Lords
Committee Stage
10 November 2025
Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Definition of Relevant Land) (Amendment) Order 2025
My Lords, this instrument seeks to amend the Protection of Freedoms Act. The moment one sees a Labour Government fiddling with our freedoms, one is naturally anxious as to what they have in mind. That Act was one of the great achievements of the coalition Government—in fact, it was a Liberal Democra…
Lords
Proceedings
4 November 2025
Huntingdon Train Attack
My Lords, I want to put on record, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches, that our thoughts are with all those affected by this terrible incident: the staff, the victims, friends and families, and those who witnessed this attack—an attack that left 11 people in hospital, and many haunted by what…
Lords
Oral Questions
30 October 2025
Heathrow Airport: Third Runway
The noble Baroness will know that, on Monday evening in this House, we discussed the Statement made in another place on Heathrow. She is right—I said so then, and I will say so again—that the public transport links to and from Heathrow must be a critical feature of any proposals put forward by any p…
Lords
Proceedings
27 October 2025
Heathrow: National Airports Review
My Lords, I welcome this debate on the review of the airports national policy statement and the Government’s announcement regarding Heathrow. But let me be very clear that the Liberal Democrat Benches believe that expansion of Heathrow would be a mistake from the Government and deliver a blow to our…
Lords
Oral Questions
22 October 2025
Open Access Rail Services
The noble Baroness has a good point. The regulator necessarily needs to give a successful open access application sufficient time to recover the significant costs of rolling stock. Many of these arrangements run for at least 10 years, and it would not be right to curtail those activities. Serious in…
Lords
Oral Questions
22 October 2025
Drink-Drive Limit
The noble Baroness makes a strong point. Drug-driving is as lethal as drink-driving. She will know that there has been some recent publicity about that particular method of drug-driving in London. I am confident that the police and enforcement authorities are working their way through that particula…
Lords
Debate
22 October 2025
3 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Amendments 52 and 57 aim to make it easier for people who do not have driveways to switch to an electric vehicle and install the necessary infrastructure so that they can charge from their home, thus benefiting from VAT-free electricity charging. Amendment 52 allows for cross-pavement solutions t…
I thank the Minister and his team for meeting me a number of times, including during recess, to discuss the amendments that I have tabled. Finding ways to make it easier for people who do not have driveways to move to electric vehicles is so important for our green transition. I welcome the Minister…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
21 October 2025
2 contributions
Great British Railways: Rolling Stock
My Lords, my department is already working on a long-term rolling stock and infrastructure strategy, which will be the first for over 30 years, both to give certainty to the manufacturing and assembly market and to pursue modern standards of carbon-friendly traction and passenger comfort and accessi…
My Lords, EUROFIMA is a long-established, supranational financial institution, established as a joint stock company by an international treaty, the convention, signed by 25 European member states. It is dedicated to financing public passenger railway rolling stock and related infrastructure, as well…
Lords
Committee Stage
14 October 2025
National Policy Statement for Ports
We have had a pretty devastating critique of all sides of this document in this debate. The revisions were initiated by the previous Government with a view to promoting a thriving, modern port sector, but it has emerged under this Government as something of a damp squib. Even the Minister does not s…
Lords
Debate
13 October 2025
4 contributions
Bus Services (No. 2) Bill [HL]
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Harper for reminding us of the importance of funding and the fact that the Bill is almost meaningless unless large amounts of funding are attached to it for local authorities. That is not an original point; it is one that was made forcefully by the nob…
My Lords, I shall speak to Motion 31A and declare my interest as chair of Amey, which works with councils to identify and capture data on road defects. My motion this evening, however, is on a completely separate issue. If I may respond to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, as much as I could see that all …
+2 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
19 September 2025
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, and take part in this important debate. We have had two days of discussion, with many fine speeches. The ones we have heard today are still ringing in our ears, but let me take a moment to remind the House of a few of last week’…
Lords
Oral Questions
18 September 2025
Road Pricing
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, who I know has a great deal of expertise in this matter. The local schemes that she describes, such as clean air zones of the ULEZ type and so on, are the responsibility of local authorities, and it is right that the responsibility for those lies with local autho…
Lords
Oral Questions
18 September 2025
2 contributions
Rail Fares
My Lords, the fragmented railway we inherited has a fares system that passengers neither understand nor trust. We are addressing this through delivering pay-as-you-go, with simpler fares in London and the south-east, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, and trialling digital pay-as-you-go in th…
