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Rail Freight (EUC Report)

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, for his constructive and encouraging chairmanship of the sub-committee. I also thank the staff who greatly helped us. My first concern involves the independence of a regulator in this regard. It is all based on the fact that the statement of funds available for the railway (SoFA) is safeguarded so that when the regulator makes his settlement for Network Rail we know that those funds will be available for five years. Otherwise, we shall get back on the old treadmill of annual funding or inadequate funding, from which the railways have suffered for so long. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, who will speak after me, will say whether a Conservative Government would retain the statement of funds available, should we have a change of government. Further to what the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, said about the report, I refer to the importance of access to terminals, services and other ancillaries, because you can grant free access to the railway but you can effectively block it by making it impossible to get locomotives or fuel, or to get to the ports and to the people. The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, referred to infractions. I have a list of them which I do not intend to read out. However, I shall refer to the government response, signed by the Minister, Sadiq Khan. On page 2 of the response the Government rather rejoice at the fact that infraction proceedings are not to be taken against the UK. We do not have insufficient incentives for infrastructure managers to reduce infrastructure costs and access charges—or do we?—and perhaps we do not suffer from the absence of a performance regime to encourage infrastructure managers to minimise disruption. This is an absolute nonsense. The cost of maintaining the railway in this country is wickedly high. I have listened to the management of Network Rail repeat year after year that we are going to have a 24/7 railway, alternative routes will not be blocked, train operators will find it very much easier to operate their trains and passengers will find the railways much improved. What action, if any, do the Government propose to take to curb the monopolistic and arrogant attitude of Network Rail, or is this publicly funded body out of control? I should be interested to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, what ideas the Conservatives have for bringing this monster under control. Competition is a very interesting subject. I am not a lawyer and certainly not a competition lawyer but I know that competition depends on market definition; namely, the market that you are talking about. This concept is very important as regards the bus industry where you just draw a line around a town or a group of routes, but I submit that it is wrong to talk about the railway in isolation in terms of international traffic as a huge proportion of the traffic, and probably an even greater proportion in the future, is conveyed in competition with sea transport, inland waterways and, more particularly, road transport. I propose to spend some time discussing that subject as other modes must enter into the picture. What progress is being made in this country in making foreign lorries pay to use our roads? It is not a case of my being against foreigners, but in a fair system everybody should pay to use the facilities. The Minister is probably as aware as I that Germany has a system of lorry charging, which works and discriminates in favour of the most environmentally friendly vehicles. I believe that from a technical point of view it would be possible to introduce it into this country. It does not require a lot of beacons and is very simple to operate. However, we are told repeatedly by the department that it is not appropriate to introduce lorry charging at present. I would like to know why that is the case. I would also like to know the department’s views on the House of Commons Transport Committee report, The Enforcement Activities of the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency, (VOSA), as I have not seen them. International vehicles represent a substantial proportion of vehicles stopped for abusing drivers’ hours regulations, overloading and being in a poor mechanical condition. An article in Freight magazine states: ""Some 11,000 fixed penalty notices have been issued for a range of traffic offences since VOSA started issuing graduated fixed penalties on 28 May. Over 800 vehicles have been immobilised and more than half a million pounds have already been collected"," in fines. That is all very well and good, except that more than 60 per cent of penalty notices were issued to foreign-registered vehicles from the European Community. Therefore, probably most railway operators obey the law while a large number of lorries on our roads operated from abroad are disobeying the law. I ask the Minister: what sort of answer is the House of Commons Select Committee getting? We have a rising number of non-compliant vehicles, yet we have in place a graduated fixed penalty scheme, a financial penalty deposit scheme—which means that if you have no money you must deposit your credit card, passport or something—and an immobilisation scheme whereby the lorry may be stopped. However, the report states that the fines are small and recommends that they be increased. My charge to the Government is that the amount of money that people make out of breaking the law is huge. To fine them £60 is small change and will do nothing to correct the abuse, unless the system is considerably strengthened. The Government should look very hard at the exchange of information between European partners about breaches of the regulations which, as far as I know, is being blocked due to the provisions of data protection legislation. That is a hindrance, particularly to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in collecting money and building up intelligence about people who are breaking the law. In previous Parliamentary Answers I have been told that the same drivers and firms are repeatedly being caught—yet the penalties are regarded by such people as a part of the expenses of running a business. Has the Minister given any thought to the paragraph in the report about access to port premises where road vehicles enter the UK? Many of these abusers could be stopped at the point of entry and should not be allowed on our roads if they are unroadworthy, if the driver has not had sufficient rest or if the vehicles are in bad mechanical condition. Ministers should not shy away from legislative action. I know that the ports do not like it, because it delays unloading ships, but it is not safe to allow such vehicles onto our roads. On the question of the heavy lorry, I refer to an article in the Sunday Times which I do not usually read. I am sure that my reservations about half-truths, sleaze and sensationalism of the press are shared by other noble Lords. However, that newspaper stated: ""Brussels to override Britain’s ban on mega-lorries"." I can assure noble Lords that if 60-ton lorries are introduced throughout Europe, rail freight will take a nosedive in volumes. The article names a person—John Berry, a former civil servant working in Brussels—who is apparently a great advocate on whether we should have these lorries, which are 21 feet longer than any existing lorry on our roads, and which are almost certain to cause more accidents. Is that person being paid by Her Majesty's Government in any way? If he is, is he advocating a policy that we should have these lorries? The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, may care to comment on whether the Conservative Party supports the introduction of 60-ton lorries. If they do, that will be very bad for the environment and for rail freight. I witnessed two incidents last week of 44-ton lorries being stopped in the centre of the historic town in which I live in Oxfordshire. They stopped all the traffic, the drivers were obviously lost, and they had passed weight-limit signs of 7.5 tons—which in any case relate only to access. If drivers cannot read our road signs they are either not properly trained or our road signs are not big enough to read. Road signs, whether they are protecting railway level crossings or our small towns, should be observed by anyone who drives on our roads. If they are unable to observe them, they should not drive here. I am sorry that my remarks have been directed mainly at the road sector, but it is a huge part of the freight market. What costs have been incurred by central and local government in introducing 44-ton lorries to this country? It is not a trivial sum; a lot of money has been spent on roads, bridges and the roadworks of which we are all victims. I should very much like to hear the Minister’s answers. Perhaps he may write to the committee if he does not have them to hand.