Road and Rail Projects
Viscount Stansgate Excerpts(3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I am pleased that the noble Lord welcomes Wellington, Cullompton and Portishead. The answer with Tavistock is that there were so many schemes in what the previous Government promoted as Restoring Your Railway, which on the face of it looked to be an invitation to any community in the country to wish back the railway that was taken away 50, 60 or 70 years ago because, frankly, it did not have many people or goods using it. The answer to the noble Lord is for Tavistock and Plymouth to put forward a sound business case for that investment that would reflect the actual costs of building that railway. I have some experience of that scheme at a much earlier stage, when somebody rather optimistically claimed that it would cost £30 million to extend from Bere Alston to Tavistock. The reality is that it would be not reopening a railway but building a new one, and to do that you need very substantial economic activity there.
The regular electrification programme would of course reduce costs, but we have significant electrification going on in this country. The trans-Pennine upgrade is a very significant electrification project from York to Manchester, and that is in the course of delivery at the moment. When Mark Wild has sorted out HS2 in management and governance terms, as he will, it will be a very significant piece of electrification to be carried out by those people.
In the medium term, one of the answers is for us to have a strategy that embraces both rolling stock and electrification, because it is clear that modern technology allows battery trains and that battery trains could replace diesel trains on quite a lot of the network; they would not need total electrification, but they would need some wires. The noble Lord may have seen that the proposals for East West Rail do precisely that—there will be wires up where it is cheap and convenient to put them up to charge the train in order to charge the batteries for when it would need to go through other places.
The noble Lord raises an interesting point about signalling, but I think the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, had it right about the European train control system on the south end of the east coast main line. We need to move away from like-for-like replacement of existing signalling. Still more difficult, the cost of those schemes means that, almost inevitably, while the aspiration to replace 1950s and 1960s signalling always starts with more flexibility and more capacity, that flexibility and capacity have always been deleted out of those schemes because they cost too much, and what you actually get is a like-for-like replacement at really quite significant cost.
The opportunity with the ETCS on the south end of the east coast main line is to embed a system that has in-cab signalling and does not require fixed assets on the railway but can run more trains on the same railway, because the trains are intelligent and know where each other are. The advantage of doing it on the south end of the east coast main line is that many classes of locomotive and multiple unit will be fitted with equipment, which will mean extending it. Therefore, using it to replace conventional resignalling will be far more possible in future than it is now. It is a thoroughly good thing, and the noble Lord is right that that is the way forward.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the Statement. Reference has been made to applications by open access operators. Will my noble friend the Minister take this opportunity to update the House on the Government’s current view of capacity and capacity constraints on the east coast and west coast main lines?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that question. The truth is that we knew at the time of the cancellation of HS2 phase 2a that the original purpose of a new railway, originally all the way to Manchester, was to enhance capacity. We knew at the time that phase 2a was cancelled that there were no alternatives and, therefore, that the railway would be constrained north of Birmingham, as it currently is. The Government are thinking about what might be done about that, but until HS2 is built to Birmingham, the Office of Rail and Road has told applicants for open access on the west coast main line that there is simply no space left—and there is no space left. The ORR has had to consider its duty to promote reliability on the railway and encourage Network Rail to improve reliability, and it would be pretty hard to do so if at the same time it approved applications that did not have appropriately guarded train paths to achieve it.
We will see what happens on the east coast main line, where several applications are currently being considered by the ORR as an independent adjudicator. The truth is that one reason for ETCS on the south end of the east coast main line is that the east coast main line is largely full too. I draw the House’s attention to earlier discussions that we have had about the new east coast main line timetable, which has been long in coming and in the end had to be decided by me as the Rail Minister because it was so difficult to get agreement between the parties that had train paths and rights to train paths in order to produce a satisfactory timetable. The truth is that my noble friend is right: on both main lines there is a shortage of capacity, the solution to which can be achieved only through further investment.
