Sustainable Aviation Fuel Bill
Lord Moylan Excerpts(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, what is one to say? The easy part is to start by joining other noble Lords in congratulating the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester on his entertaining and interesting maiden speech, and to welcome him and the many contributions he will no doubt make to your Lordships’ House in the future.
When the Labour Party, the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats, even without the support of the Green Party, all agree in supporting a measure, who can withstand them? Some might call it groupthink; others might see in it the spirit that defeated fascism in Europe. But here we are. We have huge support for this Bill from all quarters of the House, but I am afraid that it is the job of the Official Opposition to express a degree of scepticism.
Our debate has ranged very widely indeed, whereas the Bill has a very narrow focus. Many have spoken of it as if it were a net-zero measure. I dispute that. The net-zero measure was the SAF mandate that was put in place, as the Minister said, before Christmas last year, in November, which mandated airlines to use a certain quantity of SAF in their fuel, increasing every year over a period and set out in a statutory instrument. That was certainly a net-zero measure.
However, few noble Lords were open in saying that the Bill is not a net-zero measure as such but an industrial policy measure; in fact, it was really only my noble friend Lord Grayling who was explicit about that. He was explicit also in saying that he supported that industrial policy, which says that not only do we have to require SAF to be used by airlines in this country but we have to be the producer of that SAF. He gave reasons: he said, “Why would you want to use foreign producers? Why would you want to import your SAF?” But there are answers to that.
I am told that there is no future in being an old-fashioned Thatcherite and believing in markets, and that people like me are terribly out of date. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, made clear that SAF mandates are not confined to Britain and the European Union; there are countries all over the world with SAF mandates. She mentioned Thailand and Singapore, and I am sure there are many others as well. SAF is a global business. There is an argument that you might be able to import your SAF more cheaply and have a more efficient market if you were not insisting on producing it all yourself. None the less, the Conservative Party when in power and the Labour Party today have decided on that as a matter of industrial policy.
So what can possibly go wrong, even though it is hard to see what comparative advantage the United Kingdom has as a producer of SAF? The noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, pointed to one element that seemed pretty damning of our comparative advantage—our very high electricity costs by international standards. He pointed out that this the production of SAF is an electricity-hungry process, but that none the less has to be ignored and overridden.
The Government have decided to be a leader in this uncertain field, and it is uncertain. I think we have agreed that there are three stages of SAF. There is HEFA, which the Government do not want to subsidise, as I understand it, even though, as again the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, pointed out, the Bill appears to be drafted so that they could. We need to examine that more closely in Committee. Assuming that the Government do not want to subsidise HEFA, that leaves us with non-HEFA SAF, but the processes for producing non-HEFA SAF are highly uncertain and some of them are first of a kind. We do not even know that they are going to work, but we are putting in place a revenue certainty mechanism so that investors can find out, for practically no risk, whether they are. This is going to be of advantage to the national economy.
Beyond that, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, said, there is a power-to-liquid option, but the Government do not appear to believe that it is worth investing in that at the moment, even though it is being pursued in the United States with the support of tax credits and, as I understand it, with a large plant in Texas.
Anyway, having decided that this is our industrial policy, we have to find a way of subsidising it. The Treasury has discovered this wonderful thing, the contract for difference, which is a form of subsidy that means that they do not have to shell out any money, because the cost of the subsidy is passed on to the consumer. Contracts for difference have given us the very high electricity costs to which the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, referred earlier, which are apparently crippling the process on which we are embarking. So we are to have not a subsidy but a contract for difference, and we are to set up a counterparty that will be able to work that out. It is going to have the skills to negotiate with the hard-faced lawyers sent by the investors to get, as my noble friend Lord Harper said, absolutely that price which offers an appropriate level of reward for the very low level of risk the investors are taking, but not a penny more. Our negotiators will be able to manage that and land it to perfection, and they will have the resources to do that. And so we go on.
