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Mr. Conal Gregory (York) : For a long time--indeed, since I became a Member of this House in 1983--I have had a keen interest in transport, and in the railway industry in particular. I am vice-chairman, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), of the Conservative parliamentary transport committee. We work strongly in the best interests of public transport, and the railways in particular.
I welcome this Second Reading debate, as I shall welcome the other stages of the Bill. I have a constituency interest as York has the headquarters of the eastern region of British Rail, and shortly it will have the headquarters of BR's freight operation. York is also an important centre for the denationalised sector of British Rail, as one of the key plants of British Rail Engineering Limited is situated there, with two more being in Derby and the fourth in Crewe. It also has Golden Rail, the tourism interest of BR, and the Royal York hotel--to name but a few.
The Bill would increase BR's borrowing limit to £3,000 million, which is not an inconsiderable sum, extendable to £5,000 million, with the grant at the same levels. It is therefore appropriate that the House considers the use of the finances provided to date and how far BR has fulfilled its obligations to its passengers, its freight customers and its staff.
It is clear that, at today's prices, BR has cost the taxpayer £16 billion since the Conservative party took office. I shall put that into the jargon that the electorate can understand--it is £800 for every household in the country. One point that is crystal clear now, and will be crystal clear at the hustings, is that investment under the
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Conservative Government has been the highest in real terms for 29 years, at £834 million. That is a telling figure, of which I am proud.Dr. Kim Howells : The hon. Gentleman has referred to large sums, and we all appreciate the enormous strain of such sums on the economy. However, they must be compared with the amount of money invested by the most successful economy, at least until now, in western Europe--west Germany. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley) and I were told by representatives of the west German Government that the subsidy--they call it a payment--this year will be DM27 billion. That puts £16 billion, spread over 12 years, into perspective.
Mr. Gregory : I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's comments, and I shall give some European comparisons in due course. He, as a member of the Labour party, is not too happy to look at its record. Indeed, he must be embarrassed by its neglect of BR. It is only the Conservative Government who have honoured their commitments and properly invested in the railways.
We are about to increase BR's borrowing limit by more than £1 billion in 1991-92, and the Government have approved an increase of more than 20 per cent. to £600 million in the public service obligation for 1990- 91. I am sorry that the shadow transport spokesman is not here ; however, as always, I welcome his deputy. Had the shadow spokesman been present, I could have asked him how he wanted borrowings to increase, and whether he would approve of the Labour-controlled councils that have invested in such dubious banks as BCCI for one eighth of 1 per cent. more. It would be interesting to know whether he would suggest that as a blueprint for the private sector of the railway industry.
I have cited the solid investment programme under the Conservative Government. We must now ask whether there has been an increase in quality.
Mr. Snape : My point is not strictly relevant to the debate, but whenever we debate transport matters, the hon. Gentleman has an irresistible urge to make a fool of himself, and today has been no exception. Can he tell us how many left-wing socialists there are on the Shetland and Croydon councils, which together lost £30 million in BCCI?
Mr. Gregory : I regret giving way to the hon. Gentleman, because he is not advancing the matter of transport policy. Yet again the hon. Gentleman, who will shortly be returning to his occupation in the railway industry following the next election, shows that he has little understanding of finances, or he would not have got them so hopelessly wrong. I assume that he was referring not to a £30 million but to a £23 million loss in the Western Isles. He can further consider these issues when he returns to his full-time occupation in the railway industry.
The subject that we are debating is the railway industry, not the failure of Labour Members to read the financial press. I referred to the quality of management and of delivery in British Rail and how those relate to such considerable investment programmes. The House is being asked tonight to increase those investments.
Electrification is a splendid form of investment, and it is a tangible way to judge the money from the public purse that is going into BR. The east coast main line has taken £400 million of investment, yet with the new timetable that
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was introduced on Monday it is now impossible for anyone from York or from the constituency of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) to attend a function in London and return that evening, because the last train departs at 10 pm.Although this week saw the introduction of the new InterCity 225 service on the 393-mile east coast line from London to
Edinburgh--using the new class 91 Electra electric locomotives--we must ask whether we are getting an increased service. The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Dr. Howells) mentioned European comparisons. I can draw examples from the excellent railway service that I have experienced in north America--a good way to show that BR can succeed with Amtrak. BR is letting down its passengers and its staff, and I shall give examples of that.
