Debate on the Address

My Lords, only a draft Road Transport Bill is mentioned in the gracious Speech: "““A draft Bill will be published to tackle road congestion and to improve publish transport””." There is also a Bill about the concessionary bus fares scheme: "““Legislation will provide for free off-peak local bus travel for pensioners and disabled people””." I hope the Minister will confirm that the concessionary bus fare scheme is for England only and will clarify how much of the draft Road Transport Bill will apply beyond England. In Scotland, roads and buses are devolved issues but the Road Traffic Act is reserved. On road congestion reduction measures, I am concerned about how the news media fail to say that any form of road pricing must be balanced by the removal of vehicle excise duty. That would enable people to understand that the rural road user, predominantly on presumably 2p a mile roads, would have a vehicle excise duty licence equivalent break-even point of about 7,000 miles a year. Cancellation of VED is an essential feature of road pricing. But how would that work if different forms of road pricing are implemented by different local authorities in England and possibly elsewhere? That decision will create so many anomalies that I doubt vehicle excise duty will be cancelled; hence road pricing will be additional. In that case the lowest tier of rural roads must be free from road pricing. Furthermore, forms of electronic surveillance will have to cope with those who disconnect a vehicle’s transponder and leave it at home. I am pleased that this will be a draft Bill as there seems to be more openness to suggestion in draft Bills. A final swipe at road congestion measures calls for some legislative solution to private transport for larger families. I declare the historic interest of having married into a family with five children. At that time the only car available for seven people was the iconic Peugeot 504 family estate. Today there are a few more models with seven genuine seats. What I am highlighting is that these cars are inevitably larger and sometimes in danger of being described as gas guzzlers. I prefer additional taxation to be on longer vehicles, but with a derogation for larger families. Of course, high fuel consumption is already taxed at the pumps. With regard to the bus pass scheme for England, I am surprised by its restriction to weekday, off-peak services and full services at the weekend, and—I think I heard the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, say—restricted to local services. I hope to hear some clarification about the extent of these English regional bus passes—which at this moment seem to me to be very much less used than the equivalent schemes in Wales and Scotland—both to extent and time of use. The Scottish scheme is up and running, and running well. At last I can turn to the railway. Railways came to my native Alloa in 1760, and stored water energy came in 1713. I have no difficulty in seeing that the future is in rail and hydro. My noble friend Lord Bradshaw led off on transport and the railway. Railway usage is expanding, which is great, but there is a serious question about capacity and how much expansion can be accommodated both on the network and in the trains. Usage is expected to double in 10 years. Earlier this month I tabled a Starred Question about the new cross-country franchise and the bottleneck which is evolving at Birmingham New Street station, not to mention the disconnection of west Scotland from the new cross-country franchise. This is a good example of the Department for Transport trying to solve operational problems, which are rightly the task of professional railway officers. The department’s apparent wisdom is that it is a good idea to make almost all the new cross-country franchise passengers change trains at Birmingham New Street—a station that my noble friend has already said is about to start a five-year rebuild. These travellers are disproportionately holiday makers and the frail elderly. Birmingham New Street is not fit for purposes at peak times at present, and I suspect that it will not be at off-peak times after the start of the new cross-country franchise next year. The issue of conflicting train movements at Birmingham New Street seems to be a product of planning to make less use of the Camp Hill line and by the integration of trains from Stansted. That is the product of Whitehall interference. These train connections do not always have to be done at Birmingham New Street, but, as my noble friend has already said, there is a problem with how the national rail computer—08457 484950—only calculates the shortest journey; hence the concentration on Birmingham New Street to change trains. The software, and, I suspect, the department’s thinking need to be adjusted to come up with easier interchanges at other stations. We need to adjust the rolling stock to replace the voyagers on the Birmingham and Manchester routes to Glasgow. The plan is to use class 185s on the route. That plan is flawed and it would be better if class 180 Adelante trains were used, which, at least, are intercity stock. The planned use of the 185s on the West Coast Main Line, with their inability to cruise at more than 100 miles an hour, will create congestion. Will the Minister agree that the class 180 Adelantes, with their 125 mph capacity, would improve the new services on the TransPennine Express franchise? Similarly, I hope that the Minister will announce the purchase of further vehicles for the voyagers, expanding them to five and six car sets. The expansion of passenger uptake must not be choked off by lack of capacity in the trains. That could be done by extending the length of the franchise to make it more worth while and to give greater confidence to the ROSCOs. Rail is the future. The gracious Speech says nothing directly about promoting rail substitution for domestic air services. Therefore, I am disappointed that the Secretary of State for Transport has declined to commission the essential high-speed line north, preferring presumably to spend the money on Crossrail. Three-hour rail services from London to Scotland would be a genuine move towards rail substitution for domestic air services. My noble friend is completely right that the need for a massive expansion in rail car parks should be enabled today. I conclude with the thought that there is much to do about transport in this new Session. I look forward, as I suspect does everybody else, to the next speaker’s maiden speech.