 defines the concept of discrimination arising from disability, and Section 29, in turn, places requirements on service providers to not discriminate against users, including where arising from disability. This already applies to operators of local services, as it does to local authorities. Furthermore, requiring authorities to ensure compliance with the duty contained in this amendment could only ever have effect where authorities exercise direct control over the day-to-day operations of bus operators—control which does not exist in relation to the vast majority of services, except in franchising.
Here, it would be helpful to clarify remarks I made in Committee. The Bill permits local transport authorities to decide whether to pursue bus franchising and enhanced partnerships, or to set up new local authority bus companies. No single model is mandated; that is a decision for local leaders to take. This is directly relevant to the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. Schedule 19 to the Equality Act 2010 makes local transport authorities subject to the public sector equality duty. These are listed as public authorities by that Act. That means, for example, that franchising authorities which have assumed responsibility for contracting their bus services are clearly within scope of the public sector equality duty.
Furthermore, noble Lords versed in the provisions of the Equality Act will know that an entity that exercises a public function is subject to the public sector equality duty. Therefore, any bus company that exercises such functions, which includes a local authority bus company, would be captured by the duty. This means that a new local authority bus company, enabled by the Bill, would be expected to consider the public sector equality duty whenever exercising public functions.
The situation is less clear-cut when it comes to enhanced partnerships between LTAs and private operators. As I have explained, bus companies are captured by the public sector equality duty to the extent to which they are exercising public functions—this would include privately owned bus companies. However, enhanced partnerships will include services that are commercial. Ultimately, it is not for me or the Government to determine what constitutes a public function—that is a question for the courts.
Therefore, although I am sympathetic to the noble Baroness’s concerns, I am unable to stand at this Dispatch Box and confirm that all bus operators must comply with public sector equality duty requirements even when not exercising public functions. In fact, to make private entities subject to the duty would be likely to require a substantial rewrite of the Equality Act. I hope that noble Lords would agree that this Bill is not the right place for that.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, the variety of amendments in this group from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, seem to put even more obstacles in the way of any local transport authority which wishes to introduce franchising or any elected representatives who decide to franchise services. It feels to me that it is even more bureaucracy. These amendments feel like an ideological response rather than a genuine concern about bus service provision.
Local government should have the tools to implement what it assesses is suitable for its area and will be judged on whether it is providing the service that local communities need. Ultimately, the electorate will decide what they think of their services through the ballot box. I do not think we need the Secretary of State to intervene. I have confidence in local government to deliver what is needed for its communities. I am sure the Minister may have a similar viewpoint. I am interested to hear whether the Secretary of State does have a power if it is ultimately needed, but I await the response with interest.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 9 from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, requires authorities to publish a statement outlining their objectives, reasons and supporting evidence. My department has established franchising guidance to support authorities through the franchising process. Requiring local authorities to provide an upfront statement is redundant as at that point franchising is still in the exploratory stage, making the statement premature. The franchising scheme assessment provides a robust way to present the evidence and rationale behind a decision to franchise. While local authorities might choose to develop a feasibility assessment to start with, this should remain optional to allow them the flexibility to adopt the approach that best suits their needs. The amendment undermines recent efforts by my department to streamline franchising, making it faster and more cost-effective. I believe the amendment is unnecessary and I hope the noble Lord will withdraw it.
Amendment 12 seeks to impose a five-year moratorium on repeating franchising scheme assessments if the previous attempt was unsuccessful. The aim of this Bill is to simplify the process for authorities wishing to pursue franchising, ensuring decisions are made at the appropriate level and in a timely manner. I would contend that this amendment introduces unnecessary constraints on local transport authorities by proposing and adopting an overly rigid approach. Many factors might lead an authority to initially decide against pursuing franchising, only to reconsider later. Imposing a blanket restriction limits the ability to respond flexibly to evolving conditions and opportunities. Assessments are costly and time-consuming, so they will not be undertaken lightly. The noble Lord referred to a change of control, which might happen more frequently than five years, which is one possibility. Another possibility is that commercial bus services in the area, presumably served by an enhanced partnership, change over time, so that franchising becomes, in the local transport authority’s view, the best way of dealing with bus services in the locality. Since bus operators can give but 42 days’ notice of quite radical changes to bus services, including large-scale withdrawals, it would be extraordinarily unfortunate to have a situation where a commercial bus company had given notice on quite a large number of services and the local transport authority found itself unable to propose a franchising scheme as a consequence in any reasonable time. For those reasons, I would say that the amendment is unnecessary and I hope the noble Lord will not move it.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I have only two things to say. First, I look forward to the Minister confirming that the Greater Manchester franchising scheme was carried out without any government subvention at all, as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, explained to the House was the case. It is something of a revelation to me, but of course I may be wrong and I look to the Minister to say whether he was right.
Secondly, I am surprised and saddened that the noble Lord, Lord Snape, whom I see in his place, has not intervened in this debate because, at Second Reading, he was voluble in explaining what we all know: that this Bill will make no difference at all if a very large amount of government money is not made available throughout the country to support it. Yet one listens to the Chancellor today with some sadness on behalf of the country that she has not been able to announce the growth rates she was hoping for, that inflation is higher, that growth rates are lower and that the tax yield is less. Where is this money to come from in these sad circumstances that we find ourselves in?
I do not know whether “elephant in the room” is the right expression, but the Bill is to some degree bogus, and the House is grateful, I am sure, to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for pointing that out so acutely.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for this amendment and the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, for his intervention. It is helpful of him to have quoted those figures, which I concur with, if only because, earlier in the process of this Bill, some completely different figures were quoted—very high ones—which were incorrect. One reason why the figure in Manchester is so high is that the franchising process that the Mayor of Greater Manchester has had to go through has been tortuous. That is one of the reasons why this Bill is in front of this House—to make franchising simpler and easier to carry out. It is a great achievement for Transport for Greater Manchester and the mayor to have got to the place that they have. The noble Lord, Lord Goddard, remarked on the success of the bus service in Greater Manchester, with night services, more reliability and greater revenue than anybody expected.
I am sure that noble Lords will recall that I had the pleasure of standing here at the end of last year to announce a settlement of just under £1 billion to every local transport authority in the country. That was the first for some time; previous settlements had been partial and selective between different local transport authorities. Of course, the majority of that money could now be spent rather more economically on a faster franchising scheme, if that is what local transport authorities want to do. Some of them will not want to do that, because it is clear that bus services are a patchwork across England and plenty of towns and cities have adequate local bus services provided through enhanced partnerships. I have no doubt that a local transport authority will see no need to change them in those circumstances. I can name some of those places, but it is probably better if I do not.
In any event, the affordability of the proposed franchising schemes, and therefore funding, is already an integral aspect of franchising assessment, which is hard-wired into this legislation. Assessments’ financial case should include consideration of funding available from government, as set out in the statutory guidance. Indeed, the guidance for franchising schemes allows local transport authorities to choose whether it applies to all or part of their area, or to some small part of their area, for a necessarily much smaller expenditure. The franchising assessment must be published alongside the independent assurance report if an authority decides to proceed to a consultation, and that will ensure transparency about the proposed scheme’s financial viability and impact on communities.
For those reasons, although I absolutely respect the noble Baroness’s regard for the general measures in the Bill, I hope she will feel able to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Moylan (Con)
The noble Lord referred to the £1 billion last year. Of course, £250 million of that went to bus companies, and £750 million went to local transport authorities, of which there are roughly 140. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that it was about a £5 million one-off sum to local transport authorities. I am not sure how far that takes you in terms of franchising and the subsidies that go with it, given that in London the subsidy is closer to £700 million than £7 million. If this Bill is to go forward, can the noble Lord give us any assurance that sums of that order or greater will be offered to local transport authorities in the future—or have we seen the best of it?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord quotes a subsidy figure for London, which is a world city of 10 million people. A choice is made by the Mayor of London in respect of the balance between fares and subsidy, amounting to the balance of subsidy that needs to be put into the network. The subsidy in Manchester will be nowhere near what the Mayor of Greater Manchester thought it would be, because of the relative growth in patronage after a long period of decline. I cannot promise any particular numbers, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, well knows, because that is a matter for the Chancellor, for future years and for a spending review. But I will say that that funding, and the fact that it was universally awarded to every local transport authority, is a clear indication of the Government’s commitment to devolution and local bus services in a way that was not apparent with the previous Government.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and the positive way that he always responds to our queries and concerns. My concerns are based on the fact that effective, reliable and regular bus services are essential for people to access employment and the growth agenda that the Government are rightly pursuing. They are also essential to help reduce the number of cars on the road and move people to using public transport more often to help our environmental agenda. That is the backdrop to my concerns. I live in West Yorkshire, and we are desperate for a bit of extra funding to support schemes for franchising there. With those remarks, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
“Duty to consult persons with disabilitiesIn section 123E(4) of the Transport Act 2000 (consultation), after paragraph (d) insert—“(da) such persons with disabilities (within the meaning given by section 6 of the Equality Act 2010) who are users or prospective users of local services, or such organisations appearing to the authority or authorities to be representative of such persons, as they think fit;”.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires a franchising authority to consult disabled persons, or organisations representative of disabled persons, before making a franchising scheme.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I turn to a series of four government amendments which place requirements on franchising authorities relating to accessibility. The first of these amendments, Amendment 11, requires that where an authority gives notice of its intent to make a franchising scheme and begins a consultation, the people and organisations with which it must consult includes disabled people and organisations that represent them.
The remaining three amendments require that, when a franchising scheme is varied, local transport authorities must consult with disabled people or with organisations representing them. The only difference between them is the type of franchising scheme they relate to. Amendment 62 applies the consultation requirement where schemes are varied to add to the existing area that they cover; Amendment 63 applies it to variations affecting the extent of the franchising scheme but not resulting in the addition of new areas; and Amendment 64 applies it to all other forms of variation. For all three categories of franchising scheme variation, the Bill already proposes that organisations representing passengers must be consulted, as the authority sees fit, but Amendment 11 requires specifically that disabled people and organisations representing them be included.
Together, these measures will help to ensure that the voice of disabled people is heard by local transport authorities when franchising schemes are varied, with the aim of ensuring that plans take proper account of the needs of those people. With that in mind, I hope that noble Lords will support this amendment, as well as the wider package of accessibility amendments that I have tabled in my name. Once again, I thank your Lordships for making the interventions that have helped shape the Government’s approach.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
I am grateful to the Minister for his Amendments 11, 62, 63 and 64, all of which add to the Bill a duty to consult local disabled people and disabled people’s organisations. Will that cover not just the geographic area of the local transport authority but the range of disabilities? In particular, will it ensure that a range of local disabled people’s organisations are consulted. There is a real frustration when, for example, only one particular disabled organisation is talked to.
On my train this morning, I talked to a woman with vision impairment who said that she has real frustrations in this regard. She is on the co-production committee in Hertfordshire, and she said that too often, one organisation for disabled people is gone to, and it is assumed that it understands all the different needs of, say, blind people, deaf people, people in wheelchairs, people with autism—I could go on. I would be grateful for an answer to that question, but on balance I am grateful that these measures are here. They are helpful, but they are not what I was seeking in my earlier amendment, which I shall not go over again.
Amendment 18 covers enhanced partnership schemes requirements enabling travel by persons with disabilities. I note that new subsections (1) and (2), relating to the enhanced partnership schemes, use the word “may”, not “must”. If an enhanced partnership does not specify, for example, how safe a bus stop area is, or that bus stop areas must be safe, will it still have that responsibility, given that Section 174(1)(a) of the Equality Act states:
“The Secretary of State may make regulations … for securing that it is possible for disabled persons … to get on to and off regulated public service vehicles in safety and without unreasonable difficulty”?
It says, “may make regulations”, but the point is that there is a duty to ensure that disabled people can get on and off buses easily. If one of the enhanced partnerships decided not to check in a rural area, for example, whether there was street lighting or a pavement wide enough for a wheelchair to 2get off, would that be regarded as acceptable by the Government? There is no compulsion on the enhanced partnership to consult on that.
Amendment 19 says that local transport authorities in England must make a bus network accessibility plan. We on these Benches think that is helpful. It is a shame, though, that there is no common framework. It also means that the background behind a plan, who they consulted and what the details were, can continue to remain private.
My Amendment 37 is slightly different, in that it proposes an annual report with a common framework, according to which all LTAs would have to compile that report, using certain types of data and looking at certain types of accessibility issues. I said in Committee and I say again now that sometimes, there is nothing like an authority being required to consult, create and publish a plan with its results every year, in order to make the change we were talking about in group 1. We have heard from the House of Commons Transport Select Committee that there is much to do in practice, not just on buses themselves but on LTAs enforcing proper accessibility. I wonder whether the Minister could comment on that.