Mr. Adley : What conclusion would my hon. Friend draw from the fact that when the American passenger railways were in the private sector they were ghastly, but that is no longer the case now that they are owned by Amtrak, which is financed by the Federal Government?
Mr. Gregory : I am well aware that Amtrak has some public finances, but I would not agree that the services were ghastly before. However, that is a subjective view and I shall try to be as objective as I can.
Let us consider whether the quality of British Rail's management has improved as a result of the generosity of the public purse. British Rail does not only provide a railway system to go from A to B but, without going into the business of cattle trucks, it should provide a service for people such as the disabled. I welcome the speech of the hon. Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Hughes), but he dwelt a little unnecessarily on the physically disabled. I should have liked him to say a few words about British Rail's lack of interest in the blind and partially sighted because there are a number of cheap ways in which British Rail could make their life considerably easier. Its failure to do so may be because most of those who sit on the disability committee--excuse the pun--are in wheelchairs, not standing, and blind or partially sighted. I hope that that is a matter to which British Rail will address its mind shortly.
Let me examine the finances of the buffet facilities which, sadly, are still in state control. [Interruption.] Travellers' Fare is a wholly owned subsidiary of British Rail. On many routes, it is extremely slow to open, the major exception being on trains out of Paddington. I travel frequently on the east coast main line and its Travellers' Fare services often do not open until 20 or 30 minutes after the train has departed. If one goes up the train before it departs, one is in danger of seeing the staff waiting for the goods to come on board or interrupting some card game.
Once the buffet is open, many items that the public might like to purchase, such as KitKat, that excellent confectionery from my constituency, are not available, presumably because there is the danger that they would increase customer satisfaction or reduce the public service obligation. Such good brands of confectionery, or even those made in places such as Birmingham or Slough--I cannot recall the brands offhand--are not available.
There are long queues for the buffet, and one way to reduce them would be to provide vending machines so that those who simply want a hot or cold drink could obtain
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one without queueing for a wider range of services. However, that would increase customer satisfaction and so has been put at the bottom of British Rail's list.Mr. Adley : Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Gregory : Let me finish my point. My hon. Friend may be about to refer to those services which have been denationalised, such as the trolley service between Victoria and Gatwick, which is excellent. Not only does it take five different currencies--I am not referring to Scottish pound notes- -but a range of drinks is available which it is almost impossible to find at Travellers' Fare. In addition, on no train in the United Kingdom is it possible to purchase a newspaper or a magazine. Such a service would also increase customer satisfaction and reduce the public service obligation. Those are two matters that are not at the top of British Rail's list of priorities.
Mr. Adley : The catering services on the Waterloo-Salisbury-Exeter line have been privatised, and a way has been found of getting rid of the queues after Salisbury by discontinuing the service because the girls have to go home to Bristol.
Mr. Gregory : It is important that this House starts its deliberations on time and you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, are mindful of the fact that on Monday to Thursday we start at 1430 hours. But for British Rail that would not necessarily be on time. Because British Railways Board members and senior executives are paid an overrider based on the percentage of trains that arrive on time, it is particularly important to them that the trains do arrive on time. Sadly, they found that their overrider beyond their salary was not very substantial, so they changed the definition of "on time". For inter-city trains to be on time now, they have to arrive within 20 minutes of the scheduled arrival time. That is not on time for my constituents ; it is only on time for those who are deriving a percentage bonus. On time should mean literally on time, not a sloppy 20 minutes later, which helps no one. Let us have a bit of honesty and ensure that trains are on time and that those who are responsible for trains arriving on time receive the appropriate reward. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch referred, not for the first time, with a little humour, to a citizens charter. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was the first senior politician in Britain to devise a citizens charter, and he had British Rail very much in mind when he did so. [Interruption.] I am glad that the few Opposition Members who are present agree.
