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Mr. Freeman : No, from Marsham street.
Mr. Davis : That is even further away than Kettering. However, the hon. Member for Yardley will not even come to my constituency from Yardley.
The hon. Member for Yardley was wrong when he said that my constituents met the heads of Centro on 5 February. I know about that because they asked me to attend that meeting and it is a good job that I did so. I can bear witness to what was said. My constituents did not meet the heads of Centro : they did not meet the director-general or the head of public relations who was on holiday. My constituents met some new people whom we had not seen before.
Mr. Bevan : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Davis : I am always anxious to be fair to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Bevan : Besides Mr. Hawkins, Mrs. Hawkins and Mr. Poole from FORSE and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis), the following people were present at that meeting on 5 February : Mr. Ray Hughes, who is the head of Centro development ; John Fallon, who is the press and public relations manager ; Rod Dixon, the engineering and design manager ; and Janet Kings, the principal planner. Are not they heads? Is it not a fact that the discussions included the offer to resite the football pitch to the other side of the M6, to realign the safety fencing and other issues such as park and ride, environmental impact, the extension of the Heartlands area and the Water Orton line? Many issues about infrastructure were discussed.
Mr. Davis : I do not agree that those people were heads. Mr. Fallon is a very nice man, but he does not head any Centro department. Obviously the hon. Member for Yardley and I disagree on the definition of "head". Mr. Robert J. Tarr is a head because he is the director-general.
The hon. Member for Yardley complained earlier about the length of my speeches, but his interventions and red herrings are delaying the completion of my speech.
At that meeting we did not meet the chairman of the passenger transport authority, any PTA members, the director or even the head of public relations who had arranged the meeting. I am not complaining about that, but the people present were not heads. I was present at that meeting and I was told by the Centro representatives that we were discussing the environmental impact study. They said that that was what they wanted to talk to us about, not the route. Well, my constituents want to talk about the route. The location of a football pitch or play area is very important, but those issues are not central to the objections to the Metro. I am always anxious to be fair to the hon. Member for Yardley. He asked me to accompany him to meet Mr. Tarr, who is the
director-general of the PTA, which now calls itself Centro. I accompanied the hon. Gentleman willingly, and we met Mr. Tarr and one or two people
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whom I would regard as heads, unlike the people who were present on 5 February. They included the solicitor who was handling the Bill and Mr. Parker, the head of public relations. I told those people that they had not talked properly to my constituents. As a result, Mr. Tarr said that he would arrange for discussions with my constituents about their objections to the route and about the alternative. I am sure that the hon. Member for Yardley will confirm that.It was agreed that Centro officers would talk to my constituents about the alternative route. However, after those talks my constituents told me that they felt that those discussions had not been, to use their words, genuine. That was their opinion and they can speak for themselves. That opinion was confirmed to me by the PTA chairman who said "We are entrenched." That is the sort of phrase with which we are familiar these days, internationally. He said, "There will not be any rerouting unless Parliament does it." That is what the chairman of the PTA said in my hearing.
The hon. Member for Yardley cannot have it both ways. He cannot claim that there were genuine discussions with my constituents when the chairman, the very head of the organisation, was saying, "We are not going to change anything anyway." My constituents' suspicions were reinforced and confirmed by what the chairman himself said to them in my hearing. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not attend any of those meetings. I did not expect him to, but I am sorry that, having set up those talks in what I believe was a genuine effort to achieve
Mr. Bevan : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Davis : Yes, but the hon. Gentleman is interrupting me again.
Mr. Bevan : The hon. Gentleman says that he spoke to the chairman of the PTA. It is upon the strategy of the passenger transport authority that Centro's plans have been made. Its directions have been followed by Centro as the promoter of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman spoke to the very head of the organisation, the chairman, who put the views clearly to him. The hon. Gentleman saw someone even greater than the director-general of Centro.
Mr. Davis : That is the point. I am sorry to belabour this issue, but the hon. Gentleman does not seem to have grasped it. The man at the very top--one cannot have more of a head than that--
Mr. Bruce George (Walsall, South) : What about a bigger head?
