Schedule 1 - Office of Rail Regulation
Railways and Transport Safety Bill
9:15 am
Mrs Anne McIntosh (Vale of York, Conservative)
Thank you, Mr. Hurst.
I ask the Minister to address my remarks, because I want to know when he expects to raise these issues with the Treasury and when the House will be told the overall budget. I would prefer to be told today, before we leave schedule 1. It is right and proper that we should ask such questions now, and I am surprised that the Liberal Democrat spokesman is not concerned about the cost and the size of the Office of Rail Regulation.
I am told that service as an employee of the office is employment in the civil service of the state, so I repeat my earlier question: how many employees and officials do the Government expect the office to have?
Paragraph 6 states:
''The Office may establish one or more committees (which may include persons who are neither members of nor employed by the Office).''
What will be the composition of those committees? Will there be remuneration committees and pension committees? Will committees examine the way in which the office functions? How will they function in terms of the five principles of the Better Regulation Task Force? How many people do the Government expect to service the committees? How many officials of the Office of Rail Regulation will be required to man them?
Paragraph 7 seems a good provision. It tells us:
''The Office may delegate a function to . . . the Chief Executive or another employee, or . . . a committee.''
Will that happen in the context of regulations introduced outside schedule 1? I am concerned that we do not know in more detail what the office's constitution will be.
Paragraph 8 seems perfectly normal and proper.
Paragraph 9 states:
''The Office may do anything which it thinks necessary or expedient for the purpose of or in connection with the performance of its functions.''
That is a very wide-ranging power. For the sake of clarity, the Minister might like to say how that provision compares with the equivalent provision in the Railways Act 1993.
I am surprised that the Minister has not used the Bill to respond to the specific request by the former Select Committee on Transport, Local Government and the Regions that the Government clarify once and for all the specific relationship between the rail regulator—now to be the Office of Rail Regulation—and the Strategic Rail Authority. I should have thought that schedule 1 was the right and proper place to set out what that formal relationship would be. Why has that not been done? The power in paragraph 9(1) seems very wide. Subject to what the Minister says, I should like to express our concerns about that. On paragraph 10, how long does he think that a vacancy would be allowed to remain before the place was taken?
Paragraph 11 relates to money. It states:
''The Office may with the approval of the Secretary of State make to or in respect of members of the Office, employees or committee-members payments by way of or in respect of—
(a) remuneration;
(b) pension;
(c) allowances;
(d) expenses.''
What will be the overall budget for the Office of Rail Regulation? The Government have been deeply embarrassed by pension provision for the Lord Chancellor, and Opposition Members want to help the Government to avoid similar embarrassment in future. I should like to know for certain what pension provision has been made in respect of paragraph 11(b). Will a committee on the remuneration of pensions be set up in the Office of Rail Regulation? If so, who will man it? Will it be comprised of all the board members, or of non-executive directors? If they are non-executive people, will they be remunerated? Again, what budget will there be for that?
It is appalling to have schedule 1, particularly paragraph 11, before us when we have not been told what the budget will be. The cost of Network Rail is running at £20 billion and rising, but the Government have not yet placed that figure on the balance sheet. Under the Office of Rail Regulation, they will increase expenditure over that currently spent on the rail regulator. Will the Minister be so good as to tell us the budget?
Paragraph 13 says that there is scope for further spending. It states:
''If the Secretary of State thinks that special circumstances of a person's ceasing to be a member of the Office make it appropriate to pay him compensation, the Office may pay him compensation of an amount approved by the Secretary of State''.
Will that amount be capped? Will we be told what relationship it has to the salary? Can we at the very
least be told what the salary and pension provision will be?
I assume that the provisions on conflict of interest are similar to those in the Railways Act 1993. I hope that the Minister has had sufficient time to gather his thoughts and respond to those pertinent points.