Compensation is particularly appropriate with regard to British Rail. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and I travelled on the TGV to Lyons. Because the train was delayed, not for the first time, by the rail union of that country which has that facility, just as it does here, the guard came through the train giving compensation vouchers. There was no question of people having to queue up or write letters to SNCF. I have asked the previous chairman and the present chairman of British Rail to consider such a feature in order to encourage people if the service falls short of their high expectations.
That market-oriented approach is anathema to British Rail. The former chairman, for whom I have great regard, could not understand the concept, because he thought that everybody, except for the solicitor and the architect, could
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be retrained. He had been retrained a number of times. But, sadly, that aspect of marketing never came up for serious discussion. Therefore, when my hon. Friend replies to this interesting debate, I hope that he will say whether, if we approve the higher investment tonight, we shall at the same time enter into a genuine contract between British Rail and the customer, whether that is the passenger or freight company. If British Rail falls short of such a contract, what genuine compensation would it offer? It should not take the form of the rather feeble letters that I have to pass on to many of my constituents ; it should be genuine compensation which will encourage people to return to the service and to recommend it. There is nothing like proper compensation to attract people.There is much lost opportunity at our railway stations. I will give two examples, the first of which is my constituency city of York. Its famous station was opened in 1877, and has been the beloved station of a number of poets and others. The station is approximately the size of Utrecht station in the Netherlands, but only recently has British Rail provided a few extra services. We now have a flower seller, one of the few in the city which is open on a Sunday. We have no banking facilities, in common with every station bar one in the United Kingdom. It is impossible to cash a cheque at any railway station except for one. There is a little cafeteria, but it has a limited menu.
Mr. Gregory : I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman's definition of "cafeteria" extends so far. Utrecht station has 250 shops and offices ; it is a whole complex, although it covers the same area as York station does. We want greater imagination from British Rail. British Rail does not have the staff to provide that imagination, but it has the expertise to go to outside agencies that could develop ideas for it. It could consult commercial estate agents and other developers who could enter partnership agreements to provide such assistance.
Mr. Gerald Bowden : Does my hon. Friend recognise, as I do, that among the critics of British Rail are many people who in their professional lives have built, designed and operated railways in other countries? When they make suggestions to British Rail about how it can improve its operational performance, they meet a blank wall and deaf ears. British Rail does not recognise that anyone outside Euston house can understand railways better.
Mr. Gregory : My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. At the risk of making a pun, I must say that British Rail tends to have tunnel vision. It believes that the only people who understand railways are those who have been steeped in them from the age of 16 or from immediately after the time they left university.
Important as it is for a certain group to understand engineering, signalling and maintenance, there are further opportunities for British Rail. It is not yet an albatross, despite the unhelpful comments made so frequently by the Federation of Railway Unions, which seeks to put British Rail into the dinosaur category. I continue to work to show that British Rail has a strong and serious future provided that it will enter a partnership with the private sector.
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Mr. Snape : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Gregory : We must stick to railway policy rather than get sidetracked, as we were before, by the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East.
Mr. Snape rose--
Mr. Gregory : My second example concerns London. There is no difficulty in extending the range of services at railway stations in London. If British Rail is restricted at King's Cross or at Paddington, it can simply push the railway lines out by half a mile, one mile or two miles. A range of activities could be provided there, from bowling alleys and cinemas to restaurants and banking. If British Rail has any doubts, it could enter partnership agreements, as happens in other parts of the world and in the airlanes. If British Rail has doubts on those matters, it could talk to the airlines and the airports. If we could get some synergy between the British Airports Authority and British Rail, we would move towards a far more customer-orientated railway industry.
The House and the public outside should be aware of the real danger to British Rail if it should ever again fall under a socialist Government. That is very unlikely, but as it is just a possibility, we should spell out that point. Labour has said that it will support the Bill tonight, but the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) said that British Rail should be allowed to borrow from the private sector. He has not made it clear whether loans from the private sector would be cheaper or more expensive than loans from the national loans fund. Clearly they would be substantially more expensive. We must remember that, whether British Rail borrows from the public or the private sector, the debt is still a public sector one. As Sir Bob Reid, the chairman of British Rail, has said, investment in the railways is a social cost benefit to the public. That factor should be borne in mind when considering his comments to the Treasury in early July.