Mr. Davis : I did not want to say that because it could be misconstrued. I do not want to engage in personal attacks on Councillor Bateman, who is not here to answer for himself. He is at the very top of the PTA. In my hearing, he made it clear that all the 11 meetings to which the hon. Member for Yardley has just referred were pointless. That is not the attitude of my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East. Even the Minister is more flexible than that. At least he is willing to talk to people and to hear what they have to say. The actual words used were, "I have invited you here to have a chat." I shall return later to what people said to the chairman and
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what he said to them. I do not want to destroy the order of my speech because the hon. Member for Yardley might accuse me of repetition.As I was saying, the hon. Member for Yardley has not taken the trouble to meet my constituents, and he has been careless. It is a pity that he would not give way to me at the beginning of the debate because, if he had done so, I should have been able to put to him without embarrassing him too greatly the point that I then had to make on a point of order. I was anxious to be fair to him. After the hon. Gentleman had moved the carry- over motion on 22 October, he admitted that he had received the benefit of an overseas visit at the expense of Centro. I emphasise that that matter arose in an intervention only because the hon. Gentleman challenged me. I pointed out that I paid my own fare to Grenoble. I asked him who had paid his fare and he blurted out that it had been paid by Centro-- [Interruption.] Well, the record shows it. He blurted out that his fare was paid by Centro, but he had not declared that fact before that evening or on 5 March when he introduced the Bill. He should have done so.
Mr. Morgan : My hon. Friend is getting to the nub of the problem of practices that verge on malpractice in terms of the way in which private Bill promoters get their Bills through the House. They set up a slush fund so that hon. Members who would like to visit a certain place can go there at public expense. It might be somewhere outside the country, in which case the visit should be declared in the Register of Members' Interests. It might be a place where the private Bill's promoters are intending to carry out works. They could invite any one of 650 Members of Parliament to visit that place, to do so repeatedly, and to stay overnight in an hotel. The House will have to address the problem of private Bill promoters and their slush funds at some stage if the private Bill procedure can ever hope to have a proper reputation of propriety. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Mr. Davis : I do not want to follow my hon. Friend down that route, although I have much sympathy with what he says. I do not want to cast any unnecessary aspersions on the PTA and I suspect that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would rule me out of order if I began to discuss the general procedure for private Bills. I want to stick to this Bill.
Some hon. Members have declared that they have been abroad at Centro's expense. I have no objection to that. I am not criticising the hon. Member for Yardley for having accepted Centro's offer, although it is a pity that it had to be done through a firm called Ian Greer Associates Ltd., as my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East confirmed on an earlier occasion. Nevertheless, hon. Members will always be interested in certain private Bills because they may have a passionate interest in that subject or a constituency interest--they need not necessarily be a sponsor--and if they cannot afford to go to, say, Grenoble--
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman was right to anticipate that if he pursued his present line the Chair would reproach him. I am reproaching him.
Mr. Davis : I accept your reproach, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am simply anxious to acquit hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Yardley, of any imputation of dishonesty. I suspect that the hon. Gentleman was
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simply careless. However, it was that hon. Gentleman who impugned my honesty in our previous debate when he said in an intervention, "If I were an honest man", meaning me. I think that he regrets that now.Mr. Bevan : At the moment, unchallenged, there is an imputation of slush fund creation by a public body so that there could be a very necessary visit. I should like the hon. Gentleman categorically to deny that there was a slush fund. However, it was either that slush fund or a different one that enabled the Select Committee on Transport also to visit Grenoble to study the railway which has been used as a model for Midland Metro and is regarded as a
state-of-the-art light electric railway. Only the best is wanted in this Bill. Whether we shall eventually get it nobody knows, but there was no slush fund.
Mr. Davis : I thought that when a Select Committee went abroad, the House paid for it.
Mr. Davis : But the hon. Gentleman said that it was paid for by this fund.
Mr. Davis : Yes, of course, by a House of Commons fund.
Mr. Bevan : Is that a slush fund?
Mr. Davis : No, but that is not what we are discussing.
Mr. Bevan : Well, why should this fund be a slush fund?
