House of Commons Hansard Debates for 10 May 1990

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London Regional Transport (Penalty Fares) Bill (By Order) Order for Second Reading read.

Ms. Dawn Primarolo (Bristol, South) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It relates to the judge's announcement today that the poll tax capping of Bristol, Basildon and Doncaster cannot continue until the result of the judicial review of the appealing authorities. Has the Minister given notice that he will come to the House to make a statement on the serious chaos and disarray of the poll tax legislation and on the destruction of local authority services as a result of that legislation?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker) : I have not received requests for a statement on this or any other matter.

Dr. John Marek (Wrexham) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will remember that a Bill similar, if not identical, to this Bill was tabled last Session and in previous Sessions. The title was certainly the same. You will also know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the sponsor of a Bill, if certain hon. Members have objections, usually tries to see those hon. Members to see whether an accommodation can be reached. On previous occasions when the Bill was before the House, as far as the Opposition are aware, no such approaches were made by the sponsor. The Bill is here in almost exactly the same form for yet another Session. When there is such a long list of private Bills, why has this Bill been given precedence, when it should have been at the end of the queue?

Mr. Deputy Speaker : In accordance with past practice and precedents, many factors have to be taken into account in determining which Bills shall be brought before the House for debated proceedings. The Bill has been treated no differently from any other. The hon. Gentleman's first point is a matter for debate rather than a point of order for the Chair.

Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro) : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It may have come to your attention that Ministers announced this afternoon at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that infections related to bovine spongiform encephalopathy have been found in a domestic cat. That information was available to Ministers earlier, so they could have come to the House to make a statement. It is clear that all the assurances that we have had on mad cow disease no longer hold. Have Ministers made an approach to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for permission to make a statement in the House? This is a matter of serious public concern.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : I have not received a request on this or any other matter. I am sure that what has been said will have been heard on the Treasury Bench.

7.16 pm

Mr. Neil Thorne (Ilford, South) : I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

London Regional Transport has a general duty to provide or secure the provision of public passenger transport services for Greater London. It must pay due regard to the current transport needs of Greater London and to the efficiency, economy and safety of the operation. Millions of pounds are being lost each year because the

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system lacks security. It is important that those who use the system and who pay for its service should not suffer the cost while leaving many to get away without paying. According to the annual survey, it is calculated that no less than £26 million a year is currently lost on the underground and £15 million a year on the buses. That loss is far too big to be acceptable.

Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South) : Inevitably, it is difficult to calculate losses because as the money has already been lost, it is hard to say how much it was. What is the basis of the calculations and figures, bearing in mind that they must be an estimate based on a notional loss each day or each week?

Mr. Thorne : The hon. Gentleman is right. The figures are estimated and calculated by people who specialise in such work. They calculate how many people travel on different modes of transport and they establish visually those who pay and those who do not. They are thus able to take a record. They are professionals and we rely on their expertise.

Mr. Peter Snape (West Bromwich, East) : I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman so early in his speech. Following the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer), will the hon. Gentleman tell us for how many years the losses have been taking place and why over those years London Regional Transport, which the hon. Gentleman represents tonight, has not taken on adequate staff to prevent those losses?

Mr. Thorne : The hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) should know far more about the subject than most of us because of his previous experience. He will know, therefore, of the difficulty in assessing tickets as they pass through the barrer and of the difficulty in seeing whether they are in order. We are beholden to take advantage of the modern technology currently available to us. I do not think that there is any suggestion that fewer staff should be employed ; it is merely suggested that they should be deployed differently. That is only sensible. It would be silly of us to try to rely upon the systems that were in operation when the hon. Gentleman was collecting tickets on the railway many years ago.

A proper system for reducing that discrepancy is needed, and that is why the Bill has been introduced. It is similar to a measure passed last Session to give penalty fare powers to British Rail. There are many conditions of which the Secretary of State has to be satisfied before the measure can be introduced. He has to be satisfied that there is adequate staffing, that sufficient machines are available, that the arrangements for monitoring defective machines are adequate and that ticket inspectors are properly trained. There must be adequate publicity about the introduction of the system and there must be a disputes and appeals procedure. The Secretary of State must examine those important matters carefully and diligently. It would be wrong to assume that the Secretary of State was uncritical about standards--

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish) : Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that it is already a criminal offence not to pay one's fare? Can he explain why we need to introduce the Bill, which would impose a smaller penalty than would at the moment be imposed on a person convicted of dodging his fare? Will he confirm that

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London underground is looking for a much lower standard of proof, as opposed to increasing the penalties and tackling the problem properly?

