High Speed Rail (West Midlands-Crewe) Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it would probably be quite difficult to find two people who think more differently about the first leg of HS2 than me and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. I disagree with a large part of what he said: the first leg is a dinosaur of a project. It is economically and environmentally disastrous. That it has gone ahead in spite of the Treasury and Dominic Cummings being against it staggers me—something has clearly gone wrong there.

However, I support the amendment, because it is important that there is a shape to the future. At the moment, I know that people in the north are extremely worried that HS2 will be seen by the Government as something that serves London, with the north forgotten. The Government have said that a Bill for the northern part of HS2 will not be brought forward until they have developed their overall strategy for rail transport in the north. That means that they could abandon that part of HS2 as well as the east-west railway, which Boris Johnson specifically promised as part of the Conservative manifesto and probably helped him win the election and the seats in the north. Without extending to the north, HS2 has zero hope of delivering on the already questionable value-for-money assessment conducted by the Government. Quite honestly, the north will judge the Government on whether its railways go ahead.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I want to say how much I agree with the sentiment expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, in his comprehensive speech. I was on the committee and, of course, I want this Bill to go ahead, but it is pretty pointless unless we see it as part of a much bigger project, which is to close the gaps between the north of England, the Midlands and London. I strongly support the argument that the eastern arm must go ahead, but I also support the idea that massive rail improvements must be attached to HS2. There must be an HS3-style cross-Pennine route; there must be a lot of investment in the provincial services that would link the towns of the north to the cities with HS2 links. This is a very grand project for Britain, but we have to face the fact that in terms of regional inequality we are one of the worst cases, if not the worst case, in western Europe. We have to do something to address that.

The Government have made a lot of their commitment to the levelling-up agenda. My view is that that agenda is not scattering around odd tens of millions in trying to brighten up town centres in the north of England; it should be a comprehensive plan for improving connectivity across the whole country, of which HS2 is a fundamental part.

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We should bear in mind that when you visit a graveyard, that is always a public domain. You are free to look round, consider and view the history that is there. It is important that if, for example, photographs are taken, they are public and easily accessible to those wishing to research history. The historian in me always worries when the destruction of historical records occurs. I accept that keeping thousands of gravestones may be impractical, but we need the record of what they were so that the lives of the people concerned are not completely erased from our history. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will be brief. I have enormous sympathy for what the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, is saying, as a sort of historian myself, who appreciates wanting to understand our past and to conserve it as best we can. However, I sat on the committee that heard the petitions and, to my recollection, we did not have any requests or complaints of this kind. I would have thought that this would have come up in our deliberations if there were serious issues of this kind on this section of the line.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I would like to see huge, wholescale changes made to the high-speed rail programme but in the meantime, reporting and reviewing its impact is important so that Parliament and the public can properly scrutinise HS2. The burial and disposition of the dead has a deeply symbolic and important status in every culture. I might be alone in those contributing to this debate in, as a new archaeologist, having dug up a skeleton—a Roman skeleton that was nearly 2,000 years old. However, the skeleton was still treated with respect and dignity. I imagine that most of us would accept that that is normal when dealing with the remains of the buried. I would say also, as an archaeologist, that the information you can get from bones is fantastically useful.

There is an inherent aversion to disturbing the dead. Amendment 2 seeks to improve the excavation of burial sites by HS2 through a process of reporting and evaluation, which is utterly sensible. I hope that the Government will pick up this amendment and use it as an indication of respect for the remains that are being disturbed.

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[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I was having some difficulty following the arguments of my noble friend. He could of course move the motion he referred to on Report, but I can confidently predict that it would not be accepted by the House. Indeed, I am not sure that many other noble Lords would give it the time of day, precisely because we have had this exhaustive procedure up until now. Essentially, cutting through what my noble friend said—he has of course wanted to stop the scheme all the way through and has been a deep contrarian in that regard—he wants to create new avenues for opponents to stop the scheme. I recognise that, and it is a perfectly honourable thing to want to do.

What Parliament has to judge is whether the processes we have are robust and fair. My view is that they are very robust and very fair. They give complainants and people presenting petitions ample opportunity to make their case. The arrangements that pertain between the two Houses are there to keep a proper sense of proportion in the consideration of the petitions, so that all of the issues raised—the petitioning process is exhaustive and expensive—are not repeated ad nauseam in the second House. That is why the Private Bill arrangements are in place: so that you cannot re-open in the second House, as fully as my noble friend would wish, issues that have been considered by the first House. That seems to me to be perfectly reasonable. It does not withdraw the rights of petitioners to have their concerns properly assessed by Parliament. What it does is put in place a procedure that is fair and proportionate for the consideration of those petitions, which is very different.