Mr. Davis : Actually, I did not suggest that there was a slush fund. The hon. Gentleman is very touchy about this. I was simply seeking to defend him. I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan), "Was I or was I not defending the hon. Member for Yardley and the passenger transport authority?"
Mr. Morgan : Yes, defending him.
Mr. Davis : I do not know whether there was a slush fund. All that I know is that the invitation came from a firm with which I will not associate, which is called Ian Greer Associates Ltd.--a public relations firm which has a certain reputation. I shall say no more than that because it cannot defend itself here.
I must advise the hon. Member for Yardley that I tried to be fair to him by suggesting that he had just been careless. He should have included in the Register of Members' Interests, as many other hon. Members did, the fact that he went abroad at somebody else's expense. That is what the rules are and he forgot to do it. That is all.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I thought that we had cleared up that matter at the commencement of this evening's proceedings. I hope that we shall not go down that road again.
Mr. Davis : I refer to it only because there have been interventions, Mr. Deputy Speaker, including from the hon. Member for Yardley.
I am anxious to get on because the hon. Gentleman also complained that I intended to speak at length. He quoted from The Birmingham Post, which asked me, "Are you going to speak at length, Mr. Davis?", to which I replied, "Yes, I shall speak at length and for as long as it takes to put my constituents' point of view." That is only to be
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expected. My hon. Friends the Members for Wolverhampton, South-East and for Walsall, South recognise that. I must admit that this is taking a lot longer than I had intended. Indeed, I have not yet started my speech properly because the hon. Member for Yardley keeps interrupting to intervene. I said what I said to The Birmingham Post quite clearly and I shall, indeed, speak for as long as it takes to put my constituents' point of view. I said then that my hon. Friends have not criticised me for doing that in the past and will not do so on this occasion. I left it at that.I turn now to why I do not think that the Bill should be considered. In both our previous debates, I have made it clear that my objection is not to the idea of light rail or rapid transit. I do not oppose that concept, nor do I oppose the Midland Metro project. Although the hon. Member for Yardley got carried away in one of his intemperate interventions in our previous debate and suggested that I was not telling the truth--a suggestion that he then retracted--my position throughout has been that, like my constituents, I do not oppose the concept. I emphasise that the residents' group, FORSE, has made it clear, to the dissatisfaction of one or two people who live on the estate, that it does not oppose the concept as such. It has said that rapid transit is a good idea, but has added, "We are not convinced that it has to have disadvantages and costs in personal terms to people living on the estate, if that can be avoided." FORSE has gone on to say, "We are not convinced that that cannot be avoided, so we want to suggest an alternative route."
My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-East said that the Metro system was to link Birmingham with the black country. That is correct and we are not trying to stop that link. I am talking about the route from Birmingham to Solihull, which is in the opposite direction. It goes to the east, from Five Ways to the national exhibition centre in Solihull. That route runs through my constituency and through the Bromford and the adjacent Firs estates. I shall use the name of the former estate as an abbreviation for both. I oppose only that section of the route.
My constituents and the local councillors are not satisfied that the route must take a path through the Bromford estate where people would lose the amenities that they currently have. It may seem trivial to talk about the possible effects on children's play areas, football pitches, cycle tracks, social clubs and the family and sports community centre. People feel very strongly about such things. My constituents are concerned not only about the loss of such amenities, but about the fact that the route runs through the only green area in that part of my constituency. The estate was built in the 1960s when there was, generally speaking, system building and its subsequent problems. The residents have had to deal with damp, central heating and other problems and the council has had to spend a small fortune to repair the defects over the years.
Not far from the estate, there is a motorway and a problem with aircraft from Birmingham airport. Aircraft reach the required height just over the estate before manoeuvring to the right or left, so my constituents are at a disadvantage in many ways. Now, after 25 or 30 years, the estate is beginning to look better. The ribbon of grass--as I call it--between the houses and the motorway is precious to those people. It is used not only to exercise dogs, but for children to play and for informal family
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recreation. I am told that on hot Sunday afternoons, people picnic on the grass between the houses and the motorway. All those amenities are precious because there are so few. The estate was one of the classic cases of the rush in the 1960s to build houses. I do not criticise the local councillors because they built such estates with the best motive in the world. They had to deal with the terrible housing problems in Birmingham and they went for quantity, not quality. They made mistakes, but it is easy to criticise after the event.Over the years, the council and especially the residents have done much to make the best of what they have. The residents are very upset at the prospect of losing that--not only the people who live in the houses immediately fronting the grass area, but the whole of the estate of several hundred people.