Noble Lords have raised a whole series of questions, which I suspect will form the basis of our discussion in Committee. I will add a few myself. Can the Minister clarify whether the Government have made an assessment of the compatibility of the revenue certainty mechanism with the non-discrimination requirements of the WTO’s Article III.4 of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, particularly in relation to the differential treatment between qualifying SAF and imported non-qualifying non-fossil aviation fuels such as HEFA? Also, will he indicate—I assure him that I do not necessarily expect him to answer these questions at the Dispatch Box, though it would be very impressive if he did—whether the Government have assessed whether the RCM would constitute a subsidy for the purposes of the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, and whether any risk of countermeasures or formal dispute settlement from other WTO members has been identified?
I am sure there are further questions, which I can bring up in Committee, but for the moment, there we are. We stand solidly behind the Bill, but we see a large number of holes in it. We are far from convinced that it will do the job that the Government have said it will set out to do. Whether it can be done at a price of £1.50 per ticket seems to be something else that is worthy of exploration—as is what that figure actually means. Since the mandate increases every year, at what point does the £1.50 come in? Surely, the cost per ticket would rise over the course of time as the mandate requirement rises. We will explore both how it was calculated and what it means but, for the moment, we look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in response to what has been a lively and well-informed debate.
South Western Railway
Lord Moylan Excerpts(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord is familiar with that system; indeed, in his Government’s time, four franchises were already in public ownership as a consequence of that. By and large, they are doing better now than they were under the previous regime. You do not need an operator of last resort if you have management committed to a long-term future of the railway which satisfies passengers and freight.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Strathcarron is a passenger who has a strong voice because he sits in your Lordships’ House. Before the election, the Labour Party promised in its manifesto and its document about rail that it will create a “strong passenger voice” for all passengers. However, now that we can see the Railways Bill, we see that it is a wimpish creature—a revamped TravelWatch—which has no power at all to compel Great British Rail. Would not the Minister just like to admit now that in his vision of a single directing mind for the railways in this country there really is no room for the passenger except as supplicant, never as customer?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord should read the draft Bill more carefully. If he does, he will find that the rather antiseptically named passengers’ council—it will have a better name than that in practice—will have the right to ask for regulatory action to be taken against Great British Railways if it fails to deal with subjects that the passengers’ council has a view about. I am very happy to meet the noble Lord afterwards and point him to the specific wording of the clauses; no doubt we will debate them in due course.
Merchant Shipping (Marine Equipment) Regulations 2025
Lord Moylan Excerpts(2 days, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, as has been set out, this instrument aims to simplify marine equipment regulations and provide clarity for industry. I am grateful for the briefing from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency earlier this week. Conventions require ships to carry safety equipment and counter-pollution equipment, which will meet certain standards. As we have heard, through the 2016 regulations, which were amended in 2019 following our exit from the EU, this SI will consolidate those regulations into a single instrument, which we support. They also concern the removal of government ships—that was clarified to me earlier this week—which are covered by defence maritime regulations.
However, I will raise the process and the time taken to get to what we are considering today. Having read the comments of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee regarding the related Merchant Shipping (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2025, which I am sure will be before the House soon, the timing of these regulations—on which the committee did not comment specifically—needs further explanation. Can the Minister confirm when the consultation on today’s regulations took place? Why have these two sets of regulations not come at the same time, given that they are both about consolidation and review? When can we expect the replacement fees regulations to be introduced?
Given that we were here only last week looking at the instrument on railway car parks, which seemed to take an awfully long time to get here—over five years had passed since the consultation on the matter—and the regulations before us today were last updated some six years ago, what assurance can the Minister provide that the department will start to work at pace through a lot of the administration around these regulations, to ensure more timely consideration by this Committee? I await the Minister’s response with interest.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for arranging a briefing for me by members of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Department for Transport, which was extremely helpful. The issues underlying this wholly uncontroversial instrument were debated in the other place, and the official Conservative view in support of the instrument was made clear there. It is very rare that one has the opportunity with any Government, least of all this one, to be able to say, “Well done. Carry on”, but that is my message.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I am not going to say I am stunned, because the noble Lord is wholly reasonable. It is a pleasure to hear his words.