On balance, I am grateful for these amendments, but they are not the legislative sureties that I was looking for in the earlier group.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for their comments on the Government’s amendments. I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, had to say and her comparison of Amendment 37 with government Amendments 18 and 19. The Government believe that tabling these makes a real difference to the provision of services for disabled people. Amendment 19 in particular, which relates to the bus network accessibility plan, will enable local transport authorities to provide properly for people with disabilities.
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, referred to the range of organisations in areas, and I am very comfortable with reassuring her that the intention here is that there should be such a range; it is not that local transport authorities should choose only one or two organisations, which does not seem right to me. I need to think about what she said on the wider duties to ensure that disabled people have access to all places. We will come on to accessible bus stops and how they should be dealt with in this legislation. I look forward to the opportunity—probably not on this day of Report, but the following day—to debate that, and I shall respond very carefully when we get there.
In the meantime, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this worthwhile debate. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, still feels able to withdraw her Amendment 37 in favour of government Amendment 19, so that we can have a package of measures for people with disabilities that covers the whole range of solutions for local transport. I hope that noble Lords can accept the amendments in my name.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, has put her finger on what might be described as the other elephant in the room. The whole purpose of this Bill is defeated if it does not result in uncommercial services being run on the basis of subsidy. We have discussed in a previous group the complete absence of any information from the Government about where those subsidies are coming from. In this amendment, the noble Baroness draws attention to the types of routes that should be included and what a socially necessary service is.
To the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, I say that no party cares for villages more than the Conservative Party. While I cannot sympathise with her attempt to resurrect bus routes as old as 15 years, I have great sympathy with what she has to say about villages. I hope that the Minister shares that and can reach out to her to achieve the sort of compromise that she is offering—and which can only improve the Bill.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, for Amendment 14. I know through discussions with her that she has a keen interest in protecting vital services, especially those outside large towns and cities. The Bill sets out that a socially necessary local service is a local bus service which
“enables passengers to access—essential goods and services … economic opportunities (including employment), or … social activities”
and which
“if cancelled, is likely to have a material adverse effect on the ability of passengers to access those goods, services, opportunities or activities”.
However, as there has been concern that not all essential services are covered by this definition, particularly healthcare and schools, I want to confirm through this statement to the House that “essential goods and services” includes healthcare, schools and other educational institutions. Therefore, a socially necessary local service may include a bus service which enables passengers to access healthcare and schools. The Government intend to produce detailed guidance to assist in the interpretation and application of this measure. For these reasons, I hope that the noble Baroness can withdraw her amendment.
I thank the noble Baroness also for Amendment 16 and want to reassure her that under Clause 12, when an operator wishes to cancel or amend a service, the operator and the local transport authority will need to give due consideration to the benefits that a bus service provides to the local community. LTAs will also need to consider alternatives to mitigate any adverse effects of changes to such services. Under the Transport Act 1985 and the Transport Act 1968, local authorities are already under a duty to secure public passenger transport services that they consider appropriate to secure to meet the requirements of the area and which would not otherwise be met. This is likely to include services that have been identified as socially necessary.
Clause 12 should result in additional transparency by identifying the number of socially necessary local services in an area where an enhanced partnership is in place. This in turn will provide government with additional information which can be used to inform the decision-making around funding for local bus services. Local transport authorities have the best understanding of the needs of their local communities. Any additional obligations introduced through legislation would place an undue burden on local authorities and undermine their independence. They should be able to consider all the possible options to deliver the best outcome for passengers.
On Amendment 15 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, there was a similar amendment in Committee. I reaffirm that this Government recognise that local transport authorities are best placed to understand and address the needs of the communities that they serve. This Bill is about giving them real powers to decide what is best for their local area. We can recognise that a service that has been cancelled within the last 15 years may no longer be a service that would meet the current needs of the community given that these will inevitably change over time, but I also recognise that some might still be relevant to the needs of the community. As local transport authorities address need for their communities, they can of course consider former routes if they believe that they would represent a contribution to socially necessary local services. In that, I recognise the rather unfortunate nature of some of the funding for rural bus services in recent years, which has provoked new services, cancelled old ones, had the new services withdrawn and had the old ones brought back. She is right in her assumption that local transport authorities should look at the recent past in considering the best pattern of socially necessary services.
I also recognise the need to serve villages just like the rest of the communities in a local transport authority area, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness for pointing out that this is rather more about making sure that the socially necessary services chosen by local transport authorities serve the complete community, including villages, and rather less about a review which, as she said, generally costs time and money—almost certainly, such reviews do. In terms of this Bill, however, it will take up to five years for local transport authorities either to transition to a franchise network or to form a bus company, with a period for the review itself. I agree that it is much better for local transport authorities to consider the needs of villages in their areas and the right options of routes to serve their local communities. I hope therefore that she will not press her amendments.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
I thank the Minister for his clarification on socially necessary bus services and his confirmation that healthcare, schools and education institutions are covered by this. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Snape (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to speak briefly to this amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said that he deplored the fact that the £2 bus fare had been increased to £3. This is, even for him, an act of great cynicism. The £2 maximum bus fare was introduced by the last Conservative Government on 1 January 2023 —coincidentally, of course, in the run-up to the next election. It was initially introduced for three months. There is nothing that makes the bus industry despair more than this sort of short-termism. You cannot plan ahead for three months so far as bus services are concerned.
That £2 limit was increased on numerous occasions in the run-up to the election, and if the Opposition spokesperson is going to tell us that it would have remained at £2 in the foreseeable future, I would be more than impressed. I suspect that this is a plot that has succeeded in luring the Liberal Democrats into the same Lobby. The House would be better served if we waited for the actual debate on the Liberal Democrat amendment rather than suffered what is, I repeat, a cynical operation on the part of the party opposite.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I will make just a few points about the former £2 national bus fare cap. The first is quite obvious. The previous Government left no forward funding for that scheme at the time of the election and, indeed, left a rather large hole in the public finances, which, in effect, prevented its continuation.
The second point is that it is very easy to assume that somehow the maximum cap of £3 meant that all fares went up by 50%. The vast majority of travellers on bus services travel for a short distance and many of them paid less than £2 in any event. Fares between £2 and £3 went up only by inflation, and the cap still applies to longer-distance journeys that would cost more than £3.
In any event, in February, the Government published an evaluation of the first 10 months of the £2 fare cap. Evidence from that suggests that the scheme had a relatively greater impact on leisure trips compared with those for education and employment and was, in fact, rather poor value for money. So I believe that a legislative requirement for further evaluation is unnecessary and, on that basis, I would ask for the amendment to be withdrawn.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I hesitate to be drawn by the noble Lord, Lord Snape, who intends only to provoke me. But I am to some extent provoked. I am provoked to the extent of pointing out that there was a solemn pledge by the Conservative Party in its manifesto to continue the £2 bus cap and that the Conservative Party keeps its pledges. He should not find that astounding.
As far as the Minister is concerned, we suddenly discover that leisure trips on buses are of no account and no real value. “It is much better if people use their cars for leisure trips”. I mean, really, this an astonishing convolution of his arguments: “Now we don’t value leisure trips”. Of course we want people to use buses for leisure trips—and not merely people who are economically active. This is something the Government should understand properly. They should look into the effects of their own policy. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 17A concerns the impact that the increase in employer national insurance contributions will have on socially necessary bus services, including those for children with special educational needs and disabilities. The Government do not expect the changes to national insurance to have a significant effect on home-to-school travel for children with special educational needs and disabilities, so it would not be proportionate to conduct the assessment that this amendment suggests.
Local authorities are responsible for arranging home-to-school travel and delivering this through a range of providers. Department for Education officials engage regularly with local authorities to understand the challenges that they face and will continue to monitor this situation. It is expected that private sector organisations that contract with local authorities will take the impact of national insurance changes into account, along with other changes to their cost base, in the usual way through contract negotiations.
The Government have already announced £2 billion of new grant funding for local government in 2025-26, which includes £515 million to support councils with the increase in employer national insurance contributions. This is not ring-fenced funding, and could therefore be used to fund contracted services should a local authority wish to. Moreover, I understand that a large proportion of special educational needs and disabilities transport operators are self-employed and therefore exempt from this charge. The Government are protecting the smallest businesses and charities by increasing the employment allowance to £10,500. Next year, 865,000 employers will pay no national insurance contributions at all, more than half of employers will see no change or will gain overall from this package, and employers will be able to employ up to four full-time workers on the national living wage and pay no employer national insurance contributions.
On socially necessary services more broadly, excluding special educational needs and disabilities transport, the Government have already confirmed, as I said, an additional £925 million for the 2025-26 financial year to support and improve bus services in England outside London. The Government recognise that local transport authorities are best placed to understand the needs of their communities and can use the £925 million to introduce new bus routes, make services more frequent and protect crucial bus routes, ensuring passenger access to essential goods and services. I contend that this amendment is not required.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, it is a sorry reply from the Minister. The modest amounts of money he splashes around seem to have an awful lot of work to do, since they are the response to nearly every group of amendments we have discussed. It is very sad that he does not want to accept this amendment, and, in that light, I feel I am obliged to test the opinion of the House.
“Requirements enabling travel by persons with disabilities(1) The Transport Act 2000 is amended as follows.(2) After section 138C (requirements in respect of local services) insert—“138CA Requirements enabling travel by persons with disabilities(1) An enhanced partnership scheme may specify under section 138A(5)(b) requirements about enabling persons with disabilities to travel on local services independently, and in safety and reasonable comfort.(2) The requirements may include requirements about securing alternative means for the carriage of a person with a disability where—(a) the person cannot travel on a public service vehicle being used to provide a local service because the vehicle’s wheelchair space is occupied and cannot be vacated readily, and(b) it is possible for the person, together with any wheelchair, mobility aid or assistance dog which the person has with them, to be carried in safety and reasonable comfort to the person’s intended destination by a taxi or private hire vehicle.(3) Before making an enhanced partnership scheme, a local transport authority must consider whether the requirements proposed to be specified in the scheme will enable persons with disabilities to travel independently, and in safety and reasonable comfort, on local services that have one or more stopping places in the area to which the scheme relates.(4) In this section—“assistance dog” has the meaning given by section 173(1) of the Equality Act 2010;“mobility aid” has the meaning given by section 164A(6) of that Act;“persons with disabilities” means persons who have a disability within the meaning given by section 6 of that Act.” (3) In section 138F(6) (consultation), after paragraph (b) insert—“(ba) such persons with disabilities (within the meaning given by section 6 of the Equality Act 2010) who are users or prospective users of local services, or such organisations appearing to the authority or authorities to be representative of such persons, as they think fit;”(4) In section 138K (variation), after subsection (8) insert—“(9) Before varying an enhanced partnership scheme, a local transport authority must consider whether the requirements proposed to be specified in the scheme as varied will enable persons with disabilities to travel independently, and in safety and reasonable comfort, on local services that have one or more stopping places in the area to which the scheme as proposed to be varied relates.(10) In this section, “persons with disabilities” means persons who have a disability within the meaning given by section 6 of the Equality Act 2010.”(5) In section 138A(5)(b) (requirements which may be specified in enhanced partnership schemes), for “section 138C” substitute “sections 138C and 138CA”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires a local transport authority to consult disabled persons before making an enhanced partnership scheme, and to impose requirements to enable travel by disabled persons on local services independently and in safety and reasonable comfort.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
This is a rather technical amendment, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, stated, and one about which I have received several pieces of correspondence in the last 24 hours. Although I understand the intent of the amendment, I am not sure that it is actually necessary. I find it hard to imagine that local authorities, which often struggle with capacity and the financial means to deliver, will want to suddenly introduce their own bus company just ahead of awarding contracts directly to this new company. I hope the Minister can clarify the situation and allay any fears.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Amendment 20, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, said, seeks to prevent new local authority bus companies—I will not say LABCos; I cannot make that work—from being able to directly award franchising contracts using what he described correctly as the Teckal-style exemption in the Procurement Act 2023.
Clause 18 will help to support public ownership where desired by repealing the ban on new local authority bus companies, but the Bill is not prescriptive about the structure of any of those new companies. Local authorities can consider a range of options for structuring a new bus company. One of these options could be to establish a new company as a Teckal company, which would, as he says, allow a local authority to directly award service contracts to that company without the requirement for a competitive procurement exercise at any time.
The noble Lord referred to Teckal as a loophole, but it is part of a much wider landscape of public procurement law, which, as he says, was enacted in the Procurement Act 2023 by the previous Government. Use of the Teckal exemption is complex and subject to challenge, given that it allows contract awards outside the usual controls imposed by the public procurement regime, and specific and rigorous tests are required to use the exemption. Local authorities must be careful to ensure that these companies are within the Teckal parameters if they pursue this option, which would likely require significant funding and investment in organisational capacity and capability, as the noble Baroness referred to. All this means that any local authority looking at Teckal would need to consider very carefully whether this is appropriate for its local context.