Mr. Thorne : I cannot accept that. I am afraid that the present system for prosecuting people who evade their fares is extremely complicated. Such prosecutions require a great deal of legal preparation ; they have to go through the courts, which is an extremely time-consuming procedure. These days, it is much more usual to have standard penalties and they have come to be accepted for many small road traffic offences. If people are travelling on the underground system, it is right and proper that they should obtain a ticket before they start on their journey, and it is quite wrong that the majority of passengers who pay their fares should be expected to carry this additional burden. I cannot, therefore, accept that the old method is right or proper.

Most of us have suffered the inconvenience of using machines that are not up to standard. In the past, many justifiable criticisms have been made of ticket machines, especially those that are required to give change. Technology, however, has moved quickly, and it is now possible to produce extremely reliable and effective machines at underground stations. Ticket machines are now available 99.9 per cent. of the time and can give change. In addition to the booking office, there are never fewer than two machines at any station, and at busy stations there are many more. With that in mind, we must grasp the opportunity to take advantage of modern technology, thereby reducing the volume of evasion and fraud in the system.

Mr. Cryer : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, late at night, unstaffed underground stations represent a considerable peril to old people and women? If ticket and change machines are available instead of staff, fewer people will want to travel late at night and people in difficulties will not be able to find anyone to give them assistance. If one is in danger of being mugged, a ticket machine is not much help.

Mr. Thorne : I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. The stations to which I am referring usually have at least one person in the ticket office and one on the barrier. If those people are not on duty, the gates have to be left open. That affords much better protection than can be given in stations that operate an open system which does not require ticket delivery and collection on the spot but relies instead upon tickets being checked during the journey.

Questions will be asked about the security of the system. On the London underground the volume of traffic is such that it is not possible for tickets to be checked on trains as they are checked on British Rail. The present maximum fare on LRT is £2.90 and a penalty of £10 is appropriate. On the docklands light railway, and on the buses, the penalty is £5. That represents a major difference between the present proposal and any system proposed for British Rail. The present proposal takes account of the lower charges on the docklands light railway and the buses. The penalty has to be geared accordingly.

Validation of tickets has been a major problem on the docklands light railway, and the system has therefore been replaced so that tickets are now validated on issue. The checking of tickets at peak periods has become impossible because the railway is so busy. Staff can do much, and they

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should be much more involved in the success of the operation. Staff will be fully consulted before implementation.

Although fraud has always been a factor, it has substantially increased in recent years. That is unacceptable, especially for genuine, honest fare- paying members of the public, who represent the majority of those who use public transport. It would be wrong to allow those who wish to indulge in fraud to get away with it for any longer than can be avoided.

It is important that we realise that there will be major provisions to ensure that travellers who are not trying to evade their fare will be able to call in aid an excuse. Passengers will not be liable to pay a penalty fare if no facilities for ticket sales were available at the station at which the journey started. If the passenger transfers to the London underground or to the docklands light railway from British Rail and the British Rail station at which he started his journey had no facilities for the sale of tickets, or if a notice was displayed at the station at which he started his journey--whether a British Rail, underground, or docklands light railway station--stating that it was permissible for passengers to travel without a ticket, or if an authorised person in uniform informed the passenger to that effect, he will not be liable to pay the penalty. If a person is asked for his ticket or authority by a London underground or docklands light railway authorised official, and says that he could not obtain it for one or more of those reasons, it is for London underground or the docklands light railway authorities to prove that his reason is not correct. The onus is on them. If a passenger wishes to invoke one of the reasons later, he has 21 days to do so from the day after the completion of the journey. Only then comes the transfer of the burden of proof. If the passenger does not provide an explanation in such terms on the spot or within 21 days, he has to prove that one of the defences applies. That seems to be an effective and sensible way in which to conduct the arrangements. It is important that we should introduce the measure as early as possible so that we may take advantage of the available modern technology and substantially reduce the number of people who are defrauding their fellow passengers--a number that is likely to increase if we do not take firm steps against such practice. When a measure similar to the present Bill was debated last Session, hon. Members referred to the automatic ticket gates. Technically, the gates form no part of the arrangements provided in the Bill, as it is possible to have penalty fares without the gates and vice versa. But the two matters are inter-related to the extent that the automatic gates will act as a check on up to 80 per cent. of journeys, as that is the number of journeys that end or begin in the central area.

