Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clark of Windermere (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. I take her point about forest waste. Equally, I am very grateful to the Government for the way in which they brought forward these proposals. On the face of it, they take us further forward and appear to give us greater protection.

I am delighted that the Government managed to find a weakness in the 2008 Act but it is very important that the assurance that I think the Minister gave today was that it included all land managed by forest commissioners. That is very important because, in recent years, we have had joint initiatives and joint ventures with the private sector that are not forestry—the provision of forest cabins, car parks, and so on. I remind the Minister that the Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Act 1985 required statutorily the Forestry Commission to manage economic forestry with environmental interests.

My noble friend referred to forest waste, which is vital. The Lake District, for example, includes a great many of the highest mountains in England, and is owned by the Forestry Commission but trees will not grow there and are not planted there. We must have an assurance that those areas of land are covered by the protection that the Minister seems to have brought forward today.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, I do not begin to claim the same amount of expertise as the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, who of course is a former chairman of the Forestry Commission. We listen to him with huge respect on these matters.

I was puzzled by the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, and was not quite sure about its precise aim until she explained. I was under the impression that when my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon undertook to bring back amendments at this stage, he greatly satisfied the House. A very strong case had been made by the noble Baroness and by other noble Lords that there was a real need to declare in the Bill the protection of the public forestry estate. I supported that and I was very glad to hear my noble friend Lord Ahmad at the end of the debate recognise the strength of feeling in the House and undertake to come back at this stage with the amendments.

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[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, while agreeing with everything that my noble friend Lord Teverson said, I would like to make particular mention of my noble friend Lady Verma’s readiness to listen to the arguments on Part 4 concerning the community electricity right. The concession that the Government made on the timing of the power to introduce regulations has been widely welcomed by the renewables industry. It was very wise, and I was extremely grateful when my noble friend signalled that there would be an amendment on Report; I said so at the time.

I, too, thank both Ministers for their part in the Bill and, in his absence, my noble friend Lord Ahmad, who played quite a notable part in the whole question of planning and other responsibilities that fell to his department. I also echo what was said earlier by my noble friend Lady Kramer about the Bill team. They have been extraordinarily helpful. I do not mind at all if, when one raises a point at a private meeting, one receives a very good explanation from one of my noble friends’ staff. Although it is always nice to get letters from one’s noble friends who are Ministers, to have such an authoritative statement from an official is equally helpful, and I thank them very much for that.

This has been a remarkable example of the House of Lords at its best in its role of scrutinising and revising legislation. There are still one or two issues which are not fully resolved, but it is with some relief that we will send the Bill to another place where, perhaps, they can be aired again.

As many noble Lords will have learnt, it is my intention to retire from the House shortly, and I am making it clear to anyone who cares that this will be the last Bill on which I will take an active part. I have enormously valued the opportunity to do that, and I look forward to what is now being called the valedictory speech—which is not today, it will come later—that retiring Peers will be entitled to make under the provisions of the report of the Procedure Committee. I have enjoyed it; I think we really have made a difference; and I think that that is what this House is for.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, as the House is in congratulatory mood, I briefly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. I first met his formidable intellect, advantages and knowledge on energy Bills a decade or so ago, when we went through a very long energy Bill. From what I can recall, he was present for virtually every minute of a Bill that went through 13 days or so in Committee, to say nothing of the extensive consideration elsewhere. Others will have the chance to congratulate him later, but with regard to this Bill, he has displayed his usual insight and talent to improve the legislation. I also, of course, second his point about congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, and the Bill team—although I may say that they have only started the long road. I predict challenges yet to come on all parts of the Bill but in the area of fracking, I think that they will have quite an interesting time in the other place.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Worthington (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by apologising to noble Lords for the late tabling of this amendment. It was down to a misunderstanding as to when this group of amendments would be taken.

We now turn to Part 4 of the Bill, concerning energy, and to the community electricity right specifically. Although we discussed this in Committee, the purpose of tabling the amendment is to press the Government again on it. We were not satisfied with the response in Committee and we feel that this needs a considerable rethink in terms of how it is presented in the Bill. I also look forward to debating the amendments that we will come to later today.

The clause heading is “The community electricity right” but it quickly becomes clear from subsection (1) of the clause that this is about not electricity but a subset of electricity that is defined as renewable. That is the point we want to probe. We live in a world where energy markets and the energy system are changing and we are seeing a higher degree of decentralisation of energy, not just in renewable energy but also potentially in gas, both in terms of generation and the extraction of local sources of fossil fuels. Our main concern is that we should not single out a particular group of technologies for what is, in effect, an inflexible proposal from the Government when a much more holistic approach to the issue of community involvement in these projects is needed. There have been examples of local communities being unhappy with proposals for their localities, but there have been many more examples of communities embracing proposals and finding great benefit from the jobs and income that flow to those communities from development in their area.

Although we are fully supportive of the idea of community involvement, we are not necessarily persuaded that a single approach should be applied when considering how to engage communities or help them to benefit from development. The Government’s proposals are restrictive in that sense. Our main concern is that we do not make presumptions about what is going to work in every part of the country. In some parts of the country, rights to buy and ownership stakes will be the interesting issues; in other parts, there may be a simpler formula that enables people to have lower bills for electricity in their local area. We all know that a voluntary approach is being explored to try to identify the best way forward. We will come on to debate the need to allow for a good process and for enough time to come to conclusions before rushing into regulation.

This amendment is not about that but it tries to explore why it is necessary to qualify electricity generation with the word “renewable”. It is defined in law but covers a subset of all types of electricity generation that might attract community involvement and interest. We have seen under the capacity mechanism new development coming forward involving capacity market payments, such as in the small-scale, sub-20 megawatt gas generators that are bidding for 15-year contracts. They may well be located close to communities, which may feel that they would like to have a stake in those projects.

There is an issue here. We fully support more community involvement and better community integration in order to produce much more positive engagement with decentralised electricity production. However, I do not see why the Government have come forward at this time with a narrow proposal applying to a subset of technologies. What is the rationale for this provision relating only to renewables and not to a broader range of technologies that communities might be interested in being involved in or having a stake in? I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, I very much share the concern of the noble Baroness. I have an example that I raised at a meeting with the Minister. I am grateful for the trouble she has taken to allow us to engage with her and her officials. I made the point, as the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, has done, that there are many other worthy forms of community involvement in energy.

The example that I gave at the time was the Plymouth Ovo Energy project—the Plymouth Energy Community, which even contains the word “community”. I was struck by the reply I received from one of the Minister’s officials. Both my noble friend and the official realised that perhaps I deserved a rather fuller reply. I am pleased to say that I received one in a letter from the official, written on the same day. Perhaps I may quote from it because it begins to give an explanation regarding the question that the noble Baroness has just asked. The letter states that there are,

“strong examples of ways in which the community energy sector is innovating, growing and maturing. However, I would say that they focus on different areas of community energy. The Community Electricity Right concentrates on new renewable electricity generation schemes and involves communities as investors”.

Never let us forget that we are talking about the statutory scheme, not the current voluntary arrangements. It is the statutory scheme that is in the Bill. The letter continues:

“On the other hand, Plymouth Energy Community mainly focuses on the supply of electricity from existing schemes and principally involves communities as energy consumers”.

My immediate reaction is: why is this so narrow? The letter goes on to explain:

“Energy supply and generation are dealt with quite differently within the regulatory and policy framework. As such, it would not be appropriate to include the Plymouth Energy Community directly within the scope of the Community Electricity Right”’

The letter then makes what is really the most important point:

“I would just like to add that DECC is taking separate measures to promote local supply. For example, we have formed a dedicated Local Supply Working Group formed of DECC officials, Ofgem, Academics, Local Authorities and community energy groups to explore the regulatory barriers limiting local supply. They will be reporting to the Secretary of State in March next year”.

As I said a moment ago, that goes some way to meet the concern that I expressed. However, I then have to go on and ask my noble friend the Minister this question. What other forms of community involvement are being considered? Here I refer to the task force’s report, which we had only on Monday. On another occasion I expressed my displeasure that it had all come so late, two days before we have to debate the whole subject. That report has a lot to say about various forms of community sharing. They are described in annex A of the report, although at this hour of the night I would not dream of reading it all out.

We must remember that we are at this stage, and the task force is concerned solely with the voluntary system. It had nothing to say—I suspect because it felt that it was outside its terms of reference—about the statutory power for which power is being taken in this Bill. The main point on this amendment is: what other forms are being considered? Yes, the letter is referring to the supply side. The noble Baroness asked about cheaper electricity. When winding up the debate in Committee, I referred to the McAlpine schemes and their proposals to offer cheaper electricity to communities within the reach of the particular scheme that was being developed. It is a very familiar concept in many other areas of the world—notably, nuclear power stations in France. They gained popular consent by being generous with the prices that they charged.

That leads me to my final point. There is no doubt that large parts of the renewable energy industry are dead against any form of statutory straitjacket being imposed on them. They would much rather continue with and demonstrate the success of the voluntary scheme with which they are engaging. I had a very strong statement from the Solar Trade Association. It says that the task force report is an interesting starting point but that,

“it must be given time to be put into practice”.

I think later on we shall say that we have won that argument—we have got more time. Secondly, it says that,

“Government and the community energy sector need to be flexible and proactive in supporting this and in establishing an evidence base”.

Thirdly, it says that,

“no evidence has been provided by the Government that the extensive yet unspecified powers within the proposed Bill are needed or will lead to increased investment”.

Similar points have been made by other parties that have been advising me.

Echoing the noble Baroness, one has to say: what other forms of community involvement are being considered? Will the Government recognise that what they have said is intended to be a backstop provision only if the voluntary system is seen not to be working? Is that still very much their approach on all this? There is no doubt that the provisions of the Bill have worried the industry.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Baroness Verma) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for tabling the amendment and my noble friend for his contribution.

The amendment seeks to extend the scope of the community electricity right provisions to include all electricity generation. I listened very carefully to what the noble Baroness said about also looking at different models. I hope I will be able to lay out clearly that what we are trying to do, in the first instance, is to take the positive step of focusing on community-shared ownership of renewables but our drive really is to increase that shared ownership as a positive step in enabling people to take some stakeholding in their local communities and to drive forward a voluntary approach, as has been worked through the Shared Ownership Taskforce.

We have made it very clear that we are not excluding other forms of energy; we are just saying that within the renewables sector we are concentrating on wind and solar, which are two mature sources and therefore it is easy to demonstrate their benefit to local communities. We are absolutely clear that this legislation should apply only to renewable electricity technologies. There are two key reasons for this.

The noble Baroness said that some communities embrace renewables and others do not. We want to bridge that disconnect between national and local benefits for renewable electricity schemes. What we have seen often is that nationally there is great support for the renewables sector but that is not always reflected when it becomes a local issue, where the impacts are felt directly by communities.

What we want to do through this legislation is to seek to redress the imbalance by ensuring that communities have the opportunity to get much more involved and can develop a real sense of ownership of local schemes being developed on their doorstep. This is about promoting decentralised energy generation that is happening in people’s homes and in local communities right across the country.

Renewable electricity generation, particularly from technologies such as wind and solar power, is now well established. This typically translates into lower risk profiles for community investors, which is an important safeguard. It is important to remember that shared ownership is still very much a developing concept in this country. The Shared Ownership Taskforce published its final framework on Monday, and I very much take on board the point my noble friend made that it came a little later than expected. The members of the taskforce have worked long and hard to develop a framework which both developers and local communities can work with. This has been a challenging task, even for the most established renewable technologies where there are successful case studies working on the ground.

To say simply that we need to extend the concept of shared ownership to all forms of electricity generation, without proper consideration of the inherent issues that each faces, therefore makes little sense to me when the voluntary approach on shared ownership to date has been solely developed for, and has focused on, those particular renewable sectors. It is right that, if these powers were ever exercised, we would expect them to focus specifically on established and mature renewable electricity generation technologies, such as solar and onshore wind.

I would like to reassure the noble Baroness again that this is the first step in increasing community shared ownership of renewables. If it is successful, there is nothing to stop us considering extending it to other technologies, because we want lessons to be learnt and to do the proper consultation that everybody would expect to take place when we extend this.

In responding to a couple of questions that were raised by my noble friend, we are encouraging local electricity discount schemes and recognise that they are a valuable initiative which we wholeheartedly support. However, we must remember and recognise that offering reduced-price electricity is giving a gift to the community, not providing the community with the chance to invest in schemes such as community electricity. There is a slight difference there, which we need to be able to recognise.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

A moment ago my noble friend said that there was absolutely nothing to prevent the scheme being extended to other forms of community involvement. However, the word “renewable” is in the first paragraph of the first clause of the part of the Bill which deals with energy. Will extending it to other forms require further primary legislation?

[Baroness Verma]

It would require proper consultation. We would have to go through the proper consultation processes to ensure that, having seen what has worked or not worked with these initial schemes, when going forward on including other schemes we are able to respond to the needs of those technologies. That is what local communities will ultimately have to face. It is not about primary legislation; it is about looking at how we would be able to add those new schemes through consultation. We have said very clearly that we are not stopping or excluding other provisions of electricity supply. We would have this opened up but we are starting with the focus on the renewable sector. I hope that I have been able to make that a little clearer to the noble Baroness. If I have not done so, I will repeat what I have already stated: these provisions would apply only to renewable electricity schemes. To clarify my noble friend’s point, we would have to readdress it in primary legislation.

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Moved by

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

109: Clause 27, page 28, line 9, at end insert—
“( ) Before making regulations under—
(a) subsection (1)(a), the Secretary of State, or another person with the consent of the Secretary of State, must conduct a progress review of voluntary shared ownership and stakes offered to communities, and the Secretary of State or that person must set out the results and conclusions of the review in a report to Parliament.(b) subsection (1)(b), the Secretary of State, or another person with the consent of the Secretary of State, must appoint a panel of experts to review and advise on community stakes and engagement in offshore renewables, and the Secretary of State or that other person must set out the results and conclusions of the review in a report to Parliament.”

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, that was a very interesting and revealing debate, because we have not always kept clear in our minds the distinction between the innovating and expanding voluntary sector and what would inevitably have to be, on the basis of the Bill, a very rigid, defined and inflexible sector. One has to make it quite clear that we are dealing here with two different approaches to this whole problem. We have all agreed that community involvement is a very good thing; it is simply a question of how.

In the first of these three groups of amendments we have dealt with what is included, and we have had a very interesting answer on that. The second group, which we come to now, poses the question: how? How will the regulations be introduced? The third group, which we shall come to later and to which I think there will be a happier answer, concerns the “when?”.

The previous amendment considered the “what?”. In this group, we debate the whole question of the process and say straightaway that the Bill appears to have nothing whatever to say about any form of review of the developing experience of the voluntary approach. Happily, the task force’s report offers some valuable advice and comment on that. Indeed, in its chapter 5, it talks about implementation and monitoring, and devotes nearly a whole page to the review process. It makes it perfectly clear that in any development of this policy there must be proper reviews at regular intervals, and it suggests in the first place six months from the original report and thereafter annual reviews.

However, one question which is not answered to my satisfaction in the task force’s report is who should do the reviewing. It assumes that it will be itself; that it will be continued either in its current form or as a monitoring group which it would set up. I have had some very firm representations that, if there is to be a different group, it should be the department itself. The argument is put that the task force seems to be wholly committed to one form of participation; namely, shared ownership. I think that we have already established that there can be other forms of community participation which have the same value of promoting community support for a development and giving a community a feeling of involvement in what is going on in its area.

My first amendment in this group, Amendment 109, suggests that the reviews should be carried out either by,

“the Secretary of State, or another person with the consent of the Secretary of State”.

I must ask that, when Ministers publish their formal response to the task force’s report, they make two things absolutely clear. They should make clear, first, that there will be regular reviews of how the voluntary approach to community involvement is evolving and, secondly, who will conduct these reviews.

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[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for tabling these amendments. The first part of Amendment 109 seeks to include a requirement on government to conduct a progress review of the voluntary approach and report the findings to Parliament before regulations may be made in respect of onshore facilities. The second part seeks to require government to appoint a panel of experts to review, advise and report on community stakes in relation to offshore renewables before regulations may be made in respect of offshore facilities.

To start with the first element of the amendment, as I mentioned in an earlier discussion, the Shared Ownership Taskforce published its final framework on Monday. I appreciate that there has not been much time to consider it, so I will set out today the relevant commitments that the taskforce has made in relation to reviewing and reporting progress. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate that there is already a clear process in place for reviewing and reporting. As such, there is no need to include these additional requirements in the Bill, as my noble friend proposes.

The taskforce intends to set up a monitoring group to ensure that progress is evaluated and reported. It proposes six-month and 12-month reviews and will report its findings to my department. As set out in the Community Energy Strategy, the Government will conduct a review of progress next year. The findings from the taskforce’s progress reviews will be critical to this. The Government wholeheartedly support the work of the taskforce. We will be formally responding to its report early in the new year. In it, we intend to endorse its monitoring and reporting process and confirm that this process will feed into the Government’s review next year. Both the Shared Ownership Taskforce and the Government will be monitoring and evaluating the success of the voluntary approach prior to backstop powers coming into force in line with the Government’s Amendment 129, which we will debate a little later.

Turning to the second part of the amendment on offshore renewables, our focus now is on increasing community shared ownership for established onshore technologies such as onshore wind and solar. These are the technologies covered by the Shared Ownership Taskforce’s voluntary framework. Having said that, the community electricity right powers provide future flexibility to include offshore technologies, but we have been very clear from the start that this would be on a longer timescale. This is not to say that we would not encourage offshore developers to offer a stake to communities where they choose.

The suggestion that my noble friend Lord Jenkin makes in Amendment 109 is sensible. If the Government were ever to consider exercising these powers for offshore renewables, I agree it would make sense to set up a panel of independent experts to provide advice on offshore renewables in advance. This would be a similar approach to the one we have taken for onshore renewables with the Shared Ownership Taskforce, which is comprised of experts from the renewables industry and the community energy sector. However, at this stage our focus is firmly on onshore renewables. It is not our intention to establish a voluntary process for offshore renewables right now. As such it would be premature to commit to this and to restrict ourselves at this point to the wording that my noble friend has proposed. We should therefore wait and consider the option of a panel of offshore experts when we have a clearer position on whether this is needed, and if so, what any panel might look like and report on.

Amendment 110 seeks to introduce an obligation on the Government to consult a range of interested parties in advance of exercising the community electricity right provisions and developing any secondary legislation. I completely agree that consultation is essential to ensure that the Government hear the views of all relevant stakeholders and take them into account before deciding the best course of action. These views will also be critical to the formation of secondary legislation that is fit for purpose and can be implemented successfully. However, I do not believe the amendment is necessary. In Grand Committee I made it clear that the Government intend to conduct a formal consultation before exercising the powers. That position has not changed. The consultation would be open to everyone, including the parties listed by my noble friend in Amendment 110, such as community groups, developers, the Scottish and Welsh Governments and Ofgem. My noble friend’s amendment includes some of the very organisations and bodies that we would expect and encourage to contribute to a public consultation given their clear interest, knowledge and understanding of this area.

