Olly Glover
MP for Didcot and Wantage · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“The Secretary of State’s suggestion that local identities are being considered will come as a huge surprise to my constituents in Culham and Clifton Hampden, which, although many miles from Oxford city centre and surrounded by countryside, will be incorporated into Greater Oxford.”
“As highlighted by Wildlife and Countryside Link, the draft NPPF would limit local ambition and powers by preventing local planning authorities from requiring biodiversity net gain above the statutory 10% minimum. That seems like a retrograde step.”
“I am certainly interested to hear from the Minister whether he feels that the Planning Inspectorate has the resources to cope with an increase in the number of plans to examine and assess. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) made a very important point about the implications of local government reorganisation.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I recognise that a lot of work has gone into the proposals by a lot of people, but many of the details add to an existing impression of chaos. We are finally getting sight of the detail just 9.5 months before many affected areas have elections.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) for securing a debate on this important topic very much in the spirit of end-of-term relaxation. I want to start with some of the positives of the new draft NPPF.”
“More could be done to clarify the planning system and permissions for houses in multiple occupation. Such properties are often associated with parking and waste issues and, unlike larger HMOs, they may not be subject to requirements on parking provision, room sizes or amenity space, potentially resulting in poorer living conditions.”
The complete record
Every one of 602 lines we hold for Olly Glover, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 13.
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship once again, Mrs Hobhouse. Our amendment 212 relates to what the Minister said: it would remove the restriction on the ORR’s ability to impose fines on GBR for licence breaches. I am hoping that we can find some agreement or that the Minister can improve my understanding of the Bill. I entirely agree with him that we do not want wooden dollars—are we still allowed to say that?—sloshing around the system. We do not want fake money, fake economics or fake regulation. That has not been a strength of the rail industry under the current structure. The Minister said that the ORR would have the powers to tell GBR to do better and to put a legally binding notice on it.”
“We must, however, look to ourselves as well as to others. Pedestrians should think carefully before crossing the road at an inappropriate place, and we all need to get out of our phones and look around us. Cyclists need to be consistent in obeying rules and signals and respecting pedestrians, and drivers need to have good vehicle maintenance and be mindful of the power of their vehicle. Nobody should want to be the cause of the human harm we have heard about today, and we should all think about that the next time we attempt to behave badly on the roads.”
“Potholes and poor road surfaces are the bane of all road users’ lives, and there is a link there to wider policy, given that upper-tier council authorities are seeing more than half their budgets consumed by statutory requirements such as adult social care. Road safety links to a lot of other policy areas. We need to think hard about enforcement, whether that is cameras or the human interface. We need to continue to expand cycle training, particularly the Bikeability programme for young people, and we need better training and support for new drivers, particularly young ones. The recent Government announcement on pavement parking is welcome, but I hope the Minister will say something about how she intends to implement that. I note that Lord Blunkett in the other place tabled an amendment on that subject.”
“In the meantime, we need to tackle a whole range of factors, as well as the fatal five factors that the hon. Member for Shipley outlined in her introduction. We need to address culture and attitudes to speeding and drinking. A number of hon. Members referred to a particular problem with how young people, in particular young males, can drive. We need to think about the design of our roads and the lack of safe walking and cycling infrastructure. In my Oxfordshire constituency of Didcot and Wantage, the A417 and A338 are very busy A-roads. They have no viable alternative for people cycling and lack cycle paths, as would be common in Germany, the Netherlands and many other places.”
“May I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for this debate? I congratulate the hon. Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon), who secured it, on her powerful speech. She, like many other Members, rightly focused on the appalling human cost when road safety goes wrong. So many Members spoke powerfully with stories from their own lives or from their constituents of people who have lost their lives or been injured and the impact that has on families—that has to be where we start from—and the emergency services. On road safety, we must start with our own human shortcomings. Few of us are, generally speaking, the skilled and wise drivers and road users that we often tend to think we are. It remains to be seen whether driverless cars will save us from ourselves.”