Stockton and Darlington Railway: 200th Anniversary
Viscount Stansgate Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Viscount Stansgate
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare a lifelong interest in railways.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill) (Lab)
The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world’s first railway to use steam locomotives to transport passengers, shaped modern railways. To mark its 200th anniversary, Railway 200—a national celebration—is supporting the Stockton and Darlington bicentenary festival. That festival will highlight its impact on the local and regional industry, communities and innovation. My department is supportive of these events and of ensuring that the Stockton and Darlington Railway is rightly honoured for transforming transport and Britain’s and the world’s economy.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. There are clearly many activities to which we can look forward. May I ask three quick questions? First, can he say a little bit more about the so-called Greatest Gathering, which I understand is going to take place in August in Derby, and which will bring together an unprecedentedly wide range of trains illustrating 200 years? Secondly, what hopes do the Government have that this anniversary will help the heritage railway industry, on which so much of our historical culture and tourism depends? Finally, will it look ahead to the future of railways, particularly the exciting new direct journeys from London to places in Europe and beyond?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank my noble friend. The celebration in Derby is from 1 to 3 August. It will be a huge gathering of historic and current railway equipment. It is entirely put on by Alstom, which occupies Britain’s oldest train manufacturing plant, and it will be a great occasion. The heritage railways movement is worth £600 million a year to the economy and has 4,000 employees and 22,000 volunteers. It has had a hard time since Covid, and one of the purposes of Railway 200 is to give it a bit of a hand in survival and growth. In respect of the present and the future, the real reason why this Government should support this celebration so much is that the railway is extraordinarily relevant to the modern economy: connectivity drives growth, jobs and housing, and, on the future, the technological change that the railways are presently going through is an eminently marketable resource. He is also right, of course, that European connectivity is important. My department is working as hard as it can to increase the number of European destinations accessible through Eurotunnel.
Rail Performance
Viscount Stansgate Excerpts(8 months, 3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
The noble Baroness raises a subject that I feel that I should know more about than I do. I know the general issue, and one of the benefits of a coherent, integrated railway ought to be that Great British Railways should be considering level boarding far more deeply than anybody on the railways has generally done. That criticism can be levelled at most parts of the British railway system, with some notable exceptions.
I will now go and look at the compatibility or incompatibility of the trains and the platforms in north Wales. You have to remember that the platforms were largely built in that case in the 1840s, and not much has happened to them since. However, I recognise that it is a huge problem and I recognise the access issue, which always or nearly always calls for ramps and people to deploy them. It is unsatisfactory. Sadly, the infrastructure lasts for a very long time indeed, and the trains last for a long time, and it is a subject on which Great British Railways will have to do better than the railway has done for the last 50 years.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I am not a current active user of Euston Station but, in the course of my lifetime, I know well enough what experience you can have at that station, and it has often been quite dismal. However, I am encouraged by the Statement, which refers to “a 100-day plan of rapid improvements”. Can my noble friend the Minister outline a little more what he hopes will be the situation that will make the business of using Euston a more pleasurable experience for passengers?
Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that question. I was at Euston a week last Monday, hearing about the details of the plan. The station itself was very modern in 1968; it is no longer very modern. As a previous chair of Network Rail, I can tell your Lordships that if you look closely at the columns in the station, there are bands around the marble because it would fall off without them. The station is no longer in a fit condition. I would like to take some modest credit for having reincluded the concourse at Euston in the overall plan for the redevelopment of Euston and, now that the tunnels for HS2 will go there, I am very hopeful that all parts of the station will be fit for passenger usage in the future.
However, in the meantime, the most important parts of the 100-day plan are the following. The concourse is too small, so the logical thing to do on the concourse is to load the trains earlier, yet the position up until very recently was that neither of the train companies routinely managed to do that. However, they are now changing. So, a significant proportion of Avanti trains will be loaded at least 20 minutes before departure and, for the more local services on the London Northwestern trains, the platforms will be full of passengers even before the train has arrived. That will make a huge difference. There is a bookshop there currently that will not be there shortly, to create some space. I recall that we got criticism for removing Boots, but too many shops and not enough concourse space is the wrong answer. There will also be some further improvements to signage and visibility. When the last signage was done, it was hoped that it was the right job, but I am afraid it turned out not to be.
I hope that that is sufficient granular detail, but, if my noble friend would like to make himself available, either I or somebody else will show him around Euston Station, and I can get them to show him what is going to happen.
Lower Thames Crossing: Development Consent
Viscount Stansgate Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, has the Minister been over the Dartford Crossing recently? Does he know how difficult and congested it can be? I agree with the comment that it is very damaging to the economy to have a massive collective traffic jam day after day. If the Government fail to make the statutory decision by the due date that the Minister has given, what will happen? Have the Government taken into account the economic damage done by the existing situation at the Dartford Crossing and the benefits that the new Thames crossing will bring?
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
I know the crossing well and I am very conscious of the issues around it. It is a large infrastructure project, so we must get it right.
Trains: Wifi Provision for Passengers
Viscount Stansgate Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I do not think I can necessarily disagree with the noble Baroness, but that is a very absolutist approach and there is some balance to be had here. She says that the Government are not willing to subsidise the railways; we already do. As I have said, £2.85 billion is going in for the services. As I mentioned earlier this week, £44.1 billion is going into control period 7—the highest ever—and that covers all the renewals, the maintenance and the Network Rail operations. That element of it is very significant. That is nearly £9 billion a year that the Government spend, and in addition a further £2.8 billion is spent on subsidising services.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister says that no final decision has been taken, but is she trying to persuade the House that the Government no longer think, in the 21st century in which we live, that wifi should count as an essential service for those of us who use the railways?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The proof is in the pudding—between 10% and 20% of people on trains use the wifi. Most people nowadays use 4G and 5G networks.
Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) (No. 3) Regulations 2022
Viscount Stansgate Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I thank my noble friend for raising the issue of small aircraft. I know he has a great interest in the matter. I will have to write to him about whether it applies to private jets and other small aircraft. The instrument that we debated in Grand Committee very much covered the slots held by the large commercial airlines.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, before the House agrees these regulations, will the Minister tell us whether the Government expect limits to be placed on the number of passengers able to use Heathrow over Christmas?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
We are aware that the current passenger cap at Heathrow of 100,000 passengers will be removed very shortly—indeed, I think it is this weekend. I believe that no decision has been taken on the Christmas period. However, significant numbers of staff have been recruited by Heathrow, so on balance I expect that it will not return, but that would be an operational decision for Heathrow.
Motion agreed.
Industrial Action on the Railways
Viscount Stansgate Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I completely agree with the right reverend Prelate and noble Lords will have the opportunity to quiz the Government on the longer-term plan as we bring the legislation forward to put it into place. The right reverend Prelate may have seen the Williams-Shapps plan for rail: it sets out exactly what we want to do with the railways. We are hugely ambitious for our railways; we are investing in our railways; we are reopening abandoned routes all over the country; we are electrifying lines all over the country; we are opening high-tech networks such as the Elizabeth line; we have HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail; and we are creating thousands of jobs, particularly, for example, in train manufacturing. But, as I said, you have to build a modern railway on firm foundations, and we have to get to the stage where there are firm foundations on which to build that modern railway.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, which I have to admit she did with relish, but when I listen to the tone and content, I find it hard to escape the conclusion that the Government are content, if not enthusiastic, for this industrial action to go ahead because they think it will bring them political advantage. I have only a few moments to ask a question, so I ask the Minister to explain to the House: what is the role of an engaged, ambitious Secretary of State in a dispute such as this? What more, in her view, could the Government do to bring about the solution to this dispute that we all hope to see?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The role of the Secretary of State is, of course, to support the sector in reaching an agreement.
Travel Disruption at UK Airports and Ferry Ports
Viscount Stansgate Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount. I support my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton and congratulate him on securing today’s debate and the expert way in which he introduced it and laid out the context for what I hope will be its main purpose: finding out the Government’s view of what is going on and what, if anything, they are trying to do about it. It is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate. I have learned a bit about chaplaincy services and, as someone who goes on some on the trains to which he has just referred, I know exactly what he means about the mix of commuter traffic and people who are visiting this country, sometimes for the first time.
Today’s debate is very timely. It is not very popular with the Government Benches so far as I can see, but I understand that it is still very timely because we all know that it has been triggered by what we saw happening over Easter and over the recent Whitsun half-term; and, in the summer that lies ahead, these problems are likely to cause even more chaos. I do not know if the Minister happened to see the news last night; I should think that from time to time she does. At the moment, there is no end of scenes of luggage and queues, and more news about flights being cancelled. In fact, it is not difficult to film huge queues at airports these days, and we have also seen photos of air crews helping to get luggage off planes because there were not enough baggage handlers.
My own experience, for what it is worth, has not been as bad as that. However, on a recent flight back to the UK, the plane landed on time but there was then an inordinate delay while finding enough ground crew staff to find it a berth and take the luggage off. Maybe that has happened to other noble Lords. As for the queues that can arise at passport control, as happened at Heathrow on 24 May, I have known the sheer frustration at seeing large numbers of automatic entry gates seemingly shut because of a lack of staff. I thought that the whole point of these e-gates was to make returning to the UK streamlined and quick for British citizens. No wonder we are told that some airlines are now taking action to cancel even more flights because they know that in the current circumstances there simply are not enough staff to cope with the work.
There is no doubt about the significant disruption. I will cite a couple of examples which the House may well know about. First, on 28 May, easyJet announced that it would cancel more than 200 flights. The airline said that about 24 flights from Gatwick would be cancelled each day between 28 May and last Monday. Secondly, British Airways cancelled 120 short-haul flights to and from Heathrow Airport on 3 June, although it did say that the cancellations were pre-planned and that passengers had been given advance notice. Thirdly, TUI announced that nearly 400 flights would be cancelled from 31 May until the end of June.
