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The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. Roger Freeman) : I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) on presenting his Adjournment debate with such great clarity and courteousness. He had the kindness to forewarn my Department of some of the issues he intended to raise. I think that my hon. Friend would find it helpful if I studied the record carefully and wrote to him on the detailed points he made. We could discuss how my reply might be made available to the House. I understand that there might be an opportunity in the next week or so for the House to return to the issue of London Transport, particularly London Underground. This is an important subject and I shall deal more generally with the problems facing London Underground.
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There are at least four major problems. First, it is important to understand that London Underground is, in large measure, an Edwardian railway, incorporating design features that no one would dream of building into a modern mass transit system and which impose serious constraints on the efficiency of that system. The cost, for example, of completely rebuilding some of the underground stations is astronomical. The cost of changing the layout of a single station, at the Angel Islington, is likely to exceed £72 million. That work is well under way and the station will open in September 1992. Escalators are another case in point, and my hon. Friend specifically mentioned them. Some of them are beautiful pieces of engineering, but I cannot help feeling that their proper home would be in the science museum, not in a modern railway. The Government set London Underground the target of achieving 86 per cent. escalator availability by March 1992. I am glad to say that in the last quarter of 1990 the company had already achieved 85 per cent. I am sure that it will do everything that it can to better that performance in the months ahead, but it is important to recognise that the design of the system imposes restrictions on the reliability that London Underground can achieve.Our Victorian and Edwardian forefathers, when they built and designed the system, had vision, resources and great determination, but the inheritance that they have left us is a system that is difficult to alter or adjust without building new capacity. Secondly, it is vital that London Underground maintain the system that it has inherited. Regrettably, many parts of the basic infrastructure are suffering from decades of neglect. For example, some ballast and track are long overdue for replacement. They represent the sort of low priority investment in basic infrastructure that can be put off for years without detriment to the safety or efficiency of the system. I hasten to add that I am not blaming London Transport or absolving this or previous Governments from joint responsibility. I merely make an observation which commends itself to those who have studied the underground system.
Eventually the lack of investment will begin to make itself felt. The ride will become uneven. That is unpleasant for passengers and it puts unnecessary strain on the rolling stock. So speed limits have to be introduced, and they reduce the capacity of the system. In due course, the need to spend money on the permanent way and track becomes unavoidable, and many stretches of the underground network have now reached precisely that point.
The third factor affecting the underground is safety. The Fennell report on the King's Cross fire identified many areas in which investment was needed to improve safety standards. It also prompted a fundamental reappraisal of the safety of the system, undertaken by London Underground's own management, who have in turn identified many ways in which the safety of the system can be improved. They have also, with our encouragement, been improving passenger security ; for instance, by strengthening the complement of British transport police and by installing video cameras. In present circumstances the value of these initiatives is obvious : violent crime on the underground is falling. I do not know the figures for my hon. Friend's constituency, but violent crime against the person on the underground has been falling, is falling and I hope will continue to fall-- a fact not fully appreciated by passengers. Nevertheless, I am delighted by
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the success of the British transport police and of the new technology, for which the Government have paid, and which has now been installed on some stations and some lines--to give passengers a greater feeling of security and to enable them to call for help quickly.Last but not least, demand for underground services increased dramatically in the mid-1980s--a phenomenon similar to the sudden turnaround in the demand for commuting services on Network SouthEast. There was a long decline in demand for those services between 1970 and 1985, but the demand suddenly increased thereafter.
There is an urgent need to increase the capacity of the system, and two ways of achieving that. One is to build new lines. Following on from the conclusions reached in the central and east London rail studies, the Government have given the go-ahead to the Jubilee line extension and the east-west crossrail. We have also authorised the safeguarding of the Chelsea-Hackney line. We hope that parliamentary approval will be given to both lines. Both are funded ; the Treasury has agreed with the Department of Transport that they are important additions to our infrastructure. The permission that we gave London Underground to deposit Bills for both lines was preceded by agreement on their full funding.
The other way to generate additional capacity is to make better use of existing lines. The modernisation of the Central line at a cost of more than £700 million will allow this line to carry an extra 5,000 passengers during the peak hour, and these passengers will travel faster and in more comfort. Passengers will begin to see the benefits in 1992, when deliveries of the new rolling stock will begin. The signalling to permit trains to run faster through the tunnels, and therefore increase offered capacity, is scheduled for completion in 1995.
