Bus Services Bill [HL]

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that when my noble friend replies to the debate, he will be able to respond to some of the powerful points we have just heard from the noble Baroness—points which I know will be made by other noble Lords who want to see the bus service made more user-friendly for travellers with a disability.

I focus my brief remarks on the more controversial clauses forming the franchising section of the Bill. As a former Secretary of State for Transport, I brought in franchising for the rail industry so I have a familiarity with that aspect. I was also a member of the Greater London Council in 1970, when the Government handed over responsibility for the bus service to a local authority, so I can see the issue from that perspective as well.

The Bill can help to unlock the full potential of the bus service as an even more important member of the public transport family. But, if I can make a controversial point, I believe that historically we may have overinvested in light rail in our cities and underinvested in the buses. In many cases, a properly protected, prioritised bus lane and bus service could have done what a light rail system does at a fraction of the capital and revenue cost and, of course, with the flexibility for vehicles that is denied to those on a fixed rail. I do not want to detract from the success of the Croydon Tramlink and Manchester Metrolink schemes, but they didn’t half make a hole in my departmental local capital budget for transport schemes. It may be that the measures in the Bill enable funds for public transport to go further by moving the dial a bit away from metropolitan light rail projects towards the bus.

In focusing on the franchising sections of the Bill, I am aware of the dangers of generalising from the experience of London, where the bus service is unique in being regulated, unlike the rest of mainland UK. This has enabled Transport for London to plan, procure and manage a network of services in a consistent and co-ordinated way. It has also been generously funded, which may not always be possible elsewhere. Through collaborative work with others, this has led to increased service levels, improved quality of services and significant increases in patronage—way above what has been seen outside the capital. During the first 15 years of this century, bus ridership in London has grown by 70% and buses in London now carry the highest number of passengers since 1979.

Having been a Member of Parliament for two constituencies—one in London and one not in London, thanks to the Boundary Commission—I have no doubt in my own mind that the model of running buses in London is far better than that outside London, from a consumer’s point of view. There are particular problems with a deregulated system: it limits the degree to which bus services can be fully joined up and co-ordinated with each other and with other modes of public transport, and there can be confusing fares and uncoordinated routes and timetables, which can put many off using the bus services. So I see the strong case for making this model available outside London; it has been copied widely outside this country but not, so far, outside London. I recognise, however, that this has implications for the bus industry, which has operated outside London in an unregulated environment. Many companies have developed markets and customers and I understand their concern that, under franchising, they may not get the contract, thus risking their investment—I will say a word about that in a moment.

The literature on the case for extending bus franchising is extensive. We have the Transport Select Committee, the Public Accounts Committee, the Institute of Economic Affairs and quite a lot of White Papers. It is fair to say that there is no consensus, but I was struck by the conclusion of the Competition Commission, which reported in December 2011 against mandatory franchising but said that,

“existing legislation enables LTAs to introduce franchising in England, Wales and Scotland and we would not wish to rule out its future application in particular local markets where the respective legislative requirements are met … we also note that LTAs have wider social and policy objectives that are not relevant to this investigation, but which may legitimately lead them to take a different view on the desirability of introducing franchising in relation to the local bus markets for which they are accountable”.

That is, basically, what the Bill does—no compulsion, but an option to extend franchising where it makes sense.

It strikes me that, unlike the current deregulated market, the franchising model offers newly elected mayors the opportunity to set new minimum standards for bus services across their areas. Such standards could include, as my noble friend said in introducing the Bill, consistent branding, real-time information for passengers, timetabling apps and other useful technologies. I know and the House will know that Manchester is keen to go ahead along these lines.

Turning to the industry’s concerns, the CPT press release says:

“The CPT supports the Government’s proposals in the Bill for advanced quality partnership schemes and enhanced partnerships”,

but the next paragraph on franchising is more cautious:

“But where local authorities consider introducing franchising CPT is pleased to see that those proposals will be subject to robust and fair public and financial tests, and that the Bill aims to allow SME operators to compete fairly”.

At the meeting with the CPT that my noble friend Lord Attlee kindly arranged, the industry was more critical about the franchising process and some of the comments were hostile.