Then there is the issue of delays. For people at Manchester Airport on 29 May, it was not good enough for the airport to apologise for the delays at check-in and baggage reclaim and say only that the reason was that there were issues facing several airlines. Of course, very few of the thousands of people who have been adversely affected in recent weeks—and who will be in the months to come—will be watching today’s debate. However, if any of them are, I hope that they will see that Parliament is an important forum for their complaints to be heard and answered.
Mind you, am I the only person to look at what is happening—to see the airport queues and the cancelled flights and the delays that people face at airports and to learn that it is taking far longer than it should for people to have their passport applications processed, and to be told that the Government cannot process in good time the numbers of security applications now being made for airline and airport staff—and then discover that the Government have now announced that they want to reduce the size of the Civil Service?
It feels as though these are the ingredients of what we might otherwise call a failing state. People are entitled to ask who is to blame for all this. Like my noble friend, I am not here to indulge in a blame game because I hope there will be a educative purpose to this debate—to identify who might be to blame for what—in the hope that we can put things right. I often feel that in a debate such as this the Minister’s speech should come first, to enable us to contribute our views in the light of the Government’s arguments. However, it is up to my noble friend Lord Davies to do that in his winding-up remarks.
What has been going wrong? Is it that too many people want to travel? As my noble friend said, after the Covid restrictions of the past two years, it is hardly helpful to blame people for wanting to travel again. Is it because the airlines have acted recklessly? I hope the Minister will tell the House whether she agrees with the Secretary of State, who has apparently said that airlines and operators had
“seriously oversold flights and holidays”.
Is it, as the airlines claim, because it is taking too much time to get security clearances for the staff they now need? Here it seems that the Government have a case to answer. The director-general of IATA recently said that security clearances which used to take three or four weeks are now taking as long as three months. Can the Minister tell the House whether this is true and, if it is, what the Government are doing to fix it? Has it in some way all been affected by the war in Ukraine because Civil Service resources have understandably been diverted from regular Home Office tasks to deal with the urgent need to process visa and asylum applications? Or is it for some other range of reasons? Some people have suggested IT glitches, supply chain issues and even runway maintenance problems.
Whatever the explanation, it all amounts to something of a perfect storm with fuel and energy prices and the cost of living rising, which we are about to address in the next debate, and rail strikes looming, and those planned might not be the only ones. Air travel problems are an ongoing problem and the Government at least owe the country an explanation for what is happening and what they think is going wrong. I hope the Minister can tell us what it is, together with any government plan to remedy the situation because action is needed. I much look forward to her reply.
Touring Hauliers: Arts Organisations
Viscount Stansgate Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
It is a very complex picture. As I mentioned earlier, one in five has already set up with an EU base and a further 6% plan to do so. However, as I also mentioned, it is the case that many tours can already go ahead depending on how many different stops that particular event will have within the EU. If I can find any further details from the industry, I will certainly write to the noble Lord.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, further to the Minister’s answer to the noble Lord, can she give any encouragement or hope to youth orchestras? It is not just professional orchestras that are finding it difficult to tour. Youth orchestras are vital for the experience gained by the young people—I admit that both my children spent years touring and playing all over Europe and had enormous experience with the Stoneleigh Youth Orchestra—but I fear that these in particular are falling completely by the wayside. Can the Minister offer any hope or encouragement for them?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am not aware that there is a particular issue here for youth orchestras. Like any orchestra, if a youth orchestra does not have its own vehicles, it can of course contract with an appropriate haulier which is able to operate within the regime that is set up in the UK and in the EU. It will depend on the sort of tour that youth orchestras want to do and how many countries they will be visiting as to the rules and regulations and which licences will need to be held by the haulier with which they choose to contract.
Train Driving Licences and Certificates (Amendment) Regulations 2022
Viscount Stansgate Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Liddle (Lab)
Yes, first class, too. It gave me a great taste for it, when we arrived at Basel and saw the great age of international rail transport, which was then gradually coming to an end as flying was growing. But it is coming back. Last year—or two years ago, before all the wretched Covid—we went on the wonderful Austrian sleepers to bring us back to Britain, except they could not bring us back to Britain, of course; they could bring us only to Cologne and then we had to get a train from there. But why should that not be part of the vision? Do the Government have this European vision? That is what we need and it is where the future lies if we are serious about a modal switch in medium-distance travel.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I associate myself with the comments made by my noble friend Lord Liddle, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Berkeley for having moved his regret amendment.
When I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, it brought to my mind that vision of the former Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher meeting President Mitterrand when they had the two Eurostars coming nose to nose. I believe that they had to alter the software of the trains to enable that to happen. It was an era of great promise for future travel in Europe and, although I fully understand that the regulations that the Minister has ably moved tonight are necessary and welcome, it is rather depressing to think that we are being restricted.