Existing precedent for Teckal local authority bus companies in the UK, while limited, is that Teckal has been used only in scenarios where private operators are not interested or fail—for example, as an operator of last resort. For existing Teckal companies, the exemption is utilised only in the event of private operators being unable to do so, rather than as the default option for providing local bus services. Teckal is open to all public bodies that own any type of commercial company; it does not apply only to local authorities, only to local authority bus companies, or only to transport companies. Removing Teckal as an option only for new local authority bus companies would be an unusual—and, I believe, unnecessary—departure from the status quo around existing procurement legislation. As it stands, there does not appear to be a compelling reason to isolate new local authority bus companies as the only type of public company that cannot use Teckal, and no evidence has been provided to support what would be an extraordinary diversion from established procurement rules.
My department plans to publish guidance on local authority bus companies after the Bill comes into force, which will address the use of the Teckal exemption. We will of course work very closely with stakeholders when developing and drafting the guidance to help ensure that the exemption, if used, will not be about local authority bus companies having the upper hand over the private sector but about genuinely improving bus services for local passengers in that area. I therefore hope that the noble Lord can withdraw his amendment.
It might be convenient if I briefly move on to Amendments 21, 22 and 23, tabled in my name, which are also about helping to provide a level playing field between new and existing local authority bus companies. Clause 18 gives all local authorities the freedom to set up a new bus company if they choose to. Under this clause, new companies are not subject to restrictions regarding how they might secure funding or financing. This is at odds with the five existing local authority bus companies that are. Restrictions, as set out in the Transport Act 1985, mean that the existing local authority bus companies are unable to access private finance, which creates inconsistencies. My department has engaged extensively with stakeholders while developing the measures for this Bill and feedback has been strongly in favour of greater parity between how new and existing local authority bus companies can finance their operations.
The amendment will remove restrictions on existing local authority bus companies accessing private borrowing, if they are doing so for the purposes of, or in connection with, providing local services. As I have mentioned, this will help to provide a level playing field for both new and existing local authority bus companies. It will provide greater choice for local authorities in how they potentially fund a local authority bus company, which will give them more freedom to achieve ambitious and far-reaching improvements to local bus services. Amendments 21 and 22 are consequential to Amendment 23.
I finish by saying that I do not believe that there is likely to be a large-scale establishment of new local authority bus companies, but the powers contained in this Bill are necessary because, frankly, the bus market is not what it was. There is not much competition in some areas, and in others there is none. In those cases, a new local authority bus company might well be the way in which a local transport authority seeks to provide bus services in the future. It would be, as a postscript, a fitting riposte to some of the excesses of previous eras of competition in bus companies. I will not repeat it now, but if noble Lords were to look at the sorry story of the Darlington bus wars, where a perfectly satisfactory municipal bus company was reduced to being put into liquidation by the predatory activities of private companies, they would see why there might be some interest in local authorities to set up new local bus companies in the future. There might even be a little interest in using Teckal to do so.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I apologise for not addressing in my opening remarks the government amendments in this group, which I am happy to say I am content with. I mean, if one is as short of money as the Minister and his department probably are then giving local transport authorities the power to borrow money is probably the best that you can hope to get away with. We have no objection to those amendments.
I am disappointed—well, not entirely disappointed; I am rather thrilled—that the Minister has more or less agreed that I got the complex legal position right, but I am disappointed that he feels that the loophole should stay open. It should not. One of the purposes that the Government have set out is to encourage competition, where it can be stimulated, between bus service providers. To allow those two provisions to operate together in a way that would exclude competition would be an abuse. The abuse should be closed down. It is simple to do so: they could just say it was not going to be allowed. It would not upend procurement law. It would not overturn the sacred rules of procurement. It would simply say, in this specific case, because of the way these two statutes will interact, you cannot actually do the thing that would be an abuse. So I am sorry to say, because I know it is getting on—actually, we have made good progress and there is time—that I am afraid I am going to have to ask the House’s opinion on this matter, because I do not think the Government should be allowed to take this lackadaisical approach.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendment to clause 18, page 14, line 27.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendment to clause 20, page 17, line 9.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, this group covers data provisions. Before I speak to the amendments in my name, I note that there have been questions from stakeholders about releasing commercially sensitive information. I reassure noble Lords that the department will be mindful of publishing information that could be seen as commercially sensitive under the powers in Clauses 21 and 22. Officials will engage with industry on the Government’s intentions for and the use of this data before exercising the power. I will be as brief as I can on the other amendments in this group—Amendments 24, 25, 26 and 29.
Amendments 25 and 26 are necessary to clarify that regulations made under Section 6 of the Transport Act 1985 that may involve the processing of personal data do not operate in contravention of data protection legislation. This is engaged due to the potential for information being processed under these provisions to contain personal data. Amendment 24 is consequential on Amendment 26. Amendment 29 does the same job as Amendments 25 and 26, and for the same reasons, in respect of regulations made under Section 141A of the Transport Act 2000.
Amendment 27 enables the traffic commissioners to share existing registration information with the Secretary of State and enables it to be uploaded to the new registration database. It enables registration, variation and cancellation applications which are pending when this clause enters into force to be uploaded to the new database once they have been processed. Like Amendment 28, which I will turn to next, it supports our ambition to provide the public with the right information to help them make better-informed travel decisions.
Amendment 28 has been tabled to ensure that the Secretary of State can receive the same information about franchised services as other registered bus services are required to provide. In essence, the amendment creates consistency in the data provided by franchised and non-franchised services, enabling the public, via a new registration database, to make better decisions regarding their journeys. It also future-proofs the power in Clause 21, ensuring that, if changes are made to the information gathered under the 1986 regulations, this is reflected in what can be gathered for franchised services under Clause 21.
Amendment 33 is a further minor and technical amendment. It is necessary to ensure that Clause 24 functions in a manner consistent with the provisions in the Data Protection Act 2018. Amendment 24 is consequential to this amendment.
Amendment 43 to Clause 27 clarifies that provisions made under the powers in new Section 144F of the Transport Act 2000 that may involve the processing of personal data do not operate in contravention of data protection legislation. That is necessary due to the potential for information being processed under Clause 27 to contain personal data, given that it includes requirements to keep records about staff who have undertaken training in relation to crime and anti-social behaviour.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, we have no objection to these amendments.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I commend these amendments to the House.
“(13) Where regulations under this section impose a duty or confer a power to process personal data, the duty or power does not operate to require or authorise the data to be processed in a way which contravenes the data protection legislation (but the duty or power is to be taken into account in determining whether the processing contravenes that legislation).(14) In this section “the data protection legislation”, “personal data” and “processing” have the same meanings as in the Data Protection Act 2018 (see section 3 of that Act), and “process” and “processed” are to be construed accordingly.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies that provision contained in regulations under section 6 of the Transport Act 1985 in relation to the processing of personal data does not operate in contravention of the data protection legislation.
“(g) any other information which may be prescribed under section 6(2)(a) of the Transport Act 1985 in relation to the registration of a local service under that section.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment enables the Secretary of State to obtain the same information under section 141A of the Transport Act 2000 as may be obtained under section 6(2)(a) of the Transport Act 1985 in relation to local services which are required to be registered under that section.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that new section 144A is inserted in the correct place in Part 2 of the Transport Act 2000.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 35, tabled in my name, seeks to apply the local transport authority by-laws powers contained in the Bill to London. Clause 24 will enable local transport authorities to introduce by-laws to tackle anti-social behaviour on vehicles, as well as within and at bus-related infrastructure. Giving these powers to all local transport authorities is intended to give them the flexibility they need to effectively enforce against anti-social behaviour on the transport network and ensure that there is greater consistency across England.
When I first introduced the Bill, these powers did not apply to London. However, after engagement with Transport for London, it asked to be included in these provisions. This is because, while its officers can deal with anti-social behaviour at bus stops and bus stations under existing by-laws, it cannot easily enforce against anti-social behaviour on buses themselves. Closing this loophole will give TfL the same powers as other local transport authorities in England, and it will help make buses in London safer for passengers and staff.
While on the subject of bus by-laws, I will speak briefly to three further amendments tabled in my name. Amendment 30 is minor and technical. Its purpose is to ensure that the powers being granted to local authorities to make bus by-laws are inserted correctly into the right part of the Transport Act 2000. Amendment 31 intends to ensure parity between by-laws powers being granted to LTAs and London. In expanding the application of the local transport authority by-laws measure in Clause 24 to London, it was necessary to take account of the prevalence of smart card payments. This is reflected in the drafting of Amendment 31. However, the Government have also identified the need to allow local transport authorities outside London to deal similarly with smart card payments on bus services in drafting bus by-laws. That is what this amendment achieves. Amendment 32 is consequential on this amendment. I beg to move Amendment 30.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, this Bill has been about bus services outside the capital, yet at this stage there is suddenly a lengthy amendment about London and giving Transport for London the powers it needs more easily and effectively to support by-laws on London buses. The Minister has provided clarity on this and the other government amendments in this group; they have provided the assurance needed, and we are content with them.
“(za) with respect to tickets and other things (whether in physical or electronic form) which authorise a person to enter and travel on local services;”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that byelaws made by local transport authorities can allow for the use of smart card tickets on local bus services.
Disruption at Heathrow
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement and join him in paying tribute to the firefighters, all the emergency services and everyone who worked to extinguish a significant fire and return services to normal. This incident not only affected Heathrow but cut power to 63,000 homes, and 100 residents were evacuated.
The Minister is correct that this is an unprecedented incident. I welcome the intention to learn all and any lessons that arise from it and from the Heathrow internal inquiry and the NESO six-week initial investigation that have been announced. A single incident should not have been able to shut an airport. The mere fact that the cascade was not prevented offers us wider opportunities to ask serious questions about our preparedness, the resilience of our energy infrastructure and the urgent need to make new risk assessments with fresh minds.
The fire was the result of 25,000 litres of an oil-based cooling system overheating and catching fire at North Hyde substation. The significant fire required 70 fire- fighters to get it under control and resulted in a series of events that ultimately meant that more than 1,300 flights were cancelled, a further 670 flights impacted, and some 200,000 passengers suffered. We need to understand, at the point of ignition, what caused the fire. Are there flaws in substation design? Was this substation being overused, causing it to overheat? Why does it appear that there was no prior knowledge of the overheating while it was taking place? Could it be that something as simple as a few pounds spent on a remote temperature sensor could have alerted system operations to the problem and perhaps prevented the fire?
I welcome the involvement of the counterterrorism police, who have the skills to make rapid assessments of the causes. I note that in the last few hours the Metropolitan Police has confirmed that this incident is no longer being treated as a “potentially criminal matter”.
There is some confusion over the interpretation of events, and that concerns me. The Government and NESO say that while one of the main substations went offline, two alternatives remained available to provide the power required and additional reserve generation capacity at the airport gave some further limited capacity. Heathrow meanwhile argues that energy supply was insufficient to ensure the safe and secure ongoing operations and proceeded
“to reconfigure its internal electricity network”.
This meant, in effect, that every computer and safety system had to be turned off and on again. It is this act that caused the impacts. I ask the Minister: did Heathrow game plan and stress test the falling offline of the whole of this substation and, if so, what were the predicted impacts and consequences. If not, why not? When is the Heathrow inquiry expected to give initial findings? Will the NESO inquiry work with and have some access to the findings of the Heathrow inquiry? How will fundamental disagreements between the findings of the two inquiries, if they exist, be addressed? When will the Government respond to the National Infrastructure Commission’s report Developing Resilience Standards in UK Infrastructure?
To conclude, wider systemic and broader national risks to our national grid and critical energy infrastructure must be considered. Considering known terrorism-related attacks on other western countries’ energy infrastructure, including undersea cables, I call on the Government to undertake a full review, with the inclusion of the National Security Adviser, of our critical energy infrastructure—its susceptibility, resilience and levels of redundancy—including vital transport services and other services such as hospitals, key computer systems and telecommunications.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, I share the sentiments expressed by the noble Lords who have just spoken about the firefighters and other emergency responders who went to the site of the substation fire when it first broke out and brought it under control. They are undoubtedly very brave and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that when they arrived it was not clear what they were facing, so they were all the braver for tackling it directly. I also share the thanks of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, to the many workers at Heathrow Airport and, indeed, those who work for airlines, who not only had to work hard to get the airport back online but have dealt with the further disruption caused to flights, not only in Heathrow but across the globe.
I must express great sympathy for all those whose flights were delayed as a consequence of this incident. They are the passengers—the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, referred to them—and many people’s personal and business activities will have been delayed and disrupted due to this very extraordinary outage. I am happy to express sympathy for those people. I hope that, now, as Heathrow is returning to normal, their travels have resumed.