I will provide a single response to Amendments 111 and 112 as they are inextricably related. I recognise that this is an extremely important aspect of the provisions, particularly in terms of providing future certainty to the renewables industry. The community electricity right provisions would apply to new renewable electricity projects coming forward in the development process. I confirm that the provisions would therefore not apply retrospectively nor to projects that have already received planning consent. The Government have always been clear that this is our policy intent. For example, the Explanatory Notes to Clause 28(5) explain that this provision ensures that the regulations would not apply retroactively and would apply only to facilities that have not, at that date, reached a specified point of development.

While I am keen to provide these reassurances in the House, it would not be right for me to commit to include in primary legislation a qualification that the regulations may not apply to projects that have applied for, but not yet received, planning consent. That may be an appropriate approach to take, but as I am sure my noble friend will understand, the Government would wish to consult on this matter before making a final decision. In doing so we would look closely at the experiences of successful shared ownership schemes including lessons learnt from the voluntary approach. In conclusion, I hope that I have provided noble Lords with enough reassurance about the Government’s position on these matters and, on this basis, I hope my noble friend Lord Jenkin will withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I was grateful for the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington; I hope that she will share my view that we have got almost all that we want. The amendment has not been agreed, but my noble friend on the Front Bench has gone as far as one could possibly expect to say, “Without actually accepting your amendments, we are going to do pretty well everything in them”. It will be for the other place to decide whether that is sufficient or whether it would like to see these included in the Bill. As I explained at the end of my speech, that was the purpose of moving the amendments on Report. Having said that, I thank the Minister for what she said and take much pleasure in begging leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 109 withdrawn.

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Moved by

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

113: Clause 27, page 29, line 40, at end insert—
“( ) Sections 27 and 28 and Schedule 5 come into force at the end of the period of two years beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, we can deal with this much more briefly. My amendments in this group address when regulations might be introduced. From Second Reading onwards, I was asking for two years. The government amendment has now suggested what is, in effect, 18 months. I have already given a message to the Minister through her department that I am extremely pleased with that. I feel that the argument has been worth while. We now have time to make sure that the reviews really can be reviews of the way in which the voluntary system is working, without the immediate threat of legislation.

The Government have made it clear that this is a backstop power. Sometimes I get the impression from the way in which Ministers speak that they regard the introduction of regulations as inevitable. I certainly do not. The industry certainly hopes not. It hopes that it can satisfy the Government that progress is being properly made, that it can be extended much more flexibly through the voluntary system and that regulations may in fact be unnecessary. Therefore, when Ministers refer to introducing regulations, they should always say “if necessary”, not “automatically”.

I thank my noble friend again, who has brought a substantial concession in answer to the question of when. I beg to move.

[Baroness Worthington]

My Lords, briefly, I again support the noble Lord’s amendment and welcome the government amendment which will indeed delay the “when” aspect of this question. There remain considerable questions about why these provisions have been brought forward, given that the voluntary approach is moving forward. I still think that we are unfairly singling out two technologies relative to other forms of electricity generation. However, I am happy that we now have more time to think. I absolutely echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that this should be seen as a backstop power, which we hope should not need to be enforced.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend and the noble Baroness for their contributions. We listened carefully to my noble friend in Committee and I have very much taken on board all the views that were expressed on that matter, including those of my noble friend, industry stakeholders and the Shared Ownership Taskforce. I am pleased, in response, to bring forward government Amendment 129 which revises the date of commencement of these provisions to 1 June 2016. That ensures absolute clarity on the minimum amount of time the Government intend to allow for the voluntary approach to take effect. It means that the Government could not exercise these powers before 1 June 2016 at the very earliest. This date allows just over 18 months from the date on which the Shared Ownership Taskforce published its voluntary framework, earlier this week, to when the powers may be exercised. I hope that by bringing forward this amendment I shall allow my noble friend to go home feeling satisfied with his input, which—as much as is possible—is always my intention.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I am grateful for my noble friend’s graciousness. She has gone a long way to meet us but, as has been indicated in the original amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, I think there is a lot more exploration that will need to be done in the other place. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw.

Amendment 113 withdrawn.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the building of new towns and major urban extensions is a critical national issue in the face of Britain’s acute housing shortage. The designation of Ebbsfleet as a new town and the recent Wolfson Prize competition for a new town scheme demonstrates the enthusiasm and capacity that there is for developing the concept in modern conditions. All three of the major parties in the House are committed to new town or garden city developments, and I take these to mean the same thing, given the importance of green and sustainable development as part of any new town or urban extension.

This amendment intends to capture the spirit of the post-war rebuilding of the country that was spurred on by the original New Towns Act 1946, creating places that today are part of the fabric of our country, such as Milton Keynes, Stevenage and Welwyn Garden City. However, although previous new town legislation provided powers to deliver new towns, the towns that were built did not always conform to the highest design and quality standards. The objectives set out in this amendment update the existing legislation in the New Towns Act 1981—which has barely been used—to ensure protection for the natural and historic environments, to require high-quality and inclusive design and to contribute towards a low-carbon future. The aim is that no part of a new town will be eligible for the Carbuncle Cup, an annual award from Building Design magazine for the ugliest building in the United Kingdom completed in the last 12 months.

Developing places in which people love to live is a topic gathering increasing attention as we look to substantial new settlements. The winner of this year’s Wolfson Prize, David Rudlin, proposes a six-point “social contract” for the development of garden cities. The participative decision-making proposed in this amendment is reflected in Mr Rudlin’s winning entry, which proposes that existing towns and cities should be able to bid for new garden city status to build substantial high-quality and sustainable urban extensions. This includes not only high quality standards, but the requirements that new garden cities include major institutions of learning; that they be well connected by public transport and cycleways; and that for every acre of land developed, another will be given back to the city as accessible public space, including forests, lakes and country parks.

When my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton raised in Committee this issue of promoting sustainable and liveable communities in new towns, the government response was odd. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said it was “absolutely essential” that good-quality design and the other key elements of the amendment—open decision-making, cultural and artistic development, and enhancement of the natural and historic environment—be built into new town development, but the Government were worried that to say so explicitly in statute would be “unhelpful”. But how can it be unhelpful to specify things that are so essential but are not in fact contained in the New Towns Act 1981? If they are not specified, that could lead to what David Rudlin calls “mere dormitory suburbs”.

When the Government say it is unhelpful to specify essential features of new towns, I believe they are confusing being concise with being brief. Being concise shows an excellent grasp of the issue, while being brief can demonstrate a lack of understanding of an issue. This amendment clearly and concisely prescribes the factors that development corporations should consider to achieve sustainable development, from environmental considerations to economic ones. The amendment is therefore helpful, not unhelpful. If the Government are to object on the grounds of brevity, I ask them: which factors set out in the amendment do they think should not always be considered when building sustainable new communities? I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief. The two amendments—the one we have just voted on and the one just moved by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis—are starred amendments. It is treating this House with contempt to raise two serious issues at the very last moment for consideration in today’s business. I am not in the least surprised that in the previous debate only the noble Lord and my noble friend Lord Ahmad spoke. No one had a chance to consider what it was about and take advice. Now we have another one.

This is an important issue. As a former Environment Secretary, I dealt with planning matters, and have lived near some of the post-war new towns. I will not weary the House by repeating what I said in Committee about the appalling mistakes made, for instance in Harlow, which turned out to be a byword for the misery of large numbers of citizens who moved from the city centres out to a town that was full of lakes, parks and everything but failed to have any sense of community at all—certainly for decades. I do not in any way underestimate the need for substantial improvements in the system, and I like to think that in recent developments there have been considerable improvements; we have not had a repetition of those experiences.

However, these are important matters and one has to ask oneself: why did the noble Lord leave it until only yesterday to table this amendment and asking my noble friend to give a considered view of the matters that he raises in it? I say again: it is treating this House with contempt.

[Lord Adonis]

I should point out to the noble Lord that this amendment was tabled and debated in Committee.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

Why leave it until the last moment on Report? Why did he not put it down it a week or 10 days ago, when most of the other amendments were tabled, so that people would have a chance to look at it and consult? That is my complaint. I have great respect for the noble Lord’s ability, but sometimes he gives the impression that he walks on water.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his intervention and the noble Lord for his amendment. I feel somewhat spiritually awakened by my noble friend’s final comment about walking on water. I hope I can provide clarity on why the Government are not in a position to accept the amendment at this time.

I shall start with our common ground. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that creating well designed, sustainable communities should be at the heart of any new development. In Amendment 86B, tabled by the noble Lord, two main objectives are proposed for a development corporation to be established for the purpose of creating a new town and for the physical laying-out of infrastructure and long-term sustainable development of the new town.

However, I do not think that prescribing the objects of a new town development corporation in detail would help to achieve that objective in a way that allowed for sufficient flexibility locally. There is much to be said for the simplicity of the current objective of new town development corporations, as indeed set out in statute: to secure the laying out and development of the new town.

The amendment proposes that sustainable development should be included in the objects of new town development corporations. Let me emphasise that the Government strongly support the principle of sustainable development. Indeed, that principle is central to the document National Planning Policy Framework, which provides a clear view of what sustainable development means in practice. We believe that creating an additional statutory definition of sustainable development could serve to reduce that very clarity.

I note that no new town development corporations have been created since 1970. However, I am clear that any future new town development corporations, as well as urban development corporations, such as the one the Government are proposing to establish at Ebbsfleet, should have a strong focus on securing sustainable development in a way that reflects local circumstances and needs. I look forward to Her Majesty’s Opposition supporting the creation of the new town at Ebbsfleet, as we seek to establish it in another Bill.

I hope that the clarity I have provided, with brevity, gives the noble Lord sufficient comfort to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for putting on record the Government’s commitment to sustainable development and high-quality design, which is of key importance.

If I may, I shall respond further to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. The amendments were tabled on Monday, which was the day before yesterday, so there was certainly time for noble Lords to engage fully with the issues—and, indeed, for the noble Lord to have read the Armitt report, which was published some months ago. It is not a recent document, by any means.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I am sorry—

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

They say, “Once a Whip, always a Whip”. We are on Report, and no other interventions would be appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

Basically, the current legislative provisions provide some rhetorical emphasis for good design, but they do not create the kind of priority for policymakers that could reassure us that our new infrastructure will be of the design quality which Britain needs and deserves. I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I am very happy indeed to add my name to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness. This is partly because I have long had an admiration for the persistence with which over many years she has pursued this objective of achieving better design for our buildings and structures in this country. She deserves our support.

I referred briefly in my previous intervention to the time when I was Environment Secretary, and as such found on my desk a number of very major projects. Not all of them would have been described as infrastructure, but nevertheless one was very conscious indeed of the enormous importance of design as a criterion for desirability and for making sure that something was going to last. Indeed, there was a view in the department at the time that if a building was really bad, it would not last more than 50 years. However, 50 years is more than half a lifetime—perhaps it is less than that now, but it was then. One needs to do one’s best to avoid those bad buildings.

One particular decision with which I have always been rather pleased—which was not infrastructure except in the broadest sense of that word—concerned what is now the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery. That decision turned entirely on the design that had originally been proposed, which was so memorably castigated by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in a remarkable speech. I must say that it made me very angry at the time, because this planning decision was sitting on my desk and yet I received no advance warning at all that he was going to say anything about it.

When I then had to deal with it, I tried to see whether he was right. I came to the conclusion that, yes, of course he was right. That design was deplorable, as the recent account published by the National Gallery itself has indicated. As a result, we got an entirely new initiative from the Sainsbury brothers, and the Sainsbury Wing is now a very considerable adornment to that part of Trafalgar Square and to the National Gallery itself, based entirely on design. I therefore attach very great importance to this.

One of the important points made by the noble Baroness in her speech concerned the very limited extent to which the criterion of design has been imported into the national planning policy statements. She said that some of them gave the impression of having been cut and pasted, because they simply took the same words. If one looks, for instance, at the National Policy Statement for Ports about this, it really does not add anything to what has been said before about other forms of development. There is nothing specifically regarding ports. From time to time, I have found myself sailing past the Felixstowe dock, which is a tremendous container port. It is actually rather a fine structure when seen from the River Orwell. Then you go further up the River Orwell and there is a perfectly lovely bridge, the Orwell Bridge. We are perfectly capable of choosing first-class designs, but it needs to be at the centre. Sharpening up the obligation to put design at the heart of the planning system and planning criteria, which the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, would achieve, seems to me a very valuable thing to do. I support her amendment and I hope that she will continue to bang away at this issue. She has made great progress in other quarters and she needs to do it in this one as well.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 87 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. As she said, good design is not just desirable but necessary.

The noble Baroness talked about beauty and despoliation of the environment. They are aesthetic concerns which are aspects of wider cultural concerns, themselves a significant and necessary component of good design. I would therefore go further in paragraph 5.22 of the draft licence which the noble Baroness quoted, because I think that the absence of the word “cultural” is an omission. The relevant wording might then state that “the development of the network takes account of geographical, environmental, cultural and socio-economic context”. However, I acknowledge the work that the noble Baroness and others have put in to get as far as they have with the wording as it stands.

This is not about function, operation and maintenance versus culture or design. The precise function or functions of our highways, road networks and the built environment are themselves cultural issues. For instance, if we take into consideration initiatives very different from the norm in this country such as shared space schemes, which are intended to encourage more co-operative rather than competitive spaces, it becomes more objectively clear how form and function reflect each other in a very particular cultural sense. Good design needs to be thought of as central to planning and not as an add-on, not least because there needs to be a wider discussion about what good design is and means in relation to the precise nature of the changes which we have made and continue to make to our environment.

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[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate referred to the importance attached to this issue and the strength of feeling within the church. That is significant. What was so impressive the last time this issue was being discussed, while the church played a critical part in the deliberations, was not only the size of the response to the Government’s proposal but the spontaneity and strength across the community as a whole. This was something about which people cared passionately in our society. It is hardly surprising that, in a country that is so increasingly pressurised in material terms, people take very seriously the balance that is needed for creativity, thought, reflection, and spiritual and physical regeneration.

My point is quite simple. My noble friend has said that the Minister has given assurances and that she respects him. I may also respect the Minister—and I do. However, I never understand this point. The Minister and his Government will not be there for ever. If the assurances on something which is crucial, and on which the Minister feels able to give assurances, mount, why on earth should we not put it in the Bill so that it is there as the clear expression of Parliament for future Governments as well as the present one?

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I will be brief because I sense that the House wants to reach a decision. In my former constituency of Wanstead and Woodford was quite a large part of Epping Forest. I entirely share the views that have been expressed around the House, by the right reverend Prelate and others, about the extent to which this forms an enormously valuable part of people’s lives and, indeed, is part of their being.

When Winston Churchill fell ill, went into hospital and lost his job—of course, he had a job and therefore had to give up his seat—he ended that chapter of his biography:

“And so I found myself without an office, without a seat … and without an appendix. I came to rest amid the cool glades of Epping Forest”.

Of course, he became the Member for Epping; I inherited part of that constituency.

I listened to the noble Baroness with great interest because I, too, had read the Statement made by my noble friend and published in Hansard on 4 November, and I took comfort from it. However, I have to say to my noble friend that this is what worries me: a Statement, however formally issued, is not the same as an Act of Parliament. The example quoted by the noble Baroness about the particular part of the Forest of Dean, which I had not heard before, has raised doubts in my mind. Whether this or another amendment is necessary to place the intention of the Statement firmly on the statute book, it seems to me that this amendment has a good deal to say for it. I shall listen to my noble friend’s response to this debate with considerable interest.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I missed the opening of this debate because I was upstairs at a meeting of the APPG on arts and health, at which a series of experts in mental health said how important people’s surroundings—whether they were in the East End or the countryside—were to their good health and the well oiled working of society. As someone who has the privilege of living a lot of the time in the country and working with foresters, I feel that the transcending quality that people feel the countryside, and forestry in particular, affords them is not something with which we should play fast and loose.

The noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, made some very fair points in recognising what the Government probably want to do here, but I do not think that this is an area where we can take any risks. From what many Members of the House have said, it seems that there is a huge risk attached to the Bill as presently framed, and therefore I would like to support the amendment.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 53A, which is in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Bradshaw and Lord Jenkin of Roding, whom I am delighted to see in his place at this late hour, I shall speak also to the other amendments in this group, which were tabled by the Minister and by the same group of four of us.

I start by expressing my very genuine thanks to the Minister for listening so closely to the arguments which were put forward in Grand Committee and for accepting the principle that the Infrastructure Bill is an appropriate vehicle to put right the anomalies surrounding the jurisdiction and powers of the British Transport Police. That is why I was happy to add my name to her Amendment 53. I shall not repeat the arguments that I made in Committee on 8 July, not least because the Minister has accepted many of those points.

However, there remains the one unresolved issue, to which the Minister referred, and that concerns Section 100(3)(b) of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. The Minister said that she wants to keep that in being and the purpose of our amendment is to take it out. In effect, subsection (3)(b) states that when a BTP officer is off-jurisdiction he or she has to decide whether to act and use the power of arrest. That involves a judgment call—indeed, the Minister used those words. This aspect has been addressed very directly by the chair of the British Transport Police Authority, Millie Banerjee, who wrote to the Minister about subsection (3)(b) last Friday. She wrote:

“This subsection requires BTP officers to work through a complex legal test, often in quick time, which can result in uncertainty, challenge and delays in responding to the public.

I illustrate the problem with subsection (3)(b) with a practical example on metal theft. BTP is the ACPO Lead Force for metal theft and officers regularly conduct visits to scrap metal dealers’ yards, which are outwith BTP jurisdiction, to inspect their record keeping. This enforcement activity has a proven deterrent and detection function which has been a critical factor in the substantial reductions in metal theft crime on the railways and other sectors across the UK.

Although BTP officers exploit intelligence to target their visits, there will often be an absence of specific grounds to suspect that stolen railway metal will be at the yard. In the strictest sense of the current legislation, under subsection (3)(b), BTP officers should arguably call upon local Home Office colleagues to attend the yard and exercise any relevant powers. This would be duplication of effort and is hard to justify to a public who understand the pressure on police resources. In reality BTP officers exercise the relevant powers but are having to make their action fit the complex provisions of this subsection. This is not in the view of the Authority satisfactory and introduces risk of legal challenge where none should exist. It is to the detriment of the fight against metal theft”.

The Minister is apparently concerned that if this provision were removed the BTP would go off-piste, as it were, and not dedicate their time to railway duties. That is simply not true. Indeed, Ms Banerjee answers that point directly:

“Should you feel able to support the removal of subsection (3)(b) I can allay any fears that BTP will stray from its clear focus on the railways. Chief Constable Paul Crowther has committed to reducing crime and disruption on the railways by 20% by 2019. This focus, reinforced by the oversight of the Authority and the requirement to satisfy BTP stakeholders, will ensure that strong control will be exercised with regard to any wider jurisdictional power granted for BTP”.

Very similar points have been made in letters and e-mails to me from Dame Shirley Pearce and Chief Constable Alex Marshall, the chair and chief executive officer respectively of the College of Policing, and by Roger Randall, the general secretary of the British Transport Police Federation. They all say that our original amendment should be supported because it removes the whole of Section 100(3) of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. Dame Shirley Pearce, in her letter to me, says:

“The general public expect the police to act and behave consistently and to work to consistently high standards. It is in the public interest that a parity is sought in the way in which police officers are able to discharge their duties and that, wherever practical, obstacles to consistency are identified and removed”.

