My noble friend is right. LNER, in particular, has demonstrated all the excellent characteristics that a public service train company can deliver. The previous Government did not attempt to put back into the private sector any of the other train companies that came into public ownership during their…
The Government recognise the urgency and importance of tackling the use of illegal number plates designed to evade enforcement cameras. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is working hard with the police, other enforcement agencies and the industry to address the manufacture and misuse of such p…
I second my noble friend’s congratulations to Sarah Coombes on raising this important subject. The DVLA is already on the case to strengthen the application process to become a registered number plate supplier and to make it more robust. Options being considered include, as my noble friend remarked,…
My Lords, it is important that there is a full investigation into the three separate incidents which disrupted tens of thousands of passengers’ journeys on 30 and 31 December last and saw some passengers stranded throughout the night, which is clearly unacceptable. I am therefore commissioning the r…
I share my noble friend’s concern about the disruption caused to travellers, in particular those whose holidays were spoiled or at least delayed. There is appropriate compensation made by Eurostar and Getlink, which are private companies, for that.
I take a particular interest in the noble Lord’s l…
My Lords, I endorse everything that has just been said by the noble Baroness from the Liberal Democrats—
My Lords, I first apologise to my noble friend the Minister for jumping the gun earlier. I have been here long enough to know better, and I will see that it does not happen in future.
I endorse the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, representing the Liberal Democrats: we owe a great debt of…
My Lords, in the right circumstances, open access operations can provide benefits such as improved connectivity and choice for passengers, but they can also increase costs to taxpayers and create additional performance pressures on an already constrained network. Large areas of the network are alrea…
My noble friend is correct. Both the east coast and west coast main lines are now heavily constrained, and under the current arrangements the regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, has recently declined most of the additional applications for train paths simply because there is no room. He is also …
My Lords, I can tell the noble Lord about the nonsense, if he would like. For five years during that period I was a member of the Labour Party NEC, and, to my knowledge, whatever is in that book is probably a lot of nonsense as well.
The fact is that the amendment was never actually debated in Committee because the noble Lord, Lord Woodley, could not be present. The fact is that it has now been adopted by the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, who I suspect—I hope I can say this without upsetting him too much—is doing it more for politica…
My noble friend rightly points to different cities that have different systems in place. I think I said that different places in different countries choose to raise revenue from overnight visitors in different ways, depending on whether they are seeking to attract them, to accommodate the results of…
My Lords, the Government are committed to supporting rail freight growth, recognising its significant economic and environmental potential and its critical role in the UK’s resilience. In the last year, rail freight volumes have increased by 5%. We will support further growth through a statutory dut…
Taxation, as my noble friend well knows, is a matter for His Majesty’s Treasury, so I will not comment further on that. Access charges paid by freight for utilising the network do not currently cover the full fixed cost of operations, maintenance and renewal required. The capping arrangements which …
I absolutely agree with my noble friend that electrification is an important part of the mix in decarbonising our transport network and achieving our net-zero goals. Electrification is indeed the most widespread method of decarbonising the railway. Some 39% of the railway network is electrified but …