The residents are also concerned about the visual impact of the Metro. People feel passionately about the trees which were planted by local people and which now screen the ugliness of the motorway. Many were planted by children from the local school and, apparently, families know which is their tree and feel that it belongs to them. Although I was rather sceptical about that at first, I was convinced by the people's feelings. It is very much their wood--it is more of a copse than a wood, but it is how they see it that matters. They are depressed at the idea of losing any of those trees. A line of trees was planted to screen the motorway, Fort Dunlop and the derelict industrial area on the other side of the motorway. It can be seen through the arches because the motorway is elevated at that point, but it is now screened by growing trees. They must be 20 years old and they are tremendously important to the people who live in houses immediately adjacent to the motorway. Those houses have big picture windows, so the people are distressed about the visual impact. When the hon. Member for Yardley spoke for the promoters of the Bill, he said that the Metro system would bring major benefits to the environment. My constituents do not agree. They believe that the section of route that passes by them will detract from their environment and make it worse rather than better. They would naturally prefer, if possible, to make arrangements for the Metro system to be re-routed slightly to reduce or eliminate its visual impact on their homes.
We should bear it in mind that Centro has not yet been able to tell us where it will put the stops on the route. That is important because the stops are rather long, unlike bus stops, and there will be platforms. Centro is also unable to say what the gantries that hold the cable to provide the power will look like, so people are naturally worried. Nobody knows whether they will have a concrete gantry which would be very visible just a few metres away from the living room window. People know that vehicles will pass by every five minutes in each direction. That means, in effect, that vehicles will run past their picture windows every two and a half minutes. That is some picture.
People are concerned not only about the visual impact, but about the noise, which is an extremely important aspect of the environment. People are becoming increasingly concerned about noise levels.
Mr. Cryer : As my hon. Friend knows, I take an interest in the Bill and in the way in which he has followed up his constituents' problems with the correct concern and zeal.
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The reverse of the argument is that the development of public transport and light railways is a useful asset for any community. Are there routes which would be less intrusive, but which would benefit the community without the consequences that he has outlined so graphically?Mr. Davis : Yes, is the short answer. There are several alternatives, one of which has been suggested by my constituents. I think that it was rejected too cavalierly with an explanation that I do not accept, but I shall deal with that later. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) would stay to hear it.
My constituents are not against public transport and I emphasis that they are not against the Metro as such. They are certainly not against it running from Five Ways in the centre of Birmingham with a stop at the new convention centre, which is about to be opened in the centre of Birmingham, together with hotels. They are not trying to stop the Metro running to the NEC, to Birmingham international airport, or to Birmingham international railway station. They see the logic and know that it would be beneficial to the economy of Birmingham, but they say that the system can be built without causing them any disadvantage. That is a moderate point of view.
Mr. Bevan : If that is the case, perhaps the hon. Gentleman would be kind enough to tell us why he tabled amendments to kill off line 2 completely and to ensure that it could not be constructed.
Mr. Davis : I was saving my remarks for my speech to move the amendment.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : Order. I am very glad to hear the hon. Gentleman say that because I was thinking the same. We should have a more orderly debate if we got on to the amendments so that he can speak to them.
Mr. Davis : I want to put it on the record that I am not afraid to discuss these matters. It is at your request, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I shall not answer the point. I am trying to be helpful, but I am having difficulty getting on with my speech, thanks to the hon. Member for Yardley. At the right time, I shall explain why there is nothing inconsistent in what I have said about not opposing the Metro while opposing one section of the route. My amendments were tabled in such a way on the advice of the Clerk to ensure that they were in order. I will leave it at that for the moment.