The reason why my noble friend Lord Berkeley wants the TWA process to apply is that he is not content with parliamentary consideration of these petitions, and he therefore wants petitioners to be able to create a wholly new and additional process: the TWA process. That is grossly disproportionate. The point he made about changes to the first phase of the project, from London to Birmingham, confuses apples and pears. If you are going to make changes to legislation that has already been agreed by Parliament, you have no alternative but to go for a TWA-type process, unless you are going to produce an entirely new Bill. That is a completely separate issue from seeking to layer on top of parliamentary consideration of the Bill a wholly new process—the TWA process—while this legislation is going through and petitions are being considered. I do not think, having had close acquaintance with the processes, that petitioners are treated in any way unfairly. The arrangements between the two Houses give them ample opportunity, and the power is there for Parliament to make fundamental changes in respect of petitions that are raised between the two Houses. The allocation of responsibilities between the two Houses is laid down by convention.

What my noble friend Lord Berkeley wants to do, essentially, is to stop the scheme; I accept that. He wants to create as many possible avenues of further appeal and expense—this would add to expense—to delay it. Any reasonable observer, particularly those looking at the work of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and his committee and the committee in the House of Commons, would think that Parliament has struck a fair and proper balance between the power of the Executive to propose a major project of this kind and the duty of Parliament to see that all private interests are properly considered before agreement is reached.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I very much agree with what my noble friend Lord Adonis has just said and disagree with my noble friend Lord Berkeley. As a member of the Select Committee, I did not feel bullied by the government counsel on this question. We considered the issue in depth, and the reasons why we said we would not consider such orders seemed valid in the light of that discussion. I am sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, can give a much more elegant legal explanation of these issues than I can.

When the Bill goes through the Commons, the Select Committee can recommend fundamental changes to the route of the line by making additional provisions, but the convention has been established that the Lords does not revisit these questions on petitions that are made to it. Therefore, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, announced at the start of our proceedings that we would not be recommending additional provisions and would be sticking with the convention. Then, of course, people say, “You could use transport and works orders”, but, in effect, they another form of additional provision. As I understand it, if this point were conceded, the decision-making process would be taken out of Parliament and put into the hands of the Secretary of State. It would then be subject to all the arguments about judicial review and whether things have been done properly that have bedevilled plans for airport expansion in this country, for example.

As a non-lawyer, I was totally persuaded by the argument that we should not contemplate these orders. We listened to the argument that was made in the infamous case of the Stone depot, and I was totally unpersuaded that, even if we had had the power to make such an order, it was actually sensible.

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB) [V]]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for his kind words when he spoke in support of his amendment, although I did detect a hint of criticism. I am not going to respond to that, but instead offer, if I may, the Minister some guidance in responding to this issue, based on my experience as a lawyer.

Everything that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, has said, I agree with. He set the scene very well indeed, but I would like to make it clear that there is a good deal more substance to the point he made, which I would like to touch upon. Before I go further, lest there be any misunderstanding, I should make it clear that in my view, the petitioner who raised the issue about the Stone IMB-R—the railhead at Stone—was not in any way attempting to delay the scheme or have it cancelled. It was a genuine attempt to put forward an alternative method of dealing with the very complex issue of how the railhead should be constructed. It raised all sorts of other questions, such as ground conditions. They put forward a genuine issue in good faith. The question is: should we have gone further, to the point of making a direction? It should not be forgotten that a committee like ours, after hearing a petition, either makes an order or does not. In this case, it would have been a direction to HS2 to proceed by a TWA.

Proceeding by way of a TWA is not a simple matter. It is not a foregone conclusion that, just by asking for an order to be granted, it will be granted. The statute lays down a procedure that involves the making of objections, for obvious reasons, because people whose land would be taken have to be given a chance to be heard, and it would result in the holding of a public inquiry. One has to bear in mind, given the stage at which the issue was raised with us, that there is the very considerable question whether the time and effort involved, were we to make such a direction, would be justified.

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I am highly sceptical of many of the measures that HS2 has already used. The noble Lord, Lord Randall, mentioned the trees in the Colne valley. Thousands of newly planted trees have been left to die. I do not understand how we can be sure that HS2 will do not the same again—not exactly that perhaps, but something very similar. It cannot be trusted with our precious habitats and species and the amazing, biodiverse habitats that it is just carving up. Please will the Government make sure that they are a bit tougher on HS2 than they have been so far.