The gates have been in operation for two years now and London underground has considerable experience of them. In spite of the campaign of vilification against them, the gates are safe and they work. They were reviewed by the railway inspectorate and an independent firm of consultants and--with the exception of some matters of detail--given a clean bill of health. They work, by which I mean that they check tickets very well, and they are safe. So far from being the safety hazard that people predicted they would be, the gates increase the area available for evacuation in an emergency because there are far more gates than there were narrow exits in the days when tickets

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were collected manually. The gates are normally attended, and when they are not, they are left open, so there is no risk to the public. Because the gates are staffed, they pose no problem for the handicapped or for people with children or shopping because they can be let through a wider gate, although it is the general rule that passengers should go through the normal gates whenever possible. The real test of the gates is passenger acceptance. That has been achieved to a large extent. Criticism has reduced to only a low level and there is no evidence that passengers are having any difficulties with the gates. Even now London Underground is considering other improvements. An experiment is being carried out at three stations--Victoria, Green Park and St. James's Park--to test a touch-and-pass system. Under that system the ticket is simply touched on a pad on the gate. It does not have to be fed through the machine. The experiment has been running for only a short time but seems to be doing well.

We must acknowledge that the sums of £26 million per year for London Underground and £15 million per year for buses are large. They must be made up by the honest fare-paying passenger. It is entirely wrong that fare -paying passengers pay more than they need to, particularly at a time when we are anxious that the general public should use public transport as much as possible to relieve congestion on the roads. The House should be encouraged to vote the Bill into law at the earliest opportunity.

7.30 pm

Mr. Harry Cohen (Leyton) : With two of my hon. Friends, I have tabled a blocking motion to the Bill. It says :

"On Second Reading of the London Regional Transport (Penalty Fares) Bill to move, That the Bill be read a second time upon this day six months."

In fact, I do not want the Bill to be read a Second time today, in six months or at any time in the future. The wording of the motion is such that we have to say that we wish it to be read in six months' time. Parliamentary language often confuses people. The purpose of the motion is to block the Bill. I wholly oppose the Bill.

Mr. Denis Skinner (Bolsover) : Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Cohen : Certainly--my hon. Friend is an expert on parliamentary language.

Mr. Skinner rose--

Mr. Irvine Patnick (Sheffield, Hallam) : We do not want the back of the hon. Gentleman's head.

Mr. Skinner : What is wrong with it?

Mr. Snape : The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Patnick) is a Whip.

Mr. Skinner : Yes, he is getting ready for Friday. He comes in on Fridays and shouts "Object" to all the Bills, including Bills to give more money to pensioners and abolish standing charges. He is there to stop things like that--he has a cruel job. I do not know what the people in Sheffield think, but I keep drawing their attention to it. To come back to my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), will he explain to the public--especially the people in the Strangers' Gallery, although

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we are not supposed to refer to them--what a blocking motion is? There are not many times in parliamentary procedural life when one can do a job for the general public. The textbooks explain what a blocking motion is. People write books and tell us what it is all about, but when we get them it is different. My hon. Friend should explain slowly what a blocking motion is. He might get on telly--indeed, I will bet diamonds that he will be on the Parliament programme tomorrow.

Mr. Cohen : I do not know whether I will get on the television, mainly because my explanation is not likely to be particularly good or erudite. I am not so great an expert on these matters as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). If an item is chosen for the television, I hope that it will be the joke that I am about to tell about London Regional Transport. Run by the present lot in charge, with the backing of the Tory Government, it is a bit like a cocktail--a long slow queue. Increasingly, there are long slow queues at the bus stops. That is my joke for the telly.

I am not an expert on blocking motions. The promoter, London Regional Transport, is trying to jump the queue and bounce the Bill through the House without proper discussion. That is why points of order were raised at the beginning of the debate. The Bill is the equivalent of a Bill introduced in the last Session of this Parliament. It was blocked on that occasion and went no further. It was not allowed to be carried over into this Session. London Regional Transport still wants it to jump ahead of all the other Bills, but it will not get away with that. My hon. Friends and I are alert to that game. We have put down our names as objectors to force this debate and we hope to force the Bill out. The blocking motion means that the whole thing will be put off for six months.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett : I did not think that my hon. Friend's joke was very good. If he wants to get himself on television, he would do better by explaining the blocking motion. Will he confirm that the whole idea of blocking the Bill for six months is so that the promoter can talk to the people who object to the Bill and attempt to find a compromise to meet their objections? I have been approached by London Regional Transport about the Bill. My hon. Friend's name is the first on the blocking motion. Has he been approached by or had any discussions with London Regional Transport?