I was explaining why my constituents feel so concerned about the route proposed in the Bill. Their second concern is noise. The hon. Member for Yardley told the House that the vehicles that will be used will be
"quieter than the 1940s trams or even the Blackpool trams".--[ Official Report , 5 March 1990 ; Vol. 168, c. 645.]
That statement leaves a great deal to be desired because those trams were noisy. I can just about remember the 1940s trams and I have seen and been on the Blackpool trams. It is nice to go on them and it is part of going to Blackpool for the Labour party conference. However, I would not want such a tram running as close to my home as the Metro will run to the homes of some of my constituents. The noise of those trams is definitely excessive. The hon. Member for Yardley says that the
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noise will not be as bad as that. That is little comfort to those who do not have trams running in front of their homes at present. The hon. Member for Yardley also said that the noise of the rolling stock will be less intrusive than that of a tram because it will have a "higher frequency". I am not clear whether he meant "frequency" in the sense that it applies to sound or the frequency of vehicles. Trams will run in each direction every five minutes, which means that a vehicle will go past every two and a half minutes. One could say that there will be a constant hum. That will not please people who live in the area.The hon. Member for Yardley then told the House that, even if people's environment was adversely affected by noise, there would be noise insulation grants. He said on 5 March 1990 that they would be payable under a scheme similar to that in operation for highways. I want to make two points about that. First, the hon. Gentleman admits that there will be noise of a level sufficiently high to merit noise insulation grants. Secondly, those of us who have experience of noise insulation grants in our constituencies will know that the level required to qualify for that grant is high. I hear constant complaints from many of my constituents who believe that they should be entitled to noise insulation grants because of Birmingham airport. That is one of the biggest problems in my constituency. I think that those people should be entitled to grants and that is why I am introducing a private Member's Bill to help not only my constituents, but people all over the country who suffer from such noise. The existing noise insulation schemes for aircraft and highways are not good enough. The people who live on the Bromford estate have personal experience of noise insulation schemes. Nobody on that estate gets a noise insulation grant for the effect of aircraft that turn just as they reach the estates. However, many people on the estate have obtained noise insulation grants as a result of the motorway. Ten years ago, we had a tremendous problem because we discovered that because of the way in which the scheme had been introduced, people got a noise insulation grant only if the noise from the motorway qualified them for such a grant. There was no allowance for the cumulative effect.
I was not here at the time, so I can say how grateful I was to Ministers in the Labour Government in the 1970s. One of them decided that the old system was wrong and that the grants should take cumulative noise into account. It was decided that families should not be told, "You do not qualify although you have a terrible amount of noise, because the amount of noise from the motorway is not enough, even though, if we took it all together, you would qualify." People had a terrible problem, but they were being told by the council that it could not pay noise insulation grants under the law. A Minister at the Department of Transport took a sensible decision on behalf of my constituents living on the Bromford estate and decided that the scheme should take account of cumulative noise.
However, the change applied only to noise from highways. The issue now is my constituents, who will not qualify for noise insulation grants because of the Metro alone, but who will suffer because the incremental noise--that noise taken with that of local traffic--puts them above the level. They will not get the grant because the single source does not generate enough noise. They also hear noise from the railway, which is not far away. Some
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people have asked why the Metro does not use some of the disused railway line, which is a valid point. My constituents have had bitter and disappointing experiences with noise insulation schemes. They are nervous about anything that may add to the noise.I always try to be fair to those with whom I disagree. Councillor Bateman, the chairman of the passenger transport authority, said that he thought that my constituents had a horrendous problem at present without the Metro. Why introduce it? Why make a horrendous situation worse by putting the Metro in front of people's homes?
The hon. Member for Yardley said that the Metro would be "whisper-quiet". He said that the system in Grenoble was "whisper-quiet". That is not the opinion of the environmental services department of Birmingham city council. That department employs people whose objectivity I do not question. I have found them excellent officers who say it the way it is. They have looked at the Metro scheme--they are conscious that the council's policy is to build the Metro--and they say that on their calculations--I stress that they are calculations--118 homes on the Bromford estate would be affected to the extent to which they would qualify for noise insulation grants. One can understand the attitude of my constituents, who say, "My goodness, if 118 homes are going to qualify for noise insulation as a result of the Metro and we know that those noise levels are totally inadequate, what will it mean for those of us who do not qualify for noise insulation?" Naturally, they are nervous about it, and I do not blame them.