[Lord Liddle (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I want to make a couple of brief points. First, it is important that there is some scheme of environmental monitoring, which I support. Three-monthly monitoring seems excessive, but it is good to have this amendment. Secondly, however, I am rather shocked by the tone of many noble Lords who are against HS2 in their treatment of these environmental questions. As one who served on your Lordships’ Select Committee on the Bill, HS2 seemed to me to display considerable concern and detailed knowledge of what it was doing on these points. Our exchanges with the Woodland Trust as witnesses were not in the tone of many noble Lords’ comments today. I thought that a good dialogue was opening up between the Woodland Trust and HS2. We made some recommendations in our report for more sensitive treatment of ancient woodland, particularly trying to avoid damage in the construction period, as well as recommendations on the planting of new woodland, but I am somewhat shocked by what I have heard this afternoon.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with everything my noble friend Lord Liddle just said. As a former member of the HS2 board and as the Minister who set up HS2 Ltd, environmental concerns were absolutely at the heart of what we sought to meet. By and large, HS2 has done a good job.

The fundamental concern many noble Lords have is that this railway is being built at all. We need to be quite clear about this. The impact on ancient woodland is miniscule as regards the proportion of woodland affected. Some noble Lords would prefer that the line was not built and there was no impact; I respect that entirely. However, Parliament has given these powers and it is a project of importance. The noble Lord, Lord Randall, says it is unpopular, but that is not what the polling shows at all. It shows that HS2 as a scheme is popular with the public at large. Railways are popular, and indeed, if I may point out to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, they are particularly popular with Greens.

Unfortunately, a kind of parallel debate is taking place here. There is one between opponents of HS2 who are simply latching on to anything they can use to try to undermine the project, and the reality, which is that HS2 is doing, by and large, a good job. It could improve—of course all organisations can improve—but it is doing a good job of meeting its environmental obligations, and the requirements placed upon it by the Government are reasonable as regards no net loss.

I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that he delivered one part of his speech condemning cost overruns at HS2, which was prefaced by calling for additional costs, which would be significant. He tried to pooh-pooh them away in a kind of rhetorical way, but it would be very significant if they were imposed on HS2. He needs to work out how he reconciles the first half of his speech with the second half.

On reporting, I am in strong support of full transparency and proper accounting processes, as I have been all the way through this project. I hope that the Minister will tell us what the process for reporting is. HS2 Ltd publishes a full annual report, which gives an update of the progress on the project across a number of dimensions, and it is regularly held to account by parliamentary committees, including the Public Accounts Committee, and internally by the Government.

However, I see merit, as my noble friend Lord Liddle said, in a requirement for an ongoing process for reporting on delivery against environmental and financial objectives. Subject to what the Minister says when she tells us what the reporting processes are, might it be possible to bring together my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s Amendment 4 and my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s Amendment 9? The latter would require annual reporting in respect of the impact on ancient woodlands. My noble friend Lord Berkeley’s amendment would require quarterly reporting across a much wider range of impacts —not just environmental impacts, but costs of land acquisition, the progress of the project, and revenue forecasts and cost-benefit analyses. I support the broad range of issues that my noble friend Lord Berkeley wants to see reported on, but quarterly reporting is too regular. Subject to what the Minister says, if we are still not happy about the formal requirements for reporting after the Grand Committee, I wonder whether it might be possible to have annual reporting, as suggested in my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe’s Amendment 9, across a broader range of indices. My noble friend is right that annual reporting is the way most organisations report on objectives and costs.

Health Protection (Coronavirus, Wearing of Face Coverings on Public Transport) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to follow up my noble friend Lord Snape’s point about process, as a member of your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. The Government announced this policy on 4 June and it came into effect on 15 June, yet we are debating it on 8 July. We kid ourselves if we think this is effective parliamentary scrutiny; it is in fact executive diktat. It would matter a lot less if we had a Government who had competently handled this crisis, but the controversy over face masks is a classic example of the Government squandering public good will by offering confusing and contradictory advice over the past few months. Until a vaccine is available we must find a way of living with Covid, and face coverings are going to be an important part of a comprehensive plan. However, Parliament must recognise that at the moment, it is failing to hold this shambolic Government to account.