“Of course we should all continue to advocate for what we believe, but it seems unlikely that—in the near future at least—there will be a change in approach to the core train operating companies’ being franchised out. Perhaps, rather than relitigating that, we need to focus on other aspects of the Bill, as indeed he has done, and on how we can make the new world better—particularly by removing the Secretary of State’s ability to interfere too much. I wonder what the shadow Minister and Government Minister have to say about that.”
“Apologies. One recognises one’s status. We agree with the shadow Minister on the principle that it should not be about ideology between the public and private sectors. We have argued that consistently in the past. If it was so simple that nationalising train operators would lead to transformative performance improvements, Northern would be a globally inspiring example. I realised this morning that this month it reaches its half-decade anniversary of being in the public sector and, certainly for friends of mine in the north, it remains some way from being a globally leading example. That highlights the fact that public and private sector ideology is but one factor needed to give excellent rail services. I wonder whether some of the shadow Minister’s amendments are perhaps fighting yesterday’s war.”
“I understand what the Minister is saying, but if he means that the ability to give these directions would exist only in very extreme, exceptional cases, such as pandemics or large-scale wars, would he not be open to specifying that in the Bill?”
“The cost implications are limited and predictable, as the travel demand is concentrated around a single annual event and largely happens on that day. The new clause recognises the importance of remembrance for bereaved families and sends a clear message of respect and recognition for service and sacrifice. On our new clause 59, I understand the shadow Minister’s points, but the intention is simply to reduce red tape and bureaucracy. This is about officers needing to use the train in the course of their duties. It is important that many of them do so, particularly those engaged in highly visible community policing. The new clause would simply reduce the red tape and bureaucracy of them needing to buy tickets, procure travel warrants and so on.”
“The context is that there is currently an agreement in place for that travel fee exemption, which is agreed by the Secretary of State and the train operating companies. The new clause would simply formalise something that already happens, but would do so in the framework of GBR and ensure long-term certainty and consistency, national coverage across the GBR network and the inclusion of a representative of a deceased service member. At present, deceased personnel are often not represented at Remembrance events if a family member cannot afford the cost of travel. The new clause addresses that inequity. The new clause places an existing informal arrangement on a statutory footing and ensures consistency and fairness.”
“We understand and support the intent of the Conservative amendments on veterans, but I suppose the debate will get into what should be legislated for in discount schemes, as opposed to specified in other forms. It will be interesting to hear from the Minister why the Government have opted to put certain discount schemes in the Bill and not others. Hopefully, there is some clear logic, but we shall see. Our new clause 51 would require the Secretary of State to make a travel fee exemption for journeys to and from Remembrance Sunday events for armed forces personnel, armed forces veterans and one representative of a deceased armed forces member across all GBR passenger services.”
“Our idea is based on the ubiquity of air miles as a highly valued consumer product. So many people talk about air miles in conversation, and the popularity of certain credit cards—I can probably name them, as I do not have an interest, but I will not—is explained by the accumulation of air miles. Why not rail miles? It would promote our network, reward loyal customers and be a brilliant way of promoting domestic tourism, were people able to accumulate rail miles as they currently can air miles. It would also be a good way to promote lower-carbon transport. Our new clause would simply require the examination of the idea of a rail miles programme, and the production of a report on its potential merits that the Secretary of State would lay before Parliament within 12 months of the passage of the Bill.”
“I will speak briefly about the Conservative amendments. I agree with some of the shortcomings identified by the shadow Minister, but there would be a risk in setting in stone some of the current discount and fares arrangements, as amendment 61 seeks to do. On amendment 62, apart from the good points made by the hon. Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford about the existing differential discount rates, I am not sure of a particularly compelling reason for why the main discount rate of one third should be preserved in aspic—I said that I would not say “aspic” any more, but I have anyway. There may be times in the future when a higher discount, or maybe even a lower one, could make sense. I assure the shadow Minister that our new clause 13 would require the examination of the idea, rather than a commitment to do it.”
“The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The air miles concept has been highly successful for Eurostar, and it is now time to apply the idea to the domestic market.”