We know that legal challenges are occasionally made on the issue of jurisdiction. I shall share with your Lordships an extraordinary case from Scotland. On 21 May 2011, there was a disturbance—a fight—at a car boot sale in the car park of a primary school in Glasgow. A BTP sergeant, who was off-duty and not carrying his warrant card, happened to be there and made an arrest for breach of the peace. The arrested person made a legal challenge stating that it was an unlawful arrest because the officer did not have his warrant card on him. BTP had to pay £1,000 in damages and £240 in costs—not a good use of public money when all the officer was doing was acting in the public interest and conscientiously doing his duty when not on jurisdiction.

In conclusion, I am genuinely grateful to the Minister for moving such a long distance since we debated this in Grand Committee. Indeed, her amendment relating to level crossings in Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act is an improvement on ours, since it does not restrict the wording to railway offences. This is good news because road traffic offences occur on service roads and railway property and it is important for the BTP to deal with offences such as drink-driving or dangerous driving on those roads. Our only area of disagreement is subsection (3). I urge the Minister, please, to take account of the views of Members in all parts of this House, of the chair of the British Transport Police Authority, of the chair and chief executive officer of the College of Policing and of the general secretary of the BTP Federation, and agree with our amendment to remove it. I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

I echo the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, in my thanks to the Minister for having gone so far to meet the case made very forcefully in Committee last July. As I said briefly then—I shall not be any longer tonight, I assure the House—I found the arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, advanced on that occasion to be absolutely incontrovertible. Like him, I am disappointed that the Minister has not gone the whole way.

I listened with great care to what the Minister said about why the Government have found it necessary to retain those restrictions, as they indeed are, on the British Transport Police’s activities in Section 100(3)(b) of the 2001 Act. Frankly, I find the suggestion that a British Transport Police officer will somehow be distracted from his primary duty of policing the railways because he finds it more exciting to do things, as it were, off his main beat to be a frivolous argument. I am sorry to sound a bit condemnatory, but I simply cannot see how it could conceivably happen.

I have not seen any of the correspondence that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has had and from which he quoted a few moments ago. However, one of those letters made it absolutely clear that the writer, a very senior officer in the British Transport Police, regarded this as so unlikely that it ought not to be seriously considered. That is exactly my view and I am very sorry to hear my noble friend advance that as an argument.

One knows that behind this is the long-standing argument between my noble friend’s department and the Home Office, which is responsible for the constables in the rest of the country, except of course in London. However, to try to compromise with that department on this issue is something that no noble Lord in this House or Member of Parliament in another place would feel was reasonable. For that reason, I very much hope that my noble friend—I recognise that we are not going to vote tonight; it would be a slightly weird Division—will reconsider this between now and Third Reading and bring forward another amendment, or, as the Bill was first introduced in this House, consider with her colleagues whether she might put this nonsense right in another place. Having got this far with something for which Parliament has argued and waited over many years, falling at the last fence would be very sad indeed. I beg my noble friend to recognise that her argument does not carry much weight and she should face up to the Home Secretary and say, “I’m sorry, we are going the whole way. We are going to repeal paragraph (b) also”.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, I yield entirely to the noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Berkeley, for their huge expertise in this field. I have not attempted to master all the details. However, there was one point made by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, which I am not sure I correctly understood. It was about the licence. My attention was drawn to the Written Statement that was issued by the Government. Indeed, my noble friend on the Front Bench repeated a Statement made by her colleague, the right honourable John Hayes. He was talking about the draft licence, which is a new document that was issued six days ago. I shall come back to that point in a moment. It states that the licence,

“indicates the manner in which the Secretary of State proposes to issue binding statutory directions and guidance to the new company, setting objectives and conditions around how the company must act”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/10/14; col. 18WS.]

I do not think that there is anything obscure about that; it is perfectly clear that the licence is issued by the Secretary of State. In those circumstances, the Secretary of State can clearly be held responsible if it does not work properly. But it may be that I misunderstood the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.

The Statement from which I quoted was issued less than a week ago and announces the publication of several substantial new documents which bear on Part 1 of the Infrastructure Bill. I fear that the Government have got themselves into rather a bad habit of publishing documents very shortly before Parliament has to consider them, leaving those of us who perhaps do not have the resources behind us that some may have to find it very difficult to catch up with it all. The most recent example—I do not hold my noble friend Lady Kramer responsible for this—is something that we will debate on Wednesday: the community electricity scheme. A task force looking at exactly that issue has been sitting for a year, but its report was made available only this morning. When I first came into the House, it was not even available in the Printed Paper Office, so I am afraid that I rang up the department concerned and expressed my displeasure, if I may put it in neutral language.

I have to say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that that is no way to treat Parliament. If the Government get into difficulties on some of these issues, it is because officials have been allowed to drag their feet to the point when things are issued only a matter of days before they have to be debated. I leave my noble friend with that thought.

Finally, I should say how much I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw. I am sure that we have to come to some form of road pricing in future, if we are to make sense of this. There has been a huge increase in road traffic and no sign of it declining. The fact of the matter is that, while people of course pay the petrol duty, the licence and other taxes, that is in no way related to the amount of use that they make of the roads. I am quite sure that we will have to come back to that at some stage, and it may be something that emerges from the revised structure being set up in this Bill. As I said at Second Reading, I totally support it, and think it a very good move, but the revised structure may well bring these questions of how it is to be paid for much more to the fore. Then we may have the sort of reform that my noble friend Lord Bradshaw advocated.

[Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)]

My Lords, I can keep my own contribution relatively brief because my noble friends Lord Whitty and Lord Berkeley have presented the case with great clarity. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for pointing out that we are dealing today with a position that is only six days old—the latest change from the Government to this crucial part of the proposals in the Bill. That is to say nothing of the fact that the fracking aspect of the Bill came months after we had considered it in Committee, which was then held up until the Government had concluded their consultation in the summer. So this is not a Bill distinguished by forward planning from the Government, or by a clear rationale of what they are about. However, I suppose I should thank them for having another shot at improving the Bill.

We are pleased to see changes reflective of the representations made in Committee from this side of the House, but we are no clearer on why delivering long-term certainty for roads investment requires a top-down reorganisation of the Highways Agency. The Cook report told us that it is stop-start funding problems that are leading to inefficiencies of between 15% and 20%. Is there any real evidence proving that changing the legal structure of the Highways Agency will, in itself, improve efficiency? Perhaps top-down reorganisation is the metier of this Government in challenging areas. The Minister will be aware of the strength of the concern on our side that this looks like the first step to privatisation. We continue to have that anxiety. Why is the section on the company’s licence for commercial activity and charging for services still unfinished?

We are concerned about the cost implications. There is still no clarity on whether the SHC will be able to reclaim VAT in the same way that the Highways Agency does at present. In Committee, the Minister said that the SHC would not be required to pay VAT, which is exactly the case with the Highways Agency now. That soon cleared up the issue. However, it did not clear up the issue at the other end, because the Minister in the Treasury, David Gauke, in answer to a Question from my honourable friend in the other place, Richard Burden MP, said:

“New bodies are not automatically covered by the … provisions. However, the Department for Transport and HM Treasury are considering this issue”.

HMT is quite important, here, with regard to revenue and dispensations to other departments. It does not seem to be as clear on the matter as the Department for Transport is maintaining that it is. If the new strategic highways authority is no longer able to recover VAT in the same way, that could lead to losses of a considerable amount—as much as £400 million annually. That would be £4 billion over 10 years, which would dwarf the figure of efficiency gains of £2.6 billion that it is proposed will come from the legislation. If the VAT issue is not resolved, therefore, the justification for this reorganisation is even less substantiated.

Turning to Amendment 4, which is in my name, the Minister used two arguments in Committee to reject our attempts to clarify whether the Government envision having more than one company. One argument was that this is only standard legal drafting and there should be no cause for concern. The Minister went on to say that it might be necessary if one wanted a more regional structure for the equivalent of the strategic highways company. Can she not confirm that the Highways Agency is already structured regionally? There appears to be confused thinking within the Government about how many companies there will be, which is why many are concerned that the Government are not being entirely open about their plans for the future.

It is clear that our main reservations about the major government proposal in the Bill have not been assuaged. As my noble friends have indicated, there are other questions, too, to which the Minister needs to respond to convince us that this proposal is acceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, again we have a wide range of amendments in this group. I shall focus on the issues that have been raised by the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Whitty. We derive from these amendments that they see advantage in the company being issued with a licence: we covered that discussion a few minutes ago. I want to be clear that safety and other duties are being transferred to the company by virtue of its appointment as the highways authority for the strategic road network. These, together with essential environmental duties in existing legislation, will apply to the company. I also make it clear that the new company will be bound by the network management duty in the Traffic Management Act 2004, a duty which would be difficult to perform without co-operating with other local highways authorities.

Sustainable travel, though, is a different kettle of fish. It is an issue of wider transport strategy and policy, which is a matter for the Secretary of State to determine. However, many issues raised in these amendments that may not currently be covered in legislation to the extent proposed—for example, sustainable development, engaging communities or conducting research and development—will be the subject of binding statutory directions and guidance, which is the long title that we have given the licence issued to the company by the Secretary of State. I am sure that noble Lords will have looked at the recently published drafts.

I have the advantage of a marked-up copy, so I can see how extensively all those issues have now been written into the licence, in very significant detail. For example, on the environment the licence holder must:

“Seek to minimise carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases from its operations; adapt to operate its network in a changing climate; and, where relevant, assist the Government in meeting its wider greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and climate change commitments”.

We can see, in each area, that there is very substantial language. On safety, there is language focusing in great detail on these issues, so that they are deeply embedded, as there is, in other places, on collaboration. So it is there in the licence, or, as we are calling it now, the statutory directions and guidance. To me, it is crucial that they are in that document because, of all the documents, it would be the living document that most impacted the company on a regular basis. We want to make sure that those issues are to the fore and centre, right in the eyeline of the new strategic highways company. Directions issued by the Government have legal force and, together with the independent scrutiny of the monitor, which is there to enforce, will ensure that the company is accountable for what it does.

In listening to your Lordships, I understand that there would be a measure of comfort in echoing some of these key issues in the Bill. To me, it is important that they are in the licence because that is where they will drive behaviour and the enforcement capacity is genuinely there. I can see an argument for making sure that these issues are being given the attention that noble Lords wish, particularly for public reassurance. Two stand out—road safety and the environment—as well as co-operation. I can therefore make a commitment to your Lordships that I could come back before Third Reading with an amendment that would impose those provisions as high-level duties on the company in respect of these fundamental matters. As I say, my personal view is that they are where they need to be to have effect but, if it will provide reassurance to the public in general and your Lordships in particular that they are being sufficiently recognised, this is the way in which to tackle them with a great deal more detail, direction and energy within the content of the statutory directions. We could work a way to put those three high-level duties into the Bill.

In this group are Amendments 22 and 24, which relate to setting the road investment strategy and removing subsection (6), which may provide an element of confusion. However, given that it has not been raised, I will not pursue the matter but would be glad to explain to anyone why we think that those amendments miss the point.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My noble friend has just said that the matter has not been raised. I have been looking through the licence and the Bill, and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, made the point that there does not seem to be a positive statement that under the licence the strategic highways company must comply with the road investment strategy. Will she consider whether something of that sort could be specifically included? Such a provision may be there; maybe I have missed it, but I cannot see it in the licence.

[Baroness Kramer]

At this point, I cannot remember the exact location of each item, but I will go back. However, we now have the monitor there to enforce the RIS or the strategic highways company’s compliance with it, as well as with the contents of the draft licence or statutory guidance.

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[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords, I support my noble friend on this group of amendments. I will briefly develop his theme by looking at the amendments in the group that relate to the monitor. I have proposed that the name of the Office of Rail Regulation should be changed, but that does not matter very much.

In Clause 9, the Government have introduced Amendments 41 and 43, both of which are welcome. They are a step forward from our discussions and I am certainly pleased to see them there. I have one or two amendments to those two amendments on the Marshalled List, which are complicated to go through and I am not going to attempt to go into any great detail now. Their purpose is twofold. One relates to safety and the other efficiency.

On the railways, one of the two tasks of the Office of Rail Regulation is to ensure that the network is operated as safely as possible under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act, which is slightly modified for railways. As my noble friend Lord Whitty said, the approach of the amendments is to do the same for the roads. Let us not forget that, as my noble friend said, just under 2,000 people were killed on the roads in the past year compared with none on the railways—no passengers, very few rail workers and I am not sure about the road workers. Sadly, suicides are a separate issue. The difference between 2,000 on the roads and none on the railways indicates that the structure of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act is working very well on the railways. In these amendments, I propose that a similar thing should be done on the roads, supervised by the Office of Rail Regulation.

The other relevant matter in this group is that, as we discussed briefly in Committee, the monitor should not only have the ability to check on the efficiency of the strategic highways company, but have powers of enforcement if it felt that the efficiency was not as it should be. Again, that is contained in the amendments. One thing worries me about the Government’s amendments. There is a constraint on the independence of the monitor, which is serious. The rail regulator is totally independent. He cannot be sacked except under extreme circumstances that we do not need to go into. But in Amendment 43 on general duties that the monitor should act under, the Government say that the principles are that:

“(b) regulatory activities should be targeted only at cases in which action is needed”.

Who decides when that takes place? Who decides which actions are needed? Surely it must be the regulator who decides. If that is the case, then proposed new subparagraph (b) in Amendment 43 is superfluous. If it is the Government, I suggest that they would be interfering in the independence of the regulator.

In Amendment 48, the guidance that the monitor would receive in proposed new subsection (2) includes:

“The Secretary of State and the Treasury, acting jointly, must give the Office”,

of Rail Regulation,

“guidance as to the circumstances in which the payment of a fine under [this] section … should be required”.

Whereas the ORR can fine Network Rail whenever it likes if it has due cause, when it comes to the strategic highways authority it has to ask the Treasury’s permission first. That sends completely the wrong message. It would be good if the Minister could agree to look at those two things and the general safety outline as to how it will be implemented under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act as part of the discussions between now and Third Reading.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I have listened to the argument with interest and some incredulity. Seeking to compare the number of deaths on the railways with the number of deaths on the roads ignores major differences between the two forms of transport. The roads are essentially a matter for individual drivers and many accidents and deaths are caused by serious driver error. It can be because the vehicles have not been properly inspected. Older vehicles always have to have annual road testing. Of course, there are many other causes, such as the terrible bonfire that swept smoke right across the motorway and caused serious accidents. But none of those can conceivably be laid at the door of the highways authority.

The design of the roads, signposting, warning signs and a whole range of things are the responsibility of the highways authority and would be the responsibility of the strategic road company, but a great many of the issues for which the strategic highways authority would be made directly responsible—the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, talked about legal liability—cannot conceivably be laid at the door of that authority. The language that he has used in his various amendments simply does not draw the distinction between issues that are clearly the responsibility of other authorities, notably the whole question of licensing, inspection and testing of vehicles and the question of skills of drivers and so forth. I do not see how the highways authority could be made responsible for all that.

I studied the noble Lord’s amendment and listened to his eloquent speech in which he made it clear that he has a very real interest, although non-pecuniary, in road safety, but it is overstepping the mark to try to lay the liability for that sort of thing at the doors of the strategic highways authority. I will listen to what my noble friend says having studied her amendments on this issue with interest. For the moment, I am not persuaded on this occasion by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the Government for having listened carefully to what was said in Committee, where pressure was exerted from this side of the House for greater clarity of the functions of the highway company. We are grateful for the progress that has been made in the indications from the Government that they accept some of these arguments. But Amendment 15, to which the Opposition are also committed, does not offend in any way in the manner that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, indicated. What it says is that the highways company shall be responsible for the road safety performance of the network. We are talking about the strategic network and it is essential that we recognise that we want enhanced performance over road safety, because in recent years there have been anxieties about the decline in safety for our fellow citizens on the roads.

The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, said that the same criteria as for railways were being applied. What is indicated in the amendment is that the Office of Rail Regulation will be concerned with the monitoring role, and that is where the overlap occurs. It is not contended on this side of the House, as he will recognise, that there could be any anticipation that the same degree of security could be achieved on roads as on a carefully regulated railway. We are very proud in this country of the excellent safety figures of the railway network, leaving aside level crossings, which, as we know, are a perennial problem for the railway. Regarding roads, it is clear that we want all the factors—a fact which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, enumerated—and we want enhanced performance in those areas. Clearly the strategic highways company has a very important role to play. That is why we support Amendment 15.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I shall not reply on the wider issues of the role of the monitor, in which debate on this group has become engaged. I will concentrate simply on the issue of road safety. The Minister, who I thought in her response to the previous group was moving in my direction, has greatly disappointed me in her reply to this one. That belies the good work that her department is doing and has done for many years on road safety and the opportunity that the new company would have to improve it.

I am also sorry that I am falling out with the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, on the issue of liability. The point I am making is that in certain aspects of road safety—design of roads, traffic management, use of telemetrics and speed controls, information and signing—there is a vital role to be played by the highways authorities, in particular one with the resources, level of responsibility and intensity of traffic which the strategic highways company will have.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I do not disagree with a single word of what the noble Lord has just said about what should be the responsibilities of the strategic highways company. My fear earlier was that he was extending it to matters which are really the responsibility of other bodies.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, in all areas of safety and liability, there may be contributions by many factors. Frequently there is contribution to negligence by people in other areas. That may apply to drivers as well, but there are some firm responsibilities on those who are responsible for the design, management and control of the roads. That area of improvement in road safety has been the least developed until relatively recently. The improvements which have been made have been made largely as a result of general improvements to the roads rather than by a focus on road safety improvements, except on a few issues.

As I said, the creation of the company gives us the opportunity of a step change in delivery of road safety on our strategic network. That means giving as clear a signal as possible that this is indeed, to use the Minister’s words earlier, a high duty on the new company. That needs to be expressed unambiguously in the Bill. The words “have due regard to” safety are neither belt nor braces. It is not an objective of the company; nor is it embedding and inculcating that through everything that the company does. If we want to do that, we need to write safety large in the responsibility of the company. If the Minister goes back to her previous remarks about looking at higher duties to be written into the Bill, leaving aside all the other amendments in the group, her adoption of my Amendment 15 would achieve just that. As she has made it clear that she is not prepared to accept it, to try to ensure that road safety is a major function of the new organisation, I need to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I have a feeling that the noble Lords who have spoken have not taken account of what is in the draft licence document. Paragraph 5.11, which is headed “Cooperation”, states that,

“the Licence holder must cooperate with other persons or organisations in order to … Take account of local needs, priorities and plans in planning for the operation, maintenance and long-term development of the network”.

Sub-paragraph (d) states:

“Provide reasonable support to local authorities in their planning and the management of their own networks”.

This raises the question of what should be in the Bill and what can be left to the guidance and direction in the licence document. My feeling is that if the final licence document contains those provisions, that should go a very long way to satisfy the objectives which the two noble Lords opposite have put before the House. No doubt my noble friend on the Front Bench will confirm that that is the Government’s view.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, appreciates that we are pouring unprecedented amounts of money into the local road network and that a significant amount of it is allocated on a competitive basis, as it were, to make sure that the projects which yield the most improvements get priority. I thank my noble friend Lord Jenkin for making the case so clearly as that enables me to shorten my remarks.