Railways (Interoperability) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friends Lord Berkeley and Lord Snape in their opposition to this measure and add my regrets that we are not pursuing a fatal Motion on this issue. My interest in this is personal. I am a railway clerk’s son from Carlisle and I have always been passionate about the railways. My first job in national politics was as special adviser to the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, when he was Secretary of State for Transport, so I have a personal connection. Also, I happened to learn quite a lot about the detail of this SI from being a member of your Lordships’ EU Sub-Committee on the Internal Market, chaired so wonderfully by my noble friend Lord Whitty. The Secretary of State appeared as a witness before us on these questions and it was absolutely plain that the reason he wanted to withdraw from the European agency was nothing more than ideology. He could not stand the fact that standards would be set by Europe. That is what we face all the time from Ministers in this Government. There is no pragmatism about Brexit, so why do noble Lords think we are in trouble? It is because of that absolute absence of any pragmatism.

When we had that hour-long disquisition by the Secretary of State, I raised the issue of the manufacturing plants, which, as my noble friend Lord Snape said, are now foreign-owned but based in Britain. My noble friend Lord Adonis is not in his place but I know that a remarkable achievement of his—one of many, by the way—when he was Secretary of State for Transport was to get Hitachi to establish a plant in Durham that would manufacture trains.

[Lord Snape]

I hate to interrupt my noble friend in full flow, but may I point out to him that that plant in Durham is not a manufacturing plant, it is an assembly plant? That is the great weakness of British industry these days. We put together materials and trains that are built elsewhere. That is what we are going to do in Durham.

[Lord Liddle]

I quite accept the point made by my noble friend but it is better than nothing and it provides hundreds of jobs in Durham. While my noble friend says it is just an assembly plant, how could such a plant operate in Britain if we decided to have different technical standards from those on the continent? That would completely destroy the business model on which that inward investment had been made.

[Lord Berkeley]

I am grateful to my noble friend for his words. Is he aware that Hitachi recently bought a firm in Italy that manufactures trains and signalling equipment? Can he imagine what would happen if it had to manufacture in all these places using different standards for the European markets and the UK?

[Lord Liddle]

As always, my noble friend Lord Berkeley makes an excellent point. I think that the Government have to come up with a better explanation for why we should be leaving these arrangements than the simple, “Why should we bother to be part of some European agency when we have left the European Union?”

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak with some trepidation. I am not as expert in these matters as the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley, Lord Snape and Lord Liddle. However, I share their concerns about what the Government are doing by extricating us from years of integration in Europe in important areas of our national life. This is a perfect example of the dangers of the obsessive ideology which seems to believe that we must leave the European agencies which we helped to establish. Leaving them will impose much greater costs on our country, much more regulation rather than less, and indeed doing so will probably take us back around 10 years in the progress we have made across Europe in these vital areas of our national life.

I support fully the call by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for us to remain at least an associate member of the European rail agency as well as the signalling agency. The transfer of responsibility from these agencies, which have enormous expertise and experience, to the Secretary of State fills one with some trepidation, to put it mildly. It may be that my noble friend the Minister, who I am sure shares some of my concerns even though she is in a difficult position, can provide some assurances that the Government will consider alternative plans that allow us to remain part of these agencies whether or not we leave the EU with a deal. Obviously, I hope that we have no chance of leaving with no deal, but so far the Government have refused to consider the idea of revocation if that is the only way to avoid it.

We need to continue the important activities of compliance and information sharing that are a part of these agencies. Just because there is some link to the ECJ, for example, is not a good enough reason to leave agencies that are so important to many areas of our national way of life, prosperity, security and safety. I urge my noble friend to respond positively with some of the assurances that the noble Lord is seeking.

Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

We have not quite got to the Motion to Regret yet. We are starting with the two SIs.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Berkeley said. I feel very passionately on this subject. First, one of the great things we have seen in the past two decades is the expansion of cross-border rail services. It is important for freight, where in the long term we want to try to take as much lorry traffic off the roads as possible, and it is also very important for expanding passenger networks across Europe and providing a real alternative to air travel, which has damaging effects on climate. I understand my noble friend’s concerns about why we are not promoting the maximum exchange of information and co-operation with our European partners in the event of Brexit.

Secondly, I would like assurances about rail services on the island of Ireland. This is very important to good relations between Britain and Ireland. The development of railways on the island of Ireland is a way of encouraging tourism in north and south. I would like to hear from the Minister that nothing is being done that will in any way be a barrier to the development of that co-operation.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, having left the station before the right of way signal, perhaps I can start again and apologise to the House for—mixing my metaphors—jumping the gun. On this occasion, I shall confine my remarks to the train driving regulations and will discuss the other matter later. I presume I will be in order, which will stop my noble friend on the Front Bench again waving at me in a somewhat frantic fashion.