British Rail has already gone successfully down the path towards denationalisation. Those who have brothers or fathers some of whom are in British Rail whereas others are in British Rail Engineering do not find themselves torn between the two. The person coming home with a pay packet from British Rail Engineering has between one fifth and one quarter more-- plus shares--than the person with similar experience and qualifications who works for British Rail has. British Rail will move in the direction of British Rail Engineering, once it moves down the path of denationalisation.
Under this Government, investment has been higher than it was in any year under the socialists. To be charitable, let us take Labour's most recent year in office, when it spent £537 million on the railways at 1990-91 prices. In the past year, the Conservatives have invested £834 million --or have allowed British Rail to invest that sum. Labour insists on maintaining the British Rail monopoly, which is clearly out of tune with the feeling in the European Community, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) will no doubt confirm. That is totally out of step with the rest of Europe. The case for denationalisation could not be greater if we consider British Steel, British Telecom and British Leyland. They used to make losses on the same scale as British Rail has. I choose those examples carefully because they are companies of a similar size. Now that they have been denationalised, they are--surprise, surprise--all
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making profits. On moral and economic grounds, the present subsidy to British Rail is excessive. It should be carefully targeted in terms of staff, so that they have shares for the first time. If the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East has any doubts about that, he should ask his constituents who are employed by National Freight whether they want to go back to life under state control. They will make it clear to him that they are proud of their share certificates. They frame them, just as they will frame their shares in British Rail in due course.Safety is another element. I referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch in connection with the manning in the cab. By a curious twist of logic, British Rail says that two men must be in the cab of an inter- city train. When I have been in the cab of such a train, the second person has done almost no work. The case for having a second person is not convincing for the inter-city services, but it is convincing for the regional network, which is now far more complicated and does not have all the safety devices that inter-city services have. If we are to have that overmanning, it should be on the regional railways and not on inter-city services. We should address our minds to that.
I commend the Bill to the House, with the reservations that I have expressed. I look forward to a new era for the railways which is customer- orientated and which truly recognises staff commitment and responsibility.
7.28 pm
Mr. A. J. Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) : Although I have some criticisms of British Rail, it is worth placing on record the fact that there have been substantial improvements in the quality of railway services and some significant changes in the atmosphere and approach of the railway system and its staff. Like many hon. Members--although unfortunately not all--I travel many thousands of miles a month on British Rail and I have a pretty wide experience of what happens. I travel from Berwick-upon-Tweed to London--I will come to the new timetable in a moment--a journey that enables me to walk out of my house and to be in the centre of London just over four hours later, having had a comfortable journey and having done four hours' work in the process.
I am almost invariably on time, although having said that, I shall probably be late on my next two or three journeys. It is the ill luck of many of my constituents who make only occasional journeys to find that theirs is the train that is an hour late on a four-hour journey, whereas in the high sample of rail journeys from which I have to draw, there is a high proportion of journeys that I complete on time and sometimes early.
I have also noted significant improvements on my cross-country journeys. For many years, I crossed the Pennines on filthy trains, with grossly inadequate timetables and no hope of a cup of tea ; now the rolling stock is much better, the service is more frequent and a private-enterprise trolley travels up and down the train regularly. The change in attitudes, and the combination of public and private-sector effort, has greatly improved many other services as well.
On my travels, I meet many dedicated British Rail staff who go out of their way to try to ensure that passengers are well catered for, and that when things go wrong every possible effort is made to help. That does not always
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happen, but it happens often enough to be worthy of note. Another welcome development is the arrival on delayed trains of British Rail staff carrying mobile telephones for the use of customers who will be unduly delayed.I am slightly worried about the possibility that "sectorisation" will make it increasingly difficult for staff at the main terminal stations to make use of resources to deal with such difficult circumstances. Staff who would, in the past, use the resources of another sector have expressed anxiety to me about this. It may no longer be easy, for instance, to use a regional railway's diesel train, or to run an InterCity train to complete a journey on which a transfer to a regional service might otherwise have been necessary. Any move that cramps BR staff's initiative and their ability to cope when things are going badly is regrettable, and I hope that BR will continue to encourage those who still cling to the old attitudes to change their approach.