I should just say in response to the noble Baroness that the consultation took place in the first half of 2025. They are not together, because self-evidently they are not together, but the fees regulations will come within 12 to 18 months. All I can say is that a huge amount of work is going on in my department in respect of both maritime legislation, a lot of which is in statutory instruments as we have discussed, and aircraft safety, because both are related to international conventions, to get over the large volume of work created by the withdrawal from the European Union. She can be assured that work is going on at pace.
It is evident that the results of the consultation, which were wholly positive in this respect, are very helpful. I would be much more worried not by its speed but if the consequence was that the maritime industry felt short-changed or uncomfortable with what is being proposed. It is pretty clear that it is not.
I think I have answered all the points that were raised. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his absolute support, as I am to the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, for hers. It is vital to ensure that all UK-flagged ships carry safe marine equipment that has been approved by the flag state. Consolidating the 2016 regulations and amending regulations into a single instrument will provide clarity for stakeholders. I am very pleased that both noble Lords got such a comprehensive briefing from the maritime agency. Therefore, I hope they will agree that the objective of these regulations, which is to simplify marine equipment regulations while maintaining high safety and environmental protection standards for UK ships, is desirable. I commend this instrument to the Committee.
Road Injuries and Deaths
Lord Moylan Excerpts(2 days, 4 hours ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right that that international system is a good guide. We recently discussed it in this House during the passage of what is now the Bus Services Act. I can confirm that the Government intend to use that guidance, because it is internationally recognised and successful.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, our condolences go to the noble Lord, Lord Lennie. In fact, as the Minister said, motorcycle users made up over 20% of all road deaths in 2024, and many of these take place on rural roads and away from junctions. Have the Government considered reducing fatal outcomes among motorcycle accidents by mandating emergency notification technology for motorcycles, similar to the automatic eCall system now mandatory in cars, and will that form part of the road safety strategy?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The Government will look at the use of all modern technology. There has not been a recent road safety strategy and, as the noble Lord sets out, technology has moved on a long way. So we will look at that, because, when an accident occurs, getting help to victims of the accident as soon as possible is obviously life-saving.
Airport Expansion
Lord Moylan Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
Previous Questions in this House have dealt with the construction of the third runway in relation to carbon. The Government expect those two schemes, which are being taken forward, to demonstrate how carbon reduction applies not only to the construction of the runway itself but to the freight traffic and surface transport implications of the third runway. Those factors will be taken into account. There is no reason for the expansion of Gatwick—and, for that matter, of Stansted and Luton—to be incompatible with that of Heathrow. Heathrow is the UK’s only hub airport and deserves to be of a size that can increase economic growth for the whole country.
Lord Moylan (Con)
Following the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, I would like to help the Minister. The current Airports National Policy Statement states that it expects Heathrow to have
“landside airport-related traffic … no greater than today”—
namely, in 2018, when the document was published. Can he state—I think this would help the noble Baroness —whether the same requirement will appear in the new airports national policy statement, which will appear next year and be the basis for the Heathrow expansion?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord will of course recognise that things should have moved on from 2018 but have not. This Government are determined for the first time to move forward with the expansion of the UK’s only hub airport. The statements made in the Airports National Policy Statement in 2018 will be reviewed in the light of the two proposals the Government are currently pursuing, and we will choose one of them before the end of November. The necessary alterations to the draft new airports national policy statement will be available next summer.
Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Definition of Relevant Land) (Amendment) Order 2025
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Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
I am pleased to speak in the debate about this amendment order. As the Minister has set out, the order amends the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 to bring land subject to the Railway Byelaws within the definition of relevant land to facilitate the recovery of unpaid car parking charges from the keeper or hirer of a vehicle parked in a station car park. This will bring simplicity. It brings railway car parks into line with other car parks, which will allow private parking operators to pursue the registered keeper of a vehicle rather than just the driver for unpaid parking charges, which has been an anomaly for some time.