I know that the Circle line does not directly affect my hon. Friend's constituency, but I am glad to be able to tell the House that the refurbished rolling stock on that line, which is plagued with graffiti and unpleasant to travel on, will start to be introduced in July. That will bring great relief to Londoners like me and others who patronise the Central line who will see real improvement.
Tackling these four problems simultaneously is an enormous challenge and I agree with my hon. Friend that if London Underground is to meet the challenge it needs two things above all
else--management and money. Let me start with management. London Underground's senior management team is of a high calibre and has the experience needed to do the job. Wilfrid Newton, in particular, has already run the Hong Kong mass transit system--one of the finest metro systems in the world--and I can assure my hon. Friend that Mr. Newton has had no hesitation in taking the tough decisions that are needed to set London Underground's financial house in order. He said as much to the Select Committee on Transport.
As part of the drive towards more efficiency, the underground has undergone a large-scale management reorganisation, giving more responsibility to local managers and shaping each of the 10 lines into a separate business unit. I am sure that taking decision-making down to the local level is the right approach. It has already paid enormous dividends within London Buses Ltd., and I am confident that it will also pay dividends for London Underground. I understand that a response that I recently gave to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Gill) was seen by some as a vote of
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no-confidence in London Transport. That was not my intention, and I welcome this opportunity to set the record straight.Let me turn from management to money. In the short term, London Underground's problems will, inevitably, be compounded by the downturn in the economy and the depressed state of the London property market. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge was right specifically to raise both matters. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Transport announced on 14 February a £62.55 million increase in grant for the present financial year, of which £55 million deals specifically with the cash flow problems that London Underground has encountered this year. I hope that that represents a satisfactory response to the recommendation of the Select Committee on Transport and that my hon. Friend will be pleased with it.
We are now considering carefully what changes, if any, to make to London Transport's grant provision for the coming year. I cannot anticipate the conclusions that we shall reach, but I must make it clear that we cannot insulate London Transport from the economic realities. It is not alone in facing a tight financial squeeze. If the Government tried to bail out everyone who is suffering as a result of the economic downturn, that would mean an increase in public expenditure, leading either to higher taxes or higher public sector borrowing--either of which would make the recession longer and deeper, benefiting nobody.
However, even during the present downturn, investment levels are impressive. This year, London Underground will have invested just under £400 million in the existing underground network, quite apart from what is being spent on preparing for the new lines--the Jubilee line and the east-west crossrail. It should be able to maintain a similar level of investment next year. These are not trifling sums. On the contrary, they represent record levels of investment. As the economy recovers, London Underground will have additional fare revenue, which will allow it to do more still. In total, Government grant to
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London Transport will be £2.4 billion over the next three years. Of that, about £1 billion is a ring-fenced provision for new underground lines. The application of the remainder is a matter for London Transport to determine, but is clearly leaves room for major investment in the existing underground system.My hon. Friend has suggested that total London Transport investment--that includes London Buses and the docklands light railway--of £3 billion over the next three years is not enough. This matter will be deliberated on in the usual way in the summer. My hon. Friend must wait for his answer until the Chancellor's autumn statement. At this stage, I shall limit myself to two obvious points. First, we shall of course consider carefully any case that London Transport makes out for additional funds ; secondly, there are many calls on such funds.
My hon. Friend referred to staff cuts. I am not aware that London Transport is proposing any significant change in the number of scheduled miles provided for passengers. There will certainly be changes on some lines, and I shall consider what my hon. Friend has said and respond to it, but there will be no significant change in service. I understand that the proposed staff cuts of 1,000 are related mainly to the introduction of new automatic ticket barriers, which will, of course, alter the staffing requirements. Those moves are designed to make the underground as efficient as possible. They are not a reaction to a financial crisis, but are based on sound management decisions. If they present any specific problems, I shall certainly look at them.
Let me sum up. London Underground faces enormous practical problems. Management has simultaneously to bring an Edwardian railway up to modern standards, to tackle vital safety issues and to expand the system to cope with increased demand. That is not going to be a quick or easy job. I cannot promise my hon. Friend that we shall solve these problems as quickly as he and his constituents would like, but I can assure him that the Government and the management of London Underground are fully committed to the task in hand ; and we shall complete it.
Question put and agreed to .
Adjourned accordingly at one minute past Three o'clock .
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