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The order has 28 articles and two schedules and, as other noble Lords have intimated, it is far too complex for an Order in Council. It should be dealt with as primary legislation by a Northern Ireland Assembly. I wish that when a Minister came with a piece of legislation of any sort he had to carry with him all the paper that would form the paper trail attached to it. With this one, he would need more than the four aiders that he has sitting behind him to bring in the amount of paper that is going to be used. This provision will entail a huge increase in the number of bureaucrats—the people who will oversee the multitude of papers that will arise from the legislation. The Minister will probably guess the question that arises from this, but the provision will also require a huge budget. I am not an expert but, from what I can glean, it may be £30 million. I want to deal with that point.
We all want to see traffic moving easily and less disruption on our roads, but here we are using a sledgehammer—or should I say a jackhammer—to crack a nut. The only costs that I can see here are those that will arise if people infringe the legislation; that is, the penalties. I do not see anything that indicates what the provision will cost. The public utilities—the people who provide gas and water—will have huge bills. It is reckoned that, of the £30 million, the Water Service will probably have £15 million extra to pay. That is the advice I have had. Has that been budgeted for by the Water Service? What is going to
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People whom I have talked to within the public utilities have indicated that they had not been made aware of some of the issues or that they had not been consulted to the extent that they would have liked. Have provisions been made within the budget of the Water Service for these costs? Will the water consumer now pay for street works as well as water usage? Did consultation on water charging include this issue of additional costs arising from street works? Has the General Consumer Council offered a view on water customers paying extra charges to cover street works? Of course, I could repeat those same questions for the provision of gas or communication services of whatever sort.
It is important that the Minister gives us considerably more information. Ideally, I should love him to say at the end of this debate that he will take the legislation back and that we will deal with it in the Assembly as a proper piece of legislation. But I know that he is not going to do that.
Before I leave that point, I draw the Minister’s attention to an Irish news story today, which indicates that the increased costs could add £80 on to household bills as a result of the legislation.
There are other aspects of the order that I cannot understand. We know that we can cut a nice clean track in the road by sawing it—we do not dig it up any more—and that it is easily replaced. It is important that repairs are done efficiently, but why would we impose on the utilities the need to resurface the entire road? How would that be decided? I can see that it could happen but at who’s whim? I do not think that there is anything in the legislation to indicate how it would be done. If you dig a track in the road, put in a sewer, fill it in and top it off, it does not matter that you have repaired the entire width of the road. The important place that needs to be inspected and reinspected will be where the track was, because with the settling of ground and so on it may need to be resurfaced on more than one occasion. So what is the sense in saying that the whole road must be resurfaced?
If I had any reassurance that there was a fixed lifespan for every major or A-class road between normal resurfacing, where one could see where damage had been done, then, depending on the length of time until the next major resurfacing, a charge might be suitable. But would it not be nonsense to ask the utility companies to resurface a road now if the road was to be completely resurfaced by the road service in spring or early summer of this year? Nothing in the order appears to indicate partnership. It seems that the public utility companies, including the water service and gas suppliers, are being penalised.
What about the private developers—the people who really disrupt traffic? Where are they catered for here? How are they to pay part of the charges? I may be wrong, and the Minister may be able to reassure me, but I see absolutely nothing in terms of provision for private developers. Why are they not asked to bear
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Without wishing to offend the Minister, although I have done that already, there are things in the legislation to which I would refer as nonsense. The idea that someone with a bowler hat and rolled umbrella can come along and tell the engineer, “Take your apparatus from that road. It is a main street. Put it down that side street”, is—
Lord Smith of Clifton: Is the noble Lord referring to an Orangeman with a bowler hat and umbrella?
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: As someone who is totally colour-blind, I could not possibly comment. This really is a matter for consideration. If we employ professionals, we require them to have properly trained people who should come along and say, “You must move your equipment off-site because it may cause a diversion”.
Those are some of the questions that I must ask about this legislation. I should like to know whether there is a schedule of road works, because that would have an impact. If there were a fixed schedule of works for a class of road, one would be able to consider this legislation in a slightly different light. I hope that the Minister can reassure me that this will not be, as I suspect it will be—and as I think he suspects it will be—a bureaucratic nightmare.
Lord Browne of Belmont: I welcome any legislation that helps to alleviate traffic congestion, but I must admit to being a little confused, because Northern Ireland’s utilities are responsible for only about 5 per cent of congestion. The Department for Regional Development is responsible for carrying out most of the work on our roads, and I understand that this legislation does not apply to the road services. Having chaired meetings in Belfast regarding the likely disruption that the Westlink would have caused to the city, and having chaired Making Belfast Work, which brought together all the statutory agencies—transport, water, sewerage and roads—I am pleased to say that we were able to obtain a co-ordinated plan that, in general, alleviated some of the concerns that Belfast traders had over the potential disruption that could have been caused. So, I praise the road services and the Minister for bringing that about.