Mr. Cohen : That is an excellent point. As my hon. Friend says, the purpose of the blocking motion is to allow the promoter of the Bill to meet the hon. Member whose name is on it to see whether the objectors' fears can be allayed. I objected to the Bill in the last Session of Parliament and in the Session before that. In all that time, the promoter has not come to discuss my objections to the Bill.

I recently received a letter from some public relations person or manager at British Rail. Unfortunately, I do not have the letter with me. It was remiss of me not to bring it. If some hon. Member wants to keep talking while I run across to my office for it I could read it out to the House. As that is not feasible, we shall have to forgo that. I received the letter just two days before this debate, asking whether I wanted to meet the person who wrote it. We have been busy recently in the House. Members of Parliament are busy people. I have had a series of meetings on vitally important issues this week. I have an

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Adjournment debate on the Health Service tomorrow. I was looking forward to debating the subject with the former Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Freeman), but he has been moved sideways--or promoted, I do not know which- -by the Prime Minister. I now have to face a new Minister who has no idea about the Health Service. I also had to brief myself for this debate. How could I find time to meet a representative of British Rail at one day's notice?

Mr. Skinner : My hon. Friend had to read an article as well.

Mr. Cohen : That is right. I had to read the article by the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) about his attitude to current political issues.

Mr. Skinner : What did my hon. Friend reckon to it?

Mr. Cohen : I shall not respond to that as I know that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will not allow it.

If local authorities should be accountable, so should LRT. It should stand for election every year, especially when it wants to introduce a Bill that will cost the public more money.

My hon. Friend asked about the Henley formula for local authority elections. He wants that formula to operate according to a level set by the Government of what a council's spending should be. If a council spent in excess of that level it would have to hold an election. That is politically manipulative. Only Labour authorities would have to have elections every year. I will not mind the system because when a Labour Government returns to power we shall set the level for Conservative councils so low that they will have to hold an election every year. The Labour councils will not have to hold an election every year. If the Government play political games with the level of spending and the poll tax, we should do the same. Unelected quangos should also face an election.

Mr. Tony Banks (Newham, North West) : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. If London Regional Transport were still under the democratic accountability to which it was subject when the Greater London Council was responsible for transport, issues such as that presented by the Bill would have been thrashed out in an open forum. There would have been consultation with all involved, including people with interests such as that of my hon. Friend. Would my hon. Friend join me in utterly condemning the decision that has just been made in the House of Lords to uphold the Secretary of State's decision to allow county hall, from where we used to exercise democratic control over London Regional Transport, to be turned into a hotel? Does he not agree that that is an insult and Labour party spokesmen must pledge tonight the Labour party will take county hall back by compulsory purchase when it forms the next Government?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Order. I realise that the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen) is still on his preamble and getting warmed up, but I am sure that he will resist the temptation put to him by his hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) which would be quite out of order in this debate.

Mr. Cohen : I shall resist that temptation and say only that I agree that it is an absolute disgrace and scandal that London is the only capital in the western world without its

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own democratic regional government. The result is the chaos that we see all around London, in all services, including transport. That is why Bills such as this one come before the House--Bills which are ill thought out, badly backed up by statistics and about which no one has been consulted. Such Bills are bad for London. We need to get a democratic forum back into London.

In an earlier intervention my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) talked about what consultation we had had, and, as I said, I received a letter in the past two days, which was derisory. In today's post I received a statement on behalf of the promoters in support of the Bill's Second Reading. I have glanced through it to see what points I could raise in the debate and found two straight away. First, the corporation claims that fare evasion is

"currently estimated at £26 million per year on the underground and £15 million per year on the buses."

The hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne) talked about those figures, but where is the proof? Such figures were mentioned in our previous debate on the subject, and the one before that. Automatic ticket barriers were put in, allegedly to try to reduce those figures. Some £150 million was spent on trying to reduce the figures, and yet the same figures are brought out yet again in support of the Bill without a scrap of evidence to back them up. I do not believe them.