Both noble Lords referred to the two inquiries. My noble friend Lord Hunt, who is sitting beside me, is the Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. He has commissioned the National Energy System Operator to investigate the power outage. That will deal with understanding wider lessons from the power outage. Noble Lords will know that Heathrow Airport Ltd, which owns and operates the airport, has asked Ruth Kelly, former Secretary of State for Transport and an independent member of its board, to undertake a review of its internal resilience. That review will analyse the robustness and execution of Heathrow’s crisis management plans, the airport’s response and how it recovered the operation. The first report, from NESO, will be made to the Energy Secretary, and the Secretary of State for Transport has asked to see a copy of the second report. Heathrow has agreed to that, and we will report back to the House in due course.
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, asked whether I thought compensation was adequate and whether passengers needed an apology. They certainly need an apology. Everybody’s reasons for flying are different, but all of them expect to fly at the time on their ticket. Clearly, they deserve an apology, even though this was an extraordinary event. Do I think the compensation is adequate? The compensation for airline delays is set out, and it depends, in part, on which airline it is. Not only are people legally entitled to a choice between a refund within seven days or to be rerouted to their destination, including on flights operated by another airline, but they are entitled to care and support, such as refreshment or, if necessary, overnight accommodation, while waiting for a delayed or rerouted flight.
The questions about the reliability of the supply, security and the judgments that have to be made by the airport operator will undoubtedly be addressed by the two reviews that have been spoken about. Both noble Lords asked about timelines. We do not yet know what they are, but it would be better for both reviews to be thorough than it would for them to be quick. I know from some experience of this in different transport modes that, very often, you have to dig deeply to find out the root causes and understand what can be done. There is no doubt that the number of systems in a modern airport is huge, and they are very sophisticated. It will take some time to discover whether or not you can get them restarted any better.
The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, asked about the expansion plans for Heathrow—not merely the projected third runway but the expansion of terminals. There will of course be a relationship with this. We would expect Heathrow Airport Ltd to have resilience plans, which will scale up to whatever capacity the airport has. I would expect the Kelly review to look at how any expansion would be dealt with and whether or not expansion might make it easier to invest in such systems and resilience in order to obviate such a thing happening again.
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, is absolutely right to refer to the 63,000 people affected by the power outage. Many of them were not affected for long, but, nevertheless, even in the middle of the night there will be people who need power for various reasons, including medical reasons. Our sympathy goes to them as well.
On the confusion about capacity and the airport’s ability to recover, and the downtime when the power supply was cut off, we are expecting the two reviews to interact on this to a degree where there is no gap between them. There should be no question about whether they are comprehensive. I am sure that the Heathrow review will undoubtedly look at whether there was a game plan at Heathrow and at how much it has stress-tested its systems. I do not have anything further to say until the reviews have reported.
The noble Earl was completely right that the Metropolitan Police has recently reported that it does not believe this was a criminal act and is not pursuing that line of inquiry. I am sure that is a relief. I will look further at the government response to the National Infrastructure Commission report, and if I have anything to say I will write to the noble Earl about it.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to my interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission.
I understand that the Daily Telegraph knows what happened. The headline today said:
“Blame Heathrow’s faceless foreign owners for airport’s meltdown”.
That may be a rather simplistic analysis, but it does strike me that there is an issue—this is a point the noble Earl raised—with the extent to which the contingency plans within the airport had been thought through and stress-tested. You cannot create it overnight, but had Heathrow considered, for example, as part of its risk analysis and appetite, whether it was possible to run part of the airport and keep some of the functions going? Had it considered its ability to switch from one source of power to another without having to switch off all the systems?
When it is known the extent to which Heathrow had contingency plans and stress-tested them, could my noble friend the Minister say whether his department has any powers to say to those who own airports that their risk appetite should be different? The economic consequences of disruption at Heathrow will always be enormous and the reputational impact for the country as a whole is enormous. Does the Minister have the power, if necessary, to tell the owners to take a different risk appetite?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that contribution. I also respect the National Preparedness Commission and know how useful it is because I was, fairly briefly, a not particularly active member of it. It is interesting that somebody in the media already thinks they know who is responsible. One should wait for the in-depth and comprehensive review from Heathrow Airport itself and the National Energy System Operator to find that out. In particular, they must between them look at whether complete closure was the only option, or whether some partial closure could have been achieved with less disruption.
The direct answer to whether the department has powers to change the risk appetite of an airport operator rests with the Civil Aviation Authority, which is the economic and safety regulator for airports. The Secretary of State has, of course, been in touch with the CAA, which will look closely at the work to be done by Heathrow Airport in the Kelly review. When the CAA receives that report it will then be able to take a view on the appropriate level of risk appetite and the amount of money that needs to be spent to assuage that risk. The CAA is the authority that should, in due course, take a view, and I am sure that it will.
Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)
My Lords, I should probably declare an interest as one of the tens of thousands of people who, in the small hours of Friday morning, had his flight turned round in mid-air and returned to the point of departure. In my case, the flight departed from the Caribbean where, I stress, I was working, not relaxing. Just at the point where the flight had roughly reached the Bermuda Triangle, we were told by the pilot that Heathrow Airport was closed and that we were turning back.
This was obviously a very substantial incident, but not one that was inconceivable. Does the Minister accept that a key part of any disaster management plan has to be clear, consistent and timely communication? First, we were told that this substation was the only source of power for the whole of Heathrow Airport—an absolutely critical piece of transport and, therefore, economic infrastructure. Then we were told—as was reported—that Heathrow apparently said all its back-up plans had worked perfectly, which was not particularly mollifying for those of us whose plans were in tatters. Then we had a rather unedifying public spat between National Grid and Heathrow about whose fault it was. Clear communication is absolutely essential. Does the Minister accept that vetting these kinds of disaster recovery plans, which must exist for something as clear a risk as this was, has to be the duty of the CAA as both the safety and economic regulator?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that contribution. It is, of course, hugely inconvenient to have your flight turned around in mid-air. I absolutely agree that clear communication is necessary. The first duty is to communicate with those directly affected—which is very timely for flights in mid-air—and with all affected ticket holders to stop them going to an airport where they cannot take off. I would like to think, from what we have seen, that that combined communication effort from the airport itself and the airlines was pretty good. I know that other transport modes helped too, because there were clear notices at tube and railway stations saying, “Do not go to Heathrow because there are no flights”.
However, I accept entirely that clear and timely communication with those affected is the essence of what is needed in these circumstances. Communication about what has occurred and the background inevitably comes out over time, because the first job should be to communicate with those affected. If literally hundreds of thousands of air passengers are affected then it is they who deserve this clear information. I do not think anybody finds the prospect of chief executives of organisations apparently contradicting each other in public particularly helpful. That is why there are two inquiries: to get to the bottom of what really happened, how much planning there should have been, what was in those plans, and what could feasibly have been done to a place of such public and economic importance.
The CAA has a duty to execute its duty of economic and safety regulation properly. I have no doubt at all that it will look very carefully at the outcome of the Kelly review and draw the appropriate conclusions for the future regulation of not only this airport but others as well.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for the Statement. As someone who travels weekly from Belfast to London, periodically using Heathrow Airport, I sympathise with all those whose flights were cancelled or redirected in mid-air, because that is quite a frightening experience. What steps are being taken to ensure that the aviation sector, including Heathrow, remains on track to reach its net-zero targets, including through the sustainable aviation fuel mandate, given the recently announced expansion of Heathrow, where congestion levels are very high?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The Government are committed to reaching net zero by 2050, as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008. The Government will set out details on plans for meeting legislated carbon budgets later this year. We have been very clear that any airport expansion proposals need to demonstrate that they contribute to economic growth, can be delivered in line with the UK’s legally binding climate change commitments, and meet strict environmental requirements on air quality and noise pollution. The Government are supporting the aviation sector to decarbonise through our sustainable aviation fuel policies, including the introduction of a mandate to generate a sustainable aviation fuel—SAF—demand, plans to legislate for a sustainable aviation fuel revenue certainty mechanism to spur investment in UK production, and providing a further £63 million of funding for the advanced fuels fund. We are also committed to airspace modernisation and supporting the development of more efficient and zero-emission aircraft technology, through nearly £1 billion of additional funding to the Aerospace Technology Institute programme.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, as we have heard, Heathrow is an important hub airport, yet this incident has led to its complete closure, causing so much disruption. Will the Government now focus on the infrastructure in and around Heathrow, and indeed other airports, to improve resilience—which we have been discussing—security and the passenger experience, rather than simply advocating expanding Heathrow and other airports?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Provided that a suitable proposition comes forward for the expansion of Heathrow, it is inevitable that all the things that the noble Baroness mentions will have to be considered in the round in that. I am sure that she also includes surface access to the airport and a good passenger experience. She will know that we await a proposition from Heathrow and/or any other interested parties in the expansion of Heathrow, but I have no doubt that, when that is received, consideration will be given to all the things that she talked about.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
My Lords, obviously, the impact of the closure of Heathrow is massive and has reputational and other consequences for this country. But travellers and business depend so much on other airports throughout the United Kingdom—such as Belfast, which has been mentioned, given the lack of alternatives, for obvious reasons. Does the Minister know what work is going on at present in airports in Northern Ireland, and throughout the United Kingdom, to examine resilience and the threats to those airports?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord may know that I am tolerably familiar with the essential nature of flights from Northern Ireland to mainland England, Wales and Scotland because of the Union Connectivity Review. In particular, I had to answer a question quite recently about the reliability of the first flight on Monday mornings, which clearly contains quite a large proportion of Members of both Houses. I repeat that I strongly recommend to the operator that, come what may, it operates that flight if it operates nothing else. I do not know currently what is going on in other airports in Britain to look at resilience, but I have no doubt that the outcome of the Kelly review and the—I will make sure I get the right initials—NESO review will be closely studied by all those airports because that is undoubtedly the case. Noble Lords can be reassured that the transport community as a whole takes a close interest in what happens in one place.
Incidentally, I have seen—noble Lords might have expected me to—a review that Network Rail started on Saturday morning about the resilience of its power supplies, because in these circumstances you would start those sorts of reviews before you knew even what the cause was. That is a perfectly rational thing to do. So I have little doubt that that is going on in respect of other UK airports currently; I do not know that it is, but whether or not it is, I have absolutely no doubt that they will study very closely the results of the Kelly review and the NESO review—I would rather not use the initials, but it is too easy to do—to make sure that they are all as resilient as they can be.
Baroness Buscombe (Con)
My Lords, I shall try once more. I am rather tired because I, too, was very badly directly affected by this incident.
The incident itself was deeply unfortunate, but one key issue is the lack of rigour in customer support from our principal carrier for terminal 5. There is clearly a problem with rigour in the contracts between the carriers and Heathrow Airport Holdings. There must be because, first, the systems and processes for security and for processing customers at Heathrow are so antiquated. I have had the luck in the past few weeks of going through a number of airports that make Heathrow look an embarrassment by comparison in its support for customers and in making the life of customers through the airport a pleasant experience.
In the Statement, the Government say that they are
“acutely aware of the need to ensure that passengers are well looked after”.
Will the Minister impress on the Secretary of State the importance of using this seriously important opportunity to demand the possibility of looking at the contracts between the carriers and Heathrow Airport Holdings? Each time there is an issue—and this is not a peculiar issue of lack of customer support but a daily problem at Heathrow—British Airways constantly abrogates responsibility and blames Heathrow Airport Holdings for problems.
This is a chance for the Government to say that we need to understand who is responsible for what and to look at customer support. My noble friend referenced the need for communications, but it is not only about communications in the middle of a crisis. British Airways passengers were left high and dry, with a phone line that is available only from 9 am to 5 pm and a lack of support at various airports, while looking at planes that were sitting in the middle of the runway and doing nothing when Heathrow was already back and open.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I am willing to have great sympathy with the noble Baroness and her experiences. People’s travel is important to them, whether it is personal, recreational or for business. The Government recognise that it is very important for the British economy for the major airport in Britain to run smoothly—there is no doubt about that. There is also no doubt that it is a challenge to deal with so many customers who are disrupted at one time. It is not just one plane-load of passengers; it is a huge number. Well over 1,000 flights were cancelled and delayed on the Friday that the airport was closed.
That is a challenge that both Heathrow Airport Ltd and the carriers, including British Airways, ought to be able to rise to. They are two commercial companies, and there is a limit to what the Government can do between them. I have seen some passing comment in the media in the past couple of days about what compensation is due between the two parties. I hope that is reflected in what trickles down to the customers of the carriers, because otherwise it looks like rather an unseemly debate from various commercial organisations.