“I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, although perhaps she is advocating another concept called gin miles, which would definitely be beyond the scope of our new clause. She makes the strong point that there have been examples along the lines of this idea in pockets of the network. The new clause would put the idea on a national footing, boost good practice and give GBR positive things to offer its customers from day one. Perhaps it would even compensate for the ghastly livery that GBR is telling us all is so wonderful.”
“I beg to move amendment 142, in clause 39, page 21, line 19, at end insert— “(1A) The Passengers’ Council must not investigate a matter unless the matter has been considered first by Great British Railways and is subject to an appeal for further consideration.” This amendment makes Great British Railways the first stage of a complaint submitted, with the Passenger Standards Council the appellant body should the complainant not be satisfied by the response from Great British Railways.”
“I hope that the amendment is uncontentious, but if the Minister does not agree I am sure he will give a typically eloquent explanation.”
“I can be very concise, Mrs Hobhouse. We consider the provisions on the passengers’ council to be among the stronger components of the Bill. Some sound thinking is involved. Amendment 142 is a very basic amendment that aims simply to reduce red tape and bureaucracy. All it would do is ensure that when a complaint is submitted, the first stage is for GBR to look at it. It will be a GBR issue, because GBR is going to run everything. If the appellant body is not satisfied with the response from GBR, the complaint can by all means go to the passengers’ council for investigation. If the complaint goes first to the passengers’ council, what will happen in pretty much every case is that the council will have to go to GBR to find out the facts. How else will it know them?”
“I hear what the Minister says. I still think that the logical wording of the clause could be ameliorated, but I shall leave that to the Government and spare the Committee a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Clause 39 ordered to stand part of the Bill . Clause 40 Power to obtain information”
“The shadow Minister is right to say that our amendments have similar intentions to his; we may have taken slightly different avenues but we are heading in the same direction. Amendments 141 and 144 are intended to reduce the Secretary of State’s role in the passengers’ council’s abilities to set standards and go about its work. The shadow Minister is quite right to point out that there is a typo in amendment 144, which I had not spotted—the intention is to delete subsection (5) and not subsection (6). I thank him for drawing our attention to that.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point about salaries and how income levels are not necessarily a good predictor of usefulness to society and economic contribution. We have heard that point made clearly about social workers, but does he agree that in high-tech sectors such as space, biotech and robotics, we need global talent and that only by pooling that talent will we succeed, which is why we should not be putting in place these barriers to indefinite leave to remain?”
“I appreciate that that is a debate for another time, but perhaps I can tempt the Secretary of State to reveal when the Government intend to bring forward proposals for Birmingham to Manchester improvements. I share the sentiments of the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) and thank him for his work. I wonder whether the Secretary of State has a concern that the Bill advocates a similar legislative approach as the rest of HS2 to consent, planning the route, mitigations and so on. I wonder what lessons have been or will be learnt to ensure that the existential despair that is HS2 will not be repeated when attempting to use this procedure to advance Northern Powerhouse Rail.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for clarity on what the this is and what it is not. It is welcome that it is about Northern Powerhouse Rail and its Manchester to Liverpool core—a scheme that the Liberal Democrats continue to support. We hope this time that the dreams for Northern Powerhouse Rail will become a reality, given the very slow journey they have been on since 2014, when first proposed. I understand what the Secretary of State said about this not being about Birmingham to Manchester, but I hope she agrees that we will eventually need to find an effective solution for transport between the west midlands and the north-west, given the very congested rail network and the M6 being something covered by Chris Rea in one of his songs.”
“The hon. Gentleman is quite right to rebuke me, albeit very politely and gently. I should have worded the amendment in a non-exclusive manner, to make sure that I did not forget any other form of transport. He is right to highlight, as I know he is about to, the critical importance of the integrated transport terminal in Portsmouth harbour for access to and from his wonderful island. There are many other examples of such terminals, including the one in Ardrossan harbour for getting to and from the Isle of Arran in Scotland. I am sure that, if I had had the Government’s resources at my fingertips rather than having bashed away at this over Christmas, I would not have made that error.”