My view, for what it is worth, is that if a company has invested in the local bus market, knows its customers, has the appropriate fleet of vehicles and drivers, has already engaged in a constructive partnership with an LTA, and is providing a good-quality service, it is well placed to win the franchise. Of course, once the franchise is won, it is then insulated from competition on those routes, which it is not at the moment in an open, unregulated market. I hope the industry’s concerns about franchising are allayed by the obligation placed on local authorities by the Bill to benchmark any proposed franchise scheme against what could be offered under an enhanced partnership scheme. Only if a franchise can achieve more than what could be achieved under an enhanced partnership will franchising go ahead. Further comfort is provided by the prohibition, which I know was criticised by the Opposition Front Bench, on local authorities operating their own buses. The industry will of course welcome that.

There is one issue on which the CPT might have a valid point. The Bill is silent on the subject of compensation for those companies that might lose their business if unsuccessful with the franchise. My experience is that you do not normally get compensated if you do not win a franchise. But the briefing I have seen says that foreign investors will be entitled to compensation under the terms of the TTIP agreement currently being negotiated at EU level, but not British investors. Is this apparently un-level playing field something my noble friend can comment on when he winds up the debate?

In conclusion, the Bill delivers on our commitment on devolution, it offers an updated menu for transport authorities without being too dirigiste and it offers passengers the possibility of a better co-ordinated and balanced service. I hope the Bill can now move on and, in the immortal words of Flanders and Swann:

“Hold very tight please! Ting-ting!”.

High Speed Rail (London-West Midlands) Bill

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 14th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, you wait for ages for a Transport Secretary and then five of them come along at the same time. I am but a humble people carrier compared with the fleet of previous Secretaries of State who have gone before, but I want to do what some of them have done, which is to put this Bill in a slightly broader context of previous transport infrastructure projects. I say that having announced just over 20 years ago that London & Continental Railways was selected as the winning consortium for HS1.

HS2, as the numbering implies, was a lower priority at that time. The capacity problem on the west coast main line was not what it is now—as we have heard, there has been a tremendous boost since privatisation. At the same time, we were committed to Crossrail, to Thameslink and to a number of light-rail schemes in Manchester and Croydon. To have gone along to the Treasury at the same time and asked for HS2 would have been to test its patience.

However, 20 years later, with most of the heavy lifting on Crossrail and Thameslink behind us, and with the capacity problems on the west coast main line acute, there is now not just the need but the capacity for another major transport infrastructure, extending HS1 to the north to improve connectivity with the north of the country and addressing the capacity on the existing network. So I am an enthusiastic supporter of the Bill. If I have a slight doubt, it is about the interface between Euston and King’s Cross St Pancras, which a number of other noble Lords have referred to.

I am, however, aware that the Bill has its opponents. It is instructive to look back and see what was said about HS1. Were the same criticisms made and were they in the light of hindsight justified? I spent part of the Easter Recess going back through the debates on HS1. There was a Second Reading in another place on 16 January 1995. The MP for Dover asserted that the CTRL was “economically unjustified”, that the public sector was being asked for a blank cheque and that the subsidies could be unlimited. Another MP described himself as a long-standing Chunnel and rail link sceptic. The debate was dominated by MPs from Kent and east London raising, wholly legitimately, issues of inadequate compensation for blight, the impact of noise and environmental concerns. There were repeated requests for tunnelling, and requests for conditions on working hours and removal of spoil.

That debate to some extent puts this one in context, in that I have met no one who, 21 years later, argues that we were wrong to go ahead with HS1, despite the problems that confronted the Government and the contractors at the time. I believe that, in 2036, our successors will say we were right to go ahead with HS2 despite the objections that were made, some of which I hope may still be dealt with by the Select Committee.

The problem in the UK is not that we rush into ill-considered infrastructure projects but that we prevaricate too long about essential ones. To those who have doubts about the wisdom of this investment, I would just say this as someone who has served both in transport and the Treasury. We are living through the most intense downward pressure on public expenditure in my lifetime, particularly intense for those departments, like Transport, whose budgets are not protected. Against that background, to have got this item of expenditure through the Treasury and to have got its commitment to expenditure beyond the normal three-year envelope shows that even the most hard-nosed and sceptical men and women who guard public expenditure have recognised the value and importance of HS2.