5.30 pm
There are some concerns, however, that this would cost the utilities somewhere in the region of £15 million, as has been mentioned, while the Government say it would only be £7 million. I hope this discrepancy will not be passed on to taxpayers. Under the reform of local government, the responsibility for local roads will return to local authorities. I hope the money necessary to maintain our roads at a high standard will also transfer over. Those are a few of the difficulties I have but in general I welcome this order.
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Lord Rooker: I am grateful for the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, an ex-mayor of Belfast. My visits there are not very frequent. I was there on the first weekend in January and before that on the first weekend in December. I was going to say that whoever has planned the infrastructure, it will be a man in a bowler hat—and there is nothing wrong with a professional engineer wearing a bowler hat, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis.
Lord Smith of Clifton: Given the context of this debate, umbrellas and bowler hats have a number of connotations. I was not disparaging engineers, or indeed members of the Orange Order. I just wanted to know which one the noble Lord was talking about.
Lord Rooker: Professional engineers come in many guises. Some of them are women—even in Northern Ireland, I suspect. It might even be a woman who has organised this. My visits are less frequent than they used to be, but whoever has planned the timing and co-ordination of those massive infrastructure works in Belfast deserves a medal. It has been quite remarkable to watch, as I have done over the past 18 months or so during my visits there. Yet all we had from the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, was a whinge against bureaucrats who he thought could not organise things. Here is a classic example of something that has been really well organised.
The noble Lord has asked a series of legitimate questions.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: I am flattered.
Lord Rooker: Well, some of them are legitimate. If there are any emergencies, as one noble Lord asked, there is a provision for works to be classified as “immediate activities”. Utilities would not be required to give permits for emergency work, but, within two hours of starting work, they would need to tell the roads authority that they were on the job. That is not unreasonable.
We have had a lot of figures bandied about. The order will not come fully into force for quite a while because of the work that has to be done following the original legislation, but less congestion will be a benefit. You cannot put a cost on congestion, although economists attempt to do so when we are looking at new roads and so on. The cost of congestion is an enormous figure over a year, but it is difficult to say how it affects the individual wallet. However, all utilities, private or public, are regulated, and it would be up to the regulator to ensure that the costs passed on to the customer were consistent and that the customer was not simply ripped off.
I shall answer noble Lords’ specific questions in no particular order. Where a department intended to resurface a road, there would be a plan for that. There would be a programme of works, depending on the budget that was allocated. These things are not done willy-nilly; they have to be planned months, and in some cases years, in advance. The utilities might be asked to contribute towards the cost where they have been active in the excavations.
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The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, referred to private developers—presumably of housing or office blocks—who may be building or be required to build roads and access as part of the planning gain or planning permission. They will be required to put in and pay for the road infrastructure as part of the development, but they are not going around digging up the road for repairs. Essentially, we are talking about the utilities—the undertakers with responsibility for water, gas, electricity, telephone lines or perhaps TV cables. We are referring to all those things that are under the road or cross the road and may need repairing or upgrading from time to time.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: I think the Minister misunderstood me. I was talking about occasions when private developers need to get access to existing sewers and other services. That happens quite frequently. In fact, unless it is an entirely new development with its own new infrastructure, such access will be required. Even then, that new infrastructure is often conjoined with something that already exists.
Lord Rooker: That is a fair point. I misunderstood the question. The answer to that point may just have been handed to me. The provisions of the draft order will not be applied to other works on streets—for example, road works or work carried out by private developers. The order will apply only to street works because work carried out by others in streets is controlled by separate legislation. It would not be appropriate to use street-work legislation to apply the provisions of the order to those parties.
When resources become available, the department proposes to review legislation concerning the works of private developers and others outside street works on roads and to introduce appropriate measures to control them better. In other words, we would need to look at other legislation. The noble Lord makes a fair point and I am sorry that I misunderstood his original question.
The figure of £80 was raised in relation to individual household bills. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, referred to an Irish news article in that regard. At the moment, it is impossible to say what extra costs will be added to utility bills. That will not be known until the regulations and codes of practice are developed in consultation with the utility companies. There is quite a bit of work to be done once this legislation gets on to the statute book. It will not happen overnight but will take a couple of years. A regulatory impact assessment will also be provided at that stage to ensure that the measures are good value for money.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass: I am in danger of being accused of whingeing, although I suppose that in some respects I am here to whinge when the Government put the cart before the horse. Is it not a good idea—the Minister admits that the situation is otherwise—to have some general costings before one puts a plan into operation? It seems ridiculous for the Minister to stand here and tell me, “We are going to
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Lord Rooker: Frankly, that is unreasonable and scaremongering. This is partly enabling legislation. It gives powers for getting the permits and then, once they are secured, for consultation about the phasing and implementation of the measure. There is consultation with those affected, including the utilities which need to dig up the roads to replace or upgrade their services, a regulatory impact assessment and discussions with the regulators of the various utilities—gas, electricity and water—about how they will ensure that the public are not ripped off by costs being added to the bills. That seems to me to be good governance. Saying, “We’ve got all the answers; here is a piece of legislation”, is crazy when the evidence from the past indicates that that would not be the case.