“We seem to be losing track of the words that have been tabled. Either that or, like a group of management consultants, we are in danger of getting plans confused with strategies and tedious things such as that. Amendment 207 is neither intended nor drafted to encourage or enable the micromanagement of timetables. It is about the development of and the longer-term vision for what those timetables are supposed to achieve, and that is very much in line with what should be a 30-year strategy. I just want to assure the Minister on that point.”
“Perhaps we should preserve things in stone, as the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband) did in the 2015 general election. Perhaps we should turn to that analogy a bit more. Question put, That the amendment be made.”
“I apologise, Mr Western; I had forgotten I was due to speak, because we started to discuss this group the other day. I do not have too much to say. I can understand some of the Minister’s points, but I certainly disagree with others. There is, of course, a balance between being too prescriptive and something being so woolly that it ends up being—this is a very tenuous analogy, but it could end up being like a glass of Ribena for a two-year-old, or predominantly water. That is the debate that we have been having, but I shall not detain the Committee for too much longer. I wish to press these two amendments to a Division, as I stated on Tuesday. Also, I have a thought for our subsequent proceedings. We talk a lot about preserving things in aspic, but for the interest and attention of the Committee we may need a different analogy.”
“Perhaps more important is getting requirements and specifications for tenders right or deciding in each individual context the best way to get value on a whole-life cost basis. We definitely have a problem on the railway, and perhaps as a nation as a whole, with being obsessed with getting up-front capital costs down, but there is not quite the same level of attention for a decent appraisal of whole-life costs and deciding how to move forward on that basis. On new clause 37, I understand the intention of an annual business plan, but my slight worry is that it could undermine the logic of the five-year funding review period. Perhaps the shadow Minister can address that when he sums up.”
“I politely suggest to him that, in the same way that members of the governing party can sometimes be too ideologically committed to the idea that public sector is automatically better, the evidence does not necessarily support the view that private sector is automatically better in the rail context. It is context-dependent. ORR benchmarking from 2012 showed that our train driver and rolling stock maintenance costs, both of which have been in the private sector for some time, were generally significantly higher at that time than those of our European counterparts. I do not believe that those trends have changed significantly. I would be interested to hear from the shadow Minister and from the Government the evidence that private sector is automatically better than public sector, or vice versa. I think it depends on the context.”
“New clause 33 seems sensible, given the Conservatives’ and Labour’s total obsession with rolling stock leasing rather than purchase, which I find utterly bizarre. Rolling stock leasing can make sense, particularly when gilt prices or the cost of capital is high, but it is quite expensive on a whole-life cost basis. Otherwise, why would rolling stock companies do it? There are some very nice people in them, but they are not charities. Rolling stock leasing happens elsewhere in Europe, but it is not as universal as it is here. However, that feels like either yesterday’s war or tomorrow’s—probably not today’s. On new clause 36, I note that the shadow Minister has tabled amendments about the private sector to similar effect in group 36.”
“I should have said earlier, Mr Western, that it is a pleasure to once again serve under your chairship as we debate another exciting group of amendments. I want to make some brief remarks on the Conservative amendments in this group. I eagerly await the Minister’s polite but withering put-down. Amendment 26 is a matter of wording. Alas, unlike the shadow Minister, my only experience of the law is occasionally watching “Kavanagh QC”, a reference that no doubt reveals my age. I shall await the Minister’s comments on that amendment and shall reach a view in the no doubt incredibly nail-bitingly tight Division on it. On amendment 218, I agree with the shadow Minister that we need to get mayoral consultation right, and to have plenty of it.”
“One of the recurring debates we are having on this Committee is the balance between accountability in the form of annual reports and making sure that GBR is not drowned by the demand for them. That is our reservation about new clause 47.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship once again, Mrs Hobhouse. Liberal Democrat amendment 252 is intended to strengthen the freight target in the Bill, which—as I have previously said—is something that we welcome. Amendment 149 on freight electrification and the need for a freight strategy highlights the fact that freight is neglected on our network. The percentage of freight that moves by rail is much lower than in comparable western and central European countries, therefore there needs to be additional thought as to how that is going to be changed. The strategy should be a step towards how the Government intend to achieve their eventual freight target. We support Conservative amendments 219 and 220 as they are similar in spirit. We are not quite so persuaded by the Conservatives’ new clause 47.”
