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Selective Licensing of Houses (Specified Exemptions) (England) Order 2006

Baroness Hanham: I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Selective Licensing of Houses (Specified Exemptions) (England) Order 2006 (S.I. 2006/370) [26th Report from the Merits Committee].—(Baroness Hanham.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Railway and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006

The Earl of Mar and Kellie rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Railway and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/599) [30th Report from the Merits Committee].

The noble Earl said: I beg to move this Motion on behalf of my noble friend Lord Bradshaw and with his consent. I apologise on his behalf for his absence. He was able to speak to two noble Lords at once on two
 
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separate telephones earlier today, but he is unable to be here. I will put briefly the four points that he was going to speak about much more eloquently.

This order puts into effect EU legislation on the regulation of railways. I have four questions to put to the Minister. First, the EU legislation allows metros, light railways and tramways to be excluded, but this order includes them. Why was the decision taken to include metros, light rail and tramways when they did not have to be?

Secondly, should community railways be included? They are supposed to be as simple as possible. They often hang by a single financial thread. They should not be burdened by extra regulation. The order demands that they appoint a qualified engineer described in the order as a "competent person" who would have to be independent, insured and paid. Why is the 150-year experience of Her Majesty's Railway Inspectorate being discarded?

My third question concerns the case of private railways, those for infrastructure trains only and heritage railways, which are both limited to 25 miles per hour. Heritage railways are clearly regarded more as tourism assets than as transport assets. Why are they being included? The EU legislation allows an indefinite derogation for such railways, but the order limits the derogation to two years. Why is that? Why do they not continue to seek guidance from the railway inspectorate as they have been doing in the past?

Finally, on the subject of interoperability, only those lines that are seriously European-network connectable should be required to pay for modifications to meet the standards for the Trans-European Network. If they are not likely to be connectable, should they have to pay for interoperability standards?

I conclude with a plea that we keep regulation of the railways, particularly minor railways, as simple as possible.

Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Railway and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/599) [30th Report from the Merits Committee].—(The Earl of Mar and Kellie.)

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I have pleasure in supporting the noble Earl. I congratulate him on absorbing the briefing of the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, with such accuracy and demonstrating such fluency in expressing the noble Lord's arguments this afternoon.

Lord Berkeley: How do you know?

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I was the other person on the telephone listening to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, briefing the noble Earl, Lord Mar and Kellie. I certainly do not intend to repeat any of the arguments that he has used. However, I should declare an interest as chairman of the Railway Heritage Committee and as a member of the legal affairs
 
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committee of the Heritage Railway Association. My particular concern with this order relates to heritage railways.

As the noble Earl said, a derogation of two years is proposed by the Government in these regulations, but it is extraordinary that there is not a permanent derogation, because the new arrangements are not intended to apply to those sorts of railways. Heritage railways are an important part of our nation's tourist industry: 105 heritage railways are open to the public; they have 413 miles of track and 5.2 million passengers and 7 million visitors each year. They are a significant element of the tourist industry and it is counterproductive and unfair for them to be burdened with unnecessary regulations, particularly as they are confined to a maximum line speed of 25mph. I hope that my noble friend will be able to provide some comfort on this.

5.15 pm

Lord Berkeley: I declare an interest as chairman of a rail freight group, although I have not come to talk about rail freight this evening. I spent yesterday at the British Embassy in Berlin, hosting an event organised to demonstrate the success of the British railways structure. The chairman of Network Rail and the chairman of the Office of Rail Regulation were there and there was a large audience from politics and industry. A point made by various speakers was that not only is the accident rate on the railways down, but the rate of accident reduction has increased. The accident rate has gone down faster since privatisation. That is one of the things that people sometimes forget. Everybody thinks that because of privatisation and split responsibility accident rates have gone up. That is not what has happened: they have gone down.

We had a good story, but this is an element of it that I do not feel proud of. It is now six weeks since responsibility for railway safety was transferred from the Health and Safety Executive to the Office of Rail Regulation. It seems to me that handing over responsibility to the Office of Rail Regulation was a poisoned chalice of a going-away present. The number of staff that the ORR has exemplifies that. It has 130 staff working on economic regulation and more than 200 working on safety. The only comfort is that I am told that there are not enough seats for 200 people, so it may be that the chairman and his staff are thinking of reducing the number because it is out of balance. I know that we have to comply with the safety standards that have come out of the European Commission. It is right that we should, but it has to be proportionate.

When I read the draft regulations and the Explanatory Memorandum that goes with them, I sense jobsworth. To give the Committee one or two examples, paragraph 7.21 of the Explanatory Memorandum relates to what my noble friend Lord Faulkner and the noble Earl said about heritage railways:

a new idea that is required—


 
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The fact that that was known does not mean that that was right.

The memorandum does not state that there is a need for them, just that they must be done. I agree with my noble friend that a lot of people will stop doing things on heritage railways.

Then we get on to paragraph 7.26:

In the context of the viewpoint of the Health and Safety Executive, it is a major interest because it wants it to be. It gives it more credibility and more things to do and justifies more staff and more money to spend. The safety rate has come down. The train protection and warning system has had a major effect. The reference ,

is about jobsworths.

Moving on to the section on purpose and intended effects, public inquiry recommendations are one of the reasons for including the existing framework driven by European requirements. I hope that public inquiries as they happened before are a thing of the past because we now have the Rail Accident Investigation Branch. It seems to be a kind of virility symbol that each inquiry has to produce more recommendations however sensible or stupid they are. Then there is a check on how many have been implemented and for what.

My last example relates to risks. Paragraph 2 of the regulatory impact assessment states that:

I have heard many people talk about this, but there is no evidence to support that statement. Hatfield was a terrible accident, but it did not stop people using the railways: they went straight back on to them. This is again part of the safety mafia who hype things up for the sake of their own jobs.

In the end, we have to accept these regulations now because it is too late and we need to comply with the European regulations. However, what I hope my noble friend will take away from this and one or two other debates is that, having got these regulations, let us try to cut them down and simplify them. We do not have any such regulations for roads and we certainly do not have them for the maritime industry. There is no evidence that they are required any longer if something much simpler could be produced.

The noble Earl talked about interoperability and how far it should extend. For passenger lines it clearly does not need to go to the Kyle of Lochalsh—I do not imagine that he is suggesting that there should be a through train from Paris to the Kyle of Lochalsh every other day. However, it is important for freight because
 
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freight needs interoperable wagons and lines. The more different standards there are throughout Europe the worse things become.

Yes, we are having these regulations and yes, we need them, but I trust, hope and pray that we are not superimposing them on top of existing UK regulations so that we will have two types of regulations to comply with. I look forward to my noble friend's comments.


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