Mr. Snape : Does my hon. Friend recall that when the powers-that-be decided to inflict on this city and others throughout the United Kingdom the system of operating buses with only one person, many of us warned that such a system would lead to widespread fare evasion for obvious reasons? We were ignored then and the Bill is a belated attempt to patch up that gap which, particularly in this city, should be taken care of by the provision of buses operated by two people. That would help not only to reduce fare evasion, but would considerably reduce traffic congestion, not only in London, but elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Cohen : I agree that there is a level of fare evasion that runs into millions of pounds during the course of a year. As my hon. Friend said, that is made worse by one-person operation and every time the fares rise higher than the inflation level. That has been the case year after year as the Government have taken away the subsidies. However, I do not believe that those are the figures quoted in the statement. They might be, but where is the evidence and proof? There is none whatever.

Secondly, the statement says :

"the level of penalty fares payable would be--

(a) in respect of any bus journey or any journey solely on the Docklands Railway £5 ; and

(b) in respect of any other train journey, £10."

In my view, £10 is much too much--it is a punitive fine. Why is the docklands light railway getting favourable discrimination? Yet again, the Government are pumping money into the docklands at the cost of the rest of London, and giving those people in the docklands privileged treatment.

I put down a parliamentary question about how much the Government had spent solely on publicity and advertising for the docklands corporation. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover will be interested in this point because he is always interested when money is misused. I found out that the Government gave the docklands corporation--just for publicity and advertising,

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nothing else--£17 million in the past eight and a half years. That is due to go up another £10 million in the next three years--£27 million in 11 years. That money could have been much better spent on public transport throughout London. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover has good ideas about how that sort of money could be spent. There is discrimination in favour of docklands travellers, and we are given no reason why that is included in the statement. We can only conclude that it is part of the discrimination against the rest of London and the rest of the country.

Mr. Skinner : Is that where Dr. Death lives?

Mr. Cohen : Yes ; he is one of the Limehouse founders.

Mr. Skinner : He is doing all right.

Mr. Cohen : I should not say this, and my hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) advises me not to do so, but I will just say that I am sure that Dr. Death pays his fares when travelling on public transport. In fact, I doubt whether he travels on it at all. When he was in government he got into the habit of going around in chauffeured cars, and I bet that that is what he still does. Ironically, that is also what the board members of London Regional Transport do--they rarely use the public transport that they inflict on the rest of London, but go around in chauffeured cars. I was on the Committee which set up the London Regional Transport quango when the GLC was abolished and democratic control and democratic public input were taken away. There was a clause in the Bill allowing money to be spent on the board going around in chauffeured cars. I raised that in Committee.

Mr. Skinner : Were they Daimlers?

Mr. Cohen : We were not told, but I suspect that if they had the chance they would have Rolls-Royces because they are happy to waste public money, as we have seen with the automatic ticket barriers. The statement raises more problems than it solves, and we have received it on the very day that the Bill is debated in the House. Such a consultation process is desultory.

Mrs. Audrey Wise (Preston) : I do not want to divert my hon. Friend, but has he considered the possibility that, as a quid pro quo for penalty fares, a penalty in the reverse direction should be imposed on London Regional Transport, perhaps by way of a fare refund to passengers who repeatedly have to endure the lack of escalators when they are out of order for months and months? We are not getting the service that we are paying for. As people who pay our fares and use London Regional Transport a great deal--although we are provincial Members of Parliament, we have to use London transport--we do not get the service for which we are paying. The escalators simply do not work.

Mr. Cohen : That point was well made by my hon. Friend. I support the idea of reverse penalties, which should apply when lifts are not working. I know that in Walthamstow Central the lifts were not working for six to eight months. The last time I was there they were working,

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but last year they were out of action for six to eight months. If LRT had to pay all the passengers because of that, it would soon get the lifts back in order.

Mrs. Wise : Many elerly women passengers--there are more elderly women than elderly men--are prevented from travelling at all if escalators are out of order. Women with infants and babies find that transport in London is beyond their reach if an escalator is not working.

Mr. Cohen : I agree with my hon. Friend. Such deficiencies mean that people cannot use the public transport on which they rely. Because of the way the brain functions, when one steps on an escalator that is not working the brain thinks that it is. I am sure that we have all experienced that. It is a normal brain pattern to make allowances for moving escalators. One could easily fall down the stairs and suffer severe injuries.