“I have tabled new clause 56, which we will come to later, which suggests a different way of promoting competition on the railway: it would institute a centrally decided timetable, and some of the paths on routes that have more than one train an hour would be auctioned off. For example, three trains an hour run on the London to Manchester route, and GBR would intentionally introduce competition by auctioning off one train path an hour, which hopefully would encourage both sides to pull their socks up. We have increasingly seen that happening on the Italian high-speed network and in France. Absent that, we feel—with those caveats having been issued—that it would be beneficial for the ORR to retain stronger powers in relation to access and competition. That is why we have put forward amendment 210.”
“As the shadow Minister said, amendment 210 is our attempt to strengthen the ORR’s role in access decisions, so we agree with some of the Conservative amendments, but not all of them. Let me explain the context. In an ideal world, I would not want to see competition between passenger services decided by the ORR, for two reasons. First, the current way that open access is run on our railways can be complicated, suboptimal and inefficient, although in certain places it is producing good results, such as on the east coast main line, as the shadow Minister said. The second reason is that the ORR does not always cover itself in glory in its current form, as per its notorious decision, quickly reversed, about the 0700 express from Manchester to London.”
“I certainly see what the hon. Member is trying to do with these amendments, and the Liberal Democrats share some of his concerns about the balance between holding GBR to account and GBR’s autonomy. However, does he not feel that amendment 11 may go a little too far? Laudable though the KPIs that he has set out are, I am not sure that any railway in this country has ever achieved them all at once, and if the amendment were made we may very well go through a revolving door of chief executives before the Secretary of State can give any direction.”
“I beg to move amendment 143, in clause 9, page 6, line 30, after “statutory functions” insert “, but only in respect of strategic or financial matters where such guidance is necessary and does not interfere with the operational exercise of those functions.” This amendment limits the guidance that the Secretary of State can give to Great British Railways.”
“The guidance should be about providing a clear overview of what the Government of the day wishes the railway to achieve and deliver, and about empowering GBR—with appropriate regulation to hold it to account, as we have been debating—to get on with it. I hope the Minister will view the amendment rather more favourably than he has others, although my powers of clairvoyance feel particularly strong this morning, and I suspect that will not be the case, in which case we will wish to press it to a vote.”
“The reason for tabling this amendment alludes to things I have said previously in this Committee room, and in other locations—there have been many examples in the past of the Secretary of State as proxy for the Department for Transport, getting involved in far too much of the fine detail of the running of our railways, whether that is the intricacies of timetable specification, whether certain types of rolling stock are upgraded or not, and whether they are equipped with wi-fi and tables, or not. There are many other examples that I could give and I have given before. The amendment is intended to strengthen the Government’s clear intent that the direction and guidance given by the Secretary of State should be strategic and high level.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. This amendment relates to some of the clauses in the Bill that will enable the Secretary of State to give guidance, as opposed to direction, to GBR. Amendment 143 is, in my humble opinion, a very modest and reasonable attempt to simply clarify some of the clear intentions that the Minister has expressed for the Bill. Our amendment would mean that the Secretary of State could only provide guidance to GBR on its statutory functions in respect of strategic or financial matters, where such guidance is necessary and does not interfere with the operational exercise of those functions.”
“We invest public money in railways because they are significant enablers of all sorts of economic and social benefit, so we have some concerns about new clause 40. Some of the other Conservative new clauses have good intentions. For example, new clause 41 seeks to require the publication of data on financial performance. But it also seems to be over-fixated on GBR needing to reach a self-financing state, which seems somewhat unlikely. I have said enough. I look forward to hearing the comments of the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham on his new clauses and of my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset comment on ours.”
“I want to make a few remarks about the Conservative new clauses, on which we have mixed opinions. New clause 34 perhaps has some merit in terms of its intention to strengthen protections for the five-year funding review period process. My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset will speak to our new clause 26 shortly. We feel that some of the other Conservative new clauses have not necessarily been fully thought through or recognise the reality of how railways work. For example, new clause 40 seeks to end GBR’s reliance on taxpayer funding. Of course, in an ideal world we would love all public services to end their reliance on taxpayer funding—that would be paradise because we would not need taxation—but the reality is that extremely few railways in the world are entirely independent of taxpayer funding.”