The noble Lords, Lord Whitty and Lord Davies, have proposed amendments—the amendments also stand in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie—which suggest that local highways authorities are involved with setting up the strategic highways company, that these bodies are consulted when setting the road investment strategy, and that the strategy accounts for potential impacts on local and other networks. I fully accept that these are well intentioned amendments but I contend that they are not needed.

Let me be clear: we want the company to work closely with other highway and traffic authorities to achieve the objectives determined by the Secretary of State. Without close co-operation, both the company and the local highways authorities would not be able to deliver their network management duty as set out in the Traffic Management Act 2004. However, it is important to recognise that the company will not be responsible for the management of local authority roads, and local authorities would be furious if it attempted to do so.

We consulted publicly in October 2013 on the proposals to create the new company and the future governance arrangements, taking into account the views of local highway authorities in our response. That response, published on 30 April this year, formed the foundation of the proposed legislation. It is hard to see what value an additional consultation would bring.

With regard to board representation, we are creating a limited company with a fully functioning board to guide and hold the company’s executive to account. Therefore, involving local authorities in the detailed running of the company would undermine that effective management and oversight of the company and the strengthened arrangements that we intend to put in place.

Our analysis of investment proposals for the strategy will necessarily account for overall transport impacts due to the close links between the strategic road network and other networks, including local highways. Requiring the strategy to include a detailed analysis of the impact on the condition or overall funding arrangements for local roads, or other networks, is unnecessary. Much of this work is already required, while some of the more detailed implications would be a burden and risk causing confusion by making central government take action on issues which are within the purview of local government to deal with. We are very conscious of devolution issues in this regard. Requiring us to consider the condition of the strategic road network as part of setting the strategy is unnecessary because we have considered the state of the network. We reached the decision to invest more money in maintenance and renewals at the last spending round

I turn to the issue of consultation. Given that we have tabled a set of amendments which require consultation to take place as part of setting and varying the strategy, and combined with the requirements on co-operation and the fact that the company would be fully engaged with local highways authorities, there is no need to specify that the company must consult them. It is already embedded.

I hope I have been clear. I have reflected on the amendments about the involvement of local highways authorities in the running of the company and the road investment strategy. I believe that the objectives of the amendments are achieved already within the Bill and the accompanying documents. I hope very much that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Young of Old Scone (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, by way of an aside, it is slightly surreal to be debating an amendment to an amendment on something that does not appear in the Bill. I should declare an interest as vice-president of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and president of the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire.

Biodiversity in our species and habitats is not in a good way in this country. The State of Nature report showed that 60% of species are in long-term decline; that is, 755 species in the UK are in danger of extinction. The 2011 UK National Ecosystem Assessment showed that 30% of ecosystem services—the services that we as human beings get from the natural world and the environment—are in long-term decline. It is not, therefore, an issue about “tweety birds”, things that crawl and flowers but the very basic services on which human life depends.

The water framework directive, that highly important piece of European legislation, was responded to by the UK Government, who said that the percentage of waters achieving “good” status by the end of 2015 would increase from 26% to 30%. Alas, we are now in decline, with 25% of waters achieving “good” status under the directive—not a great story. Some of the most important ways in which to turn that around are about making sure that those nationally and internationally important protected sites are the jewels in the crown of our ecosystem services, conservation and environment, and are properly protected so that species, habitats and waterbody quality are maintained.

My amendment would require shale gas extraction not to be permitted within these special conservation sites. I am sure that the Minister will say that the welcome reassurances we have just heard about the existing protection measures continuing should be sufficient: there is a body of European and UK law that already applies to all these sites. Alas, we see that being breached increasingly frequently. We are seeing the first signs of rise in damage to sites of special scientific interest since I thought we had put an end to that at the end of the 1980s. It is a heartbreaking turnaround.

The Committee will understand why I am concerned about the impact of shale gas extraction. There is a significant land take. The sites last for as long as 20 years. There are about 120 well pads per site. The impacts are well beyond the immediate site of entry into the substructure for extraction. There are issues such as water stress, and a recent AMEC report showed that up to 25,000 cubic metres of water per well could be required. That is not just about the abstraction of clean water, which already has many competing demands from human beings, wildlife and other uses, including industrial use, but results in waste water that has to be disposed of. We certainly do not have the waste water capacity to do that. There is water stress and water pollution. We have to be aware of the propensity to spills. The fluids used for extraction can pick up toxins, heavy metals and radioactivity from existing substances in the substructure.

Perhaps what I worry most about is habitat fragmentation and loss. We already know from our experience in the construction of onshore wind and solar technologies that unless they are very carefully handled, we see fragmentation and loss of habitat on a much wider scale than is absolutely necessary. I am not knocking those important technologies, but they need careful management. Of course we need to be aware that these sites create noise and activity such as traffic access and we run the risk of disturbance of some of the most important species.

Some 15% of the land that is under consideration for the next round of extraction coincides with special protection areas, special areas of conservation under European legislation, Ramsar sites, which are important globally designated wetland sites, and SSSIs, which are the jewel in the crown of national protection sites. An example that is very close to my heart is that 85% of the global population of pink-footed geese winter in the UK, yet two of the four main overwintering sites for pink-footed geese lie within the possible shale gas extraction sites. We have to pay real attention to those important areas. Potential licence areas also cover some of our most sensitive river systems. All nine of the Chilton chalk streams suffer from low flows as a result of overabstraction so further abstraction of water and the potential for water quality issues would be a real worry there.

The Government introduced additional planning guidance advising that there should be no shale gas extraction in national parks, the Broads, areas of outstanding natural beauty, natural beauty and world heritage sites except in exceptional circumstances where a public interest test could be shown. We welcome that, but it is not enough. It is guidance rather than having a legislative basis and does not cover sites of biodiversity importance, and our nationally and internationally important wildlife sites.

I welcome the amendments that we will debate shortly that other noble Lords have raised to introduce stronger environmental regulation around shale gas extraction and I appreciate that the Minister was keen to stress that the rights of owners of surface land and the protection of surface land remain. But additional measures are needed, hence my amendment. Removing these sensitive areas from the 14th licensing round would reduce the total area being offered for licence by just 12%. That is not a huge sacrifice in order to ensure that our most important sites remain protected and that we do not see an increase in the threat to our most globally important wildlife sites that we are already beginning to see from other pressures. I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her powerful explanation of the case for developing shale gas. She also mentioned the fact that this legislation and, indeed, the whole consultation extended to geothermal energy. It is about that that I would like to say a few words in support of the amendment which I have tabled to the Government’s first new clause.

I totally support the case for extending the right to underground access. It is essential, and equally essential for both shale gas and geothermal energy. One of the advantages of the Recess was that the Government’s response to the consultation was published when we had a bit of time to look at it. I have read it from cover to cover. I have to say that it was not a particularly interesting exercise. I admire very much the detailed attention which was given to the public’s replies to the consultation, and I was not in the least bit surprised that the exercise was used by large numbers of people not to address the main questions the consultation was about. It evoked a torrent of opposition from organisations and people who have declared themselves totally opposed to any form of shale gas development. One thing that rather amused me was the criticism made by some of the people who put in a response about the inclusion of geothermal energy in the same consultation, as if somehow the Government were spoiling their protest by adding something which they probably supported. Conditions about underground access and the need for a simpler process, which I totally support, apply equally well to both. That is made perfectly clear in the impact statement about geothermal activities, which says:

“Operators wishing to extract geothermal energy have to negotiate with landowners for underground access. This is a time consuming, uncertain and potentially costly process. If a landowner refuses access, that project cannot continue”,

or would go ahead only after a lengthy and expensive process.

One thing I gained from the report, the Government’s response and the consultation is just how much more needs to be done by the industry and the Government to make the case for the development of shale gas. The Government have made it perfectly clear—indeed, my noble friend repeated it this afternoon—that over the next 20 or 30 years gas is bound to play a significant role in our energy supplies and how much better that we should have indigenous sources rather than being increasingly subject to the vagaries of a flexible and perhaps unpredictable international market.

I have discussed this with the trade association that represents onshore gas developments. It entirely recognises the problem, but I was left a bit unclear about what it is planning to do about it. It is something that has to be done, and the Government certainly have to take a lead on that.

Geothermal energy is important in this context. When I started reading the paper, I was aware that I did not know nearly as much about geothermal energy as I should. I know that my noble friend Lord Teverson is very knowledgeable about it—he has geothermal in his part of the country, Cornwall—but I was not, so I asked a number of people to explain to me what the potential is, how it should be developed and what they were doing about it. I found that immensely interesting.

I do not propose to use this speech to deliver a lecture to noble Lords, but I will make three short points. Geothermal energy promises to be part of the future energy mix of the United Kingdom. It offers a supply of secure, low-carbon energy without the variability of wind and wave. It is derived from heat radiating from the centre of the earth and must not be confused with ground-source heat from solar warming. That is quite important: one is talking about sources of heat that may be a kilometre, a kilometre and a half or even two kilometres deep.

--- Later in debate ---

Tabled by

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

95ZBD: Line 16, after second “of” insert “heat and”

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I am completely convinced by my noble friend’s reply and am interested to know that the Government are in discussion with the Scottish Government about heat being used. I think that we need to follow this up, but in the mean time I am very happy not to move this amendment.

Amendment 95ZBD (to Amendment 95ZBC) not moved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I wanted to address this series of amendments not because I am opposed to any of them but to make a plea for looking at the genuinely objective evidence that is available. Durham University is conducting a lot of independent, objective analysis of fracking incidents and the potential threats. I agree with my noble friend Lady Worthington that there is a need to build public trust, but sometimes it is hard to do that when certain organisations are totally hostile to fracking applying in any circumstances whatever. They make allegations that are, quite frankly, unsubstantiated. That is my concern. When we look at evidence, we need to look at evidence that is substantiated.

Another website that is worth looking at is that of the US Environmental Protection Agency. It frequently asks questions such as: why does there need to be a two-year analysis of what is going on, and why can we not say now that fracking is terrible, ruins the environment and so forth? The response is that that is not the case. There have been some quite dreadful things. To my eternal shame, a BBC programme endeavoured to show that fracking was the cause of methane contamination, which meant that you could light the gas as it came out of the tap. My plea is that of course we should have proper safeguards and we need to build public trust, but we also need to ensure that we are not repeating unsubstantiated allegations and that we look at objective evidence. Of course fracking will not be the total solution but there is no doubt that, certainly in America, it has substantially cut emissions and it could have a role to play here, although the environment is somewhat different.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I do not think that any of us is in any doubt about the importance of baseline monitoring for the purposes of environmental control. I totally agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, said about the misrepresentation that is going around on the whole question of fracking. This must be scientifically based. To my mind, that is where both the Government and the industry have so far failed to convince the public of the case for fracking. As the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, said in her opening speech, my noble friend Lady Verma made the case for the need for shale gas on environmental grounds. That is the case we need to go on pressing.

With regard to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, an enormous amount of work is being done by the British Geological Survey on the baseline monitoring of contaminants of various kinds, and on the protection of water. This has been sparked by examples in America, where there never has been any proper baseline monitoring. That is an example of the imperfections of their system of regulation, of which our people have taken full account. They recognise that if we are to control contaminants—it is very important that that should be done—we need to know where we are starting from. That is the heart of the noble Baroness’s amendment.

I am told that the British Geological Survey is about to publish a further study. It originally put in the 12-month period on the grounds that there might be seasonal variations. Its latest work on the contamination of drinking water has shown that there are no seasonal variations: there is no evidence of that at all. I would not be in the least surprised if, in its further report—this is the advice I have had—it finds the 12-month period to be unreasonable and that the best method of assessing baseline monitoring for methane should be scientifically based. The work that is done by the BGS in this country is, for the most part, to the highest standard. The Government are entirely justified in putting their faith in it.

I do not know what the Minister will say in response to the amendment, but I would guess that everything the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, is asking for is, in one way or another, already being achieved or will be achieved by the Government’s existing policy. I am interested to hear my noble friend’s reply. I share the view of the Committee that baseline monitoring is absolutely crucial if we are to have effective regulation.

[Baroness Young of Old Scone]

My Lords, I shall comment on baseline monitoring. We need to learn from other monitoring schemes that are already in place as a result of regulatory regimes and the planning system.

There are two issues here. First, the 12-month period may not be required for methane monitoring but it certainly is for biodiversity monitoring, which is also mentioned in one amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington. Too often, I have seen planning appeals and inquiries get hideously beached as a result of inadequate 12-month monitoring of biodiversity impact. If a species is present only at certain times of the year, it is quite difficult to do a baseline account of it if you are doing that in a season when the species is not present and is not expected to be present. That causes delays in planning processes. It is important to make it very clear that some of these impacts and baselines can be dealt with only on a 12-month basis.

I accept the commendation by the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, of the work done by the BGS and other statutory agency baseline surveys and ongoing monitoring processes. However, the other point of principle we ought to regard as important is the need to make commercial organisations that want to undertake commercial activities responsible for ensuring that the baseline monitoring that needs to happen before they begin is undertaken—and undertaken at their expense. That is an important principle commonly adopted in many regulatory regimes and in much of the planning system. We must not move away from that. It is important that the commercial organisations get their heads around what the issues of their impact are before they start to put forward their propositions, rather than relying on somebody else’s baselines and not really understanding, when their propositions come forward, what they will need to monitor and how they will need to monitor it. That is an absolutely fundamental principle.

--- Later in debate ---

That is not a situation we wanted to see coming out of the Energy Bill. We have an opportunity here to look at it again. We have tabled this amendment now simply to say that this is no longer theoretical. These auctions are happening now. We, as the Opposition, do not want to inherit a problem in 2015 that has come about because of the combination of the effects of the capacity market and the lack of an EPS. Let us take this opportunity. Let us revisit this. I am very much looking forward to hearing the Minister and other noble Lords, who I am sure will remember the debates we had and who perhaps took part in the votes on this issue which we ultimately won in the Lords, only to be overturned in the Commons. We said there was a problem. I think the evidence now is that there is a problem. We need to take a backstop policy to address it, otherwise we will be remiss and will not be giving the signals that investors need to ensure that we get the right investments in the long-term future of the low-carbon economy. I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I listened to the noble Baroness with great interest. I had not interpreted this amendment as being directed at the question of whether coal-fired plants should be able to apply under the capacity mechanism. I, too, have been rather disturbed to see that as a possibility not only for coal-fired stations in this country but for those in other countries as well, which will be able to apply. If this is indeed the case, we need to look at this very carefully.

What puzzles me is the connection with the amendment that the noble Baroness has tabled. I understood that we had always been in favour of attaching abatement technologies to coal-fired stations that may have some life left in them to reduce nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and other toxic gases. The noble Baroness is right to say that it puts up the price; a very good example of that is the difficulties that Drax has been having over recent years, where abatement plants were put in years ago. For the life of me, I find it very difficult to understand why attaching that sort of plant to an existing power station should necessarily be an occasion for the exercise of the powers under the Energy Act, to which she refers—a question of abatement of the emissions limit. Perhaps the fault is mine. The amendment is one that I had not studied before, so I listened to her with great interest. Bearing in mind that we have always encouraged the addition of abatement plant to coal-fired power stations, I would have thought that to make it a trigger in the further reduction in carbon emissions would be counterproductive. I see the noble Baroness shaking her head at me; it may be that I have completely misunderstood her purpose.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

96ZA: After Clause 28, insert the following new Clause—
“Part 4AImpact of infrastructure spending on costs for consumersProvision of impact data
(1) The Treasury may by regulations make provision for the regulators to provide data, in a manner prescribed by the regulations, about the anticipated impact of infrastructure spending on the cost of products for consumers.
(2) Regulations made under subsection (1) may prescribe—
(a) the type of infrastructure spending about which data must be provided;(b) the nature of the data to be provided;(c) the methodology for collating and manipulating the data, including assumptions that should be made; (d) the form in which the data should be presented;(e) the persons that should receive a copy of the data.(3) The regulations may make different provision for different regulators where necessary.
(4) The Treasury must scrutinise data provided under subsection (1) and assess—
(a) the cumulative impact of infrastructure spending on the cost of products for consumers;(b) the affordability of any anticipated increases in the cost of products for consumers, taking into account factors other than infrastructure spending that are also likely significantly to impact the cost of products; and(c) differences in affordability between different groups of consumers, if any.(5) The Treasury must publish data provided under subsection (1) and the assessment made under subsection (4) in such manner as it reasonably deems appropriate.
(6) The Treasury must take into account the assessment in subsection (4) in making decisions about the extent, prioritisation or timing of infrastructure spending.
(7) In this section—
(a) “consumer” means any business, individual or household of individuals that purchases a product or products;(b) “product” means a good or service the provision of which is regulated by a regulator;(c) “a regulator” means any of—and “the regulators” means all of them.”(i) the Northern Ireland Authority for Utility Regulation;(ii) the Office of Communications;(iii) the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets;(iv) the Office of Rail Regulation;(v) the Water Industry Commission for Scotland; and(vi) the Water Services Regulation Authority,and “the regulators” means all of them.”

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I beg to move the new clause standing in my name. To begin with, perhaps I may say that I was very grateful for the opportunity to talk to my noble friend Lady Kramer about this and for the help that the department was able to give me.

As the heading suggests, this is about the impact of infrastructure spending on costs for consumers. That is an issue that has achieved a rising level of importance. My noble friend Lady Verma said in an earlier debate that the effect of rising prices on consumers is of growing concern in the country.

There is wide support across society for increased investment in infrastructure, but the question of how much of the cost will fall to be borne by consumers is, I have to say, a great deal less certain. The new clause is aimed to get the Treasury to lift the veil, as it were, so that we know more about what it will cost consumers.

That this is primarily a matter for Treasury Ministers rests on two facts. First, the responsibility for projected infrastructure investment is spread right across Whitehall and covers a great many departments. The costs fall to be met in many different ways: investment by private companies, local authorities; government departments; and, no doubt, other ways as well. In most areas, regulators also have a key role, but it is only the Treasury that can cover the whole field, bring it all together and assess the impact on the cost of products for consumers. That is what subsection (1) of this new clause provides.

--- Later in debate ---

I understand those who have said that we need a cumulative number but, unfortunately, that is one of those things that are easy to say; with any good sense, robustness or meaning, it is difficult to deliver. The network is a very effective direction in which to go; I hope that your Lordships will agree and that my noble friend Lord Jenkin will feel comfortable in withdrawing his amendment.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I start by saying that I am most grateful to noble Lords who have voiced their support for the amendment. If we were to debate this in a wider forum, we might find a good deal more support. I certainly have that in mind. We may return to this matter on Report.

Having said that, I am very grateful to my noble friend for spelling out so clearly what she and her colleagues in government see as the difficulty of forming, as she came back to again and again, an aggregate view. I do not think that people are looking for an aggregate; they are looking for consistency and a common approach to find out how much of this investment will actually fall on consumers.

The example that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, gave of the Thames tunnel has been very carefully worked out by Thames Water with the help of Ofwat. What the charge is going to be on water consumers—I am one of them—is known, perhaps not over the next 80 years, but over the next two or three years. I do not know how long it will be. That is the kind of example that might well be extended to other interesting investments.