As my noble friend Lord Berkeley says, I do not think we are getting clarification on these matters. I suspect confusion is likely to arise, depending on how these regulations are implemented. Irish railways have been mentioned. Can the Minister say whether the new licences to be issued for Northern Ireland will be specific to that part of the United Kingdom or be valid throughout the United Kingdom and whether they will be recognised on, for example, the Enterprise service between Belfast and Dublin? What discussions have taken place between our Government and the Irish Government about the future of that service?

How long will the new licences last? My noble friend mentioned a two-year interim period, but what happens after that? A lot of discussions need to take place as a result of this wretched decision that the Prime Minister is apparently going to insist upon. Whether she gets it through the other place remains to be seen.

How much discussion has there been about the long-term effect of this change? After all, train drivers are no longer required to retire by law, but they normally stop train driving in their 60s and many of them will have been driving for a considerable period. Will these licences need to be renewed on a regular basis?

Overall, this is another example of the bureaucracy that will be created as a result of this decision. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how many people in her department will have to be employed to issue the licences and check their validity. Perhaps she can also tell us whether the standards that are now commonplace across Europe will continue to be commonplace in the United Kingdom or whether, at the whim of this or some other Secretary of State, the conditions under which the licences are issued will be altered? These are all matters that result directly from the, in my view, disastrous decision that we are about to take.

I will return to the other regulations at a proper time. They will possibly be even more likely to dislocate the railway industry than these regulations. However, there are still some outstanding questions about the licences, and I would be grateful if the Minister could at least take on board our fears and reassure us.

Rail Timetabling

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, I will certainly look into the point that my noble friend raises. She is quite right to point out that, because of these changes and the reduced timetable that has been brought in, trains are not stopping at every station. It is important that we deal with the train operating companies and do all that we can to communicate with them. However, I will certainly look at the provision available to transport passengers if they are not able to get off at the stop that they wish to.

My noble friend raised an interesting point about driver training. The necessary driver training was not completed in time and my noble friend is quite right to point out that sometimes train drivers move to other franchises. We are hoping to benefit from that in this situation. We are working across all train operating companies to see whether we can use other drivers on these lines to deliver better services. But the point about the transfer of drivers to different franchises is certainly something that I can take back.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that in Cumbria there has been appalling chaos with cancellations, and what we have seen is a complete failure of co-ordination on the part of the disparate interests involved in running the modern railway? Does she not accept at least in principle that the answer to a failure of co-ordination is stronger public control? If she accepts that principle in the north—she may not want to see a renationalisation of the railways and the creation of British Rail—at least will the department consider giving real powers and money to the newly set up Transport for the North, a public body, to give it a much stronger role in co-ordinating services in the region? If she is not prepared to do that, what meaning does the northern powerhouse now have?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, this Government have devolved more power to Transport for the North to manage railway systems. As I said, it co-manages the franchise with the Department for Transport. John Cridland, the head of Transport for the North, is satisfied with the powers that he currently has. I acknowledge that this has been a problem of co-ordination with many different train operating companies and Network Rail. That is something that we need to improve. But we think that the solution is evolving the way that we run the railway to rely on the track and train operators across the network with closer joint working between the train operating companies and Network Rail in different parts of the country. That is being supported by Network Rail’s own devolution into a series of regional businesses. As I said, the rail strategy, which we set out last year, aims to move more towards that alignment of track and train, which we think will help.

Rail Update

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

I am pleased that the noble Lord’s experience of staff on the trains is positive. He is absolutely right to say that they are committed. When we are making decisions about future franchises, we are also trying to provide consistency and structure for them, so that they have the security of knowing that the services will continue. I am afraid that I do not agree with the noble Lord on privatisation. I have spoken before about the amount of investment it has brought in. Passenger numbers have doubled; we have one of the highest satisfaction levels and safest networks in Europe. New trains would not have been delivered without private investment from rail franchising. Some 7,000 new carriages will be introduced to the rail network between now and 2021.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I share the interests of my noble friend Lord Judd as a regular traveller on Virgin trains and agree with his kind remarks about the staff. I seek a point of clarification from the Minister about what she said in the Statement and in answer to questions. Is she saying that the Secretary of State has no legal power to ban Stagecoach from seeking to operate this franchise in future? Is it being seriously suggested that if Stagecoach tried to take the Government to court, because it was not allowed to bid, a judge would uphold its right, given the way it has let down the taxpayer in this instance?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, as Stagecoach is meeting its contractual obligations to support the franchise, including full parent-company support, and because it has operated the services on the east coast, there are indeed no adequate legal grounds to restrict it from bidding in future franchise competitions. That is the current situation: we will continue to look at it as the months progress and we look at future franchises.