I have told my constituents that I have been to Grenoble and that the Metro equivalent there is quieter than some other forms of transport. I readily agree with that, and I am not trying to exaggerate the case or to give my constituents unnecessary cause for alarm. The Metro in Grenoble is called the Tram and it is not "whisper-quiet". It is certainly quieter than other forms of transport. There is no doubt that the Tram has brought about a reduction in noise. The people there live in flats above shops or, in some cases, in blocks where the ground floor does not have any flats. It is not like our system. The ground floors contain garages and other facilities. The people living on the higher floors do not suffer from worse noise because the Tram has replaced existing traffic. That is the big difference.
It is not proposed that the Metro will use a disused railway line. We are not talking about a route that will replace existing traffic on the roads. We are talking about a section of the route that will run through green grassland--an area where the loudest noise at present is from dogs. The road is an estate road and a cul-de-sac. No one goes along it except the residents, the milkman and the postman, who does not usually use a car. No bus goes along, so there is no means of transport to be replaced. The Metro will be additional transport. People say, "We are going to get a high level of noise. We are not like the residents in Grenoble. Having heard your description, Mr. Davis, we can understand why people in Grenoble would say that it was an improvement. It is not an improvement to us. It will be a deterioration. The noise will add to all the other noise and it will go close to our houses." The Metro will go about 10 metres from a block of flats and close to people who already suffer from noise from the motorway. I agree that what has been done in Grenoble is good, but,
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contrary to the constant references by the hon. Member for Yardley to Grenoble, it is not comparable with what will happen on this section of the route.My constituents also feel aggrieved, angry and upset about the consultation, and they are angry about the way in which they were treated. Some time ago Mr. Tarr, who has already been mentioned, wrote to a local councillor who lives in my constituency but does not represent a ward in it. The councillor was worried about a previous rapid transit proposal. At the time Mr. Tarr was secretary of the passenger transport authority. He still does the same job but his title has changed and he is now director general. When he was secretary of the PTA, he wrote to the councillor, who has passed the letter on to me. Mr. Tarr promised that there would be full consultation before any further schemes which affected my constituency were introduced. That promise was not kept.
Whenever I put it to the passenger transport authority, I am told that it was the job of the city council to consult. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-East impressed me with his description of the thorough consultation that took place in Wolverhampton. It is important to involve people. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East told my constituents in a letter, people should be involved and should feel that they are being consulted at an early stage. They should feel that their fears are being considered, their points taken into account and their suggestions listened to. They should feel that someone is trying to meet their objections in order to achieve a satisfactory solution without putting the scheme in jeopardy.
The residents' group in my constituency has made it clear from the beginning that its motive was to have its views taken into account. I respect it for that. The residents have made it clear that they did not seek to sabotage the project. They merely wanted their legitimate objections and interests to be taken into account. They felt that there was not consultation until a late stage, and they were right. In my hearing, the chief executive of Birmingham city council told other Members of Parliament from Birmingham that he would ensure that it was done better next time. He now knows that it cannot be left to Centro. The chief executive was worried about the way in which the people of Birmingham were treated, even if Centro were not. On that occasion, he said to me, "You see, Mr. Davis, we have learned from that experience." I am genuinely glad that no one else in Birmingham will have problems, but I do not see why my constituents should be sacrificed. I do not see why the city council should learn the lesson--the lesson that Centro refused to learn--at the expense of my constituents.
When I talk to the PTA, it shelters behind the city council. When I talk to the chief executive of the city council, he shelters behind Centro and says that it was its job to consult. The only thing that has changed is that at least the chief executive has been big enough to say that, although it was Centro's responsibility, he accepts that it is not good enough and that it must not happen again. He gave a personal promise to Birmingham Members of Parliament that in future there would be proper consultation and he has done so. He is consulting Members of Parliament about future routes which affect Birmingham. I am pleased about that.
