| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is one of the criteria that these centres should be located, if possible, near places where some of the claimants' fellow nationals are already residing? Or is the overriding consideration simply the availability of suitable accommodation?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, clearly suitable accommodation is something that the Government have to take into account when making the initial selection of the pilot schemes. On the other hand, proximity to other nationals is not necessarily a significant factor. At this point in time, I stress, these people are only applying for asylum and have not yet been accepted. If, as we hope and intend, we manage to continue the acceleration of processing that has been achieved over recent years, successful claimants will be integrated wherever they choose to live in the future, which could include being near to nationals of their former country of residence.
Lord Avebury: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is not simply a matter of how quickly the Immigration and Nationality Directorate can deal with the first application, but how quickly the appeal authorities can hear the appeals that are subsequently made against refusal? How near are they to meeting the target of four months from the date of first decision for the subsequent hearings before the adjudicators? If they are nowhere near that, as I imagine is the case, will people be kept indefinitely in the accommodation centres awaiting those hearings?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, is right. If people exercise their right of appeal, then the appeal process must be gone through. I shall write to the noble Lord with the latest figures on the current turn-around time for appeals. There has been a significant improvement in that this was an area of substantial increase in resources. Therefore the bottom line is that we still expect, even where a person chooses to exercise a right of appeal, to be able to deal with most applications within six months or so.
Lord Corbett of Castle Vale: My Lords, would it not lessen the need for the accommodation centres if there could be agreement between the members of the European Union on the common treatment of asylum applications and a requirement that asylum applications are launched in the first safe country? Can my noble friend say how near we are to obtaining either or both of those desirable outcomes?
Lord Filkin: I agree with both points. The Government pressed both points at the Justice and Home Affairs Council of the European Union, which David Blunkett and I attended last week in Luxembourg.
Railway Infrastructure
3 p.m.
Lord Bradshaw asked Her Majesty's Government:
- Whether the arrangements for the maintenance of the railway infrastructure are satisfactory.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, Railtrack has acknowledged that its approach to maintenance, following privatisation, has been mistaken. Too much decision-making responsibility was placed with contractors, and the company carried out too few inspections of contractors' work. Lord Cullen made clear recommendations to improve the management of contractors and the training of the workforce in the rail industry, and we have asked the Health and Safety Commission to ensure that they are implemented in full.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he agree that a fundamental error was made at the time of privatisation, when management of the track was separated from management of the trains? Will the Minister also acknowledge that, although we have spent vast sums on the rail regulator, engineering efficiency has become worse? Vast sums have been spent on safety, on a health and safety inspectorate, but safety has become worse. Will the Government give a guarantee that they will turn their attention away from financial engineering to the engineering that really matters—civil engineering and signal engineering?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, questioners are supposed to ask for an absolute guarantee, not just a guarantee.
There are different views about the separation of operating companies from track management. Whatever view one takes, it is true that Railtrack started off on the wrong foot. There was no engineer on the board of Railtrack, and Railtrack took the view that safety and track maintenance were the responsibility of contractors and were not a central responsibility. That must be turned round.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, the Question was about maintenance and not about vertical integration. Will my noble friend the Minister confirm that the Health and Safety Commission reported last week that,
- "The contractualisation of the railways was not a problem. It is successful in other interests. The real challenge is better management and control, whether it is with contractors or done by Railtrack"?
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, is the Minister aware that what he says about responsibility and the deficiencies of contractors in that respect are welcome? Will he bear in mind that there has been no engineer in the Treasury or any other branch of any British Government for a long time?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, my criticism of Railtrack for having no engineers on its board need not apply also to the Treasury. There should be more engineers in senior positions in all walks of life.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, the Minister will be aware that, last year, the Office of the Rail Regulator recommended that Railtrack should establish and maintain an asset register and that that should be one of the conditions of its licence. The issue was also raised in the recent report of the Health and Safety Commission, to which the noble Lord referred. Does the Minister expect that the asset register will be completed in time for the transfer to Network Rail? If it is not completed in time, who will bear the extra risk of not knowing what condition the assets are in? Will it be the Government or Network Rail?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the asset register is only one of several recommendations made by Lord Cullen that should have been carried out by March but were not. In that sense, the noble Viscount's point is valid; there are uncertainties that ought not to exist, as we struggle to get Railtrack out of administration and into the hands of Network Rail. I am, however, glad to say that good progress is being made.
Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that there can never be absolute safety in any form of transport? If the railway industry had followed the recommendations made by the Uff and Cullen reports and implemented the European rail traffic management system, there would have been a serious reduction—perhaps as much as 15 per cent—in network capacity. That would have made it even more difficult to meet the targets set out in the 10-year plan.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, as so often is the case, the best can be the enemy of the good. There was a good deal of over-reaction, not so much after Ladbroke Grove, but after Hatfield. David Begg, the chairman of the Commission for Integrated Transport, estimated that, if the action referred to by my noble friend had been taken and there had been a reduction in capacity, we would have ended up with something like 20 extra deaths a year on the roads. That is not a good choice.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, in seeking to improve the maintenance of the track, have the Government reminded themselves of the arrangements made by British Rail? Would the experience of those years be valuable, as we seek a better solution today?
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the organisational responsibilities of British Rail are certainly to be looked at with favour. We ought to go back to increased central responsibility. I do not like looking back on the era of British Rail as a golden age. In fact—in some ways, I hate to say it—rail safety has improved since privatisation.
Proceeds of Crime Bill
3.6 p.m.
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order:
Clauses 452 to 456.—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page