The consultation on this matter was launched in 2020, so I ask the Minister why it has taken over five years for this small order to appear before the House. It seems uncontroversial, and over five years seems a long time. I know that signage costs were one concern raised in the consultation, but the background note explains that budget provisions have been made to cover this, so that should not be a reason for the delay.
In principle, we welcome this rather technical change and the fact that a consultation took place. However, as anyone who has been an MP or an elected member of a council or an assembly knows, parking and parking fines are always controversial. MPs and councillors receive much casework expressing frustrations and problems with many car parking operators and providers, who often lack transparency and are unaccountable; they can sometimes seem unreasonable. Clear and new signage that is accessible is welcome, but what is the timescale for implementing the new code for private car park operators, which has been consulted on recently?
The public need to have confidence in the overall regulatory framework covering private car parking providers to ensure they have greater transparency and consistency, that they are not being unfairly penalised and that they have that forum for appeals when things have gone wrong. Will the Minister ensure that resources are in place so that operators comply with the forthcoming code, particularly regarding signage, fair changes and independent appeals?
Finally, I understand the Government’s assessment that a statutory review of these regulations was judged disproportionate. However, will the Minister commit to revisiting that decision if there is evidence of unforeseen consequences for operators or users of the relevant land from this order? I await the Minister’s response with interest.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, this instrument seeks to amend the Protection of Freedoms Act. The moment one sees a Labour Government fiddling with our freedoms, one is naturally anxious as to what they have in mind. That Act was one of the great achievements of the coalition Government—in fact, it was a Liberal Democrat-inspired achievement—from those happy days when the country was run by a quad of David, George, Nick and the red-headed guy, whoever that was, but now it is being amended, so one looks very carefully at what is proposed. In fact, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, said, it is much less dramatic than it might be and it is, in essence, to do with enforcement at railway station car parks.
However, I have some questions. I am interested in the thinking and timing behind this order, particularly in how it fits with the proposed architecture of the rail reform Bill, which was published for the first time last week and is, therefore, now available to us so that we can scrutinise the Government’s plans for railway reform.
The basic position is that car parks at railway stations are currently covered by railway by-laws. What is wrong with that? It turns out that the by-laws are unsatisfactory in some respects. So it was open to the Government to come to this House with a view to amending the railway by-laws that govern station car parks—keeping it all within the railway family, if you like—but that is not in fact what they have done. The Department for Transport has not taken us down that track; instead, it is, in effect, outsourcing the whole matter to an MHCLG code of conduct. How does that fit with our plans for a single directing mind for railway infrastructure?
The department is also doing this at a very strange time because, again, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, pointed out, the Government are in the process of consulting on a new code for the private enforcement of car parking. I believe that the consultation closed only in September, which is very recently. Of course, it is too early for MHCLG to have finished its consideration of that consultation or to have issued its plans for the future, so we do not know what we are actually being invited to impose on drivers who are parking their vehicles in railway station car parks.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, complained, quite rightly, that it has taken five years since the consultation was undertaken to bring this order forward. My complaint is that, now that it is coming forward, it is being done in a very rushed manner when, given where we are with the consultation on the code of conduct, it would be a great deal more sensible if the instrument were to wait until we knew what that code of conduct said. Indeed, one would have thought that the train operating companies currently being absorbed into the Department for Transport—that is, the train operating companies or Great British Railways, which is going to replace them—will want to know as much as I do about what the enforcement regime will look like, once the new code of practice is in place, before they relinquish their powers under statutory by-laws, which, as I understand it, the Minister can extinguish without reference to Parliament.
In general, if the Government want to do this, the Official Opposition will not stand in their way, I think, but this seems to me to be a very strange thing for the Government to want to do just at the time when they are putting in place a single directing mind covering all rail infrastructure—in effect, handing this over to a statutory structure that will be dominated by a parking code of practice which was issued by a different government department and which is not even available to us at the time when the Department for Transport is relinquishing these powers.
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their consideration of this draft order. I am grateful for the scrutiny and interest shown in ensuring that our railway and car parking legislation remains coherent and fit for purpose.
