My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to move this Motion, which many noble Lords will think is not the most important thing facing the country at this stage. Unfortunately, when the original draft regulations were put down, those of us who have a liking for and an interest in railways, in particular private railways—some of them are steam railways—we found that no consideration was given to the costs, the timing or even the need for putting up new notices every time there was a crossing. I am grateful to Ministers for having upgraded some of the Explanatory Memoranda on this, but it is worth spending a few minutes explaining what the problem is and why I think a little more could be done.
The first thing to say is what the scope of the regulations is not: it is not public roads; it is private roads. It might be a private footpath but, as Regulation 2 says, it can be
“a private road … a private path; or … both”.
Who is the crossing operator? These days, most crossings are operated by Network Rail—there are a few private and other railways that we know about. I am told that Network Rail is happy with this—probably because it did not have much choice—but it is a good thing, and it will probably get some extra funding from the Department for Transport to enable it to change the signs.
In case noble Lords are wondering what it is all about, there are 30 pages in the regulations of pictures of signs that have to be put up on private roads or paths when they cross a railway line. One can debate whether it is time to put some obligation on the users of the crossing—by that, I mean car drivers, cyclists and pedestrians—to take some responsibility for looking before they cross. We are all told in the Highway Code that we must look before we cross the road, but it sometimes seems as if, on the railways, you just cross and if the train is coming, it is the train’s fault. We can debate that. Anyway, these regulations and my Motion do not really cover that, so I shall move on.
I want to talk about heritage railways, which will find it much more difficult to fund all the notices that they will have to put up because they are charities. At the moment, the heritage sector is suffering quite a lot post Covid and from the recession and everything else. My question to the Minister, therefore, is: how often must this really apply to the heritage sector? My noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester—who sadly cannot be here today—has been very strong in his opposition to the way that the regulations have been introduced. I know that he would be keen to contribute significantly to this debate, but he had something else that was equally important.
We are talking about a crossing, be it pedestrian or farm—it is a track; it is not a road owned or maintained by a local authority—of a railway line. There is a requirement to put up a very large number of signs to warn people that a train might be coming and what they have to do. The new Explanatory Memorandum is now helpful: it says that the Government want all the signs to be put up by 2029. That seems a long way away but, when you are running a charity and have problems getting passengers to pay the fares, problems with coal, or all the other things that you have to do, that is not very long. You might be able to do it voluntarily. It is quite clear in paragraph 7.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum, however, that:
“Heritage railways and tram operators responsible for private level crossings will be expected to fund the roll out of new signs themselves”.
So, my question is: what happens if they do not? Who will enforce it? Will the police or the Office of Rail and Road come along? Who will get fined?
We then see, at paragraph 7.5, that actually it is all voluntary. If you have a sign up already that complies with the regulations in Section 52 of the Transport and Works Act 1992, those signs will remain legal, and so you do not have to do it after all. The question then becomes: who is going to decide this?
4.15 pm
My main question to the Minister is this. I understand that the Government are going to be publishing guidance on this, but it would be comforting to charity workers
to know that, if they do not put up a new sign because they think the old one is good enough, and then there is an accident, they are not going to be liable; a charity is not a good place to be if you are liable and something goes wrong.
A solution is that the Government could be generous and say that, as this is going to cost only a couple of million pounds over the whole country, why not offer to gift new signs to the heritage sector as a way of making sure that the signs are beautiful and neat and everything else and save the sector a bit of money? I hope the Minister will be able to answer that question.
My final question is inevitable. There are lots of private railways in Wales, and therefore possibly a need to put up all these signs in Welsh, as well as English. If there is a sign there in English already, and therefore it does not have to be replaced because it is in compliance with the Transport and Works Act, but it is not in Welsh, is there a requirement for a new sign to be put up in Welsh, as well as the English one? On that basis, will the Minister commit the Welsh Government to funding that?
These are very small questions and I am not going to detain the House any longer. We have 50 pages of regulation on this issue, which affects only a small number of charities that run chuff-chuff railways, or steam railways. They have quite a lot of problems on their hands, and I suggest that this is not the most urgent problem. If people stop and look, they will see that the trains are not doing 100 mph; they will be lucky to be doing 25 mph. I beg to move.