Queen’s Speech

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lords, Lord O’Neill and Lord King, on their speeches. I am going to talk primarily about transport but I want to take up one point from the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord King. He talked about the “euro ins” and the “euro outs”. That is sometimes a bit of a dangerous argument. One forgets that a lot of those euro outs are trying to get in: they are the future ins of the euro. As he mentioned, the Greek crisis has gone on for some five years now. We all thought that the euro was going to melt down, and it may be a surprise to people out there on the streets of the United Kingdom to hear that the number of members of the euro has gone up over that period rather than going down, with the addition of two member states. So we have to look at the analysis in terms of the aspiration of the outs, rather than just seeing them as permanent outs, as perhaps we ourselves will be.

Transport is the plumbing of the nation. There is no doubt about that, and I congratulate my noble friend Lady Kramer on the work that she did on transport in government. A lot of good things came out of that. Broadband and transport are absolutely key to productivity and to the way that the economy works.

I was pleased to see two Bills mentioned in the Queen’s Speech and in the Government’s programme. The Liberal Democrats, along with many other Members of this House, have strongly supported HS2. I understand that it is contentious but it is clear to me that in terms of capacity and investment in infrastructure that will last for more than 100 years, this is something that has to happen in some way. Getting that increased capacity through changes in the existing west coast, east coast or even central railway would be utterly disruptive to the nation in terms of the economy, commuters, long-distance travellers, business, leisure and freight. It would be a disaster to enter into that investment other than by trying to find a new way of adding capacity—and why add capacity that is old-fashioned rather than new technology?

There is one thing that we often forget. We think of HS1 primarily as an intercontinental railway into Europe. One of its great successes recently has been fast transport into areas that have been hard-pressed economically, in particular east Kent. Those services have been hugely popular, with local authorities demanding that they be increased rather than trying to push them away. That is an example of how that can work. On the other hand, when it comes to connecting up the northern powerhouse, the nomenclature of HS3 is perhaps rather dangerous given the brand image of HS2 in so many areas. We should be quite clear how important it is and that it will be about making a much more conventional railway work properly and to the advantage of those communities.

The other programme is the buses Bill. I suspect that we will not have a full Chamber for that and that it will not be discussed in Committee on the Floor of the House. However, I very much welcome the Bill, in that it transfers to other combined authorities some of the advantages that Transport for London has over controlling buses. My question to the Minister is whether there would be an option—as in the devolution Bill that is coming to the House for Second Reading on Monday—for unitary counties to bring in that power as well.

Transport is very important in terms of sustainability and is responsible for about a quarter of our national CO₂ emissions. Therefore, we need to look to sustainable transport systems. I congratulate the Conservatives on having in their manifesto a target of 2050—that may be slightly late—for zero-carbon vehicles. I also congratulate them for effectively saying that they will continue their £38 billion programme for other improvements through railway capital expenditure over the next five years. Sometimes we forget that a huge investment programme is taking place outside HS2. We should shout about that much more loudly. It is policy that is, I think, agreed widely round the House, but we sometimes forget that.

In the Infrastructure Act, which we passed towards the end of the last Parliament, a commitment was brought in—it was rather resisted by the coalition Government to begin with, although I am sure many of us put pressure on to get the change—for a cycle and walking strategy. I would be very interested to hear from the Minister when an investment strategy for those areas of sustainable transport, which is so increasingly important, will be published so that we can start to look at and implement that important programme.

As someone who lives in the far south-west of Cornwall, when I talk about sustainable transport I am also going to talk about the resilience of rail links into our regions, not least Devon and Cornwall and the still outstanding matter of a decision on how to secure the resilience of the line into the far south-west, while still protecting and providing transport for cities such as Torbay. I look forward to understanding how that might move forward.

On airports, we look forward to Sir Howard Davies’s report and to finding out how sustainable that proposal might or might not be.

In the last minute that I have, I want to talk about access to transport. One of the great contrasts that I see, as a rural dweller, is that “poor” regions such as London have £3 billion of subsidy for Transport for London for people who travel in this area. The buses for the poor people of London have some £450 million-worth of subsidy. The rich “rollercoasters” of Cornwall, however, have a subsidy of £5 million, and in Devon, £7 million. It is a complete contrast in terms of public investment and subsidy of services. I would not argue against the subsidy in London; it is clearly important due to all the externalities there would be if we did not have those systems. However, there is an imbalance there that, along with reduced local government expenditure, has caused those services to decrease over the years. It is vital to the economy that people are able to get to work, go to college and go to training courses on public transport. This is one area that we have to tackle to make sure that there is greater equality of opportunity economically in the regions.

I am going to leave it at that and make one small point outside transport. One business model that we so often look at and praise in this Chamber, and in Parliament generally, is that of small businesses. Clearly, they are exceptionally important—I have been involved in a number over time. I believe very strongly that we so often forget about middle-sized businesses and their importance. In the United Kingdom economy we have a shortage of those important middle-sized businesses. They are able to invest, offer careers to their employees, export, and offer wealth and income that is spread across all regions rather than being concentrated in a few areas. An important part of the German economy and of the very alive economy of northern Italy is based around that type of business model. I hope that the Government will find a way to make sure not just that small businesses thrive but that the middle sector of business becomes an important and hugely contributing part of our British economy.