Despite the improvements that I have observed, there is still a serious lack of attention to passenger needs, even at times of major investment. That was brought home to me by my experience of the new east coast main- line timetable. At the beginning of this week, I had to set out for London 20 minutes earlier than I did under the previous timetable to catch the first train of the day, in order to arrive no earlier than I would have done on the old diesel-hauled 125. I boarded a new electric train that was due to arrive 20 minutes later than the diesel train that had run in the previous week. When the train reached Newcastle, it broke down, because the staff could not shut the automatic doors ; that was on the second day of the new timetable. I switched to a fast train, which enabled me to reach my destination no sooner than I could have done before the introduction of electrification. That does not strike me as a major step forward.
Mr. Adley : The hon. Gentleman should not complain about the east coast main line. He should accompany me on the
Waterloo-Salisbury-Exeter line when I go home. The fastest train now takes six minutes longer to get from Waterloo to Salisbury than the same service took in 1964, the last full year of steam operation, when the train was pulled by a Merchant Navy Pacific engine.
Mr. Beith : Many such examples could be given. My complaint about the east coast main line timetable--which I hope will be improved in subsequent editions--is that the opportunities for improvement provided by electrification have not been directed at all the areas from which customers emerge, and in which fresh business can be secured by means of effective marketing. Certainly passengers from the borders are getting a fairly raw deal at peak times ; they are also finding that the last train from London to Berwick leaves not at 8 pm--as they were promised when the sleeper services were withdrawn--but at 6.30 pm, and that the last train from Edinburgh to Berwick on Saturdays leaves at 7 pm, which makes it impossible for passengers to take the train to attend any evening event in Edinburgh.
Following electrification, overnight services have returned to the east coast main line. Once a week, on Friday nights, it is possible to take an overnight train from Edinburgh, Berwick or Newcastle, to London. Of course, it is not possible to lie down in a sleeping car ; that would be too much to expect. Passengers must sit up for the
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whole journey. British Rail has shown that it is possible to reintroduce overnight services, but has not done the obvious--that is, run a proper service to Edinburgh with sleeping cars, and gain the extra business that is there to be obtained from the borders and from TynesideThe Secretary of State knows that very well, because he travels regularly to Edinburgh in the sleeper. I cannot get into my sleeper compartment for the television crews that follow the right hon. and learned Gentleman nowadays to provide background film to accompany his statements. I am glad, however, that he is a regular rail traveller : as such, he probably realises how absurd it was to withdraw all the sleeper services from the east coast main line. It would be perfectly possible to run one of the Scottish sleepers through Tyneside and the borders.
British Rail's failure to honour its promise in that regard constitutes a standing warning to passengers never to believe what it says when it wants to get private Bills through the House. I shall issue the same warning in respect of every private Bill that BR introduces until its meets that undertaking.
I shall say more about regional services in my part of the world later in my speech. First, let me deal with the financial core of the Bill. In real terms, direct Government support for the railways is now 40 per cent. below the 1983 level, according to British Rail's annual report. Investment has been hopelessly constricted : the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) mentioned the "bunching" of investment and the long periods in which no significant investment was made.
Because of that, many opportunities have been missed. This country did not develop the high-speed TGV service on a dedicated line ; France did. We have been hanging about rather than making a decision on direct links with Europe and the new line to the channel tunnel, which baffles other European countries : as other hon. Members have pointed out, they cannot understand why we have not leapt at the opportunity to ensure that we have direct links not only with the south-east, but with the north, Scotland and Wales. By that means, we could attract freight on to the system by offering a rapid, direct journey, and also ensure that freight terminal facilities were available in the areas from which the business would come. Because of the current indecision, there is no prospect of a proper freight terminal to serve Tyneside, for example.
In recent years, there have been endless delays in the replacement of commuter and provincial stock, to the enormous discomfort of those who travel into London and some of our other conurbations. That discomfort is relieved only by the efforts of some passenger transport authorities, which have spent a fair amount on building up commuter services in co-operation with British Rail.