There is a limit to what the Government can do, but they want people to move smoothly through Heathrow in particular, because it is so important to the British economy. I think that both parties to which the noble Baroness refers would say that one issue with Heathrow is that it is very full of planes and people. Therefore, it will not be a surprise when Heathrow comes forward with an expansion plan, simply because it is much harder to deal with very large quantities of passengers when there is virtually no expansion space left—and I have some sympathy with that. We must rely on both companies to do their jobs properly and seamlessly. Passengers should not feel that, somehow, they are at odds with each other, given that a successful aeroplane flight depends on both doing their jobs properly. They will know that anyway, but we will see what the reports say, and we will see what the carriers do in respect of customers who, in some cases, have been very badly delayed.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, the Statement refers to the ownership structure of Heathrow, which was also referenced by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. It was of course bought by the Spanish firm Ferrovial in 2006 with a huge pile of debt and was finally sold in 2025 to a French asset manager and to wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Singapore and China. The similarities to our water company ownership, and all the failures associated with that, are very obvious. It is also worth noting that the ownership vehicle company has seen 21 changes in director since May last year, and it announced just a month ago that it would pay its first dividend in five years.
In that context, does the Minister think it adequate that, while there is a government inquiry into the energy side of this issue, this inquiry has been commissioned by Heathrow itself, which has been left with the entire responsibility for seeing what has gone wrong? Where is the inquiry into the Civil Aviation Authority to see whether its approach to Heathrow has been sufficiently resilient, given that it has resulted in actions like this?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The British public are entitled to expect the airport to run properly, no matter who owns it. We are also entitled to expect that, as a major piece of public utility, it is capable of examining its own systems and recommending whether or not they were adequate. The CAA will look at the report. I do not currently see a reason why the Civil Aviation Authority itself needs to be examined. If we are not careful, we will examine everything, in circumstances where it is pretty clear that the airport was responsible for its own systems and there was an outside power issue. The two inquiries will look at both those things. The Civil Aviation Authority will draw some conclusions from the Kelly inquiry. It is responsible for economic regulation and safety; it is not responsible for running the airport itself. We have to expect Heathrow Airport Ltd to be able to do this itself, and we will see where that goes.
The Secretary of State and I have no doubt that it will examine this with rigour. It is an exceptional experience. It is not the case that the airport regularly falls over in this respect. It is entitled to look at this itself, and we are entitled to look at the results and see to what extent improvements can be made, and what its risk appetite is to do so. We will wait for the outcome of these reports to make that judgment.
Commercial Vehicles: Safety
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Pidgeon
To ask His Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to ensure that commercial vehicles sold in the UK are as safe as possible and have a ‘five star’ safety rating.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, new motor vehicles, including commercial vehicles, must be approved through a broad range of rigorous safety requirements. In addition, the Department for Transport is a founding member of the Euro New Car Assessment Programme, a membership organisation providing information on the relative safety of cars and commercial vehicles beyond the regulatory minimum, typically using a one- to five-star rating system. Although it is not mandatory, it provides a market incentive for manufacturers to develop increasingly safer vehicles.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, the UK was at the forefront of developing the European Union’s general and pedestrian safety regulations—GSR—which mandate a raft of proven safety features in vehicles. Will the Government adopt GSR in the UK to ensure that we improve the safety of commercial vehicles on our roads? I also take this opportunity to wish the Minister a very happy birthday.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness, and she is absolutely right that the general safety regulations were mandated by the European Union in 2022. Prior to the United Kingdom leaving the EU, UK officials had worked on the range of 19 new vehicle technologies that she refers to. The Government have commissioned analysis to determine which of those technologies are right for Great Britain. This is under really active consideration at the moment. I will write to her about those 19. In the meantime, because the commercial vehicle manufacturing industry is international, many vehicles will already comply with GSR II.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I wish the Minister a happy birthday. There are 600,000 professional HGV drivers in the United Kingdom. We operate 400,000 HGVs. The Library tells us that only one person in Parliament has any practical experience of the operation of HGVs. Why do your Lordships want to get rid of me? To say that a Bill is going through Parliament is not a good answer.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
There is only one person here who holds a passenger-carrying vehicle licence, which is a broadly similar experience, although the payload complains more often than it does with a commercial vehicle. The noble Earl’s question has nothing to do with commercial vehicles at all. This matter is frequently debated in here, and I will leave it to the Leader of the House to answer that properly.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister enlighten me as to how many people were killed last year—or the latest date that he has—on the roads by HGVs? I have the numbers for 1929.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
The 2019 numbers! I have been here too long. There were 178 road users and 82 vulnerable road users. Surely he needs to bring in the protections that my noble friend described, ahead of waiting for some strategy, because people are dying on the roads daily.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I have those statistics somewhere and I have up-to-date ones. I will send them to her. Many of the 19 new vehicle technologies are already being applied, because the commercial vehicle industry is international. I also referred to this being under really active consideration, which means that shortly we will be able to say which of the 19 technologies this Government propose to introduce. When we do, that will be conclusive.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, we are keen on safety throughout the country. Indeed, our own drivers are very well trained, in general, but there are real concerns that foreign drivers, who seem to be involved in quite a lot of the accidents that occur with heavy goods vehicles, do not appear be trained to the same standards. Will the Minister kindly comment on that and say what we are doing in association with other countries, particularly in Europe, to make sure that their standards are maintained?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The standards of professional vocational drivers in Britain are very high. The tests that you have to pass and the continuous professional development, which is broadly similar to the continuous professional development applied in European countries, are also very strong. Enforcement activities are run by the Vehicle Inspectorate, which is part of the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency. It is much more sophisticated in targeting enforcement than perhaps it once was, including making sure that those who drive commercial vehicles from other countries on our roads are consistently to the same standard of safety as our own vehicles and drivers are. I will leave the detail of how it enforces what it does to it, but it appears to be very successful enforcement activity.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that the safety rules apply to all cars and heavy goods vehicles? Do they also include vintage Army vehicles, to which the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, referred?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The safety requirements that the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, asked me about are those applicable to new vehicles. The standards of safety that apply to all vehicles on the UK’s roads are the latest standards that applied at the time at which they were manufactured, of course, improved by the regular testing system. There are reasons why historic vehicles cannot always comply with modern standards. There is a silver lining in that, which is that most very ancient vehicles cannot go very fast. My experience of the vehicle testing regime is that it is rigorous but respectful of the age of vehicles and their original manufacturing condition.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on his birthday. It is a great pity that it is not being celebrated by a parade around Parliament Square featuring the noble Lord driving his bus accompanied by my noble friend Lord Attlee driving his Army truck. Perhaps that it is something to plan for next year. Broadening this out a little bit, UK motor manufacturing is in a state of crisis. Is it not time for the Government to take a lead from the Conservative Party and start to reassess their net-zero and, in particular, imposed electric vehicle targets while we still have a domestic motor manufacturing base to save?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
To the serious point that the noble Lord raises, the Government are continuing to modernise the requirements for vehicles on British roads and are continuing to insist on the trajectory to zero-emission vehicles, for obvious reasons. In fact, contrary to the implication of what he says, that was started by the previous Government. On a more jocular note, neither the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, nor I need to add to the traffic around Parliament Square, particularly in the past few days.
Lord Deben (Con)
The targets having been set up by the previous Government, the present Government should stick to them and give British motor manufacturers certainty about what is going to happen, rather than uncertainty of the kind that has recently been stirred up.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
We very much welcome the noble Lord’s support in this. It is inevitable that the motor manufacturing industry moves on. Contrary to a lot of the noise, there is great evidence that the translation to zero-emission vehicles and electric vehicles is proceeding. Beneath all that noise, it is quite clear that electric vehicles are catching on and that the manufacturing market needs to carry on in that direction. My own experience of introducing hybrid and electric vehicles is that the one thing that really makes a difference is the continuing purchase in larger and larger numbers, which encourages manufacturers to make the right thing at a lower cost and be successful.
Great British Railways: Industrial Action
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Moylan
To ask His Majesty’s Government what role Great British Railways will have in resolving industrial action on the railways.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, when Great British Railways takes over, it will be responsible for the industrial relations of the railway. Its establishment depends, of course, on the passage of the forthcoming railways Bill through Parliament. In the meantime, as each train operation comes into public ownership, the transfer of undertakings regulations will apply, and thus the existing negotiating arrangements will apply for these operators and, of course, for Network Rail. There is currently no new industrial action on the railway network except for a projected eight-week strike on Hull Trains, which is an open-access operator and therefore not the responsibility of the Government.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, we know from what we saw only a few months ago that, under the current departmental management, the Department for Transport is very good at giving out public money to ASLEF and the RMT without securing any improvements in working practices in exchange. Why will this be different when GBR is managing the railways? What additional tools will it have that will secure the improvement in working practices on the railways that all of us want to see?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The answer to the noble Lord’s point is that it will have competent long-term management. The longest dispute in recent history on the national railway network was the one which was solved with an additional 2% pay offer last summer. That dispute lost an estimated £850 million-worth of revenue over the two years that it took place. Significantly, there were no productivity measures on the table at the time when the dispute was settled, simply because there had been a long-standing dispute between the employers—the owning groups of the train operating companies—and the department about the share of the revenue savings that they would get if productivity was applied. That meant that, in several train companies, there were no proposals whatever extant that could be implemented. Any sensible employer has in their mind the things that they need to do to make their operation more efficient and a negotiating strategy with their employees to achieve it. That was not the case last summer, but it will be the case in future.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, what steps will Great British Railways take to minimise disruption to passengers during periods of industrial action? What compensation mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that passengers are not unfairly disadvantaged when their journeys are disrupted?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The primary activity that needs to take place is good industrial relations, so that the instances of disputes that affect the train service are much reduced. A feature of good industrial relations is dialogue between the employees, their representatives and the employer, which is very much in the mind of the Government as we go forward with Great British Railways. In addition, as I have said to the House before, I want to see managers at route and train operating company level who can co-ordinate how the railway behaves and how it serves customers. By those means we will offer a better service and have less industrial action.
Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the focus that the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has put on the negotiating arrangements in the railway sector. This was highlighted in the dispute that has been referred to before the general election, in which a point was reached where, after very intense and prolonged negotiations, a potential settlement had emerged that the negotiators were prepared to support from all sides. Unfortunately, that settlement was not approved because the Government Ministers decided to veto the possibility of that agreement being reached, bringing into serious concern the integrity of the whole process. Let me now turn—
Lord Barber of Ainsdale (Lab)
Does he agree that it would be better at the same time to reset relations with the workforce and the trade unions?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I agree with my noble friend, but I will add one point. The Government are responsible for the cost of the railways to the taxpayer and, because of that, Governments need to make clear before the commencement of negotiations what the envelope is for the employers to negotiate. It is most unhelpful for a Government to intervene part or nearly all of the way through.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I remind all noble Lords that questions should consist of up to 100 words and no more than two points.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, further to my noble friend’s Question, does the Minister recall a speech that he made on 27 April 2022, when he was chairman of Network Rail, to the Rail Industry Association? He said:
“The industry will not back away from its modernisation and cost reduction drive despite the threat of strike action”.
Does that remain his policy?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I was wondering what I had said in April 2022. When I spoke to the Rail Industry Association, it was in respect of industrial relations in Network Rail, which I had the privilege to chair for nine years with 30,000-odd employees. What was very successfully concluded in the summer of 2023 was a ground-breaking deal with extensive productivity in a public sector corporation. It was not widely celebrated by the Government of the time because they did not welcome that progress, but it was very much in line with what I said in April 2022.
Lord Katz (Lab)
My Lords, I draw your Lordships’ attention to my register of interests. Does my noble friend not agree that the lamentable record of the previous Government when it comes to industrial relations on the railway demonstrates the need for an independent guiding mind in the form of GBR, which we will hopefully legislate for soon? Does it not demonstrate the need to have an organisation that can take the heat and the fire—and, I might say, in some cases, the ideological approach—out of industrial relations on the railway and set a positive, modern and long-term framework for workforce relations in that sector?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Not only do I completely agree with my noble friend, but the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, might recall that, when he was deputy chair of Transport for London and I was the commissioner, we went to the ends of the earth to keep industrial relations matters away from the political leadership of the mayor and within the organisation. The right way of concluding both wages and conditions is for the employer to negotiate with the recognised trade unions of the employees, and political influence does not help much in those relationships.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
Can the Minister give the House an assurance that the weekend roster has been sorted, particularly for stations along the east coast main line route, and that the excuse that there is no crew available will not be used over weekends this summer?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
So far as the long-distance operator on the east coast main line is concerned, I can very happily give that assurance: LNER is top of the performance league and is actually very popular with passengers—I hope it remains so. In respect of Northern, I just looked at it today. Northern was taken into public ownership in March 2020 because the previous owners had failed. At that time, it had a dispute about the role of the guard. That dispute was already running then and is still running after the remainder of its term of ownership under the previous Government. It is a very long-standing dispute that involves Sunday rostering, and we are working very hard to fix it. This Government inherited that dispute; it could have been resolved in any of the years from 2020 to 2024 if the Government at the time had so chosen.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, will GBR have a better plan than Network Rail for fixing the terrible damage done to Oxford by about four years of Network Rail cutting the city in two—with damage to the people, businesses and residents—or will the transition make things even worse and slower?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I have apologised to the noble Baroness for the disruption at Botley Road bridge in Oxford already, and I am happy to do that again. What I am quite clear about is that the disruption caused by the bridge replacement and the associated difficulties of rebuilding the road will be finished before GBR comes into effect.