I will first respond to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. The consultation was launched a long time ago. Although I cannot account for periods of time before this Government were elected in mid-2024, it is clear that several factors around the cost of the change and how it would affect train operators’ revenue required resolution before this could proceed. As the noble Baroness remarked, these impacts are now funded and budgeted for, and this draft statutory instrument is being aligned, as has also been remarked on, with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s private parking code of practice. In answer to both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, that is to avoid duplicate signage changes and ensure consistency across the parking industry. Although it has taken a long time, it is clearly the right thing to do.
Heathrow Airport: Third Runway
Lord Moylan Excerpts(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Lord Moylan
To ask His Majesty’s Government what information they intend to publish about the proposals they have received for a third runway at Heathrow Airport before announcing any major decisions.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
My Lords, Heathrow expansion will support UK competitiveness and economic growth. In June, the Secretary of State invited proposals; several were received, and two remain under active consideration. My department will decide on a single scheme by the end of November to inform the Airports National Policy Statement review, which was launched on 20 October. Proposals will not be published by the department, in accordance with the Secretary of State’s letter of 30 June to potential promoters, though some have independently released details of their schemes.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, Heathrow expansion is an absolutely enormous project, and there has been remarkably little public engagement. Before deciding between the two remaining bidders, will the Government agree that they should engage in public consultation, particularly on the costs that will flow through to passengers as a result of the regulatory structure, so that they are aware?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The launch of the Airports National Policy Statement review on 22 October is one of the significant steps that the Government are taking to support the expansion of Heathrow. The review has begun before final scheme selection to allow early policy and analytical work. Public consultation will, of course, take place. Round tables with key stakeholders will be held during the review and consultation phases. The further DCO process afterwards will include statutory consultation and public examination.
Heathrow: National Airports Review
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Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, the Statement does two things: it announces a review of the Airports National Policy Statement, but gives us little idea in detail as to how it is to be revised, and it tells us that the only two credible proposals for Heathrow’s expansion are still being considered and that the more fanciful proposals have been dismissed. The two are linked because the core purpose of the current ANPS is to facilitate the expansion of Heathrow. In my view, the timing of the Statement is nakedly intended to persuade the OBR that the project is real and deliverable. I wish to test that.
First, there is the question of delivery of a revised ANPS, which I must say I think Ministers are rather reckless to embark on. The current Airports National Policy Statement was produced under the premiership of my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead and expressly favoured the expansion of Heathrow. It survived scrutiny in the High Court and was appealed to the Court of Appeal by environmental groups on no fewer than 17 grounds of challenge and fell on a single one—the legal meaning of the word “policy”. On that arcane question the whole statement fell. By then, the Government were in the hands of Mr Johnson, who was perfectly content with that outcome. But Heathrow took up the cudgels, and the case went to the Supreme Court, which restored the ANPS.
The timeline tells its own story. In 2015, the Airports Commission recommended a third runway. In 2018, Parliament approved it by 415 votes to 119, yet only by December 2020 did the Supreme Court clear the legal path for Heathrow to proceed—five years ago. Now, in October 2025, Ministers tell us rather recklessly that the policy is going to be revised and accelerated and we are going to go through the whole process again, with all the potential challenges involved. It is a brave or reckless Government who set out on this course.
The Government have an answer to this. In the Statement, the Secretary of State says:
“On judicial reviews, we have announced that we will work with the judiciary to cut the amount of time it takes for a review to move through the court system for national policy statements and nationally significant infrastructure projects”.
At present, the average time for such reviews stands at roughly 1.4 years. What is the Government’s target? How long do the Government expect it to take for the new airports national policy statement to be approved? Remember, it is the Chancellor’s ambition that this runway should open in 2035, with spades in the ground many years before that, given how much muck has to be moved in order to embrace Heathrow’s plans. I am indeed making the simplifying assumption—it may not be true—that the Heathrow proposal is the one eventually chosen by the Government in November and not the alternative scheme. I may be wrong about that, but I think my assumption is reasonable and, for the moment, simplifying. That gives us five years.