The kind of investment practice that we have seen for many years certainly will not secure the transport system whose desirability has been implicit in the Secretary of State's speeches ever since he came to office. We all welcome the tone of what he has been saying, but we want that to be borne out in the financial structure that he gives the railways. According to the current edition of Modern Railways :
"The Transport Secretary's recent speech was a cleanly-executed piece of public relations, and at the very
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least, it is significant that he feels what he said to be politically necessary. But the railways will not improve just because he has declared that it is OK to favour them.The big missing link in the Transport Secretary's declaration on rail transport is a willingness to assess all forms of transport on a common basis."
We know perfectly well from previous debates that the rail passenger is being asked to contribute more of the infrastructure costs of his journey than is the road passenger, who notices very little marginal cost arising from his decision to make that particular journey by road. That distorts the objective that the Secretary of State has set out, and, indeed, prevents the achievement of that objective.
It makes environmental sense for us to attract more and more people to travel by rail rather than driving. It makes more sense in conurbations, but the principle is not confined to them. It also makes environmental sense for us to carry a much larger proportion of our freight by rail, and the investment structure must be built up to meet those needs.
Various of my hon. Friends favour specific projects on which they will wish to press the Secretary of State : one example in the extension of electrification to Aberdeen. We can all cite examples of projects that ought to be undertaken. I suspect that that will require far more investment than the Bill contemplates.
Much was said earlier about privatisation and its implications for the railway system. We take the view that the railway system needs to be opened up to more providers of services. The principle of the common network being available to more providers is appropriate, just as it is appropriate for telecommunications and other services where, until now, there has been a public service monopoly. We see considerable attractions in identifying ways in which new operators can be brought into the railway system.
The idea is not foreign to the railway system. Private trains are running about now, carrying both freight and passengers on the network. That concept could be developed extensively. It will be necessary to retain a publicly owned and managed network on which the services run. The Secretary of State asked the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East whether the concept that I am advancing is supported by him.
However, the Secretary of State has not answered questions put to him as to his views about the future of the network. Does he believe that we need to retain a publicly-owned and managed basic network for the railway system, or does he believe that the entire system can be privatised ? Our judgment, reached on the basis of our studies so far, is that a publicly managed system is likely to continue to be needed but that there is extensive scope for private enterprise activity on the network.
The public service obligation grant goes to the heart of the Bill's provisions. For some years, public service obligation money has been the subject of a reducing target. The original plan was to reduce it in 1992-93 to £345 million. The Bill refers to a figure of over £400 million, which shows that the Government recognise that that target cannot be achieved. If the regional railway system, that provides cross-country and rural services, is to be faced with a declining level of public support every year, what will happen is what is now happening.
Railway managers will say that there is only one way in which they can cope --by contracting the network. However, the network cannot be contracted without
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closures being proposed and without going through all the machinery that is involved in closure proposals. The Government do not want to be seen to be a Government who close railways. They do not want the Beeching tag hanging round their neck.Managers of regional railways have found an answer to that--to cut down services on large parts of the network to the point where nobody can use them. They are turned into completely unusable services, or they are reduced to such a level that they cost the absolute minimum. Resources are then concentrated on areas where the largest number of people live. In that way, the managers have some hope of increasing their returns.
If regional railways are run like that, the public service obligation is not discharged in the way that was originally intended. The principle underlying that obligation was that a basic network of cross-country and rural railways ought to be retained. The public service obligation refers to that broad network being maintained, and is not now being maintained.
This is not a political point, put forward by me as the Liberal Democrat spokesman. It is the view trenchantly expressed by the Central Transport Consultative Committee, which is extremely concerned about what is happening to the rural network. The Central Transport Consultative Committee considers that the direction given to British Railways--to operate its passenger service so as to provide a public service broadly comparable generally with that provided by the board at present--was intended as a benchmark, below which grant-supported services must not fall. The committee points out that the services are falling well below that level and it lists services where there have been reductions of 50 per cent. or more below the level stated when the direction was given, which was as recently as 1988. It points out that in many rural areas the frequency has been dramatically reduced.
