My Lords, I start by expressing my regret that we are discussing Northern Ireland legislation at all. I would have hoped that the Assembly would be up and running again by now. I am not apportioning blame within this Chamber but simply making it clear that I believe it is a great disadvantage to Northern Ireland that the Assembly is not sitting.
These three SIs are being made by an unusual procedure, as the Minister has made clear. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee recommended that the originally intended negative procedure should be upgraded to the affirmative procedure because of the impact on cross-border operations, especially in Northern Ireland. In the event, because these SIs were not laid until 18 February, it was too late for the usual procedure to be followed, and instead they have been laid under the urgent “made affirmative” process, rather than the usual draft procedure. Northern Ireland deserves better than this. I realise it was not the Government’s intention to have run this as close to the wire as they have, but why was it left so late to lay these SIs? I know that the Government had intended to use the negative procedure, but the fact is that the committee has the right to recommend a change of procedure, and regularly does, so it is the Government’s job to anticipate a change such as that and to allow as much time as possible.
Of course, the irony is that we did not leave the EU on 29 March, and it does not look as though we are going to be leaving any day now. So, in fact, the Government had time to do it by the usual procedure. The Government rather overstate the amount we have to do in this House and in the other place. Business is actually fairly leisurely. Therefore, it could have been done in the usual way, if only everyone had been able to anticipate the situation.
My second question is my usual one. I am concerned once again that the obligation to share information, in this case on safety issues, is being removed and replaced with a power to share information. These three SIs all deal with issues of safety, and my view is that we should not be playing politics with issues of safety and should not be risking the possibility that, either intentionally or unintentionally, safety information will be held back. I ask the Minister: when a safety certificate issued in the UK is revoked by the ORR, what about a rail company that operates in both the UK and the EU? Would the Government then still have a legal obligation to inform the EU?
As the Minister mentioned, there are temporary arrangements to carry the industry over the period after exit. My concern is that EU Part A safety certificates would be recognised for a maximum of two years after Brexit or until they expire. This procedure has been used for other transport-related SIs, and I have previously raised my concern that there is unnecessary uncertainty about this. Some safety certificates will last for two years and some will not, because they will run out earlier. There is uncertainty there.
Meanwhile, the EU has adopted regulation 2019/503, which allows UK certificates to continue to be valid for nine months after exit. My concern is that we are talking about two years in Britain and nine months for British certificates in the EU, so we do not have a consistency of approach. The EU provision appears to apply only to the Republic of Ireland and France, so I ask the Minister: what about Belgium and the Netherlands? They are regularly in receipt of trains which start in the UK, so if these provisions will not apply in Belgium and the Netherlands—as I understand from the Explanatory Memorandum—then what about those trains going beyond those two countries?
6.45 pm
Turning to Northern Ireland, cross-border services are particularly important there, being extremely frequent and regular. Part A safety certificates issued in the Republic will continue to be recognised in Northern Ireland. This is a very pleasing piece of common sense, although I wonder what the DUP Members will think of it, since they have a basic principle that Northern Ireland should not be treated any differently to the rest of the UK. In this piece of legislation we are adopting a different principle. Northern Ireland being given a different solution to the rest of the UK was a particular issue for the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s sub-committee.
The third of these SIs deals with train drivers’ licences, which are much more numerous than the safety certificates issued to train companies—there will only be a handful of those, but there will be hundreds of train drivers’ licences. Once again, we have a duty to share information replaced with a power to share information. I am very concerned that in practice this will lead to mistakes or omissions. It is easy to imagine a case where a train driver not having the appropriate licence is overlooked and not appropriately reported, since we are dealing with a power to share rather than an obligation to share. It could be the case that, because the legislation says that someone does not have to share that information, there is nothing anyone can do about it. I have serious concerns that this could undermine safety, so my question to the Minister in relation to the regime for licencing and certifying train drivers in Northern Ireland is whether, in respect of the principle that there will be continued recognition of licences issued in other EEA states, this will be a permanent situation or is it envisaged to be time-limited. It may not specify that it is time-limited in the SI, but it might be that the Government intend to change that system in due course. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that.
As usual, consultation has been minimal. The first of these SIs, which the Minister referred to as the GB rail safety instrument, includes provisions that in practice are applicable only to Great Britain, but it includes other provisions that are applicable to the UK and some that are applicable to Northern Ireland, so it is actually a very long and complex SI. Paragraph 10.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum for that SI says:
“Over 300 industry bodies were invited to participate in the … consultation”,
and that only eight responses were received. Can the Minister say whether those responses were all positive and supportive?
I conclude by saying once again that the Government are attempting to provide a continuation of the status quo while removing the obligations on passing information to the EU and the Commission. I understand their intention to do so, but I believe that it has inevitably led to a cobbled-together approach—a hotchpotch of inconsistent and cumbersome solutions. In the case of these three SIs, there is of course the additional inconsistency of having a different approach for Northern Ireland than the rest of the UK. I shall listen with great interest to the answers from the Minister. If she is not able to give me a reply this evening, because I am aware that I have asked a number of questions, I would be grateful if she could write to me.