This is the impression I have formed on what the UKRN is going about. I was getting very depressed at one point when the Minister was spelling out the impossibility of doing what we were asking it to do. Yes, the UKRN is a very important innovation. It is a much stronger and more effective body than its predecessor. It is emphasising cross-sectoral issues and looking, as I said a few moments ago, for consistency. It will be able to add considerable wisdom over the next two or three years and help successive Governments to try to make a better estimate of what an investment programme of the size that we now face in this country, running into hundreds of billions of pounds, is going to cost consumers.

[Baroness Kramer]

The language of the amendment is that the Treasury must assess the,

“cumulative impact of infrastructure spending”.

That is why I used words such as “aggregate” and “cumulative”; I am happy to substitute “cumulative”. That is our problem.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I quite understand that. I take that point. Indeed, I read the evidence that was given to the Public Accounts Committee by John Kingman. He made that point very thoroughly. He is an extremely able civil servant and he declared himself very firmly as the chief official in the Treasury concerned with the impact on consumers. He made the exact point my noble friend has made that there are great differences between the industries and the different circumstances.

One is looking for consistency on this—I keep coming back to that word. The UKRN is going to be in the position to throw a good deal of light on this. I was therefore very grateful when my noble friend said its establishment was an important step forward. That is a good start. Parliament is going to have to push this in both Houses. I do not know whether the Public Accounts Committee report and the Government’s response are going to be debated in another place, but we would certainly have an opportunity, in the context of this Bill, to air the matter again on the Floor of the House. We will certainly take account of the points my noble friend has made and perhaps revise the wording of the amendment accordingly. In the mean time, I am very happy to withdraw it.

Amendment 96ZA withdrawn.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Tope (LD)]

Before I move the amendment, I wonder whether it would be appropriate to offer congratulations, in absentia, to the Minister who I thought would be replying to me today. We congratulate her on her escape from the Infrastructure Bill, even though she will no doubt miss all its excitement. It is a particular pleasure for me to welcome, rather unexpectedly, the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, to answer here today, particularly in view of this amendment, which relates to the Greater London Authority, of which she has considerable knowledge and experience. I look forward to an even more favourable response than I was expecting.

In moving the amendment, I shall speak also to Amendment 85. They are two fairly simple and straightforward amendments that would add “or GLA”—the Greater London Authority—to this part of the Bill. I have tabled them because under the Localism Act 2011, the Homes and Communities Agency no longer has any remit in Greater London. That responsibility was devolved to the Greater London Authority and it is therefore logical that the powers going to the HCA, which will apply only to the rest of the country and not to London, should in this instance be passed to the GLA—hence my comment about the Minister who is now to reply having some knowledge and experience, not least of one of the major landowning parts of the Greater London Authority, namely Transport for London. Unless we make this amendment, there will be some vacuum in London as to what will happen. It will seem that the powers that the Bill seeks to give to the Homes and Communities Agency simply will not apply in Greater London, which makes no sense at all. Therefore, I genuinely look forward to a sympathetic response.

There is significant surplus public sector land in London, much of it indeed owned and put to good use by the GLA group. However, according to the Government in March this year, there are in London alone 75 surplus National Health Service sites, totalling 80 hectares, which could well be ready for development. I will not say that we are correcting an anomaly—no one would admit to drafting a Bill that contains an anomaly—but I hope we are filling a gap with this amendment, and that we will ensure that the GLA has the powers it needs to continue the very good work that it has done under both Administrations to make much better use of surplus publicly held land for housing. I do not need to stress again today the urgent need in London—perhaps throughout the country but nowhere more so than in London—to make the best possible use of land for additional housing.

In addition, it is the GLA that has the strategic planning role for Greater London, which fits together with this amendment. Finally, there is the issue of democratic oversight, provided by the Greater London Authority itself with its directly elected mayor and the elected London Assembly, but also by the—less well known but equally important in this context—Homes for London Board, which is a joint body with the GLA and the London boroughs and can oversee all this.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, has also put his name to my amendment. He has given me his apologies for being unable to be here today. He has recently been appointed chairman of your Lordships’ Communications Select Committee, which, unfortunately from our point of view, meets every Tuesday afternoon. He understandably feels that, as its newly elected chairman, he should be there. However, he has said to me, for the record:

“I understand the Homes and Communities Agency is not raising any objection to the idea of the GLA taking on this role for London: the HCA no longer operates within Greater London and it seems entirely sensible for the GLA to include this in their wider role—in partnership with the London Boroughs through the Homes for London Board; the housing association sector admires the leadership role which the GLA through the Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning, Richard Blakeway, is pursuing, not least in arguing for Lifetime Homes accessibility standards, improved space standards and better performance by London’s private rented sector. I think the general view is that the GLA is a highly competent body on the housing scene and would make a success of this extra role”.

I think these amendments are necessary. They are clearly sensible and they future-proof against any further needs. I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will recollect that I raised this point at Second Reading on 18 June at col. 856. I will not repeat what I said on that occasion, or indeed on the very important points that my noble friend Lord Tope has just made.

The Minister was as good as her word and replied to the points that she did not have time for when she responded at Second Reading. She wrote to me on 1 July about the points I had raised, including this one, which she headed “Mayoral Powers”:

“Government officials and the Greater London Authority are in ongoing dialogue to agree suitable ways to transfer public sector land in London. If amendment of legislation is required, we will explore this at an appropriate opportunity in the future”.

It is a long time since I have felt that I was pushing at a door that is not only half open but almost entirely open. I hope my noble friend will be able to give us a little more information this afternoon.

The need for housing, particularly affordable housing, in London is acute. There can be very few couples —potential homeowners—under the age of 35 or thereabouts who feel that without significant parental help, or whatever else might be available, they will ever be able to buy a house. Part of the reason for that is the shortage of building land within the Greater London area and in the area immediately surrounding it. The disposal of surplus public land has become a matter of huge urgency. I believe, as my noble friend has said—and he quoted the noble Lord, Lord Best—that the Greater London Authority has this whole issue very much in mind and on its whole agenda for the development of London. The case for it to be the body to initiate, promote and encourage this is very strong indeed and I hope my noble friend the Minister will be able to give us an encouraging answer this afternoon. I support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Tope.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, on her extended role during the course of this Bill and indirectly congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell. The amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Tope—for the GLA to perform the role of disposal agency in London—on the face of it makes very good sense. As the noble Lords, Lord Tope and Lord Jenkin, said, the HCA’s objects simply do not run in Greater London as a result of the Localism Act 2011, and without a change you would have to retain the arrangements where transfers are made indirectly.

I took the opportunity to raise the matter with the Bill team, who have sent me a helpful note, which, if I may, I will just read from:

“I have been advised that under the Localism Act 2011, the GLA has responsibility for the HCA functions in London and the HCA does not have a remit to operate. The HCA has powers to operate in London but to do so would require delegated authority from the mayor. Under existing legislation, central Governments can transfer their land directly to the GLA; arm’s length bodies can also presently do so but would have to transfer the land to the parent department first”.

That is the inefficiency we are trying to tackle with this provision. The note goes on:

“DCLG are working with the GLA to determine what offer the GLA would be able to make to departments regarding land transfer. This will include whether statutory transfer is the most appropriate mechanism or whether an alternative approach is preferable”.

Could the noble Baroness just unpick that expression a little? Whatever arrangements are to be entered into, it does not seem to me to preclude supporting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Tope.

We have had a helpful briefing from the Mayor of London, which raised a number of points. The point about the GLA having to hold its land in a taxable subsidiary company would appear to have been addressed by government amendments, but there was also a point about transfers of land from the GLA, a mayoral development corporation or the HCA hitherto not having been able to pass on the override of third-party easements. This means that such owner-developers could be pursued for remedies by the previous owners and beneficiaries of such rights. Given that Clause 22(10) is to operate only where land is disposed of after the provision comes into force, how does the Minister see this point being addressed?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I perhaps should have mentioned earlier that shortly before coming to the Committee, I had an urgent e-mail from a group with which I had been in touch about what amounts to affordable housing. It is a question of whether the houses that this group provides are liable for the local land levy. A decision was made in the group’s favour, which it sees as possibly depriving it of the opportunities to have the land. My noble friend has made the point about how the surplus land, as it were, brought into the ownership of the GLA, or whoever, will be disposed of. If my noble friend could include that in her examination of the matter that her officials will be discussing with the GLA, some of these people might have some comfort. They fear that they may not be in people’s sights of having land that ought really to be made available for affordable housing.

[Baroness Kramer (LD)]

The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, makes clear that there are complexities in all this. We do not have set levels of affordable housing. That has to be for the local authority. It is best placed and will undoubtedly use its planning processes, which of course apply to any development, to make the relevant determinations. He is right that there are complexities that we have to iron out and work our way through. I just want to alert the Committee and to say that we are sympathetic to the underlying direction of this amendment, but there is work to be done to know whether this is the most effective way to achieve what I think everyone here is attempting to achieve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I was relieved to hear the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, say that this was a probing amendment. It is on that basis that I hope that the Minister will at least undertake to examine the possibility. All three noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the amendment have much more recent experience than I of local government service. It is more than 50 years since I was chairman of the housing committee of a then London borough which is now part of the London Borough of Haringey. It was then called Hornsey—I should say that it ends “sey” for the benefit of Hansard, which usually spells it like the Lincolnshire town. However, I was the chairman of housing and the problem existed then. In an inner London borough, one was very much of aware of the shortage of available land. We had a substantial slum clearance programme and I was very much concerned about where we were going to put the residents while the building was going on. That was a problem and I lost my seat on the council before it was solved, but that is a different story which my noble friends in the Liberal Democrat party perhaps do not wish to hear. However, within six weeks I was the prospective parliamentary candidate for Woodford, so I did not mind very much.

There is a real problem with surplus land. For me, by far the most important objective that this clause is intended to achieve is speeding up the whole process of getting surplus public land into development. The test that I hope my noble friend’s department will be able to apply to this is: does this amendment actually promote that objective? The objective is not necessarily to allow local councils to retain land because I suspect that some of them have a good surplus of public land, which they somehow think they may want to develop in future. Such is the housing crisis in this country—as we have said, it is a crisis particularly in London but I think it is elsewhere as well—that the important thing is to get the land into use now. The test that ought to be applied is whether this amendment would help to achieve that or not.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, that is some intimidating experience from quite a number of your Lordships, which I cannot possibly hope to match. However, your Lordships will be aware that a recently concluded strategic land and property review identified the scope to generate something like £5 billion in receipts from both land and property to support growth and drive efficiency. The Homes and Communities Agency will have an important role to play in leading this programme from next year. However, it may not always be the best or the only delivery option. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, gave us an illustration from Greater Manchester. He obviously has great expertise and played a very significant role in Greater Manchester.

As I say, local authorities also have a vital contribution to make, and in some cases this may mean transferring sites to them. I am keen that we explore the best options for delivery, taking into account local circumstances. So while our clause does not mention local authorities, to respond to my noble friend Lord Tope, there may indeed be benefits to exploring whether they should be included in the clause, which may smooth the process of transferring sites from central government’s arm’s-length bodies to local authorities, where this is the best option locally and supports the delivery of local and national priorities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, I think that I am happy with this. Do I understand that it relates just to dealing with the GLA problem and its need to operate through a taxable subsidiary?

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, while my noble friend is contemplating the answer to that, she wrote to me about this in her letter of 1 July. She said:

“The intention is for the HCA to dispose of its freehold interest on the open market”.

I completely understand that. She said that,

“the HCA retains a strong policy interest in what happens on its land once it is sold to market”.

I think that that picks up the point I raised earlier about the need to ensure that the land is in fact used for purposes consistent with public policy. She continued:

“Where public land can be put to better use—say in supporting the delivery of much-needed new homes—it will transfer to the HCA. The HCA will then typically seek to set the parameters for future development on the land, by obtaining planning consent with the local authority prior to sale, and selling its land with certain conditions attached”—

that is the point that I think the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was asking about—

“to ensure that the building carried out on its land is done so in line with public policy (say by specifying the number of affordable homes to be built)”.

That all seems extremely sensible. This is not just bringing land in and then saying that anyone can do anything they like with it. If it is public land already, the question is to get it into use for public purposes as quickly and efficiently as possible, but for purposes consistent with public policy. That seems to be quite right. Can the Minister confirm that her amendment is indeed intended to achieve that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kramer]

Perhaps I might write to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, on that issue because I think that I am getting myself caught up in circles, which is not an appropriate way to give him the answers that he needs.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I am full of admiration for the way that my noble friend is dealing with this, having had to come to terms with it at such short notice. Perhaps I could be included in the letter.

Amendment 91A agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

I end where I began. I want to be able to support my Government and my Minister on this, but the more I hear about this change—albeit from people with what has been called a self-interest—the more I begin to wonder why we are doing it and why we are so sure that the end result will be so much better for users, for local people and for the efficiency of local government.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, my noble friend will remember that at Second Reading I raised rather similar anxieties that the case for this change had not been made. Since then, I have tried to dig a bit deeper to find out what lies behind it. I was intrigued by quite a long article in today’s Times, which I tend to read with my cup of tea in bed in the morning. In the business section was the headline:

“Land Registry sale put out to grass as row continues over Royal Mail”.

The article—I will not read it out in full—says that the suggestion that the Land Registry should be privatised has a long history. We have had a statement that there is no present intention to privatise the Land Registry; indeed, I have quoted it from some of the correspondence from the Minister. However, what I find particularly intriguing—and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, may remember this—is that it has now been revealed that in answer to a Parliamentary Question in 2000, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine, the then Lord Chancellor, stated that the Government were considering privatising the Land Registry. That was the previous Government, nearly 15 years ago.

The argument has rumbled on for a long time, and I wonder where it all comes from. I cannot believe that this has ever been part of a concerted government policy supported by the Treasury or by successive departments of industry. My right honourable friend Michael Fallon, who has now been promoted to the Ministry of Defence, is quoted in the article as saying recently:

“Due to the importance of the Land Registry in the effective operation of the UK property market, we’ve concluded that we need further consideration before changing Land Registry’s set-up. Thus, we haven’t made a decision on this occasion”.

That echoes what my noble friend the Minister has said on previous occasions.

The more I probe this, the more worried I become. I may be quite wrong, and perhaps the Minister will correct me, but I have formed the impression that the real driving force for the privatisation proposal and, now, for this present proposal to absorb the whole of the local Land Registry function comes from the Land Registry itself and from Mr Edward Lester, who has headed it up for some time. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that that is where this proposal has come from. I am not impressed by that. My eye was caught the other day by a Statement in the House from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, repeated in this House by my noble friend Lord Deighton, about the question of what they call,

“off-payroll contracts in the public sector following the introduction of tighter rules … when I published ‘The Review of the tax arrangements of public sector appointees’”.

Lower down, it turns out that the Land Registry has recently been in breach of that requirement, where,

“a senior Land Registry board member was engaged off-payroll for longer than six months. As a result, a fine of £1,030,176, the largest for an off-payroll breach so far, has been imposed on the Land Registry for breaking these rules”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/7/14; cols. 23-24WS.]

That does not inspire one with confidence.

I let my noble friend Lady Stowell know that I was concerned about this. I had a very full e-mail from her this morning, while she was still in her post at DCLG and before she had become Leader of the House, in which she set out, at some length, the circumstances that underlay that decision. I would not dream of repeating it all, but the fact of the matter is that that Statement was correct: the Land Registry has been fined over £1 million for not complying with government requirements on off-payroll salaries.

When I look at the supporting documents published with the Bill, I find that they are all signed by Mr Ed Lester—they are not signed by a Minister at all. The impact statement is signed by the chief executive of the Land Registry. One has become totally accustomed to impact statements being signed by Ministers, and one wonders why this is. What is going on?

The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and my noble friend Lord Tope referred to the very long Government response to the consultation. It is a substantial document. Question 7 asks:

“Do you have any comments about the reasons to change Local Land Charge services and do you see any benefits?”.

The answer was:

“The majority of respondents to this question felt that the reasons given in the consultation to change LLC services were not supported by the evidence produced and that the perceived problems with the current service had been overstated. Many felt that the consultation did not provide sufficient information of how the proposals would work in practice and that they would not produce the costs benefits or a centralised one stop shop”.

That goes to the heart of the proposal in the Bill. I repeat: there may be a case for it but it has not yet been convincingly stated, which was the point that I made to my noble friend at Second Reading.

I referred earlier to the reply dated 1 July that my noble friend sent me to a number of questions. She said:

“Government acknowledges the concerns raised in some consultation responses. It also recognises Land Registry’s experience in providing registration services and believes this ideally places it to provide the local land charges service. Land Registry will continue to carry out extensive engagement with local authorities, personal search companies and key industry stakeholders”.

The last sentence gives one some encouragement: at last, they are listening. My noble friend Lord Tope referred to the Local Land Charges Institute and its letter dated 12 June. Having said that it was not provided with any satisfactory answers, it stated that,

“the Minister has declined our invitation to meet to discuss the proposal”.

That does not inspire one with confidence. When it asked for a meeting, the Minister’s private office—of course, I do not refer to my noble friend now because she was not there—would have taken advice. The advice from Edward Lister was no doubt, “No, don’t waste your time seeing these people. This policy is going ahead and you’ve got better things to do”. As a Minister, one has seen responses of that sort. A wise Minister says, “I think we ought to see these people”. In those circumstances, I like to think that perhaps that is what I would have done as a Minister.

Since Second Reading, when I raised my anxieties about this matter, they have been increased. I am not at all sure that the Government will be justified in proceeding with this proposal now. I say with some sadness that so far they have entirely failed to convince almost all the people involved, customers and providers, of the case for this centralisation.

As for my noble friend Lord Tope, I can say a curious thing: one has occasional periods of lying awake and last night I wondered who invented the phrase “postcode lottery”. I raised this some years ago in relation to the health service when the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, was the Minister in the Lords answering for the health department. I said, “If you’re going to localise the health service, you’re going to get different services in different parts of the country. Does that qualify as a postcode lottery?”. He said that he did not much like that phrase himself. I said, “If you’re going to localise, you’ve got to recognise that there will be different local solutions to the problems”. To let the press get away with condemning that all the time as a postcode lottery makes an absolute nonsense of the process of localisation, which I have always understood that all parties are now subscribing to. I took a full part in the proceedings of the Localism Act as it went through, and we all supported the principles that were behind that. In this Bill, though, we have nothing more than a substantial centralisation, a withdrawal of functions from local authorities to the centre.