Meanwhile, public debate on the whole thing has been minimal, because we have very little information about the proposals. The projected cost of Heathrow expansion stands at £49 billion. The market value of Heathrow Airport, which we know from the last time its shares traded last year, is around £9.5 billion, even though its regulated asset base is closer to £20 billion. People are willing to pay £9.5 billion for something which has a regulated asset base of £20 billion, and they are then proposing that, despite the fact that it is heavily leveraged, much more so than it was 10 years ago when it was discussing this project, we have to reckon with the fact that it wants to spend at least £49 billion—that is the publicly quoted figure; it may be more by now—on a third runway to increase capacity by 50%. My second question is whether this is credibly financeable and whether the Government believe that it is.
However, the airlines do not trust Heathrow, because they are expected to pay in advance off the regulated asset base. In fact, they are paying already, because the CAA has approved that some of the costs that Heathrow incurs can already be charged to the airlines and thus to the flying passengers. They think that because Heathrow is incentivised by the current regime to make its expenditure as high as possible, it is untrustworthy. They point to various things, such as a new baggage system completed in 2016, which was priced at £234 million but ended up costing £435 million, and a cargo tunnel with a budget of £44.9 million that ended up with an estimated cost of £197 million. They point, in contrast to Heathrow’s plan to spend £49 billion on a single runway, to terminals at Barcelona, Frankfurt, Madrid and Munich, that all cost half or less when taking the size of the terminals into account; the fact that Changi is expected to create a new terminal for £8 billion; and that New York’s JFK will open its new Terminal 1 in 2026, the centrepiece of a £15 billion transformation that will be completed by 2030.
What are the Government going to do about Heathrow and its regulatory structures? They say that they are going to change them. The Statement says:
“The Government will therefore work with the Civil Aviation Authority to review the framework for economic regulation for capacity expansion at Heathrow, ensuring the model provides strong incentives for cost-effective delivery”.
What has the Civil Aviation Authority, the regulator, been doing for the last 20 years in that case, if it has not been ensuring firm delivery? So my third question is: what are the Government going to do about that?
I plan to speak for eight minutes.
There is also the matter of noise, which I would like to pursue at some stage, but not at the moment. With that, I will sit down, but I believe that the Government have a lot to do to show that this project is credible, and that they are not contributing to its fast delivery by revising the airports national policy statement at this stage.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, I welcome this debate on the review of the airports national policy statement and the Government’s announcement regarding Heathrow. But let me be very clear that the Liberal Democrat Benches believe that expansion of Heathrow would be a mistake from the Government and deliver a blow to our net-zero commitments.
A reliable and safe transport system is vital for economic prosperity in all parts of the country, and improving transport is essential to combat climate change and air pollution, but we must ensure that new infrastructure supports the UK’s climate targets. Analysis from the New Economics Foundation suggests that approving the expansion of Heathrow Airport would cancel out the climate benefit of the Government’s clean power plan within five years, and expansion of Gatwick and Luton Airports would cancel out the climate benefit of the CPP by 2050, so the Government’s sudden support for airport expansion just does not stack up.
Ed Miliband, speaking at the Environmental Audit Committee on 27 January this year, said:
“Any aviation expansion must be justified within carbon budgets … If it cannot be justified it will not go ahead”.
Will the Minister confirm that the four new tests—the evidence-led approach set out by the Secretary of State—will have to be met in their entirety before this Government will give the green light to Heathrow expansion? Will the Government publish the metrics for each of these four new tests so that there is transparency in the assessment? Will the Minister confirm that they will not proceed with Heathrow expansion if the Climate Change Committee advises that the plans do not meet legal obligations on climate change, including net-zero or air-quality obligations?
Let us look at noise pollution. It is a really big issue. Around 700,000 people are impacted currently by noise from Heathrow. It is not just those who are living in places such as Richmond, Kingston, Hounslow and Surrey—around the airport site. In places such as Lambeth and Southwark, residents have the clash of Heathrow flights and City Airport flights throughout the day, causing serious nuisance. The CAA workbook has highlighted that the number of those who are overflown could double to 1.5 million under some Heathrow expansion plans. Noise is an issue which many people feel has escaped any meaningful legal control for too long, leaving overflown communities exposed to excessive noise, impacting their health and quality of life. As part of this work, will the Government adopt the World Health Organization’s recommended noise levels to address noise pollution from the operations of Heathrow Airport?