I can give the Secretary of State the most ghastly examples from my constituency. During the last three years, a stopping service of trains on the east coast main line, serving stations at Chathill, Alnmouth, Widdrington, Pegswood and Acklington, has been reduced by one train a year. There were only four trains to start with, so there is only one more year to go before we reach zero. The northbound train service on that line has been reduced by one train every year. It is now impossible to travel from Chathill station northwards to Scotland, even by using a connecting train at Berwick, and return to Chathill on the same day. As there is only one train, one has to return to Chathill the following day. Moreover, it is impossible to travel to Chathill by train and return from it that day. One can travel there by train only in the evening.
Chathill station is provided with a postbus connection--an efficient bit of transport co-ordination to which the Post Office and the local authority are committed, and that has been very successful in enabling people from the coastal areas of Seahouses and Bamburgh to use that rail service. However, that service is now hopeless because there is no train with which the postbus can connect. British Rail says, "By taking away the trains that we were using on that service, we can get more passengers on to the stock by using it in urban Tyneside." Surely, however, the objective of the public service obligation was to ensure that a basic network continued to be available. It cannot be set absolutely in stone, but the regional network is now being cut wholesale in order to meet impossible obligations.
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The Secretary of State should consider it in terms that he would find congenial or agreeable--in terms of performance obligations and performance measurements. There is no performance measurement now for regional railways when it comes to providing rural services. There is not even a benchmark--that a basic service should be retained. The Government shouled not dole out very large subsidies without there being some sort of performance measurement against which the subsidy that is given can be measured. But that is what is happening now. A large subsidy is given to a whole network without any assessment of whether the network as a whole is being maintained. I sought to amend the Bill to include such an obligation.In your other capacity, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as Chairman of Ways and Means, you felt unable to select those amendments to the Bill. We therefore face the dilemma of whether to vote against individual clauses that deal with the public service obligation. That may be the only way to get the point across. It does not make sense to continue a public service obligation grant that is not measured against whether the network for which it is being provided is still there and still provides a reasonable and recognisable level of service.
Mr. Snape : Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when Ministers are asked about this practice, it is unfair for them to say, "These matters are entirely ones that should be answered by British Rail"? The House has great difficulty in obtaining information from a Department that, due to its own financial noose, causes these cuts yet declines to accept responsibility for them in this place.
Mr. Beith : Absolutely. The Secretary of State has placed British Rail in the position that it can run regional railways only on the basis of retrenchment--on the basis of concentrating rolling stock in such a way as to obtain the maximum return. British Rail is the originator of the policy. It may say that that is not what it wants--that it has its own ideas about what can be achieved. In that case, why are the Government telling British Rail and the House what that basis is? I shall be happy to give way to the Secretary of State if he wishes to intervene to clarify the point.
What is the point of having a Central Transport Consultative Committee if the Secretary of State takes no notice of what it says on the subject? It has written to him at considerable length and made public statements, but we are getting no further. The committee has gone into considerable detail about the performance targets that should apply to British Rail in relation to its rural services, but it has received no response. It says :
"The CTCC is disappointed with the Department's interpretation of the PSO direction. It seems to give BR the right to reduce a train service on a particular line or at a particular station to the bare minimum to avoid closure proceedings, irrespective of the social need which that service satisfies and for which BR receives grant. The CTCC believes that situation to be most unsatisfactory and one which must be tackled by future legislation."
This is a legislative opportunity. Do Ministers intend that British Rail should meet its target by cutting to a minimum the services on the more extended parts of the rural network, thereby meeting the obligation of reducing the public service grant? Is that the plan, or do Ministers intend that the rural service network should remain at broadly the same level as now? I should like the service extended in some areas and more stations to be opened. It
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has been demonstrated in some of the passenger transport authority areas that new business can be achieved by that, and the same could take place on some of the rural lines. However, currently everything is going in the opposite direction.It is not reasonable to ask the House to approve the increases in the public service obligation, which is one part of the Bill, without explaining what the money is to pay for, what obligations arise from it and what the Government's policy is. The Bill sets out only the limits. it does not set out what the Government will give in PSO grants, just the maximum that they are allowed to give.