What are the two arguments being put forward? One is that this is all going to be digitised and therefore needs to be uniform, and the other is that there are different charges in different parts of the country so the charges ought to be more uniform and it would be best to do that by centralising. I do not accept either of those arguments as they have been put. I hope that the Minister is going to make a better fist of convincing the Committee that these clauses really represent such an advance in the service that will be given to customers that we ought to swallow our doubts and accept them. In the mean time, I have to say that I am not very happy about it.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2014 Grand Committee

I get very frustrated when political parties—all of them; we plead guilty, too—trade statistics to prove which Government were worst over the years. The reality is that no Government, including mine, have yet been anywhere near good enough, and we need to recognise that. We need to have a long-term housing plan to get nearer to and, I hope, achieve the ambitious targets that are set. We should not keep bandying statistics or building for value rather than volume which the noble Lord, Lord Best, said many of the bigger builders seem to be doing. I would be a little cautious about just building for volume. We need the right sort of housing in the right places. It is not simply a matter of volume; it is a matter of a whole range of things, such as design and quality, and houses being in places where people want to live because there are jobs for them to go to, there is transport infrastructure to get them where they want to go and home again, and it is a community in which they want to live. That is infrastructure, and that is why I support the amendment, and the debate on this amendment. I hope that whoever is in government in 12 months’ time will at an early stage produce not necessarily the Bill called for in this amendment but rather a long-term housing needs programme that everyone can sign up to.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Best, has made a very interesting and compelling speech. I am more than ever pleased that I was one of his supporters when he took his seat in the House. I have greatly admired what he has been able to do over the years since then, and this is not the least of his achievements. He made a strong case, and I entirely recognise that. The question that I ask is who would initiate these big schemes? I entirely agree with him that these are desirable measures, if we are going to try to reach our housing target, and I entirely agree with him that planning should not be an obstacle to that. The Planning Inspectorate, which, as the noble Lord said, would have to be the body to decide on whether to allow or disallow the investment for something of more than 1,500 houses, is not an initiating body. It does not propose schemes and is not a body like, for instance, the development corporations that now exist in some parts of the country. Its powers are not like those which the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London have to initiate large schemes of housing, or indeed anything else.

On the point that the noble Lord made about the speed at which it has to approve applications made, of course that starts from the point when it is considering the application. One thing about the inspectorate—and indeed its predecessor, which was proposed by the former Government of the Labour Party—was that it insisted that all consultation of local opinion should be achieved and established before it started to consider the application. I think that everybody approves of that. It is a very good way of approaching this, so that when looking at the application and its impact you do not waste a lot of time on questioning whether local communities or other local interests were consulted.

I am interested as the noble Lord, like me, is of course a champion of localism. At Second Reading, I criticised the Local Government Association’s statement that it did not see planning as an obstacle to growth and development. I quoted some statements that have been made regarding the interests of those who see this from another perspective. I felt, as I argued, that that was a rather unrealistic statement. Of course, it has to be speeded up, but I had a long brief from the Local Government Association, as we have all done from time to time on various Bills. I am a vice-president of the LGA, but it is interesting that it has not offered any comment on this amendment, neither for nor against. It has argued—this is perhaps my central point—that what is needed is organisations which will promote the kind of development that the noble Lord, Lord Best, has been describing. It has argued that there ought to be development corporations along the lines that now exist in certain areas.

I am a huge supporter of the various efforts that have been made to encourage local authorities to join together, perhaps over quite a wide area. One has seen that first in the city deals that have been made, which are proving quite extraordinarily effective. They are a very interesting new instrument of localism, which will surely produce substantial benefits for the future. However, it goes wider than that as it is not just city deals but local authorities which can get together to plan and initiate projects, for which they can then find investors and so deal with them. To my mind, that is the way that it should be done. If you then have local authorities or, as I think it would have to be, development corporations formed by local authorities, that is the way in which they can have what I certainly support: that the decisions should be made locally.

The difficulty with this amendment, although I understood clearly and listened with great interest to the arguments, is that it goes contrary to the whole thrust of policy in many of these related areas: seeking to devolve authority from the centre down to the locality.

Of course, the noble Lord is quite right that there are always nimbys, and that is a problem that has to be addressed. When I was Environment Secretary, my very splendid chief planning adviser John Delafons— who is sadly no longer with us—after asking me, “Secretary of State, have you heard of NIMBYs?”, to which I said yes, he asked, “Have you heard of NOTE?”, to which I said no, so he explained: “Not over there either”. He also had another story that I liked: “The man who occupies the end house in a new housing estate on the edge of a town promptly becomes the secretary of the local conservation society—‘I’m all right, Jack, and I don’t want any more!’”. Those are the kinds of very human, but really rather damaging, impacts that these influences can have.

Would centralising the decisions into the hands of the local Planning Inspectorate make any difference? It might, but surely the right answer is for local developers—or perhaps development corporations supported by a consortium of local authorities, as might be necessary—to win the argument. Some of them are very good at it; others need to match their skills. However, I have some doubts about whether centralising the decision into the hands of the Planning Inspectorate, which is what the amendment calls for, is the right way forward. It might help, but it would also do other things that may be less helpful. Indeed, I think that there are better ways of doing this. It is interesting that local authorities have been arguing for the right to set up development corporations as the Mayor of London can do, but they have not actually put any amendments to me about how that might be properly achieved. Perhaps that is an issue to which we can return on Report, which might be a better peg on which to hang this.

I end on the note with which the noble Lord, Lord Best, began, which is that nobody doubts the acute seriousness of the housing problem in this country. In part, the problem is about overcoming environmental resistance, although one can understand some of that; in part, it is caused by the difficulty of getting developers interested in brownfield sites. I was very struck by the statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for DCLG, Eric Pickles, which was repeated by noble friend Lady Stowell on 16 June, about what is being done to encourage more development on brownfield sites. There will be extra help for London, but more important is that the success of London in getting ahead of this is now to be emulated in other parts of the country. It seems to me that these are the ways in which one ought to try to deal with this.

I will therefore listen with great interest to my noble friend’s response to the amendment, which has a very considerable appeal, but I have to say that I am not wholly convinced that it is the right answer.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Best, got us off to a good start in our deliberations on Part 3 of the Bill. He touched upon a fundamental issue facing the country—and, indeed, as other noble Lords said, all political parties at this time—which is the housing crisis. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Tope, will forgive me for quoting a few statistics in a little while, but this crisis is characterised by an acute housing shortage, with housebuilding falling to its lowest levels in peacetime since the 1920s, home ownership being unaffordable for many low to middle-income families, a falling programme of homes for social rent, an unaffordable “affordable rent” model and a burgeoning private rented sector in which rents are rising—all accompanied by insecurity and uncertainty in the marketplace.

The Government will claim that they have built some 445,000 houses since 2010, but this represents just over 110,000 a year—way short of what we need, the 243,000 figure quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Best. This is less than half of what the country needs. Figures from the House of Commons Library show that since 2010 the gap between housing supply and demand has increased by more than half a million homes, with London bearing the brunt of the increasing shortfall. It has been reported that DCLG Ministers have been advised of the prospect of the number of housing starts falling in 2014, with just 16,000 affordable home starts. Perhaps I can ask the Minister whether that is correct.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Best]

I am very grateful to noble Lords for their contributions to this little debate. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, made the point that something has to change. There has to be something a bit more dramatic, I think, than the measures we are currently working on. He also made the point that it is about quality, not just quantity, and one of the great things about a major development is that you can get the quality. If you are building just 40 houses and cramming them into the space that you have, the housebuilder often sacrifices quality. If you have a master plan working to create a garden village or even a garden community—I like that—on any scale, you can make it work because you have the numbers there.

The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, was supportive of the need to do more but had his doubts about this particular way of helping. He made the point that it is important to identify who is going to initiate major developments. The use of development corporations, with consortia of local authorities, is absolutely the way to create the vehicles that could then take advantage of an easier, fast-track planning system. They would be the chief beneficiaries. It might be through local enterprise partnerships’ city deals. The Olympic Village was a wonderful example of how the growth boroughs in that area collaborated and achieved what remains a very important piece of housing.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

The noble Lord mentioned the Olympic Village. He is quite right to give credit to the local authorities in the area. Having read the report by the London Borough of Newham on what it has achieved through that, I think it deserves the highest praise for what it has done. I have in fact written to the Mayor of Newham to express that view to him.

[Lord Best]

I agree entirely. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was very supportive but had some doubts. It was important to hear the plans that are now being formulated by the Labour Party. I know that Sir Michael Lyons’s review is due out fairly soon. I think that will be a creative and important contribution to the debate. The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, made the point that long-term consensus is going to be essential and we have to work our way towards that, even though he has some reservations about this particular approach.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, very much for her response and for underlining the Government’s commitment to increasing supply, which is the essence of this. My suggestion is by no means a silver bullet, that is for sure. Loans, guarantees, et cetera, are all good; it is whether or not the volume that we need is going to be achieved by the measures that are currently there. With regard to reliance on local plans—remembering that you have no duty as a local authority to meet the needs of your neighbours or of the nation—your local plan must relate to the requirements of your own locality, and that may not encourage you to believe that a very major development is within your remit.

I take the point entirely that the pre-application process adds another year or so to the whole, so in total from beginning to end, with the 28 days from the Secretary of State at the beginning, one may well reach three years. But believe you me, three years for a major development is a triumph in relation to the time that we now must wait to get things done.

This is a proposal for a Bill, not a proposal in itself.

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[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, indicated, we have added our names to this amendment and we support it. It took me back to a debate during the course of the Growth and Infrastructure Act when identical amendments were moved and rejected by the Government. The Government’s defence then was that the Article 4 direction would be a route that local authorities could use if they were not happy with what central government was doing. At that point, there was disagreement between the LGA and the Government about how user-friendly that route actually was. The Government were going to talk to the LGA to see whether those matters could be clarified, so it would be very helpful to know whether any clarification was forthcoming. In particular, there was an issue about how the Secretary of State should approach the use of Article 4. I refer to the debate on the Growth and Infrastructure Bill:

“Is it still the position that the Secretary of State’s general approach to making an Article 4 direction, as set out in paragraph 4.23 of planning policy guidance note 15—”

here I asked whether that policy guidance still existed—

“is that, ‘permitted development rights should not be withdrawn without clear justification’?”.—[Official Report, 12/3/2013; col. 195.]

It would be helpful to know whether that interpretation is still imposed upon the Secretary of State in dealing with any Article 4 direction.

Having said that and raised those inquiries, I thoroughly support the position of the noble Lord, Lord Tope.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, this will be considerably shorter than the last intervention I made. I assure my noble friend Lord Tope that I think this is a good point. It will certainly have my support, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend knows that the last thing I ever want to do is to disappoint him, but I think that he is not going to be as pleased with me on this occasion as he might be on others. However, that is only because this amendment replicates what is already set out in secondary legislation. I am pleased to say that local planning authorities already have the power to make local development orders, so it is not necessary to make this change. Similarly, there are powers for a local authority to remove national permitted development rights where it has concerns about the impact of permitted development rights locally. As we have already heard, this is achieved through an Article 4 direction and should be done in consultation with the local community.

The National Planning Policy Framework sets out that Article 4 directions should be limited to situations where they are necessary to protect local amenity or the well-being of the area. Article 4 directions should, therefore, be used sparingly as they remove relaxations which the Government have brought forward. These relaxations remove costs and burdens from local people and allow them the freedom and flexibility to make the best use of their properties. I know that there is a claim—noble Lords have repeated it today—that the Article 4 process is burdensome. However, we disagree. Rather it seeks to ensure that those whose permitted development rights are being removed are consulted and that there are safeguards against inappropriate use of the power. I do not think that there would be support for the reimposition of those burdens without proper consultation.

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[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

I am grateful to the TCPA for its enthusiastic counsel in drafting this amendment and for advising me on it.

Overall, we consider that the planning sections of the Infrastructure Bill are a lost opportunity to lay the foundations of a planning system that can help deliver the homes and places the nation deserves. This very much builds on the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best. The Bill continues in the long line of measures which reduce the powers of local authorities in ways which in turn risk creating real impacts for individuals and communities. We will discuss Clause 20 shortly. Given the negative nature of the Bill, we propose to use this amendment as a vehicle for a much more positive debate about how planning could be made fit for purpose. We do this by seeking to insert a new clause which would amend the objectives of the new town development corporations. This allows for a more comprehensive debate on the principles and positive purpose that might drive the delivery of quality growth and new homes which is so vital to our nations. Both coalition parties, we understand, support new towns and garden cities—as, indeed, do we. We should be able to find common cause on these issues.

The proposed new clause flows out of the detailed research that the TCPA carried out on the measures necessary to make the existing new town legislation fit for purpose. The legislation, in the form of the New Towns Act 1981, is still in force and provides for the setting up of powerful new town development corporations which can drive delivery. The development corporation was the engine that drove the rapid deployment of the new town programme and had the following core powers: compulsory purchase of land where it could not be bought by voluntary agreement; the preparation of a master plan which, after public inquiry and approval by the Minister, would be the statutory development plan; the power to apply to the Minister for the equivalent of outlying planning permission for comprehensive tracts of the new town to control development—that is, to process planning applications; to deliver key utilities in partnership with the relevant agencies; to procure housing subsidised by government grant and other means; to act as a housing association in the management of housing; and to carry out any other activity necessary for the development of the town.

Although strong on delivery, therefore, the outcomes of new towns did not always reflect the highest design and quality standards. In addition, there is now a need to modernise the objectives of NTDCs to ensure that they have the visionary purpose to effect change while creating new opportunities for partnership and participation and a low-carbon future. Due partly to the nature of the new towns legislation, little of the high social ambition which drove the originators of the 1946 Act was reflected in the legal objectives of the development corporations. These were quite brief and mechanistic, referring only to the laying out and development of the new town.

There is therefore a risk that development corporations might see themselves as engineering departments rather than organisations engaged in the wider social enterprise of place-making. Over the past 30 years there has also been a wide recognition that planning has few, if any, outcome duties. This has in turn led to much criticism that planning has become a process without a purpose. New legal processes have been introduced to focus the system on sustainable development, climate change and good design, but they do not apply to development corporations because they are not local planning authorities.

The suggested new clause is designed to extend and modernise the list of objectives and duties of new town development corporations. In order to modernise the objectives, the first proposed new clause draws on the outcome duties in both the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 and the Planning Act 2008, as well as the legislation that created the Homes and Communities Agency, which has statutory objectives that include people’s well-being, good design and sustainable development. The redrafted clause also introduces new and important obligations on the social and cultural as well as physical and economic development of the new town, through strengthening requirements for public participation. It also includes a new definition of “sustainable development” based on the successful wording of the New Zealand Act. I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, there is a lot to be said for the amendment. Indeed, it follows from what I said earlier this afternoon about the need for more local authority development corporations. I will not repeat that, but it was in the context of local housing estates, which the amendment is not specifically addressing.

My point in a sense supports the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. This country has learnt a great deal about planning of new towns. I lived for some years not far from Harlow and, even 20 or 25 years after it was founded, there was still talk of what had become known as “new town blues”. I am looking at the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who knows much more about this than I do. However, the new town blues were caused not just by the separation of families, when they went from crowded urban areas to rural areas outside the cities, but because those rural areas were designed with enormous spaces between different little bits of housing. Harlow was a very good example of that. There really could be almost no interaction between little local communities, which felt themselves very much cut off. No one had cars in those days; they relied on foot and bicycle, and whatever public transport might be provided. We have learnt an enormous amount since then. The design of more recent developments is, if I may put it this way, very much more user-friendly. I hope that we shall see that very much at Ebbsfleet. That helps local committees to gel and to develop a local identity. They left that behind when they moved from the cities and, often, city communities were divided as some went to some new towns and some to others.

I saw this a bit in Liverpool, where a lot of the Liverpool council development was in large, out-of-town housing estates that were often quite hideous, with a lot of huge, tall concrete blocks. I hope that I was instrumental in securing something for a group that was eventually called the Eldonians, a tight-knit community of people who were absolutely determined that that was not going to happen to them. Yes, there needed to be redevelopment, but we were able to secure that in a single site, fairly close to where they were already living. I was helped by the fact that the Tate and Lyle sugar factory had closed and that we therefore had a readily available site. To the fury of the Militant Tendency, as it then was, within the leadership of the Liverpool City Council, I was able to insist that that site went to the Eldonians. They have been very kind in their recognition of that ever since, and that community is still going strong.

This is what one has to do: to try to preserve communities, so that they can retain and build their identities to become what one would like to see—a really flourishing social unit. This country has learnt a lot about that. Regarding the development corporations in new towns to which this amendment speaks, I was urging earlier the inclusion of development corporations with the power to initiate substantial housing estates, with the necessary accompanying infrastructure. We are now much better at understanding this, and the planners and other people who have been involved with this deserve great credit. I hope that the Bill will lead to more of the same.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin. He has said much more eloquently than I could what an extraordinarily important new clause this could be, were the Government to accept it. It really does reflect a very different approach to the creating of communities from the ones that inspired the new towns of the past. Those were, essentially, pragmatic attempts to rehouse populations which were in distress or in stress. We have a much more humane and intelligent appreciation of what it is to create communities these days. The noble Lord spoke eloquently about Liverpool but, in the case of new towns, one is of course creating a community. That means creating a sense of identity and belonging from the first steps up. In my opinion, it should begin with the nature of the community and the sort of infrastructure that sustains the community once it is in place.

That is why there is emphasis in this clause on key words such as, for example, “sustainable development”. That is one big change from the world that we were in 30 or 40 years ago when we were talking about growth and new towns. The notion of sustainability should underpin everything that we construct, whether in the demography that needs to be housed, the way in which we build or what sustains the community in terms of its well-being, such as the emphasis here on cultural and artistic provision, which is vital for creating a sense of belonging and opportunities for people to get to know each other and share a culture and indeed many different cultures.

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[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

Both I and my colleagues at the department are always open to meeting different people and I would never refuse a meeting, but if I or one of my colleagues were to agree to a meeting, it would be important for me to be clear at the start what the Government’s position is. I have outlined that today—but, on that basis, my door is always open to anybody who would like to come and talk to me.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

If I may intervene on what is probably the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, one needs of course to understand the position of the Government, but I should have liked to hear the Minister say that she was prepared to listen to any proposals that are made and that she, or her colleague or whoever it might be, does not approach this with a completely closed mind? There is quite a lot in the clause with which I find myself in some sympathy. I described a few moments ago how my experience led me to that.

I hope that we may have an opportunity to revisit this at a later stage. In the mean time, I am very grateful to my noble friend for what she has said. I do not want necessarily to be part of determining it—it is for the TCPA, which really knows about these things—but I hope she will meet that body, and do so with an open mind. I would find that very encouraging.

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[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

When I read this clause and, in particular, studied the Explanatory Notes my instinct was that there seemed to be some sense in this. Where these things are held up for a long period, it frustrates development. Anxieties have been expressed. They have been expressed to me by the Local Government Association. The only point I wish to make to my noble friend is about whether we could have some idea of what an order under this clause would look like when we come back to this on Report. I made this point to my noble friend Lady Kramer about some of the roads legislation we considered earlier in the Bill, and I make it now to my noble friend Lady Stowell. It would be really helpful to the House, as it will be on Report, to have before it the sort of order that would be made under this Bill. This Bill gives a power to make orders. I am not at all sure what those orders would look like.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My name is attached to the clause stand part provision. While I think some of the amendments in the name of my noble friends would improve the situation, I think the Government need to think again on this. The Minister should take advice from the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, and look more closely at what circumstances and processes the problem that the Government are trying to address needs. As it stands, this is a pretty draconian and open-ended provision. Clearly, for all sorts of reasons there can be delays in the local authority being able to assess whether a condition has been met. The conditions can be quite complex because they are not only in the area of heritage, as my noble friend Lady Andrews has said, but can relate to the natural environment, social implications, traffic implications and so forth. These things are not necessarily easily dealt with, particularly by hard-pressed planning departments. As it stands, the clause would allow the Secretary of State to come to this Parliament the day after the period of the condition lapsed with an order to override the non-decision of the local authority. That seems too harsh. It is important that there is some reserve power for the Secretary of State. I understand why the Government are looking for it, but it should be exercised with discretion. Frankly, this clause gives far too much power to the Secretary of State to interfere in what essentially must be a local decision which understands the complexity of local circumstances. This clause gives no indication of what should trigger the Secretary of State’s intervention and the suspicion must be—I put it at its most extreme, but nevertheless—that a developer who happens to be close to the Minister and is frustrated by the delay tips the Secretary of State off and we have a complete override of our planning process as a result, subject only to the negative procedure of this House and another place. That is too open-ended and I hope that the Government will think again between now and when we come back on this.