I come to the point about surface access. While we do not want to see expansion and we do not believe it stacks up economically or environmentally, the last thing the area needs is an airport expansion plan that does not address and fund fully surface transport to the airport. It is a problem now and, therefore, higher modal share for public transport must be a foundation block for the Government’s assessment. Can the Minister confirm the Government’s commitment to fully funded surface transport access as part of this work? As part of the assessment of the two options, will the Government ensure that surface rail access, including the southern and western rail links, are an integral part? Will the Government consider the future of the premium Heathrow Express line as part of its surface access assessment, and when will this be published?
I pick up particularly these points around rail surface access because the letter from the Secretary of State in June stressed
“surface access mode share targets, including elements of a surface access strategy”
and went on to talk about it covering
“public transport, and active travel”.
Yet in the letter that was published last week, on 22 October, under the heading “Surface access”, it states:
“To minimise unnecessary disruption, please provide additional information regarding the construction of road schemes”.
Rail seems to have been downgraded. I really want some assurance from the Minister today.
In an attempt to demonstrate growth, the Government are misguided in thinking that an expanded Heathrow can deliver for the whole country. There are many other schemes that would deliver a lot more for communities across the country. We do not support Heathrow expansion and will closely monitor every stage of this process to ensure that local communities are heard loudly and clearly.
Drink-Drive Limit
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Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, I come back to the question of drug-driving, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon. Nobody expects there to be available a roadside test for drug-driving that is as effective as a breathalyser for alcohol. However, given that figures from the department show that there are now more deaths from drug-driving than from drink-driving, what in particular is the department doing in terms of training or other equipment that would assist the police in roadside enforcement, which has been shown to be the most effective way of deterring this activity?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
There are, of course, a variety of drugs, which need to be tested in different ways. The department is very concerned about drug-driving and will look at it again in the revised road safety strategy. The noble Lord is right that detection is more difficult because of the variety of drugs, but the department is looking carefully at it because the enforcement effort has to be consistent over drugs and drink.
Open Access Rail Services
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Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I listened to my noble friend with care and respect because he has significant prior experience in running railways. He is right that we should be careful, because we are dealing with only 1% of the passengers and the rest of the network has 99%. We should be careful to allow people to innovate where innovation is a good thing and where there is space for it. We should not allow innovation where it is not a good thing, costs taxpayers money and cannot be accommodated on a very constrained network.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, a lot of people listening to this might think it quite disedifying and perplexing to hear this hate fest against open access services, which are the most popular with commuters, drive down prices where they exist and give consumers what they are looking for. Under the Government’s proposals, the decision on whether open access will be granted for new or continued services will be transferred from an independent regulator to Great British Railways, which is an interested party as a provider of competing services. Does the attitude expressed by the Minister not show how unfit for that purpose the new Great British Railways will be when it starts with such an antagonistic disposition?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Lord has drunk his own Kool-Aid on this. I made it quite clear that there are benefits to be provided. He also needs to do a bit of careful research, because there are very few commuters on open access services. Commuting is one of the things that has a high fixed cost and generally does not cover the cost of its operations. Open access is successful for people making long-distance journeys irregularly, and some of the operators are very good at it.
The noble Lord also referred to the future railways Bill. We have already made it quite clear that Great British Railways needs to be the body that decides who implements the timetable. Currently, there is not one. It will have to have some rules for access to the railway, which will be developed from the current rules and will be consulted on. If third parties believe that they have been disadvantaged by GBR not following its own rules, or doing something in the wrong way, our proposal will be that they have the ability to appeal to the independent regulator. I think that is perfectly fair, but I also think it is really important that your Lordships’ House recognises that nobody is currently in charge of the national railway timetable except the Secretary of State and me. Outside North Korea, that is really not a good circumstance to have.