argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Consequential Modifications and Repeals and Revocations) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: International Affairs
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, on the specific point relating to Scotland. However, I wonder if the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, really wants to proceed with this SI today, given that yesterday, after the Prime Minister made her astonishing statement from Downing Street, an additional 200,000 people immediately signed up to the petition to revoke Article 50. Now more than half a million people have signed that petition. In fact, so many wanted to sign it that the website collapsed and is now being repaired so that more people can sign. In the light of that and all the other surrounding circumstances, does the Minister think it is wise to proceed yet again with this particular statutory instrument?
Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Berkeley said. I feel very passionately on this subject. First, one of the great things we have seen in the past two decades is the expansion of cross-border rail services. It is important for freight, where in the long term we want to try to take as much lorry traffic off the roads as possible, and it is also very important for expanding passenger networks across Europe and providing a real alternative to air travel, which has damaging effects on climate. I understand my noble friend’s concerns about why we are not promoting the maximum exchange of information and co-operation with our European partners in the event of Brexit Secondly, I would like assurances about rail services on the island of Ireland. This is very important to good relations between Britain and Ireland. The development of railways on the island of Ireland is a way of encouraging tourism in north and south. I would like to hear from the Minister that nothing is being done that will in any way be a barrier to the development of that co-operation.
Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
Peter Snape (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, having left the station before the right of way signal, perhaps I can start again and apologise to the House for—mixing my metaphors—jumping the gun. On this occasion, I shall confine my remarks to the train driving regulations and will discuss the other matter later. I presume I will be in order, which will stop my noble friend on the Front Bench again waving at me in a somewhat frantic fashion As my noble friend Lord Berkeley says, I do not think we are getting clarification on these matters. I suspect confusion is likely to arise, depending on how these regulations are implemented. Irish railways have been mentioned. Can the Minister say whether the new licences to be issued for Northern Ireland will be specific to that part of the United Kingdom or be valid throughout the United Kingdom and whether they will be recognised on, for example, the Enterprise service between Belfast and Dublin? What discussions have taken place between our Government and the Irish Government about the future of that service How long will the new licences last? My noble friend mentioned a two-year interim period, but what happens after that? A lot of discussions need to take place as a result of this wretched decision that the Prime Minister is apparently going to insist upon. Whether she gets it through the other place remains to be seen How much discussion has there been about the long-term effect of this change? After all, train drivers are no longer required to retire by law, but they normally stop train driving in their 60s and many of them will have been driving for a considerable period. Will these licences need to be renewed on a regular basis Overall, this is another example of the bureaucracy that will be created as a result of this decision. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how many people in her department will have to be employed to issue the licences and check their validity. Perhaps she can also tell us whether the standards that are now commonplace across Europe will continue to be commonplace in the United Kingdom or whether, at the whim of this or some other Secretary of State, the conditions under which the licences are issued will be altered? These are all matters that result directly from the, in my view, disastrous decision that we are about to take. I will return to the other regulations at a proper time. They will possibly be even more likely to dislocate the railway industry than these regulations. However, there are still some outstanding questions about the licences, and I would be grateful if the Minister could at least take on board our fears and reassure us.
Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I have sat through a number of transport statutory instruments which have been brought forward in the event that there is no deal—something that none of us wants or expects to happen. There have been dozens and dozens of them in Grand Committee and on the Floor of the House. The noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, has spent a lot of her valuable time on them, and we have five officials in the Box—excellent, qualified people—who have been working hard on them. This total waste of time and effort has been caused by the Prime Minister. One of my noble friends said to me earlier that it is not the men in grey suits that need to turn up to deal with what is happening in 10 Downing Street but the men in white coats. I am grateful to him for suggesting that to me. Can the Minister give us an estimate of the time and cost involved in dealing with all these unnecessary statutory instruments?
Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: International Affairs
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this is about my 60th SI, so I am into some SI fatigue. Previously I have started by saying how much I regret being here because of the Government’s failure to rule out a no-deal Brexit. Unfortunately, the world has changed. If nobody blinks, our no-deal exit is next Saturday and these rules will come in. I therefore have to disagree with my noble friend Lord Foulkes: I think we do have to do this work, for the worst possible reason—because we are in the worst possible place. Brexit itself is bad enough, but the Brexit that is going to be thrust upon us unless sanity reigns—
Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: International Affairs
George Foulkes (Labour, Centre-left): Will my noble friend give way? I am going to agree with him: we have to do this. I just regret that we are having to do it because the Prime Minister has taken such a stubborn attitude. If she had understood the position and realised the strength of feeling earlier, we would not now be in the situation of facing the possibility of no deal at the end of next week. I hope that we do not have no deal, but I understand why we are having to do this. I just think that it is a terrible waste of the Minister’s time and staff time, and it would have been completely unnecessary if the Prime Minister had made a sensible decision.
Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): I am glad the noble Lord agrees with me that, unfortunately, it is now a necessity Turning to the two instruments, first, I agree with virtually everybody who has spoken—including my noble friends Lord Berkeley and Lord Snape, and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson—that the ongoing exchange of information should be a long-term aspiration, even in the silliest position we might find ourselves in. Can the Government come out and say that it will be a long-term aspiration in the rail industry? Exchange of information in the transport sector is one of the key factors necessary to achieve the levels of safety we have come to expect.
Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): Going back to the Minister’s last comment about sharing information, paragraph 7.8 of the Explanatory Memorandum on train driving licences says: "The duty to inform EEA safety authorities will be replaced by a discretionary power to provide such information for the two-year period during which European licences continue to be recognised, and then will cease altogether" That is not quite the same. I understand what she says about wanting to continue to share information, but that does not appear to be the intent of this document.
Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): I am sure everything the Minister says is accurate and that if I understood the treaty I would understand what she said, but can we translate it into practical terms? By Eurostar services, I assume that she means those to Brussels and Paris—and some intermediate stops which I cannot remember. I think she is telling the House that, on Saturday week, those services will be able to run; and I think she said that the shuttle service would be able to run. But say somebody wants to start a service—as people do aspire to—from London to Milan; is there a bilateral agreement that will allow that to happen or is it one of the many that would have to be negotiated? What if we start running a wider variety of services through the tunnel, such as London to Milan or London to Lyons, through France and into a third country?
Railway (Licensing of Railway Undertakings) (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: International Affairs
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Baroness has accepted that bilateral negotiations will be necessary in order to extend services through the tunnel to other destinations. Have these started? Is there clarity on who to talk to? Have there been any informal discussions to give us some optimism that there will be favourable outcomes?
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: International Affairs
Paul Murphy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I join the Minister in extending my sympathies to the families of the three young people who tragically died at Cookstown I see the point of the secondary legislation that the Minister described, but I deplore the need for it. Northern Ireland has been without its institutions of government for more than two years. The failure to restore them must rest with the Government, whatever the different views of the political parties in Northern Ireland. It has been one long saga of inertia and inactivity I know from personal experience how difficult it can be in Northern Ireland, but I see no evidence that energy and commitment have been effectively applied. Frankly, the Prime Minister has shown little interest; no attempt has been made to appoint an independent chair; there has been no structure to the talks; and suggestions regarding a possible restoration of the Assembly on its own have been ignored. This has to change, since the absence of devolution is a massive threat to the Good Friday agreement and everything it stands for.
Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: International Affairs
Peter Hain (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I associate myself with every word that my noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen said, and with the comments of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames. This is a dire and serious situation, from the very serious problem of waiting lists for children in the National Health Service in Northern Ireland, right the way through to the lack of a functioning Assembly and Executive, at a time of great crisis in Northern Ireland. It is probably the most serious crisis it has faced in many a long year—and that is saying something I want to ask specifically about the date of 25 August that I think the Minister mentioned. Parliament will not be sitting, so I find it an odd date. I stress to the Minister, and through him to the Government and the Prime Minister, that, as many of us have said, including my noble friend Lord Murphy of Torfaen, this problem will not be cracked without the Prime Minister’s personal engagement, not just flying in for an odd hour here or there but convening people together in a conference—if necessary, going overnight, and again—until the problem is cracked. There are solutions to these issues of the Irish language and other questions; attention needs to be focused in a concentrated and personal way, and I am afraid that it is not.
Railways (Interoperability) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): That this House regrets that the Railways (Inter- operability) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (SI 2019/345), laid before the House on 26 February, will cost United Kingdom businesses excessively in operating a potentially diverging range of safety and other railway standards from those of the United Kingdom’s largest market, and regrets the failure of Her Majesty’s Government to demonstrate any significant benefits; and calls on Her Majesty’s Government to lay new regulations that would enable continued compliance with the activities of the European Agency for Rail to provide the best ongoing business opportunities for manufacturers, rail passengers and freight customers in the United Kingdom; continued and consistent safety improvements; and reduced manufacturing costs as a result of one common set of standards across Europe Relevant document: 20th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (Sub-Committee A).
Railways (Interoperability) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I support my noble friends Lord Berkeley and Lord Snape in their opposition to this measure and add my regrets that we are not pursuing a fatal Motion on this issue. My interest in this is personal. I am a railway clerk’s son from Carlisle and I have always been passionate about the railways. My first job in national politics was as special adviser to the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, when he was Secretary of State for Transport, so I have a personal connection. Also, I happened to learn quite a lot about the detail of this SI from being a member of your Lordships’ EU Sub-Committee on the Internal Market, chaired so wonderfully by my noble friend Lord Whitty. The Secretary of State appeared as a witness before us on these questions and it was absolutely plain that the reason he wanted to withdraw from the European agency was nothing more than ideology. He could not stand the fact that standards would be set by Europe. That is what we face all the time from Ministers in this Government. There is no pragmatism about Brexit, so why do noble Lords think we are in trouble? It is because of that absolute absence of any pragmatism When we had that hour-long disquisition by the Secretary of State, I raised the issue of the manufacturing plants, which, as my noble friend Lord Snape said, are now foreign-owned but based in Britain. My noble friend Lord Adonis is not in his place but I know that a remarkable achievement of his—one of many, by the way—when he was Secretary of State for Transport was to get Hitachi to establish a plant in Durham that would manufacture trains.