On top of the direct transport benefits of HS1, it led to regeneration of the area around Stratford and King’s Cross. I believe that HS2 will have the same regenerative impact on the stations along the route, crucially this time not located in London and the south-east but north, helping to move the centre of gravity of the country to the north. HSBC has already cited the impact of HS2 as a factor in its decision to locate its head office in Birmingham.

Many changes have already been made to the Bill. More than 20% of the total route length is now in a tunnel, up from an initial 8.9%, including nearly all the route through London and through the Chilterns to South Heath, as well as several cut-and-cover “green tunnels” further north, together with caps and restrictions on traffic in urban areas affected by construction.

As a former Housing Minister, I commend the introduction of the rent back scheme, one of the innovations here, whereby homeowners who are affected by the scheme can continue to live in their homes as tenants, having sold them to the Government, until such time as they want to move out. I also commend the extension of the exceptional hardship scheme, whereby those living some way from the line, but not covered by the statutory scheme, can none the less sell to the Government at pre-blight price. I hope that promoters of future legislation, be it HS3, Crossrail 2 or any airport expansion scheme, will learn from and build on these initiatives to smooth the passage of such crucial projects.

That brings me to the second and final point I want to make, which relates to reducing the gestation period between the conception of a project such as this and its delivery. I refer to chapter 8 of the report of the Select Committee on this Bill in another place, which identifies the problems with the current hybrid Bill process, virtually unchanged since Gilbert wrote “Iolanthe”. As Chief Whip in the last Parliament, it was my job to invite colleagues to serve on the Select Committee. I pay tribute to their work, but it required exceptional powers of persuasion. The task may be more challenging in your Lordships’ House, where a higher percentage of Members have outside interests than is the case in the other place—I make it clear that I am not volunteering for a place on this committee. I think that there is a case for looking at our procedures on hybrid Bills and seeing whether they might be brought into the 21st century. They place an unreasonable burden on legislators and create unnecessary delays for the promoters, and there may be a better way of dealing with them.

From the point of view of the promoter, the Department for Transport, the time the current parliamentary procedures take before progress can be made will be nearly three years in the case of this Bill—and, of course, that is after all the preliminary work and preparation of the financial case have been done. From Parliament’s point of view, the amount of time that had to be spent by six MPs in this case was 160 days of sittings spread over nearly two years and over two Parliaments. Those serving on such committees typically sit on Monday afternoons, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and afternoons, and Thursday mornings, inevitably crowding out some of their other parliamentary commitments.

Chapter 8 of the Select Committee report is, unusually, devoted to a critique of the current process and to suggestions for improvements. At the end of the chapter, the committee says:

“We leave it to others to determine the means by which the kind of reforms we have outlined … might be implemented … We urge the House, and Ministers, to consider such changes in good time before the next hybrid bill is introduced”.

The promoter, the Department for Transport, responded to the Select Committee report in these terms:

“In chapter 8 of the report, the Select Committee makes some recommendations in relation to the procedure for dealing with hybrid Bills. The Government is considering whether there should be a review of how the hybrid Bill process works, and of the Standing Orders for Private Business that apply to hybrid Bills, and is discussing with the House Authorities how such a review could be taken forward. We would expect that the Select Committee’s recommendations would be fully considered within any such review”.

I believe that any initiative should come from the Houses rather than the Government because Parliament is adjudicating between the Executive and the petitioners in the hybrid Bill process, and a review at the behest of the Executive might not be seen as impartial. It is important to keep if we can the key components of the process, particularly the rights of petitioners. If, as the Select Committee suggests, changes are to be made before the next hybrid Bill, HS3, coming down the track next July, we may need to make progress.

In the mean time, I hope that the signals remain at green, the track ahead remains clear and the Bill reaches its destination in good time.

