Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendments 12, 16, 17 and 18. I tabled these amendments with the support of my noble friend Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick and the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, whom I am delighted to see in his place; I hope he will have something to say about them in a moment. I declare my interest as president of the Heritage Railway Association, which is the trade association for 173 heritage lines throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland. The purpose of these amendments is simply to achieve clarity in the Bill and to avoid, as far as possible, undesirable and unforeseen consequences. There is no question of the heritage sector seeking to be exempted from the Bill’s provisions, particularly those designed to make its operations safe. It takes the duty of care to its passengers very seriously indeed. The heritage sector is run on a small scale and is dependent on an army of some 22,000 volunteers. It brings pleasure to 13 million visitors a year and contributes hugely to the tourism economy, especially in less affluent rural areas. There could not be a greater contrast between its operations and the premises used for major events which attract large numbers of people to an enclosed space such as a concert hall, which, rightly, are the subject of the Bill. I shall not repeat any of the arguments that I made on Second Reading, except to say that the purpose of the amendments is to make clear what is actually required so that the railways can direct their limited and mainly volunteer resources to fulfilling the purposes of the Bill in the most effective way possible. Most heritage railways struggle to survive financially and need to manage their limited budgets to allow them to continue to operate in a way they can sustain financially. The Bill, as the short title makes clear, is related primarily to premises and obviously not to railways. Indeed, the national rail network of Great Britain is excluded from the operation of the Bill, as it has its own National Railways Security Programme, run by the Department for Transport under the expert eye of my noble friend Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill. Your Lordships may wonder why the same programme does not apply to heritage railways, but the legislation as drafted does not allow for that. In view of this, it seems reasonable to make clear what the Bill covers and what it excludes. My noble friend Lord Hanson has helpfully made clear on more than one occasion to me and others that the Bill is intended to cover stations, not trains and tracks. That seems sensible, and the purpose of our amendments is to put that distinction in the Bill. Further clarity is needed in the case of the 40 or so heritage lines which have a link or interchange with the national network; 10 of those share stations. Amendment 16 is simply to clarify that those stations are not covered by the Act as they are covered under the National Railways Security Programme that I mentioned earlier. Amendment 18 is necessary because the Bill is drafted to deal with large, enclosed venues, such as the Manchester Arena. Most heritage railways are based at what were originally relatively small country stations, with modest facilities such as a ticket office or waiting room under cover but mostly with open platforms or, in some cases, canopies covering a part of the platform but open on all sides. Here, the risk is significantly less than with enclosed premises such as a concert hall. The amendment makes clear that the Bill applies to the enclosed premises and not to the open platforms.