“When the train service is working normally, it is fine if the train does one thing, the guard does another and the driver yet another.”
“Every platform was strewn with Great Western inter-city trains or commuter trains, because its train crew and rolling stock diagrams are so complicated that it is not able to recover during disruption. That has happened partly because there is not a whole-system focus on the alignment between infrastructure funding and train crew and train operations funding. There has been a lot of pressure, through the franchising process, to cut back on train crew costs, and therefore to diagram—forgive the jargon; I am trying to avoid using it. Diagrams are the daily allocations of instructions as to which trains drivers, guards and others work on. The way to reduce train crew costs, particularly given that there have been above-inflation pay increases, is to tighten those diagrams and squeeze every bit of productivity out of them.”
“Generally speaking, the benchmark for clearing and reopening the line in a way that is safe for everyone, having done the scene of crime investigation and so on, is 60 to 90 minutes. Passengers are understanding of that. They are not understanding when 12 hours later the service is still in complete meltdown because the trains are in one place, the drivers are in another and the guards are in yet another. A few months ago I was travelling from Didcot to Cambridge via London, because we still do not have East West Rail—maybe one day we will, but that is one for another time—and many hours after a fatality between Reading and London, Reading was a trainpark.”
“A figure is often cited by those who like to bash Network Rail—having worked there, I know that there are plenty of reasons for doing so, but this one is a bit spurious—that 60% of delays are caused by Network Rail and only 40% by the train operators. Therefore, they say, aren’t the train operators wonderful and isn’t Network Rail terrible? The problem is that, partly because of the way that train crew operations and train operators are funded, a lot of the delays counted in that 60% are fundamentally train operator delays—delays that they have the most ability to influence. Very sadly, from time to time, people commit suicide on our rail network. That is of course terrible. It initially causes very significant delay and passengers are generally sympathetic to that.”
“Often, the temptation is to paint those train operators as evil private sector ogres and figures of terror from whatever fantasy franchise one wishes to quote, but in reality, since the pandemic, they have been subject to very tightly prescribed contracts by the Department for Transport, and that has led to some very poor short-term decisions about train crew training that have, at times, led to serious service cuts. We are thankfully recovering from some of that, but not wholly: for example, CrossCountry is still running at a significantly lower level than before the pandemic. There is also the key question of the impact on Network Rail delays.”
“Having worked on both sides of the fence, for Network Rail and for train operating companies, I have seen the endless misaligned objectives, budgets and ways of working and can say that he is absolutely right in his diagnosis and his prescription. However, the omission of passenger services from the five-year funding period runs the risk of undermining that. Let me explain why. The key issue is that critical elements of the running of the railway are included in passenger services funding. Those include staffing on stations, in rolling stock maintenance depots and, critically, of train crew—drivers, guards, conductors and so on—as well as train crew training, which for many train operators has been a complete mess since the pandemic.”
“My real issue with the exclusion of funding for passenger services from the five-year funding review periods, and the failure to align it with infrastructure funding, is what the Rail Minister in the other place, the noble Lord Hendy, says about the objectives of the Bill. He has said it on the record on many occasions, including in front of the Transport Committee and when speaking at the Rail Industry Association reception a couple of weeks ago. He says that one of the key aims of the Bill is to properly enable the alignment of track and train—of infrastructure and train operations. He is absolutely right about that; I agree with him very much.”
“It states: “Given the greater uncertainty of passenger services spend and income, due to changes in passenger demand which are difficult to predict, Passenger services will not be included within this commitment at this point. Passenger services and other activities outside of infrastructure operations, maintenance and renewal will be funded using existing powers, which will be updated to account for GBR. As these powers already work well in allowing the government to provide transparent and flexible funding to the railway industry, we have decided to keep them and continue to use the Spending Review for these aspects of GBR funding.” Why does this matter?”