Sub-national Transport Body (Transport for the North) Regulations 2017

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I strongly welcome the regulations. I am glad that the Government are bringing them forward, and I echo the words of the Minister when she said that some excellent work had been done by Transport for the North since its inception.

I shall raise two issues. The first relates to the constituent authorities and the definition of them. There is a list of them on the second page of the regulations. What happens if the structures change? There could be different structures of combined authorities, for example. How easy might it be to change the regulations to reflect any structural changes to those constituent authorities? I am thinking in particular of the North East Combined Authority and North of Tyne, but also of the discussions going on in Yorkshire.

The Minister is absolutely right that the main function of Transport for the North is to prepare a transport strategy for its area. It is hugely welcome that there will be one; as the Minister said, it will be by the north for the north. However, I would like to ask the Minister about money. Does she accept that the north of England has not had its fair share of investment in recent years? Given that, does she accept that one of the key roles for Transport for the North will be to define and prioritise the resources needed across the north of England? In that event, do the Government accept that there would be little point in Transport for the North doing a lot of work and raising expectations if the Government do not meet the financial consequences of that work?

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of Cumbria County Council and, more particularly, as a railwayman’s son from Carlisle. I, too, welcome the establishment of Transport for the North. I think it is excellent that we will now have a planning and co-ordinating body that will bring some coherence and, we hope, a transport strategy for the north.

I follow up what the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said about resources. In repeating the statement, the noble Baroness referred to a sum of £260 million for which Transport for the North would be responsible. What caught my eye in the recent Budget Statement was paragraph 4.53 on infrastructure delivery, which talks about the Infrastructure and Projects Authority setting out a 10-year projection of public and private investment in infrastructure in Britain of around £600 billion.

The interesting question is how much of this £600 billion will come under the purview of Transport for the North. I very much look forward to the noble Baroness being able to tell me in her reply. Mr Hammond promised some worthwhile things in the Budget. For instance, in the transforming cities fund, there was £243 million for Greater Manchester and £134 million for the Liverpool City Region. There was a £300 million fund for ensuring the links between HS2 and other infrastructure in both the north and the Midlands, but £300 million is not very much. Of course, there is the new rolling stock for the Metro—one of the finest achievements of my friend the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, when he was Transport Secretary in the Callaghan Government.

We need more information. My county of Cumbria has vast unmet infrastructure needs. I have a letter here that I could read out about Cumbria’s requirements for road investment. I am conscious of the requirement for rail investment. The west coast main line has been modernised, but the coastal railway, which goes through some of the most beautiful country in England, up to Sellafield and then on to Carlisle, is back in the 19th century in its infrastructure. Yet we are talking about a new nuclear power station being built in west Cumbria and how we try to relieve traffic congestion in the Lake District. These questions need to be addressed, and they will all cost money.

I say just three things on money. First, in my view, London and the south-east should make a bigger contribution. They constitute one of the richest parts of Europe, and I would like the Mayor of London given power to raise more money through property taxation in London for infrastructure investment. Secondly, as long as you stick to the traditional cost-benefit analyses of how transport schemes are assessed, you will always end up with London and south-east projects at the top of the list. That is because there is not a broad enough conception of public value in how transport projects are assessed.

Thirdly, I do not want the Secretary of State for Transport telling us that he has no money in his budget, because that has been exposed as a total fallacy by his decision on the east coast franchise in the last few weeks. He has basically allowed Virgin and Stagecoach to run away with hundreds of millions of pounds that they owed on their franchise payments—possibly as high as £1.5 billion, I am told. He has allowed them to run away with that, because he was not prepared to go along to the House of Commons and admit that their franchise had failed. That is money that could have been spent on transport projects in the north of England; it has not been spent—and what is the explanation?

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the fact that so many local authorities have got together and persuaded the Government to form this new organisation. As the Minister said, in geographical terms it is probably the 10th-largest area of its kind in Europe. It goes from Newcastle down to Lincolnshire, right across to Cheshire and Liverpool and up to Cumbria; it is an enormous area, and it is a real success that they have managed to do this.