Railways (Interoperability) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: International Affairs
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): As always, my noble friend Lord Berkeley makes an excellent point. I think that the Government have to come up with a better explanation for why we should be leaving these arrangements than the simple, "Why should we bother to be part of some European agency when we have left the European Union?"
Railways (Interoperability) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): I first declare an interest as a founding chairman of the RSSB and its chairman for five years. Many of the transport SIs have assigned duties to the Secretary of State, and on each occasion I have asked who will advise the Secretary of State and whether it is a statutory or necessary process. As far as I can see, in this case it is not clear who would advise the Secretary of State, and I think that is deficient. I will not make a long speech, because, broadly speaking, I agree with my noble friend Lord Berkeley—not something I do that often, but on this occasion he has got it absolutely right One reason for the affluence we all enjoy today—this has been a truth since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution—is the impact of volume. When you think of it, a small family car costs less than one year’s labour costs for a car worker. Imagine standing there with a heap of coal and a heap of iron ore, and you have to build a car in a year by yourself. How do people achieve these things? It is through volume, research, mechanisation and complexity. Complexity is constantly brought into our lives at very little cost, because of volume. This law of volume means that the £13.50 watch on my wrist, as a one-off, would probably cost several hundred million pounds to develop from scratch. Volume is king, and the curse of the railway industry is that it does not, in general, have volume production. Therefore, it is unable to amortise production costs in the same way as industries such as the automotive industry. The ERA was the basis of allowing volume to be created. This is particularly important with the signalling revolution that is under way in Europe and this country I therefore agree with the general approach taken by my noble friend Lord Berkeley. I hope the Minister will produce some warm words about future aspirations. It would be madness not to become an associate member of the ERA, if we are able to negotiate that. I doubt whether this is the right instrument to require that, and therefore I do not support this regret Motion in the absolute sense of how it is written, but I support the general philosophy behind it.
Railways (Interoperability) (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
Anthony Gueterbock (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister. She has tried very hard to justify something which is probably impossible to justify. She talked about divergence, as did many noble Lords. Unfortunately, when people say there is going to be no divergence, it happens for political reasons. That is not just under this Government; it has been around since time immemorial. It helps to have an agency which is completely separate from the political process. As the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, if it can work for air and sea, why can it not work for rail It may not matter, but I can see cost, bureaucracy and a loss of business coming from this SI. I very much hope that we do not leave the European Union in the manner that requires this SI to be implemented, but I have not heard what would happen in the event of our agreeing with the European Union another way out or even staying in—that is a different matter because we would stay in the ERA. I also have not heard a good argument for us not staying with the European Union Agency for Railways under associate membership. If Switzerland can do so, why not us? Switzerland has very good railways. We all have a process for derogations. We have been having derogations from the ERA for a long time. I am told that it has stopped giving us derogations, probably because it is so fed up with us at the moment, but that will not go on for ever I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. There seems to be solid support for stating in the European Union Agency for Railways, with the exception of the Minister and my noble friend on the Front Bench—he and I do not always agree on everything, and that is fine. I wish to test the opinion of the House.
Common Rules for Access to the International Market for Coach and Bus Services (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this SI is a little complex. It seems to be about timing. One gets an uncomfortable feeling that the Government had tackled aviation, marine and road haulage when suddenly someone woke up and said, "We’d better do coaches". As you read through the Explanatory Memorandum, initially it seems to be an asymmetric situation where EU operators get all the provisions that they have now but UK operators do not, and then you turn to paragraph 7.3, which says: "The EU have proposed a legislative change that will extend many of the provisions of the existing market access Regulations till 31 December 2019" Extending "many" means that it does not extend all. Could the Minister spell out which provisions of the existing market access are not allowed under this agreement? Has the agreement become EU law? I believe the answer is yes, but I would like her to spell that out in simple language. If it is the law that I am thinking of, it declines and then expires on 31 December 2019 Having not declared any interests in coach operations, I confess that I know nothing about the Interbus deal. Could the Minister spell out what it will mean if it is fully ratified, as is implied in the Explanatory Memorandum? Will it give UK operators the same freedoms as they have now? If not, could she spell out the freedoms that they will not have? Will the Interbus agreement supersede the necessity for the special arrangements that I believe the EU has introduced?
Common Rules for Access to the International Market for Coach and Bus Services (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 — House of Lords, 2019-03-21
Topic: Transportation
Denis Tunnicliffe (Labour, Centre-left): On 1 January 2020, by which time the EU regulation will have expired, and assuming there are a satisfactory number of signatures to the Interbus agreement, to what extent will the situation for UK operators be different from the situation today?