I should have declared an interest as a vice-president of the LGA. The LGA has great disquiet about this, and that is shared by a large number of other organisations which are engaged in the planning process. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us something on this and that she will have another look at it before we return.

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[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I will certainly see what is available. Fundamentally—not to pre-empt the further research I shall do—I think the evidence we have gathered is that a huge amount of effort goes into the process of deciding whether something should receive planning permission, but the conditions post that planning permission are not attracting the priority and importance that we need them to have once it has been decided that something should be built. It is as basic as that. We have already talked about the way we all share a common interest in seeing supply coming through more quickly. This is an area where we think there is scope for improvement. With proper safeguards in place, the measures that we are putting forward will go a long way to address a problem that clearly exists.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I am extremely grateful for the announcement that there is to be a consultation on this. Will the Minister give us an assurance that the Government’s response to the consultation will come well before we reach Report on this Bill?

[Lord Tope]

I was going to ask the same question. I am grateful to the Minister for taking some time to explain and try to reassure us. I was very pleased, but not surprised, to hear about the consultation. We look forward to seeing that in some detail. What is of particular relevance to this Committee and to us is that we know the outcome of the consultation and, particularly, the Government’s likely response to that outcome in time for the Bill’s next stage in this House. If the Minister is able to give us that reassurance, we will go away a little less unhappy.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friends on this amendment. It may well be that in her reply the Minister will refer to more than one of the five documents that she referred to in last week’s Committee sitting and kindly e-mailed to us the next day. I have now read them but they do not tell me a lot about the questions that we were asking. I hope that before we get to Report we will have the detail—I think that the Minister suggested that more would be forthcoming—of the relationship between a strategy, if there is to be one, a licence for this company, directions and guidance, articles, duties, governance and things such as that. However, in the case of this amendment, who is going to decide how much the staff of the new company are paid unless it is the Secretary of State?

As my noble friend said, it is beginning to look as though the only reason for making this change is so that the staff can be paid more than they are at the moment. It may be that the people who proposed this looked longingly at the remuneration and bonuses received by the senior staff at Network Rail in recent years without seeing that that is changing quite dramatically to a lower figure. Of course, once Network Rail is fully owned by the state, it may change even further. It would be interesting to hear how we are going to know who is in charge of remuneration, management, financial arrangements and staffing if it is not the Secretary of State. Therefore, I think that this is a very good amendment and I fully support it.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to thank my noble friend and her private office for the help that we were given after last week’s sitting with the supply of the documents to which she had referred and to which the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has also just referred. I am very grateful. I, too, have read them, and the draft licence in particular, with all the caveats surrounding it, which I totally understand, is a very helpful indication. It might have been helpful if I had known about it when we were discussing the purposes of setting up this body and what its objectives would be.

I would have expected a remuneration committee to be the sort of thing to be covered by the articles of association. Indeed, the paper that the Minister has circulated, entitled Strategic Highways Company: Approach to the Articles of Association, makes reference to the,

“Model Articles for a company limited by shares”.

Of course, this company cannot be the same as that because, in a sense, it is rather different with all the shares owned by the Secretary of State. However, I would have expected the whole question of a remuneration committee to be covered by the articles when they are finally drawn up and issued.

It is absolutely within the powers of a board of directors to decide how that is going to operate, but I think that it is not unreasonable that the Secretary of State should keep a very close eye on this issue. Some of the remuneration that has been paid—not only in the private sector, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, implied, but sometimes also in the public sector—has been a bit absurd and given rise to a good deal of criticism and uneasiness. I should have expected the Secretary of State to want to keep a close eye on what the company is doing. As I understand it, it will primarily be for the articles of association to spell out this sort of thing, and I would be most grateful if my noble friend would be willing to confirm that.

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment because it raises wider issues. Although I do not want to go over much of what was said in our previous sitting, the Minister gave some unsatisfactory answers. Since then, like my noble friend Lord Berkeley, I have read the draft licence agreement, which does not answer most of my points or, indeed, the points regarding this amendment. Before we get to Report, we need to be clear—either through draft articles of association or through some greater management guidance for the proposed, hived-off company—about what the company can and cannot do.

On reading the impact assessment, it appears that the alleged benefits of this hiving-off arise almost entirely from the certainty of funding. They do not seem to arise significantly—the £3.8 billion over 10 years arises almost entirely from the certainty of funding on maintenance and schemes within that timescale. Very little of it seems to arise from better management, novel forms of contracts or technological improvements. If that is the case, all that the Treasury and Secretary of State need to do is ensure that there is firm funding from Parliament. Admittedly, a Parliament lasts only five years, and the aggregate period we are talking about is 10 years; but, nevertheless, the institutional change of itself does not seem to deliver a significant contribution to that alleged net benefit.

The questions on how the company runs its staffing, and how it recruits and pays the management, could have a bearing on that, but it is never explicit. It is certainly not explicit in the documents to which we have referred. The anxiety of the rest of the staff and the PCS union is that, although moving away from the Civil Service may mean that the Government can pay the senior management significantly more—if they are going to go the way of HS2 and pay the 23 senior managers, the chief executive or anyone else, more than the Prime Minister, that will be difficult for anyone to accept politically—the rest of the staff will face greater insecurity, as my noble friend has said, as well as the possibility of changes to all their terms and conditions.

Therefore, for the morale of the existing Highways Agency staff, unless we are explicit about what the advantages of better management and a better situation for the workforce will be, it will be difficult to envisage a wholehearted endorsement of this proposition from the staff. Unless there is a reflection of some improved management in terms of the benefits of the hiving-off, as distinct from the substantial assumptions about what the certainty of funding delivers, the case for going through all this change begins to look a bit thin.

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[Lord Berkeley]

I am going to confuse the Committee because my Amendment 42, which we will come on to shortly, suggests that the name should be the transport infrastructure and services council. However, after I tabled this amendment I had a discussion with the chief executive of the Rail Passengers’ Council, who said that a much better name than anything anyone has suggested before, including the Government, was the transport users’ council. I will just throw that into the ring and see what the Minister and other noble Lords think of it.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

It sounds a very good name. However, might there not be some confusion with another body with the same initials—the TUC?

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I think that this amendment deserves full-hearted support. What has raised a great deal of concern is that roads should become the exclusive prerogative of drivers and passengers. Of course, they are serving the wider community, or could serve the wider community. If we are taking the opportunity for more strategic thinking about the future in transport, it seems very unfortunate inadvertently to work against that objective by limiting imagination in titles like this. Amending the title in the way suggested would begin to open up the responsibility of those who are administering roads and those who are driving on roads—passengers who are using or riding in cars—to think of the wider community. From that standpoint, I am very glad that my noble friend has moved the amendment.

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[Baroness Kramer]

I should point out to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that it is the Passengers’ Council today; that is its legal name. If we were to include a different name in the legislation now, it would not be clear to anybody which group of people it applied to. We are identifying the organisation. It might be appropriate for that organisation to make changes to either its name or its trading name to meet the new set of responsibilities that it will have. However, if I were to put in some other name today it would not be clear that it applied to the Passengers’ Council, a body for which everybody in your Lordships’ House has great respect.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

Would it be open to the body to change its own name for popular use? I cite the example of the body that I set up when I was Environment Secretary and which is now known as English Heritage. It had some very dreary bureaucratic name—the National Council for Historic Sites and Buildings—and I appointed the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, as its first chairman. At his first meeting he agreed with the entire council that the name should be changed to English Heritage. That has been a huge success as it describes precisely what that body does. I have always been enormously grateful to him because he really got that body off the ground and made it a popular institution that attracts the loyalty of many millions of people. Would the Passengers’ Council be entitled to do the same thing?

[Baroness Kramer]

The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, is exactly right. Passengers’ Council is the legal name of this body. It could be changed in secondary legislation but, as I said, it uses a trading name and calls itself Passenger Focus in the work that it does with the rail industry. It is perfectly able to choose what it considers an appropriate name. I have enormous respect for the Passengers’ Council, and for it to use its correct legal name. I am comfortable leaving it to decide on the appropriate trading name to use. I suggest that we communicate to the Passengers’ Council the various names that have been suggested today, but it seems to me that the council is best positioned to test the matter with various people to discover what the public think most clearly expresses the role that it wants to carry out, rather than for the Committee to come up with an appropriate trading name. Our skill, after all, is legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, provided an excellent example of a body understanding its role and coming up with a name that resonated strongly with the public by accurately describing its activities.

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[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, we have major doubts about whether the Passengers’ Council will provide an adequate forum for the public response, so we want to take the opportunity in this new legislation of not just renaming the body, but of widening its perspective. I have tabled two amendments which seek to ensure that the interests of cyclists and pedestrians would form part of the perspective of the strategic highways company, and that the needs of local communities are taken fully on board. Major road schemes clearly have an impact on all communities. However, both of my amendments can more than safely be withdrawn because they are overwhelmed by the more extensive and detailed series of amendments which have been put down by my noble friend Lord Berkeley, and typically my noble friend Lord Judd has backed the winning side. I will certainly not move my amendments when we come to them, and I have a great deal of sympathy with what my noble friend Lord Berkeley has said.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I listened to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, with great interest, and I have been pondering for a few minutes whether in fact he is right. My mind goes back, if I am allowed to reminisce, to when the then Government were planning the motorway network. At one stage this involved taking the M11 motorway from London up towards Cambridge and then to join the A14, and it went slap bang through the middle of my constituency, Wanstead and Woodford. Initially my constituents were pretty horrified by this, as indeed was I. This urban area was proposed to have, in effect, a four-lane dual carriageway going from Hackney Wick towards Epping Forest.

The Minister of Transport at the time was my noble friend—as he now is—Lord Fowler, and his junior Minister was my right honourable friend Kenneth Clarke. I persuaded the Minister that they should come and spend a morning with me in Wanstead, which was the part of my constituency that would be most dramatically affected. They came to the perfectly wise conclusion that that part of the road should go underground. It would involve a cut-and-cover operation, which eventually happened.

Once that announcement had been made, though, overwhelmingly my constituents said, “Well then, get on with it”. They did not want constant delay. However, and this is the point that I want to make to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, it was held up for nearly eight years by a series of demonstrations supported by precisely the environmental bodies that he mentioned, and others. Some of them were quite clearly anarchists. They rechristened the area of Wanstead Green “Wanstonia” and declared independence, and all that sort of nonsense. The courts became bogged down with a series of cases to try to get them out, which held up the process for years to the increasing fury of my constituents, virtually none of whom took part in those demonstrations. The demonstrators were all from outside and were the kind of people who live for demonstrating. That is what makes them tick; it is their new religion. I can tell the Committee that that caused enormous irritation in the area. Now, of course, if anyone drives up to Cambridge by that route they go through the cut-and-cover and it is entirely sensible, and people say, “But why couldn’t it be done before?”.

I question whether it is possible that the monitor should regard, as it were, the CPRE and bodies like that as within its remit. It is monitoring the transport system. It is for the planning system to determine whether or not the environmental consequences are acceptable. I do not believe that the monitor should have anything to do with it. There are already enough obstacles. We are debating in another Bill the question of judicial review, because that can also be a great obstacle to getting a transport system properly up and running because of local nimbys and so on. When one is dealing with road and rail—look at what is already happening with HS2—there are enough obstacles in the way already. What we should be arguing about here, in an infrastructure Bill, is ensuring that what we want to produce actually happens without undue delay.

I hope that we shall never see anything again remotely like what happened in my constituency and indeed in other areas around the country, as plenty of former Members of Parliament will be able to testify. That has been one of the biggest obstacles to getting a modern road and rail network, and it does not seem to me that the monitor can have anything to do with that at all.

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, if this Committee is doing nothing else, it is giving us a wonderful opportunity to hear a series of very real, illustrative and important anecdotes from the noble Lord about what actually happens and what happened in his direct experience. I find that valuable in our deliberations. However, I am a bit puzzled as to why he thinks that he and I are on different sides of the fence; we are not. Of course the monitor’s job is not to make decisions in this field. A monitor’s job is to ensure that the procedures have been properly followed. All that I am arguing is that the monitor should therefore have a responsibility in the Bill to ensure that the consultations have been as wide as they should have been.

The noble Lord gave a beautiful example of how, by using good sense, imagination and contacts, he was able to persuade the relevant Ministers to come to see the situation and why his constituents felt so strongly. Unless I misheard him, he went on to say that the Ministers agreed that that particular section of road should be put underground. All I want is a situation in which the monitor has a responsibility to ensure that that kind of consultation has taken place and that it is not just up to the personal relationships and contacts of certain Members of Parliament and certain Ministers.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I do not want to prolong this, but is that not the function of the planning system rather than of a body that is monitoring the strategic highways company and the railways? There is a separate planning system, which is going through Parliament at the moment with regards to HS2 and which has nothing whatever to do with the Office of Rail Regulation. It is a planning system and I think that these two things should be kept entirely separate.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I, too, have memories of motorways. The M25 went around the north of the constituency that I represented, in Enfield. The only tunnel constructed on the M25 was there, in order to protect the interests of my constituents. Subsequently there was an additional tunnel in order to protect a great deal of Epping Forest, which I also greatly supported. However, our negotiations and discussions were nothing to do with planning authorities; we had to deal with the Department of Transport and the excessive, terrifying costs of what is involved in tunnelling. That is why the M25 is a circular route 125 miles long but has only one tunnel, which is constructed as far as the immediate neighbourhood’s interests are concerned. It was nothing to do with planning; the Department of Transport had to answer.

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[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, I support all that the noble Lord opposite has said. I have been here for only 15 years, but I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, will vouch for the fact that I have raised this matter, as has the noble Lord opposite, on countless occasions. I have lost count of the excuses, all of which include the words “next year”. The latest one was the promise around three or four years ago of a quinquennial review. Although it is due, nothing has happened. This is a clear example of confusion and antipathy between two government departments: the Department for Transport, which owns, as it were, the British Transport Police, and the Home Office, which owns the rest of the police force, except in London.

The fact is that this absurd barrier between the areas where the police can and cannot go is not understood and leads to confusion. Almost every night at Reading station I see the constables of the BT police standing by the windows, and on a number of occasions I have seen fights and things happening in their view but they are not able to intervene. To the public, that is absolute nonsense.

I plead with the Minister this time to take the matter away and come back with a satisfactory solution. This is the result of jealousy over jurisdiction in the police service; I cannot think why. I remember going out with a Thames Valley police patrol one day—I was on the police authority for 13 years. We went out of the Thames Valley into Warwickshire, and they told me that they could not actually make an arrest until we had turned round and come back again. This situation is stupid, it is Victorian and it is not in keeping with modern society.

The reason why I believe this matter belongs in the Infrastructure Bill is that, when the public use railway premises, they expect the police to look after the bus stops, the car parks and the cycle racks. Some of those facilities are in private ownership and some in public ownership, but the journey that the person makes is door-to-door. At present it is being expostulated by the Department for Transport that it is doing a great deal for those journeys, but many people who use public transport but feel unsafe when doing so would be much reassured if they knew that the bus stops around railway stations and other facilities were patrolled by officers who were competent to deal with whatever happened to arise. I strongly support the amendment.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I have to say that this is the first time that I have heard the argument advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, and my noble friend Lord Bradshaw. My noble friend Lord Bradshaw told us that he has done this many times before; I have obviously been doing other things at those times. I have listened to both noble Lords with care, and I have to say to the Minister that I think they have made an incontrovertible case. I will listen with very great interest when she replies, but she will require some extremely powerful, cogent and convincing arguments if she does not respond in the way that the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, has suggested and take this away, perhaps coming back on Report with an amendment that meets what seem to me to be totally absurd anomalies.

Infrastructure Bill [HL]

Lord Jenkin of Roding Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Grand Committee

Working through these various amendments, the underlying concerns are essentially covered, in many ways, or are not necessarily appropriate to the Bill and to the functions as they are envisaged. I hope that gives some comfort to your Lordships and that the noble Lord will feel comfortable withdrawing the amendment.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid that I was engaged on the Floor of the House for the first part of the Committee’s sitting, taking part in the debate on—

[Lord Bradshaw]

Manufacturing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

Yes, manufacturing, so I may have missed this. The trouble as one gets older is that one forgets things, the most recent things in particular. As I confessed at Second Reading, I am not an expert on road legislation. I make that absolutely clear. I am a fairly regular road user, but that is about as far as it goes. None the less, I have tried to understand the structure of what is going to be set up here. I made my view clear at Second Reading that I thought this arm’s-length body would be an improvement on the Highways Agency, for reasons which I briefly mentioned and which my noble friend, the Minister, has spelt out on several occasions.

However, I am not entirely clear about the relationship between the Secretary of State and the highways company. I am told that there has been no mention, during any of the debates, of what is described in the document published last month by the department, Transforming our Strategic Roads—A Summary. On page 9, there is a very interesting chart which sets out the pattern of what is intended. It refers to a framework document which:

“Defines agreed roles, responsibilities, governance and working arrangements between the SHC and government”.

I listened very carefully to what my noble friend the Minister said in her reply to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and I do not think that she mentioned the framework document. Is this something that has been published, or will be published? What form will it take? What statutory authority will it have? I understand completely the articles of association. Indeed, every limited liability company has articles of association; it also has a memorandum of association, which is normally the document where you set out the objectives of what the company is being set up for.

I quite understand that in this case the objectives are going to be transferred by the Secretary of State to the company by various transfer instruments and, probably, secondary legislation. But what is the framework document? It plays quite an important part in the chart here, and I am not entirely clear how it is going to be produced, what status it will have and what parliamentary accountability there will be for it. I would be most grateful if my noble friend could enlighten me. I hope she will forgive me if it is pure ignorance and everybody else knows but I do not, but if she would be kind enough to explain it to the Committee, I would be extremely grateful.

[Baroness Kramer]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, for that addition to the discussion. What was published last month is the outline for the framework document. The document itself is not yet a finished article but the framework is here, which gives some clarity on exactly how it will function. Looking at it, I think it will be impossible to have a final framework document until we have a final Bill, since what it does is capture the relationship that the Bill will establish once it is an Act.

The outline goes a long way to making that clear. It says that the framework document will state in broad terms the aims and objectives that the Secretary of State will expect the SHC to achieve. It will set out the SHC’s legal status and administrative classification. It will list its responsibilities and accountabilities, such as,

“enshrining Managing Public Money and other relevant government guidance”.

It will list the responsibilities for senior roles in the company. It will provide for business planning, performance and monitoring, budgeting procedures, annual reports, and accounts. I could go on but it might be easier to provide any of your Lordships who did not pick this up at one of the earlier gatherings with a copy of the document itself. It will go a long way to clarifying exactly how all the pieces fall together. The document that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has in his hand is meant to try to show how the different pieces and documents all relate to each other. I fully accept that it takes more than a moment to sit down and work out how the various interrelationships work.