North Sea Vessel Collision
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, the scenes that we have witnessed in news reports are deeply concerning and our thoughts are with all those affected, particularly the family of the crew member who is presumed dead. The situation has moved on considerably since Monday. It is not even the front page of the news. I also pay tribute to the Humberside Local Resilience Forum, the emergency services, the Royal Navy, Border Force, the Environment Agency and all others who are working tirelessly to manage this crisis. Their swift response has been vital in minimising loss of life and limiting environmental damage, and we owe them a great debt of gratitude.
This event is a stark reminder of the immense risks faced by those in the maritime sector—men and women who work long, demanding hours to keep our country moving, often without recognition. While investigations are ongoing and the internet is awash with different theories, from technical faults to human error and worse, urgent government action is required to reassure local communities and mitigate the wider impact. My right honourable friend in the other place, Alistair Carmichael, Member for Orkney and Shetland, highlighted the devastating impact of the MV “Braer” disaster off Shetland back in 1993, underscoring the justified fears that are now felt by communities along the North Sea coastline, which will be hoping for reassurance that the incident can be contained.
This incident also raises serious concerns about maritime safety, regulation and enforcement. Reports indicate that one of the vessels involved may have had failed multiple elements of routine safety inspections, including unreadable emergency steering communications, inadequate alarms, poorly maintained survival craft and improperly marked lifebuoys. Given these alarming deficiencies, will the Government review the effectiveness of port state control measures and enforcement procedures to prevent substandard vessels from continuing to operate in UK waters? What is the timescale for any such review?
Beyond safety concerns, as we have already heard, the environmental impact of this disaster could be severe. I welcome the formation of a tactical co-ordination group and its engagement with key agencies, but greater clarity is needed on how the Government intend to address the environmental challenges arising from this incident and supporting affected communities.
What immediate measures are being taken to protect the east coast marine life and fragile ecosystems from potential pollution? Furthermore, can the Minister provide assurances that financial support will be made available to cover the economic and environmental losses, particularly for those whose livelihoods depend on these waters?
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, for their responses and their commendations of those involved, which I echo. I offer my sincere thanks, and, I am sure, the thanks of your Lordships’ House, to all those who have responded to this incident on the front line, from His Majesty’s Coastguard to the local emergency services, merchant vessels in the vicinity and those who crew them, and the RNLI, which is a wonderful institution.
This is a challenging and ever-changing situation, and I hope that I speak for everyone in this House when I say that the continuing efforts are both brave and hugely appreciated. I also thank our international partners for their many offers of assistance to the United Kingdom, and for the support from the maritime community. Finally, I thank civil servants from across government in several departments working on the response. Their efforts are also greatly appreciated.
Following the collision of the motor vessels “Solong” and “Stena Immaculate” in the North Sea on the morning of 10 March, my department and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency have co-ordinated a government-wide response. The current position is that salvors are assessing the condition of the vehicles to plan the next steps of salvage operations. Concurrently, the Government are conducting environmental assessments to ensure that all risks are appropriately mitigated and that the effects of the incident are effectively addressed. There is currently no evidence to suggest that there are national security implications, but as the investigation continues that possibility will be constantly borne in mind. Both vessels now appear to be relatively stable and salvors are assessing their condition. There is no suggestion that, apart from what has been widely shown on the media, there is any substantial pollution. The aviation fuel which did not combust appears to have evaporated. I have read suggestions this morning that containers have fallen off the “Solong”, but that does not appear to be the case.
I turn to the noble Lord’s questions. We need a proper investigation to assess how this occurred. One might be able to draw some conclusions from the fact that one of the two ships was at anchor, but it would be wise to wait for the Marine Accident Investigation Branch to conclude its investigations. Although one of the ships is US-badged and the other is Portuguese, both those maritime agencies have rightly concurred that the MAIB should have precedence. The noble Lord referred to the arrest of the captain of one of the vessels, which renders that subject sub judice.
Will lessons be learned? Yes, indeed they will. One of the purposes of a thorough investigation is to ensure that lessons are learned. As with every accident investigation, some of them you might conclude immediately while some will take a great deal of research to work out what happened, why it happened and how you stop it from happening again.
The current environmental impact is mercifully small, and we are very lucky for that. There does not appear to be any significant spillage of either the jet fuel from the “Stena Immaculate” or any of the fuel or oil from the bunkers of either of the vessels concerned. Consequently, the current effect on marine and bird life does not appear to be significant, but I can confirm to the House that everything is ready in case that subsequently proves not to be the case. There is a lot of activity, including activity across nations, to make sure that we are ready in case anything like that should happen.
For example, the German coastguard has provided the support of a specialist counterpollution vessel, “Mellum”, which can operate in toxic environments, as well as additional surveillance aircraft. That vessel has been tasked to stand by and undertake air monitoring of the “Stena Immaculate”. However, no air quality measures have been reported, and it looks as though currently—due to the wind direction and distance from the coast—there is a very low risk to public health from either the plume or the spill.
I can assure both the noble Lord and the noble Baroness that we seek to ensure that every possibility is considered, both looking backward from the time of the accident and from now looking forward. This includes keeping the local community in general, and those who use the sea and care about marine and bird life, fully informed about this so that they can gain confidence from the actions of this Government and the other nations involved. As would normally happen, we will seek for the cost of all of this to be recovered from the insurers of the vessel or vessels found to be at fault. I hope I have covered all the points that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness raised, but if I have not, no doubt they will come up in further questions.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Statement. He said, correctly, that we have been very lucky on this occasion, in the midst of what is a tragic misfortune, in the sense that the fuel dispersed was aviation fuel, which has a propensity to evaporate compared with other fuels that would have been a real disaster for the environment. On a separate issue, has it been necessary to take any measures to ensure the openness and safety of shipping lanes or routes, and if so, what measures have been taken?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his question. I omitted to say, which was entirely my fault, that we must all be extraordinarily sad about the plight of the missing seaman from one of the vessels, who is now unfortunately presumed no longer alive, despite the massive and brave attempts of the maritime community—the RNLI and others—to seek to rescue them. I am sure the House will join me in great sorrow about that.
The shipping lanes are now open again; there has been no need to take any measures to reopen them. One of the vessels is still where it was moored, and the position of the other is being constantly monitored to make sure that it is not a hazard to more shipping and that it is under control. There is a tug with the “Solong” that is able to control the latter’s position. The shipping lanes in and out of one of Britain’s most important ports are open and functioning.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I am very happy that the Minister reported that there does not appear to have been much environmental damage. However, we see again and again that these cargo ships are often quite badly maintained. When crashes happen, the spillage and the environmental damage from them is very severe, but the ships’ insurance can never cover all the impact on marine life and coastal areas. Are stronger regulations part of the Government’s thinking so that, when this sort of thing happens next time, the insurance companies bleed through the nose for the cost of keeping an inadequate ship afloat?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I will say two things. The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, referred to the previous defects on the motor vessel “Solong”. Although those defects were identified in an inspection made in Dublin in July last year, we also know that a more recent inspection of that ship in Grangemouth last October showed that those defects were rectified. That is a good reassurance; it does not completely answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about whether the ships are perfectly maintained at all times, but it does show that the inspection regime appears to demonstrate some characteristics that I am sure the House would welcome.
On the noble Baroness’s point about insurance, this will not, we hope, be the incident that bears out her theory. Of course we should be concerned that maritime insurance is capable of covering all of the consequences of an incident such as this. I will reflect on what she said and talk to my honourable friend the Maritime and Aviation Minister about whether there is anything the Government feel they need to do as a consequence of this incident in respect of insurance.
Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers (CB)
My Lords, would the Minister comment on the role of professional salvors in a situation such as this?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
All I can say is that they are a completely necessary set of organisations and have some pretty brave people who assess on a continuing basis what can be done. They are an essential part of the maritime community, if only demonstrated by an event like this.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, it is very disturbing to see the visual displays of the Portuguese-registered vessel heading directly to the tanker. One sees this and, having a little knowledge of aviation, it would seem that someone in authority must be watching the movements of maritime traffic in a similar way to avoid this sort of collision taking place. Was anybody or any authority watching a screen as the Portuguese ship closed on the tanker? That seems to be very alarming, particularly in our own waters.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord’s observation is very reasonable in the circumstances. However, I am not tempted, and I do not think your Lordships’ House should be tempted, to draw any conclusions about how the accident occurred, nor what might be put in place to stop something like this happening again. Clearly, if you are the master of either of these vessels, or of any other vessel in the ocean, you are responsible for the conduct of the vessel and the way it is navigated. We should leave this for the Marine Accident Investigation Branch to properly investigate and draw some conclusions. If there are conclusions that need action from any government body, your Lordships’ House can be reassured that the Government will take that action.
Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)
My Lords, I served on the board of the Harwich Haven Authority for six years. During that time, we had a lot of difficulty with local authorities that, for financial reasons, were reluctant to run robust emergency planning exercises, but what has happened really demonstrates their value. Could the Minister do some checking to find out what the current position is with the emergency planning and local resilience fora?
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, the VTS systems have sight of the entire seaway but operate within their own zones. This incident happened outside the Humber authority’s zone, but it would have had sight of it—perhaps there is another question there for the Minister. Finally, on the point from noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about port state control, it is always worth remembering that these are international matters carried out by the International Maritime Organization. Perhaps the Government can have a conversation with it to ensure that, where defects are picked up, they are constantly monitored to having been rectified.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I defer to the noble Baroness’s knowledge, which in this area—the latter part of what she just said—is greater than mine. The information I currently have is that the Humber Local Resilience Forum was stood up very quickly and has held a strategic control group. The membership is widespread and includes the police, fire and rescue, local authorities, the Red Cross, the health service, MHCLG, His Majesty’s Coastguard, the Royal Navy and other organisations. By all accounts, this seems to have worked very well in this circumstance, and there cannot be any criticism of the bodies that have come together and worked extremely hard—and are still doing so, because this event is not over yet.
Lord Mountevans (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for his update, but we seem to have been extremely fortunate in this incident. From a lifetime in shipping, I know that a conflagration involving a cargo of jet fuel is one of the most serious things that can happen at sea, so we have been extraordinarily successful and probably fortunate. It is early to be congratulating anybody, but it appears that all the emergency agencies—the MCA, the coastguard, the RNLI and the local environmental resilience plan—all seem to have functioned extraordinarily well, so we are very grateful for that. But this points to the dangers to so many ports around the UK of potential grey action. Will the Minister be thinking about that following these events?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I concur with the noble Lord, and I will.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, these vessels have massive momentum due to their huge size. Can the Minister please inform the House whether there are speed limits of any kind in these shipping lanes, particularly off the coast or near ports such as Hull?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I am not aware of the answer to the noble Lord’s question, so I will write to him.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, first, can the Minister confirm that the SOSREP system instigated in the report by Lord Donaldson of Lymington, Safer Ships, Cleaner Seas, is in place?
Secondly, in addition to the noble Lord, Lord West, we have at least three maritime experts in the House of Lords. The noble Earl, Lord Cork and Orrery, was a Royal Navy submarine commander; the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans, recently retired as chairman of the Baltic Exchange; and the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, is an Elder Brother of Trinity House. Can the Minister explain why the Government want to get rid of them?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The Secretary of State’s representative for maritime salvage and intervention convened a salvage co-ordination unit yesterday morning to oversee the salvage response to this incident, working alongside the vehicles’ owners, insurers and salvors. Following the separation of the two vessels, an operational decision has been taken to form two salvage co-ordination units, one for each vessel. I believe that competently answers the noble Earl’s first question.
The second question is being discussed in this place most days of this week, next week and the week after, and I will defer to the Leader of the House on that one.