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Centro did not consult and the city council did not consult my constituents. A decision was taken about the scheme and it was launched here at the House. My hon. Friends and Conservative Members were invited. The hon. Member for Yardley may have sponsored it, but I cannot remember. In a room off Westminster Hall there was a presentation and a major public relations exercise. It was not consultation. It was held to tell us how marvellous the scheme would be.No one thought of going to the people affected and asking them what they thought of the scheme and whether they had any points to make about it so that their objections could be taken into account at an early stage. It was a fait accompli. They were told, "You can oppose it if you like, but this is what we intend to do. Your Member of Parliament, your councillors and your Members of the European Parliament may oppose it, but we intend to impose it." That was how my constituents saw the way in which they were treated.
Before the Bill was presented to the House, my constituents were told that they had a choice. The route could go down either Bromford drive or through the grassed area next to Chillingholme road, Wanderer walk and Douglas house. My constituents said, "We shall not choose. We know what you are about : you are trying to divide us and rule us. You are trying to set one group of residents against another. You are trying to make us say Not in our backyard, impose it on the other lot, not us.'"
My constituents refused to be divided. They could see through it. Many of them are trade unionists who work in industry. They have more savvy than that and they can see a problem when it is coming towards them. They said, "We are going to stand together. We do not see why we should sacrifice our neighbours." The people in Bromford drive said, "We do not see why we should save ourselves at the expense of people in the other road." The people in the other road said exactly the same thing. I was delighted that they stood together throughout. The people in Bromford drive are still worried about the scheme even though they feel safe because the route will not be imposed on them. They feel that the people in the other road have a justified grievance and they are upset at the way in which their neighbours have been treated. But, as I shall explain later, Centro has exploited that position, too.
Centro tried to divide and rule, but it did not work. It gave my constituents a choice between having an arm amputated or a leg amputated. It did not work. My constituents said that they did not want either. They did not think that anyone should have the Metro passing in front of their homes. They suggested an alternative route. I shall return to that in a moment.
I give credit to Centro for undertaking what it called consultation, even though I would not call it that. The hon. Member for Yardley calls it consultation. I have read his remarks to the House carefully. Tonight he did not make a great deal about consultation but previously he has done so. He told the House that in general the project was the subject of widespread consultation several years ago in 1989. He said that 300 videos lasting six minutes each were sent to residents' associations. But they were not sent to residents' associations in my area. He said that videos were sent to community groups. I have not yet met a community group in my constituency which has had the benefit of a video. The hon. Gentleman said that videos were sent to local political parties. I can speak only for the Labour party. Neither at constituency nor branch level has
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the Labour party received one of the videos. I do not know where they went, but they did not come to the political party which represents the people who will be affected by the scheme. The hon. Member for Yardley told the House that 95 presentations were made. He claimed that Centro had consulted through those presentations. Who benefited from those presentations and who and what were the 95 groups? The hon. Gentleman said that they were business groups, chambers of commerce, rotary clubs--there is no rotary club on the Bromford estate--and breakfast clubs. We do not have breakfast clubs in my constituency. He left out supper clubs--we do not have many of those either. He said that presentations were made to local groups and--this is the crunch-- Confederation of British Industry groups. No CBI group represents the Bromford estate. The people there live on what they earn in the factories ; they are not CBI members.The hon. Member for Yardley said that there had been 17 exhibitions at conferences and transport events. However, they did not benefit my constituents, who were not consulted. He also said that many leaflets had been distributed on the first route, but he could say only that a much smaller number of leaflets had been distributed on the route that affects my constituents. He said that 14,000 leaflets, of which 10,000 were for the area outside the city centre, had been distributed within 1 km of the proposed route. I know that that is true because I received one through my letterbox, although I do not think that I live within 1 km of the proposed route. However, those leaflets would not have allowed my own residents' group to express an opinion one way or the other because we live too far away to use the Metro.