Railways: New Lines

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 29th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I am sure noble Lords will be lining up outside the Chamber for a signed copy. Of course the noble Lord is quite right to point out the need to ensure best value and efficiency on our railways. That is why, as the noble Lord will know, the Secretary of State has appointed Sir Peter Hendy to look at the delivery of the investment in the railways across the board.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, further to my noble friend’s question, will the Minister consider that when an existing franchise falls due for renewal, bidders are invited to look at reopening some of the disused railway lines when they put in their tenders?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend is correct and that is why the Government are ensuring that that provision is part and parcel of all new franchise proposals.

Cycling

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to promote cycling as a safe means of transport.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to promote the cause of cycling and am grateful to noble Lords for postponing their evening meal to take part. I welcome the Minister who is to reply, and commend in particular the work of his colleague Robert Goodwill, who holds the cycling brief at the department and sets a fine example by travelling on two wheels whenever he can.

On 11 July 1975, more than 40 years ago, I initiated a debate on cycling in the other place. The Minister who replied was Denis Howell—the Sports Minister—indicating that the then Government regarded cycling primarily as a form of recreation. I presented him with a cyclists’ charter: a bicycle unit in his department; cycle lanes through the Royal Parks; proficiency courses for children; a requirement that in all new developments provision should be made to encourage the cyclist by separating his journey from that of the motorist; the identification of cycle-priority routes; mileage allowances for cyclists; and better provision for bicycles on trains by British Rail, with more covered parking spaces at stations. My suggestions were either summarily dismissed —such as the cycle allowance, the bicycle unit in the department and the directives to British Rail—or described by the Minister as “interesting”. This was before “Yes Minister” but, as a former civil servant myself, I knew that by “interesting” he meant absurd.

The very first point he made was that cycling was dangerous, and I am afraid that coloured his whole response. As it was dangerous, he thought we should be careful before encouraging it. But that argument should be stood on its head. Cycling of itself is a benign and safe activity. On health, environmental, energy conservation and congestion grounds, it should be encouraged by making it safer by, among other things, reducing the interface with danger, primarily traffic. Safety is of course important, as the title of this debate implies, but the Minister reminded the all-party group last week that cycling in London is in fact no more dangerous than walking in London and, crucially, cycling becomes safer as the numbers increase and the terms of trade begin to change.

In the intervening decades since that debate, enormous progress has been made by Administrations of all colours, thanks to the Cyclists’ Touring Club, the all-party group, Sustrans and many others. Despite the tight-fitting lycra suit of public expenditure constraint, during the past five years the Government have invested more in cycling than any previous Government. As my noble friend said yesterday, investment has risen from £2 per head to about £6.

The Infrastructure Act requires the Government to produce a cycling and walking investment strategy, with money allocated on the same basis—though not, sadly, in the same quantity—as for rail, main road and motorways. The Minister told us yesterday it would be published in the summer. Can he be more precise, and will that be the draft or the final document?

We have a long way to go, and I want to play my modest part in the upper House, where the press has promoted me from the bicycling baronet to the pedalling Peer, to press for further action until we have reached the situation in Holland, which I regard as the cyclist’s Utopia. In the Netherlands, 27% of journeys are by bicycle, compared with 2% here. I am conscious that we need to overcome a disadvantage for which the Almighty is responsible—namely, on the third day, when He said, “Let the dry land appear”, it appeared flat in Holland but hilly in Britain. However, the introduction of multi-geared bicycles and, indeed, the growing popularity of electric bicycles can help to neutralise this handicap.

I visited Holland with other noble Lords in April 2009 and it made a deep impression. For the Dutch, cycling is like walking, but on wheels. In other words, it is done in ordinary clothes, without sweat, by the same people who walk. Here, by contrast, cycling is predominantly male, white, youngish, fast and often in cycling gear. It will take time for this cultural shift to take place, until more people use their feet for journeys up to say half a mile; the bicycle for longer journeys, of up to, say, three or four miles; and then public transport or a car for longer journeys. Nearly everyone in this country can ride a bicycle and there are bicycles in most households. After school, college or university, however, two wheels are abandoned, and resumed only if the Tube drivers or tanker drivers go on strike. I commend the CTC bike revival project to get disused bikes in garages back on the road—the two-wheel version of “bring out your dead”—and I hope it can be expanded.