Lord Geddes (Con)
My Lords, I would not dream of adding my name to those my noble friend Lord Attlee just mentioned, but I did spend all my commercial life in the shipping industry, so I may have a slight knowledge in this subject. Can the Minister confirm that the inquiry will look into the question of negligence, be it on the part of the owners—he referred to the state of the vessel—or the captain, because either could have been negligent in this context?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I have every confidence that the inquiry will look at all the relevant aspects of this really significant incident and will include all the parties, including the two that the noble Lord describes.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, further to the question from the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, will the Minister confirm that he can take advice from every source and all the experts? They do not have to be Members of this House to give advice.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for that question. The answer is that a significant number of experienced bodies and people are involved in making sure that the consequences of this incident are fully investigated, and that the safety of the environment, the two ships and their remaining cargoes are looked after. I do not think there is any doubt that the nation is served well by a number of the bodies I have mentioned and that they are working professionally and extremely hard to resolve this incident with no damage to the environment and no—or, sadly, at least no further—loss of life.
Viscount Thurso (LD)
My Lords, my noble friend on the Front Bench mentioned the “Braer” incident, and I remember well the “Ascania” incident off the coast of Caithness. Both events led Alistair Carmichael and me to lobby for a tug to be based at Kirkwall. Can I follow up with the Minister on an answer he gave earlier? Like many who live on the coast, I follow the shipping, and I see it on the horizon or one of many radar apps. Is it not now time to look, in busy shipping lanes such as the channel, the North Sea and the Pentland Firth, at some form of equivalent to air traffic control, so that somebody has an eye out and some form of warning can be given based on that?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
It is very tempting, in an age when so much is instantly available on every sort of media, including social media, to draw some conclusions about not only how this incident occurred but what should be done to make sure that such a thing never happens again. It is really important for us all to be continent and to allow the Marine Accident Investigation Branch to do its investigation, draw all the necessary conclusions and follow through on the actions required from those.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, this was a never event: it really should not have happened if the AIS was working properly. I am conscious that the MAIB will be investigating this carefully, but from what the Minister has said I hope that the Nairobi convention has now been triggered and that a wreck removal notice will be applied so that the costs can be fully recovered. Going further back to the points made about the assessment in Grangemouth, it is concerning that the safety of seafarers was not rectified before MV “Solong” left that port. As a consequence, one crew member from that boat is now assumed dead. Will the Minister consider working with the Minister responsible for maritime to re-evaluate the criteria on which boats will be released when the safety of crew is at risk?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
As I have said, we should wait for the investigation to draw conclusions, because that is the proper and only way of dealing with this. On the defects of the motor vessel “Solong”, I did not say that the defects identified in the inspection made in July last year in Dublin were not rectified until the more recent inspection; I said they had all been rectified by the time of a more recent inspection. Again, we should not draw conclusions. The investigation will look widely at all the causes of this and the conditions of these vessels. Speculation on some of this is, frankly, very unhelpful. We need to leave all the professional and brave people to deal with this incident as it is occurring, and we need to leave the Marine Accident Investigation Branch the time and space to carry out the proper investigation so that we learn all the things that need to be done as a consequence of this incident.
Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)
My Lords, as the Minister has rightly said, we should not leap to any conclusions or make any speculative changes right now, but these two maritime ships surely would have contained black box recorders. Where are we on finding those recorders to mitigate these disasters in the future?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My understanding is that vessels such as these have such a thing, but currently neither has any crew on board, clearly, and the activities are primarily based on keeping the vessels floating and preventing the terrible consequences of any part of what is on them or in them polluting the environment. Of course, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch will look for those as a matter of urgency, will hopefully find them intact and will therefore be able to have a really good understanding of what went on on each vessel in the hours and days leading up to the incident.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
Following on from the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, on the issue of emergency planning exercises, there has been a long gap since the last disaster in the North Sea, but we had the “Herald of Free Enterprise” disaster, which was catastrophic, and then the fire on board a DFDS ferry as well. The level at which these emergency exercises are taking place seems to be fairly patchy. Is there a role for the Emergency Planning College at Easingwold to co-ordinate these activities to ensure that they are happening across the country?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I do not have information in front of me about how long it has been since there was such an emergency planning exercise and how often they have taken place. I am sure that, in general, there must be a role for the college at Easingwold, which has a very high reputation both nationally and internationally. The Government will of course look at that, but I hope your Lordships’ House will take some considerable comfort from the fact that, actually, the deployment of all the people who needed to be deployed to deal with this was very immediate and appears, at least so far, to have been very successful.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, the Minister has confirmed that the “Stena Immaculate” was at anchor, and it seems clear that it was. We know that a lot of large ships are often at anchor off estuaries. Can the Minister at least confirm that the “Stena Immaculate” was anchored in a normal place, or was its place of anchor rather abnormal?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I am not sure that I can confirm that without leafing through the vast amount of information in front of me. I believe that what the noble Viscount says is true, but why do we not leave all the detail of this to the Marine Accident Investigation Branch, so it can properly assess all the factors that have gone into the incident occurring and what has happened since then? That would be absolutely the right thing to do, because the more speculation there is at this stage, the harder it is for it to distinguish the facts from the speculation.
Great British Railways
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Young, on securing this timely debate on an important subject. I offer him my wholehearted apologies for the omission of the letter that I sent everybody else; it was an administrative error but I it has, I believe, been rectified. I apologise to him for that.
The context of this debate is the live consultation document, A Railway Fit for Britain’s Future, which was published a few weeks ago and on which the Government welcome contributions. I hope all noble Lords here today will respond to the consultation document. It is not immediately apparent to me that everybody has ready every word of it, from what I have heard—perhaps that is reasonable—but it is important that noble Lords respond to it because it raises some of these subjects absolutely directly.
Having said that, I am not going to repeat large quantities of what is in the consultation document, for the obvious reason that it is in the public domain. People will respond to it; the Government will then consider their responses fully. It would be better if I spent my time looking at elements of the issues in front of us that noble Lords have raised.
I start with the noble Lord, Lord Young, who asked whether I share the RMT’s views. He deftly pointed out, however, that it appears to have two views that are contrary to each other at once. I can therefore say without compunction that I share some of its views but not all of them. It is entitled to its views because it represents the hard-working staff of the railways as their trade union, but they are not the determinants of future government policy.
The noble Lord expressed genuine concern about competition and asked whether I am open to listening to responses to the consultation. I am open to that; I have listened extraordinarily carefully to what noble Lords have said here today, and I believe that aspects of what they have said should influence the way we draft the legislation, following the responses to the consultation. It would be foolish and unnecessary for us to produce a consultation if we did not intend to listen to what people had to say about it.
The other thing I would say about the consultation is that it is over 30 years since a substantive railway Bill was in either House. It behoves us to do a good job this time because it may be a long time before there is another; you never know.
I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, had to say. His descriptions of some of the history were quite correct. I can correct him on only one material fact, which is that Network Rail slid into the public sector with a debt of £54 billion, rather than £34 billion; I remember remarking that it was higher than the national debt of New Zealand at the time I became the body’s chair. The noble Lord was right in describing that, in those days—at the time of the original privatisation of the railway and subsequently—there was some slack. It is true that quite a lot of additional services could be put into the timetable simply because there was plenty of room for them.
I always listen to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, extraordinarily carefully. He was a very senior railway manager when, sadly, I was still at school; he knows perfectly well how to run a busy, complex railway, and his memory is not diminished an inch by the effluxion of time since he did that. I do not think he is entirely correct to suggest that the ORR is concentrated on only one of its objectives—that would be doing it a disservice. But he is certainly entitled to a view about the extent to which it has balanced its objectives. He is indeed right about the east coast main line timetable. I had to answer a Question in the House only two days ago about the level of service at Alnmouth and Berwick. The last Government invested £4 billion to improve the capacity of the east coast main line. It has taken four years to get an agreement on that timetable, and that is because the number of people with rights on the east coast main line is so great that it required a huge meeting of railway operators. In the end, it also required the Secretary of State and I, as Ministers, to make a decision which on any normal railway would be taken by the railway administration. The noble Lord asked whether the ORR’s regulatory assumptions are sound and independently verified. They have been tested twice independently and found satisfactory at least.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, mentioned freight. The propositions about open access, whatever they are, do not apply to freight where the Government have already stated that they intend to have a target to increase freight. I believe we have also heard here that freight operators are apparently more comfortable with the regime proposed in the consultation paper.
I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, very carefully. I too want to see more trains on HS1 and through the Channel Tunnel, and the department is working as hard as it can to see that there are more trains and that any obstacles to further competition on the routes through the Channel Tunnel to Europe are removed. There are some things we can do, and we are proposing to do them.
The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, talked about what was in the King’s Speech and what, effectively, the Secretary of State wrote subsequently to the chair of the Office of Rail and Road. Opinions vary on this letter, but I think she and I are clear that what she said in the letter was not that there should be no open access. It did not say that we disagree with it; in fact, the consultation paper says that in the right circumstances, open access has a valuable part to play. But it would be negligent of her, and certainly negligent of me, not to reflect the fact that the railway post-Covid is costing the taxpayer an enormous amount of money. All of us in this Room, whatever political side we are on, cannot celebrate a railway that consumes twice as much public subsidy as before Covid. We need to do something about it. It is proper for the Secretary of State to reflect on the fact that one of the legitimate concerns of both the Secretary of State and, indeed, the ORR ought to be the whole cost of the railway to taxpayers. She talks about a balance: on the one hand, opening up new markets, driving innovation and offering choice to passengers, but also a balance that is mindful of the abstraction of revenue to taxpayers, as well as the charging mechanism. That letter sets out her views, which I do not think are anti-open access; it makes clear the role that the Government believe open access ought to have and the basis on which we are consulting.
The concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, were principally about freight, which I have already covered.
The noble Lord, Lord Gascoigne, said that the private sector was under threat. I say to him that, in fact, four-fifths of railway expenditure is in the private sector and, very largely, that will continue. The Government’s proposals to take passenger services into public ownership are not the same as taking the private sector out of the railway. Network Rail spends a huge amount of money with many private sector organisations to maintain and improve the railway and that will continue, as will freight operations and so forth.
The noble Lord also talked about the costs of GBR as a potentially large public body—I prefer that word to “quango”, having chaired two such public bodies. There is a considerable saving to the public purse from managing the railway better. The fact that every meeting on the railway needs 20 people in it to decide anything, because of the proliferation of different contracts, is a huge cost and a huge barrier to effective management of the railway.
As chair of Network Rail, I had a difficulty with the ORR, because we were told at one stage that there was a belief that the law suggested that there were only two dates on which you could change the national railway timetable a year. That is completely inflexible and militates against the public getting a good service from the railways, simply by baking some arthritic processes into what ought to be a dynamic situation to deliver better services to passengers and freight.
The noble Lord, Lord Mann, talked with considerable passion about Hull Trains, and I respect his passion about that because it is clear that Hull Trains has produced a huge benefit for the city of Hull over the years it has been working. His observations about Worksop are probably more difficult, both for him and for me, but one of the issues with some proposals that the department has seen, but which will currently at least be considered by the ORR, is that the department at least considers that they will abstract from other services. The danger, of course, is that you offer a better service to a small number of people and the result of it is a higher cost to taxpayers and/or a reduction in services to others. Those are balances that railway administrations have had on their minds since 1830 or so, and they are considerations that GBR will have to have.
One thing that is obvious to me is that, in the course of further setting out how the new railway will work, you need a really comprehensive access and use policy. The consultation document says that GBR will have to have such a policy, that it will have to behave in accordance with it and, at the end of it, if people believe that it has not behaved in accordance with it, that will be appealable. In certain circumstances, the ORR will continue to be able to direct GBR to do something different.
I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, that it is the passengers in the end—well, it is the passengers to start with—who ought to be the real consideration of the railway. One reason I am passionate about the case for reform is that passengers are not well served by the current circumstances. The railway costs too much to run, it is arthritic and it is slow—as I said, every decision needs huge numbers of people involved. When the east coast main line timetable is put in, it will justify the £4 billion of public investment put into the line because there will be a third train to Newcastle as a consequence. That is good for passengers. It will not affect Lumo, because Lumo will still run and its access rights will continue. Open access can of course add value.
I listened carefully to what the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, said. I must have read most of it before somewhere, in a number of documents principally put out by FirstGroup. The only thing I would say to him is that he is of course right about some of that. There is no doubt that Lumo, which did get open access provision, has made a real difference in the air competition to Edinburgh and it is to be absolutely commended for that. The number of routes on the railway where that is true is very limited, but it behoves us to want open access where it adds to the railway—and to be careful about it where it adds to the total taxpayer subsidy and would otherwise make the railway more congested and less reliable for passengers.
I close by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Young, again for his debate. I apologise once more that everybody else got a letter addressed to him before he did—I am really sorry about that. I thank him for raising the subject and allowing me to respond.