The Minister said that it would be useful for the Department for Transport—I hope that I have got this right—to give advice. From Regulation 5, “General Functions”, it seems to me that Transport for the North will be giving advice to the Secretary of State. It says that among its general functions is,

“to prepare a transport strategy”—

yes. Then it refers to providing advice to the Secretary of State about how he should exercise his transport functions. Thirdly, it has the function,

“to co-ordinate the carrying out of transport functions”.

Fourthly, it says that it must tell the Secretary of State if it thinks that TfN can do it better. To me, that is very much the Secretary of State retaining control. Perhaps the Minister could explain where the devolution is in all this. It is nice having lots of advice, and everything, but the devolution does not seem to be there; it is still going to be the Secretary of State who has the control.

Other noble Lords have mentioned money. The £250 million that the Minister mentioned is really pretty derisory, compared with Crossrail 2, which I believe will cost £30 billion and HS2, which I think will cost £100 billion, which, of course, connects to the north. But I suspect that many people in that enormous area, as other noble Lords have said, would like to be better connected within the area rather than getting to London 10 minutes quicker. So there is a real mismatch between what London is getting and what the north needs to get. I hope that the Minister can put me right on both those issues. Is it real devolution? Can Transport for the North really make decisions and have the money to spend it as it wants?

Last week, in a local newspaper in Bolton, Lancashire, a comment was made that the Secretary of State had refused the Mayor of Manchester—and this may also be the case regarding other big stations in the north—control of the station so that they can do it up and make it more attractive, getting more passengers and more retail. Why does London have to control the colour of the paint, or what is done locally in these stations, if the local people want to do it and can make some money? We really have to let go of London having control of everything and let this new organisation have real powers. If it fails, the Government know what to do, but I think that it will be a great success.

Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

I did not intend to intervene in this debate. I normally find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, on most issues and I greatly respect his record as a supporter of what one might call green policy. However, on this occasion, I speak declaring an interest as a Friend of the Lake District and believing that special circumstances relate to national parks which make them different from other local authorities. I saw this first-hand in my capacity as chairman of Cumbria Vision, the sub-regional body of the North West Development Agency, which was responsible for promoting economic development in Cumbria.

There are two fundamental differences. First, the people who work on national parks go into it with a very strong personal commitment to planning. I found the quality of staff working for the national park authority to be extremely high. That was not true of planning in all the other district councils in the county of Cumbria. I will not name names, but there were some problems there on the planning side. There were not, however, problems with economic development with the national park, which had a very constructive role in sustainable economic development.

The second difference, which is a fundamental difference from a local authority and the question of a Secretary of State’s potential call-in powers, is that with a national park the Secretary of State nominates quite a high proportion of the members of the authority. Therefore, if the Secretary of State believes that the national park is not getting the balance between development and the environment right, he or she can nominate members. That is my simple point. I shall give way.

[Lord Deben]

I thank the noble Lord for taking the opportunity to find a disagreement between us because we are both singularly embarrassed by the similarity of our views on a whole range of issues, from Europe to planning. However, if what he says is true, would it not be very surprising to get rid of people whose normal attitudes were extremely good but, because of something specific, things had gone wrong? Surely it would be much more sensible for the Secretary of State to be able to deal with this with a precise measure, rather than a sacking. As I understand it, these people are under a contract for a period of time and the Secretary of State would have to wait some time to remove them if they were so wrong. However, I understand from his noble friend that they very rarely get it wrong.

[Lord Liddle]

In my experience, they very rarely get it wrong. My point was simply that if the Secretary of State felt that the overall balance of the way a national park was operating was not right, there is a remedy available to him or her, which is not the case for a local authority. Anyway, I would urge a special provision for national parks because, on the whole, they are a very precious element of our polity, introduced by the post-war Labour Government, and I do not think we want to tamper with them and their independence.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I remind noble Lords that we are on Report and, under the convention in the Companion, no Member may speak more than once to any amendment.

EU: Financial Stability and Economic Growth

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, as many noble Lords have said, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, was very timely in choosing the topic for debate today. I agreed with virtually everything he said in his speech, although for the sake of the record I ought to say that I disagreed with his description of the previous Labour Government as an awkward partner in Europe. He should go to Brussels and ask what people today think of the coalition. We should remember the influence the previous Labour Government had over the Lisbon strategy, European defence and climate change policy. There were three new treaties. We greatly increased British influence in Europe. Our problem was that we did not make a strong enough case for Europe in Britain. This is what we now have to do.