As I said, this cultural change will take time; it will be decades before we catch up with the Dutch. However, noble Lords can and do help to promote this change. As more people see Peers, Ministers, judges, generals, Permanent Secretaries—even, dare I say, bishops—cycling to work, it helps promote this form of transport. Noble Lords will be pleased to know that regular cyclists live an extra two years.

How can the Government promote this change? When I first took an interest in cycling, segregation of cyclists was seen by many cyclists as a threat to their entitlement to use the road as equals, making them second-class citizens. Having been to Holland, however, I see separate provision as a key part of the change we need. I welcome the superhighways now being built by the Mayor of London and similar initiatives in other towns and cities. Where separate provision is not practical, we need measures to reduce the interface with other traffic and make it safer.

I have a modest shopping list for the Minister, hoping for a warmer response than the one I got from Denis Howell. We need more high-quality, protected cycle lanes on roads with large traffic volumes or high speeds—lanes that are physically separate from cars and pedestrians. We need more segregated routes through parks, and alongside canals and railway lines. We need cycle paths and designated routes that reflect popular journeys. We need to give real thought to how these dedicated routes and paths interface with main roads at junctions. We need to integrate cycling better with public transport, and encourage more employers to make it easier for employees who live nearby to cycle to work.

We should build on the Safe Routes to School initiative, pioneered by Sustrans. In the Netherlands, 45% of primary school children and 75% of secondary school children cycle to school. Here, the figures are 1% and 2%. I welcome the £50 million allocated to Bikeability in December for training in schools, and hope the Minister will liaise with colleagues in DfE and local government to promote safer journeys to school. I recognise that parents are rightly cautious about letting their children cycle to school unless they are satisfied that it is safe for them to do so.

The Government can give clear guidance on the designing of new roads. At the moment there is a confusing plethora of design guidance notes which are contradictory and lead to poor outcomes. Excellent standards have been developed by Transport for London and the Government should follow that example. Planning policy can ensure that all new developments are cycle-friendly.

We need to introduce a new generation of lorries, from whose cabs drivers can see all around them, as with new buses. The Government can give a lead here by specifying the use of these safer lorries by Highways England, the HS2 rail project and other publicly funded infrastructure investment. The City of London is already leading the way in this respect.

One of the messages that Robert Goodwill left with the APPG was that many decisions on cycling have been devolved to local authorities. I have no quarrel with that, but it underlines the need for local, as well as national, champions. There needs to be at least one active councillor on each local authority who is a standard-bearer for the cyclist and who can ensure, among other things, that the pothole fund helps the cyclist as well as the motorist.

I am conscious that, in earlier exchanges on this subject, the cycling fraternity has met some headwind from some noble Lords who have had unfortunate experiences with cyclists. A minority of cyclists give us all a bad name by flouting the Highway Code and the law. I am no friend of theirs. I am relaxed if the lights turn red because I like to stop and get my breath back. But the antagonism between cyclists and motorists can be overdone. Many cyclists are also motorists: 80% have driving licences and 18% of AA members cycle. All motorists, if not cyclists themselves, have family or friends who are. Like the farmer and the cowman in “Oklahoma!”, the cyclist and the motorist should be friends, having a common interest in making safe and sensible use of the road space where they share it.

Much more needs to be done and other noble Lords will make the case, but I end by quoting what the Prime Minister, who has called for a cycling revolution, said in the Government’s vision document for the cycling and walking investment strategy. The vision was,

“to create an environment which encourages walking and cycling, where cycling and walking is the norm for short journeys or as part of a longer journey. Our ambition is for streets and public places which support walking and cycling”.

That admirable vision needs to be backed by the necessary investment to make this form of transport safer and more popular. It needs to be dynamised by more ambitious targets than the modest ones currently adopted by government, and it needs to be achieved by a genuine partnership with the many people who want to see two wheels realise their true potential in a 21st century transport system.