East Coast Main Line
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Beith
To ask His Majesty’s Government what consultation will take place with rail users on the latest version of the proposed East Coast Main Line timetable.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, the east coast main line timetable change is putting into effect the fruits of a £4 billion investment into the route since 2019. The timetable was consulted on in 2021, and feedback from that was incorporated. After a lengthy period, and following an industry task force review, the Secretary of State and I have agreed to the delivery of the timetable in December 2025.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, what in the consultation process was done about the fact that the most savage cut anywhere on the network applies to people from the Scottish Borders and Northumberland? They use Berwick-upon-Tweed station, where LNER’s hourly service will be reduced to a two-hourly service. Passengers will also probably find that, if they try to use any of the other operators, LNER tickets will not be accepted by them.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Constructing a railway timetable on one of the busiest routes in Britain is very difficult indeed. The benefits of the east coast main line modernisation are significantly faster journeys between London and Scotland, and an extra hourly London to Newcastle service. There are other improvements all the way up and down the line from King’s Cross to Edinburgh. In total—including CrossCountry and TransPennine services—the number of trains calling at Berwick and Alnmouth stations are the highest they have ever been. The noble Lord is right that there is some reduction in through trains from Berwick, but it is offset by an increase in CrossCountry, which has already taken place, and a further increase will take place on TransPennine in December 2025.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister give the House a commitment that the new timetable will remain as it is now, that the same number of direct trains from Northallerton and Darlington as at present will be maintained and that it will not follow the 2021 timetable? There are a number of businesses that rely on taking the trains from Northallerton and Darlington and having a direct service.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I understand—and I am sure that people who run the railway also understand —that there are some trade-offs to be made in the execution of the east coast main line upgrade. I know that there have been some improvements in the proposition of services in Northallerton as a result of local representations. I am very happy to write to the noble Baroness to explain what they are and what the pattern of service will be from December 2025.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, as a regular user of the east coast main line—and acknowledging the fact that it is already in national hands—and despite the comments of other noble Lords, I take this opportunity to congratulate David Horne, the chief executive of LNER, on providing, in general, a very good service on that line. Can the Minister confirm that, in the Great British Railways development, no extra impediments, regulations or obstacles will be placed in the way of a business such as LNER in developing that business on the east coast?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I welcome the noble Lord’s favourable views about the management of LNER and I agree entirely with him that the direction of that company under public ownership has been very good.
The instigation of Great British Railways, following the successful passage through this House and the other place, is definitely not intended to impede those people managing the railway on a route-operating and train-operating company basis. I say to the noble Lord that the whole point of Great British Railways is to give those people some real power in delivering better services for passengers than the fragmented railway does now. After all, it took four years to institute this timetable because it was so difficult to get agreement between all the parties, and this shows, more than ever before, that a guiding mind for the railway is absolutely what is needed to institute improvements for both passengers and freight.
Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)
My Lords, in the spirit of railway consultation, I met with the noble Lords, Lord Snape and Lord Bradley, and we are inviting the managing director of Avanti trains, Andy Mellors, for lunch. So my question is, would the Minister like to join us?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Colloquially, “you’re on your own with that one”. I meet the managing director of Avanti trains more often than I should have to, and the fact remains that Avanti’s performance, in stark contrast to that of LNER, still needs improvement. Actually, the service on the west coast ought to emulate the service on the east coast.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, as a regular passenger, along with the noble Lord, Lord Beith, on the 9.30 from Edinburgh on the publicly owned LNER, I can say that it is a regularly efficient service. Unfortunately, yesterday, I had to travel on the west coast, on Avanti, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Curran, who will confirm that the 9.36 train was cancelled without any explanation. So when are we going to bring Avanti into public ownership so we can have a decent service on the west coast as well?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I am afraid that I do not have the time or facilities to give each Member of this House the train information that they need on their daily journeys, although I will do my best if they ask me. Of course, there is a serious point to this. The House will have heard before that, actually, Avanti has not breached the contract that it was awarded when the original contract was extended. That is why I meet Mr Mellors and his management team on a regular basis, because I am exhorting them to perform the contract that the Government contracted them to do. The noble Lord is right that sometimes the service is not very good.
Lord Inglewood (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that, as well as the detail of the timetable, its accuracy is at least as important?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I certainly would agree. It is a real skill on today’s railway to fit so many trains in, with so many different station calls. There is a serious point to the original question that the noble Lord asked, which is that there are some compromises to be made. The strange position that I find myself in after four years of saying, “Where is this timetable?” and “How are we going to put it in?” is that it had to come to the Minister for agreement to do it. I think there are probably only two other countries in the world where Ministers decide the times of trains: North Korea and Russia.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, open-access operators on the east coast main line have delivered significant benefits to passengers through increased competition, lower fares and additional journey options. So why have His Majesty’s Government rejected eight out of the last nine applications for new open-access services?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I have two points to make to the noble Earl. First, the improvements in journey time between London and Scotland—particularly between King’s Cross and Edinburgh—apply equally to LNER and to LUMO, which is the open-access operator. Of course, the Government have not rejected eight out of nine applications. They have analysed the effect of those applications both on the reliability of the railway and on the revenue of the railway, and hence the effect on taxpayers’ subsidy. Their recommendation to the ORR, which currently decides open-access applications, is that those should be refused; but it is the ORR’s independent decision and we await its decision on all those nine applications and others.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, since the train drivers were given a very substantial pay increase, what has happened to train drivers’ productivity and train punctuality?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The increase in pay given to both train drivers and other railway staff last summer was not very different from the offer made by the previous Government, which was not sufficient to settle the dispute. The additional 2% that was paid last July stopped the dispute, which had cost the nation nearly £1 billion-worth of lost revenue on the railways. The result is that passenger numbers are steadily growing. The productivity of train drivers is, of course, a function of the timetable. The more services you run, the more likely it is that they will be more productive. That is a matter for their current employers, whether they are publicly owned or not.
It is interesting that, even if it had been decided by the Government last summer that they wanted to see productivity improvements for train drivers, in fact there were no extant proposals to allow that to happen, because many of the employers had withheld them pending the resolution of a dispute not about what the benefits of their productivity were but about who made the money out of the productivity, whether it was them or the Government.
Stockton and Darlington Railway: 200th Anniversary
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare a lifelong interest in railways.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world’s first railway to use steam locomotives to transport passengers, shaped modern railways. To mark its 200th anniversary, Railway 200—a national celebration—is supporting the Stockton and Darlington bicentenary festival. That festival will highlight its impact on the local and regional industry, communities and innovation. My department is supportive of these events and of ensuring that the Stockton and Darlington Railway is rightly honoured for transforming transport and Britain’s and the world’s economy.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. There are clearly many activities to which we can look forward. May I ask three quick questions? First, can he say a little bit more about the so-called Greatest Gathering, which I understand is going to take place in August in Derby, and which will bring together an unprecedentedly wide range of trains illustrating 200 years? Secondly, what hopes do the Government have that this anniversary will help the heritage railway industry, on which so much of our historical culture and tourism depends? Finally, will it look ahead to the future of railways, particularly the exciting new direct journeys from London to places in Europe and beyond?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank my noble friend. The celebration in Derby is from 1 to 3 August. It will be a huge gathering of historic and current railway equipment. It is entirely put on by Alstom, which occupies Britain’s oldest train manufacturing plant, and it will be a great occasion. The heritage railways movement is worth £600 million a year to the economy and has 4,000 employees and 22,000 volunteers. It has had a hard time since Covid, and one of the purposes of Railway 200 is to give it a bit of a hand in survival and growth. In respect of the present and the future, the real reason why this Government should support this celebration so much is that the railway is extraordinarily relevant to the modern economy: connectivity drives growth, jobs and housing, and, on the future, the technological change that the railways are presently going through is an eminently marketable resource. He is also right, of course, that European connectivity is important. My department is working as hard as it can to increase the number of European destinations accessible through Eurotunnel.
Lord Houchen of High Leven (Con)
My Lords, I hope noble Lords can already sense my excitement at this Question, so I appreciate the time. It is an extremely important celebration—I declare an interest as the regional mayor for the Darlington and Stockton area—which will go down as a point in history for a key piece of infrastructure that hopefully will shape not just our past but our future. Along those lines, I ask the Minister: what is the department’s and the Government’s position on the CRSTS2 budget, which is still under review ahead of the spending review, and what representations is he making to the Treasury to make sure we protect that capital investment, to make sure that we can invest it not just in general transport but specifically within our rail infrastructure, to make sure we have a rail infrastructure fit for the 21st century?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Well, it is not much of a leap to funding in the spending review, so the noble Lord has answered his own question—the CRSTS2 budget is in process, there will be a spending review, and my department is extraordinarily active in making sure that the position of transport is well represented to the Chancellor in the Budget. But he will have to wait, as everybody else will, for the outcome of the spending review in due course.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, is it not worth reflecting that, 200 years ago, British engineering designed and built the first steam locomotives, built a phenomenal network of railways across our country, most of which is still intact and used today, exported all over the world and built railways in pretty well every continent? Fast forward to today and we have a situation where, while large numbers of countries across the world are building new railways and new high-speed lines, the last Tory Government took the absurd and costly decision to cancel HS2 north of Birmingham. Would not it be a wonderful way of celebrating 200 years of railway history if the Minister could come to this Dispatch Box and say, “We are going to clear up the Tory mess and build HS2”?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that. The first priority of this Government is to get the present phase 1 of HS2 back under control. This Government inherited a situation where they could predict neither the cost nor the timescale of completion of the line between London and Birmingham. The Chancellor has taken the brave but right decision of restarting the tunnels to Euston, without which the railway would have no proper end, and our job is to make that work. Our job is also to put forward a plan for railway infrastructure for the rest of the country, particularly the Midlands and the north, and a lot of effort is going on in my department to do that logically, properly and in a properly costed and prioritised way.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, given this Question is about commemorating the railway, can the Minister confirm what plans the Government have to mark the first rail franchise coming into public ownership this May? Could it be commemorated with the provision of a basic catering service for passengers on the Waterloo to Exeter line, and perhaps even some seat reservations?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The first publicly run South Western Railway train will be at an extraordinarily early hour on 20 May. I fear I will have the doubtful privilege of traveling on it. I doubt it will have catering, because I suspect it is a suburban service from Strawberry Hill to Waterloo. The more serious answer about the Waterloo to Exeter line is that it could be more reliable, and a lot of effort is being put into making it more reliable. South Western, like most other current franchises, has a shortage of drivers, and I am working extremely hard with the department to make sure that it works better for the passengers both prior to and post the operation coming back into public ownership. We will look at catering, but the first priority is to make the train service reliable.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, in joining the good people of Stockton in celebrating the 200th anniversary, will the Minister recall that the first steam engine ran a decade earlier in Merthyr Tydfil, designed by the outstanding Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick? That was a reflection of the industrial greatness of those valleys at that time. Looking at HS2, which was mentioned a moment ago, will the Government now ensure that the Barnett consequentials come through to the Welsh Government in order for them to build a future for the railways in Wales that Wales most certainly deserves?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
There is a Celtic competition between the Penydarren tramway of, I think, 1814 and its originator, Trevithick, who came from Camborne. Personally, I side on the Cornish side of that argument. The more serious point the noble Lord raised is of course a matter of national finance and one for my Treasury colleagues and the Chancellor.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister recall that the steam engine was invented by a Scot, James Watt? I declare my interest as chairman of the Steam Boat Association and raise the serious point that we are very dependent on heritage railway in our country for tourism. The decision to close the last remaining coal mines means that coal has to be imported at great expense for that purpose. What are the Government going to do about it? Is this not an example of net-zero ideology harming our economy?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I am certainly willing to give credit to another Celtic nation for the invention of the steam engine. The matter of coal is, of course, a much wider question than coal for heritage railways. I would ask the noble Lord to look at an aerial photograph of the last Welsh opencast coal mine and the hideous blot on the landscape that it represents, and also at the huge damage that coal and the coal-fired equipment has done to the environment and the atmosphere. It is a factor in the continued provision of heritage railways and, as he says, steamboats, that there should be some coal. There is some coal, and I can write to him, if he wants, about the means by which coal substitutes can be procured rather than reopening coal mines.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, returning to the Question, Parliament, particularly your Lordships’ House, played a crucial role in the creation of the railways. Over a period of 200 years, noble Lords have toiled at the coalface of the hybrid Bills and other legislation without which the railways would not exist at all today. Can the Minister say that Parliament will feature prominently in the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the railways? Might there even be an opportunity for noble Lords to fulfil some childhood dreams and drive a steam train?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I can certainly ensure that the noble Lord is able to drive a steam train, but it will not be on a railway line near Parliament. Parliament will have a unique opportunity this year to contribute to the future of Britain’s railways by considering and then passing the forthcoming railways Bill, which will put the railway back into a state where it can generate revenue, run better and reduce its costs. I think that will be an excellent contribution of Parliament to the future of the railway.