The hon. Member for Yardley said that council officers and Centro arranged 13 consultation venues attended by 1,400 members of the public, but they were not consultation venues. People came to caravans--I did so myself--and saw part of a video. The set-up was rather like the caravan that was parked at the Palace of Westminster a few months ago in connection with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds or the Cardiff Bay Barrage Bill.
He said that the exhibition at the Bromford neighbourhood office lasted for three and a half weeks, but its aim was to inform people, not to consult them. He was correct to say that public meetings were organised, and that 239 people attended them. I attended several of them and, at one meeting alone, counted between 300 and 400 people who were all opposed to the scheme, except for a couple of members of the passenger transport authority. I did not identify them then as they might have been subjected to verbal abuse from my constituents, and I shall not identify them now.
The hon. Member for Yardley said that there had been 26 meetings with businesses and business groups. As I have already explained, those would have concerned the route through the Bromford estate.
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I think that, by discussing routes, the hon. Gentleman is going on to the first group of amendments. I am finding it a little difficult to relate what he is now saying about routes to the consideration of the Bill.
Mr. Davis : Thank you for the guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was simply explaining that my constituents are
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upset. They oppose the Bill because they were not consulted by its proposers. I shall not go into the details of one route versus another as that is the subject of detailed amendments.My constituents were not consulted by the organisation that should have consulted them. Centro got off on the wrong foot at an early stage. It would have behaved differently, had it taken advice from my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East, who sent a letter to my constituents on behalf of the Labour party saying that it believed in full consultation with local people on such matters. Centro's only defence is that the city council supported the route that was proposed after consultation. But it was opposed by every councillor in my constituency--not only Labour councillors but the Conservative one. They all criticised the lack of consultation and time, and the way in which Centro was behaving.
How can we say that the committee procedure is democratic when it all took place in secret? Not even the local councillors representing my constituents were consulted. The locally elected representatives did not even know about it until Members of Parliament were given a presentation in a room off Westminster Hall and I telephoned them to break the news that the city council had been here with Centro to present those routes. That is an incredible story, and it shows that the democratic process has not been properly observed. The die had been cast without councillors having been consulted.
As a result of that lack of consultation, all the local councillors and almost everyone who lives in the district is opposed to that section of the route. A small minority says that it does not want Metro at any price, anywhere. A poll conducted in the area--not by me, the residents' association or local councillors, but by Centro and Birmingham city council --showed that the overwhelming majority of people were opposed to the route. In a secret ballot, 10 per cent. voted for it and 90 per cent. against. The result could not be much more overwhelming. The detailed analysis of those figures was not reported even to the councillors involved in the subsequent stages, who were on those committees. Quite a few of the 10 per cent. who were in favour of it said that they would not use it. So they were in favour of it for other people--to get them off the roads--but not for themselves. Not surprisingly, it was opposed by myself, by the local Labour and Conservative councillors and by the local MEP--in other words, by all the political parties in my constituency.
The hon. Member for Yardley disagreed with me about that when we last debated the matter. He said that he had private information from the prospective Conservative parliamentary candidate to the effect that what I had said was not correct. I can only reply that, in my hearing, the Conservative councillor for the area told his constituents that he agreed with me on this issue--he was careful to say "on this issue"--that he supported me on it, that he agreed with my opposition and with my objections. Not only did he associate himself with those objections, but I believe that he seconded some of our motions on the subject at the meetings in question.
In addition, the Conservative candidate at the latest local elections declared his opposition. He tried to pretend that the local councillors and I had not opposed it, but the local people soon put him right about that.
As a result of the inadequate consultation that took place--it would be an exaggeration to say that there had been a total lack of consultation--the city council decided
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to put the route along one of the two alternatives that it had put forward, so that it would affect the houses in the way that I have described. I have not gone into all the details of the other route involved because it would be unreasonable of me to do so. My constituents said, "We will not be persuaded in this way. We will not sit back and have the scheme imposed on us. We have looked at it and we are not against the Metro. We do not want to oppose the project and the Bill, but the route should and could be amended in such a way as not to affect any homes." There is no question of our trying to move the route so that it will affect the homes of other people--
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