European Union Entry/Exit System

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises an excellent point. In fact, the Government and I are very active in encouraging more freight through the tunnel—and, indeed, more railway freight generally. Of course, as the noble Lord will know from our discussions on the then public ownership Bill and subsequently, the Government intend to give Great British Railways a target to increase rail freight, particularly in respect of the use of Eurotunnel. Both Eurotunnel and HS1 have the facility to discount track access charges for new freight. When I meet the freight community, as I do probably more often than the passenger operators —at least as a group—I regularly encourage and unfailingly remind it of this so that we can use the surplus capacity to which the noble Lord refers.

[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that, while most of this discussion has related to the south of England, the impact of these changes is at least as significant on the other bits of England—not least the north of England, because businesses up there are affected at least equivalently by the changes that may take place?

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

Indeed—we are very mindful of the fact that, done inelegantly and with the wrong result, this could affect business across the country generally, not merely in the south of England. The three juxtaposed controls are in the south of England, but they affect travellers and freight from all over the country. We are mindful of the effect on the economy as a whole; that is why the Government have worked so hard since they took office to check both that the arrangements in these places are adequate and that there is more capacity, as well as in collaboration with the European Union so that its end of this works as well as ours will.