It is wholly reasonable to take this approach. It is scaremongering of the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, to bandy about increases of £80 or £100 being imposed on the poorest people in Northern Ireland. No such figures have been produced by anyone of repute. They cannot do so because we have not yet gone through the regulatory impact assessment.
The noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, asked about the prescribed period. I am not sure that I have the cart before the horse. This refers to a prescribed period in which roads authorities can say that the road has been dug up a couple of times recently and there must be a moratorium before someone else comes along after a short period of time. The prescribed period for which a restriction on works may be imposed would be in the regulations. These will be developed with the involvement of the utilities. We need some regulatory authority through the Northern Ireland Road Authority and Utilities Committee. Prescribed periods could be between six months and three to five years depending on the type of road. So we are saying in advance to people who use the road that they have suffered a lot of disruption but, unless there is an emergency, there will be no more permits for work on that road for a period of time. That would be good for business as well as for commuters.
The figure I have on costs, according to the initial estimate, is that the permit scheme could cost all the utilities around £7 million annually, but work has to develop to determine the level of fees and how they are going to be set. That is some way down the road. By the way, I should like to think that a Northern Ireland Minister in the Assembly will be answering to Members in the Assembly on the way in which the detail is brought in. Clearly, that would be much more satisfactory.
I was asked who the undertakers were. They are Phoenix Gas, Northern Ireland Electricity, the Water Service and other people who place apparatus in or under the streets. The Water Service will be a government-owned company from April, but this is
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Detailed provisions will come through in regulations. We have to contain costs; it is not a free for all. If the roads people say to utilities that they cannot close the whole road but can only work on one lane, or we want the work done between midnight and 6 am, for example, their staff will be paid more to do that in overtime. But, if that reduces the overall congestion and disruption to people’s lives, a public good comes from that.
The utilities were fully consulted during the consultations on the policy proposals in 2005 and on the proposals for the draft order in 2006. In November last year officials met representatives of the Private Utilities Group—seven utility companies that formed an alliance to lobby against the department’s proposals to discuss their concern. Officials have been asked to continue in consultation with the utilities in developing working practices for implementing the new measures. As the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, said, it has to be a partnership; it will not work if there is war between the utilities and the authorities. Doing this in partnership would be seen as a valuable contribution to the lives of the people in Northern Ireland.
I thought that debating this order would take about two minutes.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2006
5.45 pm
Lord Rooker rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the District Electoral Areas Commissioner (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2006.
The noble Lord said: The draft order was laid before the House on 27 November. I would first like to provide some background to what I hope will be accepted is a relatively simple order. In Northern Ireland, the boundaries of local government districts and the number and boundaries of the wards into which each district is divided are drawn up by a Local Government Boundaries Commissioner. The role of the District Electoral Areas Commissioner is to group the wards into multi-member constituencies or district electoral areas for the purposes of local elections in Northern Ireland.
Lord Trimble: On that point, why do we still have wards? What is the point of them? The relevant unit for electoral purposes now is the district electoral area. Why preserve the ward, which ceased to have significance more than 40 years ago but still lives on for no good purpose? It results in DEAs being drawn up in an awkward way.
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Lord Rooker: I cannot comment on the detail of that because the electoral system in Northern Ireland is somewhat different to the one with which I am familiar, because of PR. If I had my way we would be doing the same in England, but I am not getting my way at the moment. The wards are the electoral unit with which the vast majority of people are most familiar.
Lord Trimble: No they are not.
Lord Rooker: Well, the intention is there. They are identifiable if one focuses on the natural settlement of an area. The current ward structure has been the electoral unit which the vast majority of voters are most familiar with. It is a useful mechanism for ensuring proper representation of the rural and urban electorate within a council area. Some statistical measures such as deprivation are commonly presented and broken down at ward level. One of the ways in which they are most useful is in collecting and publishing statistics. We have gone beyond ward areas now to look at very small areas.
Lord Trimble: Of the factors mentioned by the Minister, the only one that has any substance is the last one about the collection of statistics. That can be done. You can draw up your unit for collecting statistics, but why should it be allowed to distort—
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Ullswater): I must rule this discussion out of order. I have not put a Motion for the noble Lord to debate.
Lord Rooker: The issue is simple. On the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, when the Assembly is back, it will be in charge of local government, in effect. It will be able to make the rules, do what is necessary and make any changes. At present, it is not there and we have to make a modest change, which I can explain in a page and a half—I have only managed to get the first line out so far—about why we have this situation.
I was saying that the number of local government districts and the number and boundaries of the wards into which each district is divided are drawn up by the Local Government Boundaries Commissioner, which this order is not about. The role of the District Electoral Areas Commissioner, which this order is about, is to group the wards into multi-member constituencies or district electoral areas for the purposes of the local elections in Northern Ireland, which are run differently from the rest of Great Britain. At present, the District Electoral Areas Commissioner can be appointed only after an order giving effect to the recommendations of the Local Government Boundaries Commissioner has been made.
The purpose of the order before us today is to enable us to appoint the District Electoral Areas Commissioner at an earlier stage in the process—
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