Mrs. Wise : It is even more dangerous for a woman carrying a toddler.

Mr. Cohen : That is right. Earlier I spoke about the docklands light railway. I used that railway to go to a concert with my foster lad. It was a very good concert given by "Simply Red". Being a socialist, I was pleased to see "Simply Red' giving an excellent concert.

Mr. Skinner : What kind of music does "Simply Red" play?

Mr. Cohen : It plays sort of jazz and pop. My foster lad and I and everyone in the audience enjoyed the concert immensely. It was easy to get to on the docklands light railway because one almost falls out of the station--I forget which one it was--and into the concert hall. Just before the concert started, it was announced that the docklands light railway was not running back because the electricity had been cut off. The hall was packed with people and they were virtually stranded in the middle of nowhere on the Isle of Dogs. My foster lad and I had to walk back in pouring rain. Such breakdowns happen regularly because the Government, with the help of LRT, carried out a shoddy and rotten job on the railway. A shovel being pushed into the ground is enough to stop the tube. The Queen got trapped in a train.

Mr. Skinner : On the tube?

Mr. Cohen : The Queen does not travel on the tube. The docklands light railway is overland and passengers can get a view of the Thames and see all the building work that is going on. Apparently the Queen was travelling on that railway and some fellow put a shovel in the ground, which interfered with the electricity and the Queen was trapped in the train. The system is quite appalling, and because it was made on the cheap we are getting all these problems.

Mr. Skinner : Is that why Prince Philip keeps saying, "Pull your finger out"?

Mr. Cohen : His comment might have had some bearing on that, but I do not blame him becase he would not want his wife--I would not want to see anybody's wife--trapped on a train for a long time. All those people, myself included, were stranded on an appallingly wet evening and the situation was potentially quite dangerous. LRT should have paid fines to the people whom it had lumbered in that way. It put on a couple of buses, but they were small, cheap buses.

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Mr. Skinner : Did the Queen take a bus?

Mr. Cohen : I do not know whether LRT laid on a bus for the Queen. I think that it was a Rolls-Royce. One of the directors had to stay in his office that day and could not go out for his expensive lunch at Claridges because his car was being used to carry the Queen. I think that that was the case, but I am not sure. He probably had two lunches the next day at the taxpayer's expense.

Mr. Skinner : Was the whole Royal family there?

Mr. Cohen : I think that it was just the Queen putting on a public relations show, and in many respects she does that very well.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I am trying to listen to the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Cohen), but it is exceedingly difficult to do so when there is a running commentary going on.

Mr. Cohen : My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover spoke about the monarch not paying any poll tax. She gets away with not having to put up any money to finance London Regional Transport even though she used it on that occasion. If I was stuck in a train, I would not want to put up any money for London Regional Transport. Many Londoners are packed in like sardines--it is worse every morning and they pay dearly for it in fares and taxes. Now they have to fork out poll tax as well. I shall have more to say about that later.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett : I travelled on the tube this morning to come here. I had to stand with my hands down in my fraction of space and almost all the other passengers in my section could not move. How will the people checking fares move through such a compartment?

Mr. Cohen : It will create chaos. I have been on the tube four times today already. It was crowded at midday, well after the rush hour. Three inspectors got on one of the trains on which I travelled, but in the cramped conditions that my hon. Friend describes it will be impossible for even one inspector to do his job.

Mr. Skinner : It is a relief to come to this place--there is plenty of space here.

Mr. Cohen : Yes, it is a blessing. There are not many hon. Members here for the debate. There are not many Conservatives here because they do not care about London Regional Transport. They do not travel on it. We rarely have a debate on LRT. Yet on one of these rare occasions, Conservative Members do not have the decency to turn up. I get a couple of letters every week from constituents complaining about bus and train services. Conservative Members must receive such letters, too. This is a rare chance to debate the matter, but they cannot be bothered to turn up.

There is a silver lining, however. Having travelled on the tube today and been caught in the congestion, it is a pleasure to come here to a relatively quiet House and to have a bit of walking space to make a speech or to shuffle up and down the Benches. That is quite an advantage. There is little opportunity to debate London Regional Transport. My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) served on the Committee that considered the Bill that set up LRT. He did sterling work in raising issue after issue of concern to Londoners. The

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