The central issue in the debate is how Britain should keep its place among the adults, as my noble friend Lord Harrison said, at the European dining table. Some people think that Europe is irrelevant. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is among those who think that the single market is relatively unimportant. For the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, it is a complete waste of time. I will give one example of something good that the Government did this week in my home town of Carlisle. They gave a grant to Pirelli tyres, which employs 1,500 people in Carlisle, to develop innovation in new tyres. Why is Pirelli in Carlisle? Because it gives access to the European single market. People such as the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, would destroy those jobs.

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch]

My Lords—

[Lord Liddle]

I am not giving way. The single market is a difficult bargain. The Government say that they want to promote it, but when a lot of people are worried about its social effects, how will they be effective in promoting it at the same time as they are trying to withdraw the United Kingdom from our social and employment obligations? This is a fundamental issue for the coalition and a fundamental contradiction in its policy.

I agree with right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bath and Wells and with other noble Lords who said that the single market in itself is not enough. We need a European plan for growth. It is not difficult to put that together. Hundreds of millions of pounds lie unused in structural funds, many in the United Kingdom. What will the Minister do about that? The European Investment Bank already does far more to support small businesses in Britain than anything the British Government do. We could expand that role very considerably.

Several noble Lords have said they think devaluation is needed as part of growth. May I draw their attention to an article in this morning’s Financial Times? Its respected economics editor, Mr Chris Giles, points to some striking figures, comparing the net trade contribution to GDP since 2008 for the UK and Spain, both hit badly by the banking crisis. For the UK, with 30 per cent devaluation, trade has improved our GDP by 2.5 per cent; for Spain, stuck in the eurozone single currency, its trade contribution to GDP has improved by 6.3 per cent. Devaluation is not the cure.

I said that this debate was timely and serious. It really is serious, because as the eurozone hovers on the brink of an existential crisis, we should recall the words of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, that if the euro fails, Europe fails. For Germany, that would be unthinkable. Such an outcome should be unthinkable for the United Kingdom, too.

Let us recall that the euro was not conceived as a foolish political venture that took priority over the single market, as some noble Lords appear to think. Instead, it was the only practical means to sustain the single market once capital movements were liberalised under the 1992 programme that was so strongly advocated by the Government of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher. Free capital movement made it impossible to continue with the system of managed exchange rates under the ERM. At the end of the 1980s, Europe faced a simple choice between reverting to free-floating exchange rates, which risked competitive devaluations and a return to protectionism—destroying the single market in its wake—or going for a single currency. Europe chose the single currency.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, mentioned Bretton Woods, where Keynes’s essential argument was that free trade and open markets are far more important to economic dynamism than flexible exchange rates; and it is very difficult to have both at the same time. That is why the present situation is such a threat to Britain’s vital interests. Let us not kid ourselves: if the euro fails, we will not see a return to the status quo ante. I do not agree on this point with the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, for whom I have the most wonderful respect and admiration. The likelihood is that if the euro broke up, the single market would break up as well, in a new Europe of competing currencies. Member states would take protectionist measures against each other to prevent what they see as unfair competition.

For Britain, which conducts so much of its trade and which has so much investment dependant on the single market, this would truly be an economic catastrophe. It would not be just an economic catastrophe. The collapse of the euro would, as Mrs Merkel said, put the European Union itself at risk. I believe that the single market is the foundation stone of the European Union and, as I have argued, the euro is its essential cement. Pull that away and in place of the remarkable unity that we have seen in Europe since the Second World War, we retreat to a Europe of fractious nation states.

This is what it would be: we in Europe decide to become Westphalian pygmies at the moment that Brazil, India and China become globalisation giants. What hope would there be for our ability to promote the values that we share, with Europe and not with the United States, to back international development, reduce world poverty, tackle climate change, advance democracy and human rights and help to solve the problem of failing states? What would happen then in that disastrous situation to the ideals of the founding fathers of the European Union who fought for a Europe whole and free, at peace in a co-operative partnership of nations where elements of sovereignty were pooled in the cause of democracy, freedom, prosperity and social justice?

Britain will be an enormous loser if the European project founders. It must not happen. We must strain every sinew as a Government and as a Parliament to avoid that terrible catastrophe. In doing so, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, that we are not traitors to our national interests but are giving a practical expression to modern patriotism.