The noble Baroness is right that people are very uncertain about buying tickets and do not trust that they are getting the best value. The fares system has grown like Topsy over the last 30-odd years. There are 50 million fares in the British railway system and, in order to eat the elephant, we have…
Lords
Oral Questions
3 September 2025
2 contributions
Nitrous Oxide Misuse: Drivers
Under the Road Traffic Act 1988, an individual is guilty of an offence if their ability to drive is being impaired by drink or drugs. The Government take road safety extremely seriously and are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed or injured on our roads. A number of police operations h…
The noble Baroness raises an extremely important point. From the Department for Transport’s perspective, rather than that of the Home Office, which I answer for, there is currently development of a further road strategy. As part of that, the Government are considering a range of policies relating to…
Lords
Debate
24 July 2025
5 contributions
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, as we have heard, the Bill stands to disapply heritage regimes for transport infrastructure developments. There is, therefore, a risk that this could harm heritage assets without proper scrutiny and probably go further than the stated ambition of the Bill. I am therefore delighted to suppo…
My Lords, a lot of the discussion this afternoon has been very technical, as it would be around planning, but this group of amendments is much more practical. They are about electric vehicle infrastructure, making sure that we can easily support the next generation of electric vehicles and make it e…
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
17 July 2025
Train Operators’ Revenue Protection Practices Review
The noble Baroness is right to describe it as a mess. We are not waiting for Great British Railways. LNER’s changes to long-distance fares, which have been introduced progressively, have resulted in considerably greater passenger satisfaction with the way in which the fares are arranged now compared…
Lords
Proceedings
14 July 2025
Road and Rail Projects
My Lords, I will focus on the Statement and the rail and road projects contained within it and, perhaps, those not within it. Across the country, communities have been let down by a transport system that is creaking, crying out for investment and improvement, and was neglected by the last Conservati…
Lords
Committee Stage
14 July 2025
2 contributions
Transport Act 2000 (Air Traffic Services) (Prescribed Terms) Regulations 2025
My final question, before I was interrupted by the Division Bell, was: what is the timescale for the development of this new service and its first project tackling the complex London airspace?
My Lords, in general we welcome this statutory instrument. We welcome the prospect of a more rational organisation of airspace—who could do otherwise? However, there are considerable problems and the Minister needs probing on some of them. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Foster of Oxton, who i…
Lords
Oral Questions
14 July 2025
Rail Freight
The noble Baroness may know that, actually, that is not a new scheme. In respect of rail freight to Europe, the Government clearly have an interest in promoting it. The Channel Tunnel has plenty of spare capacity, as does HS1. In respect of carrying lorries by rail in the UK, that has been tried bef…
Lords
Oral Questions
9 July 2025
2 contributions
European Union Entry/Exit System
My Lords, the European Union’s Entry/Exit System, EES, is now expected to be introduced in October 2025, with checks taking place on UK soil at the juxtaposed controls at the Port of Dover, Eurotunnel and Eurostar. The Government continue to work closely with the authorities at those three places an…
Of course, the primary aim of government has to be to ensure that the necessary infrastructure is in place at juxtaposed portals ahead of the implementation of the system. The EES is an EU-wide system. Although the EU has expressed a desire to explore pre-registration and we continue to work with Eu…
Lords
Oral Questions
26 June 2025
UK Extreme Heat
As many of us will be using trains this weekend, this is a key question, especially because I alert all noble Lords to the fact that an amber heat alert has now been issued for this weekend, so people should be careful. The April 2025 Climate Change Committee adaptation progress report rated the pol…
Lords
Debate
25 June 2025
Planning and Infrastructure Bill
My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interest as chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum and the Oxfordshire Development Forum. I emphasise that my views on these issues are entirely my own.
A number of us are taking forward many of the issues that we discussed during the passage of th…
Lords
Proceedings
19 June 2025
HS2 Reset
My Lords, in the late 2000s there was an absolute cross-party ambition in the UK to build a high-speed railway connecting London and the north of England, and ultimately Scotland, and increasing the capacity of our railway was at the core of that ambition. The Liberal Democrats—and I am speaking on …
Lords
Oral Questions
19 June 2025
Self-driving Vehicles: Disabled Passengers
The noble Baroness is right: safety has to be the first priority here. There has been a great deal of work worldwide on this. Clearly, the primary consideration for the adoption of autonomous vehicles is safety, so that people are not endangered by new technology but assisted by it. I will write to …
Lords
Oral Questions
17 June 2025
E-scooters, E-bikes and Pedal Bikes: Legislation
The noble Baroness raises a good point. I and the department have read the investigation by Jim Waterson. It is concerning that these bikes apparently seem to cause so many breaks of the lower limbs, and I will write to her about the actions that can be taken both about insurance, which hire bike sc…