However, given that it is only the noble Lord who has raised this issue now, I would say that there is some comfort that the bits do actually fit together, which of course is essential for the successful functioning of the company.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply. I will read very carefully what she has said in Hansard and perhaps try to get hold of the other documents she has mentioned, but it certainly would be very helpful if that document could be circulated. I do not know whether other Members of the Committee have seen it. I see heads being shaken so I am not sure that my noble friend is right when she says that, because nobody else has raised the point, everybody else is completely happy. If that is so, it would be a remarkable example of unanimity but, honestly, I do not think that is so. I think we will need to follow this up.

My noble friend says that this will be implemented after the Bill becomes law; that is, after it has been given Royal Assent and is an Act, in which case, of course, we cannot amend it, except by new legislation. What I need to get clear in my mind is the relationship of these various documents, which are obviously absolutely key to the working of the highways company.

[Baroness Kramer]

If your Lordships want to look at the document more immediately, it is attached to the Bill on the DfT website. That would be an immediate way to get hold of the document, if we cannot get a printed version of it into your hands at the moment.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I have just retired as president of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. At an annual general meeting about three years ago, when we dealt with substantial amendments to our rules, I have to tell you that the officer of the committee who was responsible for preparing the documents got into the most terrible trouble when it was said, “Oh, yes, they are all on the web, and everyone must look at it there”.

The fact of the matter is that one does not look for things there. When the Bill is going through the House, one expects to have the documents available in the Printed Paper Office. There was a reference to a document in the letter that my noble friend wrote to me following Second Reading, and I asked the Library to look it up and print it out. I now have that, which is perfectly acceptable—I get very good service from the Library. However, if I may say so with the greatest respect to my noble friend, for the Minister to say that we all ought to have it because it is on the website is not an answer. I regularly use my computer for many hours each day and use the internet and so on, but I really cannot be expected to search through the Department for Transport’s website in case there is another document that I have not come across.

[Baroness Kramer]

Let me just make a final response to that. There was a WMS when the documents were published, so I hope that some people have had the opportunity to find it.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

There was what?

[Baroness Kramer]

There was a Written Ministerial Statement when the documents were published, so I hope that some people have found them through that route.

Let me just provide slightly more detail. We intend to share draft documents such as the framework document later in the autumn, so as the Bill progresses we will be publishing them in draft form. The point that I was making is that you cannot go to final form until you know absolutely everything. It would be presumptuous for us to go to final form before the Bill had been concluded.

--- Later in debate ---

Debate on whether Clause 2 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I did not give notice of my intention to oppose the question that Clause 2 stand part of the Bill because I had not heard all this debate before.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon) (Lab)]

I am putting the question.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I am sorry if I was out of order. The point has been made that the Bill incorporates, amends and transfers a great deal of earlier statutes. At some stage, this legislation might be consolidated. I made a study a year or two ago of how this could be done. I had a long—not frustrating, because I learnt a lot—meeting with the chairman of the consolidation committee, a High Court judge. It all depends on whether the department concerned is prepared to put up the cost.

We have occasional consolidation Bills. I was particularly concerned about the consolidation of the Gas and Electricity Acts, which have now become hideously complicated because of the constant amendment of earlier legislation. It was simply said: “Well, if the department in charge of those Acts is prepared to pay for it, the consolidation committee can make sure that the consolidated document is produced”. Is there any chance that the Department for Transport would contemplate this on a matter that obviously affects very large numbers of people over the whole of the administration of this Act? Might it in future contemplate agreeing to pay for consolidation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kramer]

I am very happy to attempt to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, on this point. To try to work out whether we could do a consolidation Act is above my pay grade. However, what he says brings to mind two issues. First, there is the importance of putting the detail in the licence. Having spent part of my life in business, I know that having a clear operating document with all the essentials in it is a terribly effective way to ensure that you are doing what you need to do. When I look at the level of detail in the draft licence—for example, on the relationship between local authorities and devolved Administrations and the need to take account of local needs, priorities and plans in planning operations and maintenance, et cetera—the licence is a very important document in that whole process. The comments of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, underscore the importance of using that document rather than necessarily finding every opportunity to put items in the Bill.

In this case it is essential that we get on with this. It is important that we start to get certainty around the future of investment in infrastructure so that project after project can begin to take place without the stop-start pattern that we have all described. Therefore, while there may be goals for overarching legislation such as consolidation, I hope very much that we will not attempt to interrupt the progress of the Bill and the benefits that it offers. There may be opportunities for such efficiencies in the future, but this is something that can begin to impact what happens on the ground early next year, if we carry it through to its completion.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

My Lords, I entirely accept my noble friend’s explanation on this. It obviously very much depends on the licence, and we shall have to see how it comes out in the end. On that basis, I am most grateful for what she has said.

Clause 2 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Whitty]

We now come on to the strategy and, by implication, the money. The Government have commendably said that they want a steady strategy that is going to last some time, with an allocation of resources against it. That in itself is highly desirable, but it is not so dramatically different from the various road programmes that have existed in the past and have been subject to sudden change, as the Minister said, mainly because of changes to financial arrangements but also because of planning delays and technical problems with the projects when they go beyond the initial feasibility study.

The national infrastructure plan, which has a lot of roads in it, broken down on a regional basis, is presumably going to be built on and represented as the strategic highways plan, and there will be a five-year programme of money attached to it. My Amendment 14 attempts to ensure that that five-year view is reflected in the Bill. The Government have made quite a lot of the five-year thing, but although I have not read every word of Schedule 3, I do not see it in the Bill. There are arguments as to whether five years is enough, given that it takes that long even to get anywhere near starting, but the five-year funding has been an important plank of the Government’s selling of this project, and I think that it should appear somewhere in the Bill.

My wording may not be quite right, but I think that it should be a rolling five-year programme, so that in year 3 you are still looking five years ahead. You would add to it, and you would add the financial commitment related to it at that point. My wording does not exactly say that, but that is what I am after. If the department can find better wording, that is so much the better. However, we should at least write into the Bill the embedding of a minimum five-year view and that it should be on a rolling basis and have money attached. Otherwise, a lot of the rationale for this whole exercise disappears. That is what Amendment 14 is about. The Government have made a start with the designation of projects within the national infrastructure programme and can turn that into a highways strategy, and the Chancellor has made the commitment for these five years.

The Government seem slightly naive in their confidence that the Treasury will never revisit this because it is now an arm’s-length company. The past 50 years have seen cuts to the money that has gone to private companies, to nationalised corporations and to local authorities. The fact that they are arm’s length from government has not stopped the Treasury deciding at particular points to change what it had previously—in effect—promised. So far nobody has managed to sue the Chancellor for that; I doubt whether it will be any different under this new arrangement. That may be a bit cynical. As the Minister said, it would be more embarrassing to do that, but my experience of Treasury Ministers and Treasury officials over the past few decades does not indicate that they are easily embarrassed. Indeed, interfering with other departments’ clear priorities is the way that the Treasury works, rightly or wrongly. Therefore, the benefits of having an allocation for five years can be exaggerated. Nevertheless, it is a desirable aim, and it is desirable that we know for those five years what projects are there and what stage they are at. Since it is a rolling programme, moving from feasibility study to planning, to precise engineering design, to the start of digging and through to actual completion of the road, it is desirable that it should appear in a five-year perspective. Before we finish the Bill, I hope that a form of words can be adopted that makes sure that that is reflected in the Act. If it provides a bit of embarrassment to future Treasury Ministers, so much the better, and so much easier will future Transport Ministers find their relations with the Treasury.

My Amendment 16 raises the broader issue of strategy. We have an infrastructure strategy but not a specific transport strategy. It needs to be made clear how the roads strategy, or highways strategy, fits in with the broader transport strategy—rail, ports and airports in particular. The whole logistical structure and the balance within it in terms of our economy, what pressure is put on the transport system and what the regional balance and stress points are, need to be reflected in all modes and, indeed, different corridors need to be judged on a multimodal basis. If they are not, simply having a sacrosanct—or near-sacrosanct—roads strategy will deal only with part of the problem. My Amendment 16 relates to putting the roads strategy into that broader context. I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)]

My Lords, it is my impression that this road investment strategy, and the commitments made to it by the Government, is perhaps the aspect of this Bill that has been most welcomed by industry, commerce and, indeed, all those who depend on transport for their operation. I have just been rereading what the CBI said about this, and it attaches enormous importance to the stability that the roads investment strategy is intended to bring.

It will be a long time before those of us who lived through it forget what happened in 1997 when the Deputy Prime Minister at the time, the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, decided that roads were much less important than a lot of other things and there was a massive stop to almost the entire road investment at the time. That is the memory that I have and the impression that the noble Lord gave at the time, and that memory will take a long time to disperse. The Bill, particularly this clause and the policy that lies behind it, has been greeted with huge enthusiasm.

The Treasury has ultimate responsibility for managing the economy as a whole. I can speak as perhaps the only former Treasury Minister in the Room, having spent four years as Financial Secretary and then Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the 1970s. One is always aware that at the back of any policy there has to be Treasury approval. In the interests of the economy as a whole the Treasury has to be able to say to a department, “I’m very sorry, we can’t afford that”. Here, though, the combination of the strategic highways company, the roads investment strategy and the commitments that the coalition Government have given on this must to some extent make a Treasury Minister think extremely carefully about how far it would be right to interfere with this—that would be a major decision.

Of course, these things often happen when there is a change of Government. What industry is looking for here, as we heard in the debate in the Chamber today from a number of speakers, is common ground between the major parties so that there are not massive changes of policy on matters of this sort, which have such a devastating effect on manufacturing industry—which is what we were discussing then.

Whether one needs to have what the amendment suggests at least every five years I would regard as questionable; it seems to add an element of uncertainty that the Bill does not have. There is a five-year review but I am not quite sure why this particular condition would need to be put in. I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and I have enormous respect for his expertise in this field because he was a Minister in the Department for Transport, or whatever it was called at the time, but the advantage that has been gained by publishing this policy in this clause of the Bill is that it assures the commercial side of this country that there is now going to be far greater stability in the long term. I am delighted that there is such emphasis on the long-term strategy for infrastructure building so that we can get away from these five-year single-Parliament policy decisions, which might put it risk.

I want to see this aspect of the Bill going through as effectively and swiftly as possible because it is what the country, particularly its commercial elements, have been looking for for a long time. I am going to look at not just this amendment but a number of the others that have been tabled—I was going through them earlier today—to see whether they would interfere with that aspect by raising doubts or putting additional bureaucracy or obstacles in the way of getting the strategy fulfilled. That is what one will need to look at very carefully. At the moment, as far as I can see, most of the Bill achieves what is wanted. I express my doubt about whether Amendment 14 from the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, would improve that; I suspect that it would add an additional obstacle and raise doubts that ought not to be there.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kramer]

I do not want this point to go unchallenged. I say to the noble Lord that I think the industry has heard absolutely correctly, but nobody I know in the industry believes that a Parliament can bind every future Parliament from thereon out and totally remove its democratic right. It would be inappropriate to attempt to do that and, frankly, I do not think it could be done, so it is absolutely crucial that we recognise that the Secretary of State can make a variance. It is not the intention of this Government that they will vary the RIS that they put forward, but I do not see that they can completely bind a future Parliament 100%. That is why the mechanism in place is to set a very transparent course—one could say an obstacle course—for any change or variance, so that it in no way would be done lightly. Perhaps no Government would do it lightly but it would be done with consultation and engagement, and with various steps in place. Industry has widely recognised that that provides it with a very substantial degree of certainty—enough to have the kind of positive responses to which the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, referred.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

Perhaps I might add to that before the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, resumes. I have in front of me the British Chambers of Commerce brief. I want to read only one sentence from it. It says that,

“the transformation of the Highways Agency into a more flexible body, with five-year investment programmes”,

should offer,

“more certainty to business on key road projects”.

It is not expecting to have complete certainty and for this to be totally fixed over a period because it recognises the reality, as my noble friend has just said, that to some extent it has to reflect what is happening in the rest of the economy. What it welcomes is what it sees as the opportunity of much more certainty than we have had in the past.

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, that is very realistic; nevertheless, the way that it has described the situation is more than is actually in the Bill. Some other form of words would give more certainty than the Bill does currently, as past changes show that there is a need for some protection. It may be that the obstacles—if that is how the Minister wants to describe the consultation—are one way of ensuring that it does not get easily changed. The other way is to put the strategy to Parliament and have to report to Parliament if you are going to change it. In some industries or sectors, that is done in certain respects. You have to provide a strategy and, if you change it, there is at least an argument in Parliament. These things change from time to time.

I am sorry to take up the Committee’s time, but I shook my head at the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, earlier and I need to explain. I became the Roads Minister in 1998. In 1997, the Government inherited a roads programme from quite a good 1996 White Paper of the previous Government, which listed projects but did not list money attached to them. Projects got added in as we approached the 1997 election, by both parties, for reasons I will not go into. We therefore had a programme with far too much in it at the tail-end, and which did not have the right amount of money attached to it. The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, announced that he thought his aim as Transport Secretary was to reduce the number of cars on the road, and he was therefore not going to build roads which simply increased traffic. I know this well because we announced the roads programme in 1998, about four days after I became the Minister, so I take no responsibility for the decisions but I do take responsibility for the presentation. The majority of things which had been in the previous paper were back in, and then there were one or two more and one or two fewer—but they were all costed. A lot of those costings proved to be utterly inaccurate, most of the timings proved to be most inaccurate and one of the projects was indeed the A303 past Stonehenge, and we know what happened to that. Certainty is not easy in this area. We need a bit more certainty than we have here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, I am in great danger of running into the same brick wall of a government response as my noble friend Lord Whitty. It was an interesting response: “We are creating a new company; we are setting out a new strategy for roads; we have a five-year programme; and we are talking seriously about infrastructure. Please do not come to us with any suggestions of what considerations such infrastructure developments should take into account”.

My noble friend Lord Whitty tried to analyse the road investment strategy and what that might involve in terms of wider consideration. I will deal with the national networks policy statement, with exactly the same objective. I see no point in the Government arguing that they have got improved machinery but reined-in objectives. In circumstances where wider society is clear that what it wants from our infrastructure is greater integration and greater realisation of the relative impact of public expenditure in one area upon another, I do not see how the Minister can maintain that these things are too burdensome. It is not too burdensome to include in the Bill the possibility, some period further on, that there may be more than one company. It is not too burdensome to have a decade-forward look at certain aspects of the legislation.

With these amendments, we suggest the road investment strategy will need to take account of its impact on local road systems and will need to consider the links between other significant parts of the transport infrastructure, such as ports and airports. If we had not had the built-in five-year delay on the decision regarding an additional runway in the south-east, we would currently be discussing infrastructure in relation to aviation as well as roads. The Minister maintains that there cannot be a case for pressing additional obligations on the strategy. I do not accept that. I do not see why we should not ask, as Amendment 29 does, the Secretary of State to provide the strategic highways company with a survey on the condition of the local and strategic road networks. I do not see why we cannot envisage increased co-operation with Network Rail. I know we cannot flick a switch overnight and deal with such complex issues as if they are givens to immediately act on, but unless we have the objectives then the whole concept of the integration and improvement of infrastructure over a period of time disappears.

I listened very carefully to the Minister’s reply to my noble friend Lord Whitty. I understand what she is driving at, in that we cannot take everything on board at the same time. However, we are not suggesting an enormous increased cost as far as the road investment strategy is concerned; we are suggesting that it should have the perspective to understand what integration and development of the infrastructure is all about. That means that the Government should give serious consideration to this group of amendments, as well as to the previous group, introduced by my noble friend Lord Whitty, which seek to guarantee that our improved investment strategy for infrastructure will take in all the factors that wider society regards as being germane to transport improvement. I beg to move.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I would like to put a question to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, about his amendment. I believe I am right in saying that local authorities already have a very effective system for regularly analysing the state of local roads, the investment that needs to be made to bring them up to standard and what it will cost, called the ALARM system. What is wrong with that? If they have that already, why write something more into the Bill? I merely ask the question. Maybe the noble Lord can answer when he winds up at the end of the debate, and perhaps my noble friend might like to comment on that in the course of her reply.

I understand, of course, that different parts of the road structure will have an impact on each other. I would have thought that would be covered by the duties of consulting that my noble friend referred to in relation to earlier amendments. This will be an integral part of the operation of the strategic highways company. There is already a very good system, as I understand it. One sees headlines in the newspapers every year about the state of local roads and what needs to be spent to bring them up to standard. If there is a headline word that has entered into the public consciousness, it is “potholes”.

[Baroness Kramer]

My Lords, through these amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and others seek to ensure that the impact of the road investment strategy on the various local road networks and other transport infrastructure is considered. This is an important argument, and I need to be clear that, through the licence, we are requiring the strategic highways company to have an asset management strategy. Understanding the condition of its assets is absolutely key to this.

The condition and performance of the local road network are, as the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, clearly outlined, matters for the local highway authority. Frankly, we would not wish to include in the Bill a requirement to survey the condition of local roads, because its focus is the strategic road network. We are not anxious to usurp authorities’ powers. I share the assessment of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, that the tasks are currently well carried out by local authorities, which, I suspect, would not want to surrender a lot of resources and have the task taken over by a centralised body.

That said, we want this new company to co-operate with its partner road networks. The route strategies, with which I think many of your Lordships will be familiar, are a key source of information in developing the road investment strategy. They provide local authorities and, by extension, local highway authorities with a mechanism to work with the new company and thus ensure that the impact on the local road networks of interventions on the strategic road network is considered. We think that that will be an extremely effective mechanism and it is well provided for in the legislation as it stands.

In addition, as part of the changes elsewhere in the Bill, the company will, as I have said before, become a traffic authority. That is new and means that it will be subject to the network management duty—a legal obligation on all local traffic authorities to ensure, among other things, that traffic flows smoothly from one jurisdiction to another. At present, the Highways Agency is not subject to this requirement, so this will be a new guarantee of co-operation.

I could start to list the kind of support that we are offering for local roads but, setting aside our significant financial contribution, I also want to make it clear that we are supporting efforts by local authorities to share knowledge and best practice under the highways maintenance efficiency programme, as well as encouraging co-operation and common procurement. There is therefore a gathering momentum to achieve much more co-operation and partnership working, which will continue under the new arrangements.

I talked earlier about aligning road and rail investment strategies, so I will not repeat that. Instead, I shall use this occasion to underscore how much we recognise that there is significant value in Network Rail and the new strategic highways company working together on the kinds of issues that your Lordships have listed. However, we do not think that you need a legislative mechanism to try to prescribe how those two companies should work together. We would find it extraordinary if they chose not to, and I doubt that the Secretary of State would permit them to ignore each other in that way.

It is entirely appropriate that the road investment strategy and the new company’s response to it will have due regard to the national network’s national policy statement—that is a mouthful. However, it would not be appropriate to create a formal link between what is a planning document and what is, in effect, a funding and investment plan. The two documents align but there is not a hierarchy between them.

On that basis, looking through the details of the amendments, we think that the underlying issues that are of concern to your Lordships are already addressed. Therefore, we feel that the amendments are not needed and we hope very much that the noble Lord will feel comfortable in withdrawing the one he has moved.