The Minister who has day-to-day responsibility for the railways has returned to the Chamber. He must tell us his response to the views of the Central Transport Consultative Committee on the issue that affects rural railway users in Northumberland and Wales, including the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells) and other hon. Members in mid-Wales and in the south-west and all over the country where services are being severely damaged. It is not reasonable to ask the House to approve the Bill without dealing with such questions.
7.51 pm
Mr. Gerald Bowden (Dulwich) : I was reassured by the opening remarks of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State. It is encouraging to see increased investment in railways and an increase in competition in railway services. It is pleasing to learn that the monopoly that British Rail has enjoyed and exploited over the years is likely to be broken by private enterprise opportunities opening up and, ultimately, by denationalisation. In addition, there is the encouraging thought that we now have a more positive freight policy on rail, as opposed to roads, than we have had for many years.
Given the welcome signs that are the background to the Bill, it is a pity that the one great investment opportunity, perhaps the greatest opportunity of the century--the channel tunnel and its rail link--has been so mishandled by British Rail. It has failed to rise to the challenge. The transportation of freight and the communication of passengers with other parts of Europe has been handled in a cack-handed way. If British Rail's proposals for the channel tunnel rail link are introduced, they will make Britain a branch line of the rest of Europe rather than part of the main line.
I shall outline the deficiencies and failures of British Rail's proposed route, how it fails to rise to the opportunities offered by the Bill and how alternatives could meet those requirements in a much better way.
British Rail has sought to impose a channel tunnel rail link that goes no further than London. It pays lip service to going beyond King's Cross, but, by and large, it will represent a buffer stop for passengers. Those who travel to the west country will have to go from King's Cross to Paddington under their own arrangements and then use other parts of British Rail for the rest of their journey. If one is trying to attract passengers to travel from all parts of the United Kingdom by rail instead of by road or air, it is nonsense if there is no proper network of through trains allowing passengers to travel without stopping in London to change trains.
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That is culpable enough, but, worse than that, British Rail has made no real provision for freight. It intends to superimpose a freight route on existing commuter routes in the south-east. British Rail is not offering a freight policy, but is using the slack time on commuter routes. That is no way to encourage those who ship from the north of Scotland to the south of Italy to use a train or a rail container rather than road. Until that matter is seized by those who operate the service now or who will operate it in the future, particularly the channel tunnel link, rail will never command the commercial and financial support that it should have.British Rail's proposals seem merely to link the King's Cross area of London with the capitals of Europe. It will offer an opportunity for passengers covering that distance, but precious little else. The reason for that planning may have been dominated by the development aspect. There is no doubt that the opportunity to exploit the development potential around King's Cross has been fully investigated by British Rail.
I have no knowledge of precise details, but we can surmise that, if an office development were to be built on top of a terminal linking King's Cross with Paris, Brussels and the other capitals of continental Europe, the value of such accommodation would be increased by a factor of three or four. So, what is worth £x per sq ft now could be worth £4x after the development. Think of the advantages to any European or international company if its employees could simply go down in the lift from their office to the platform below and travel straight to the heart of Europe without the hassle of travelling to Heathrow, Gatwick or even City airport. That would greatly enhance the property development value of King's Cross. I have no reason to know this, but perhaps the reason for British Rail's preoccupation with a terminal at King's Cross with precious few facilities for through trains beyond King's Cross is dominated by the desire to exploit to the best advantage the land around that area.
British Rail's outlined route fails on three main criteria that should apply. First, it is commercially and financially unattractive. The private investor partners who linked with British Rail in an attempt to reach a partnership agreement to build the King's Cross southern route dropped out because they found it commercially and financially unsustainable. Secondly, operationally it is of no great benefit. In terms of passenger time, the direct link to King's Cross saves perhaps 12 or, at best, 20 minutes. That is a small amount of time when one considers what an alternative could offer. Also, as I have mentioned, it makes no provision for freight, which will trundle around the existing commuter lines.
Thirdly, and perhaps most damaging, the proposed line is environmentally disastrous. It would cause much damage, not only to the heritage, farmland and landscape of Kent, but, when it passed through Warwick gardens in my constituency and on to King's Cross, it would cause the maximum disturbance and devastation to the area. The cost of mitigating that environmental damage is out of all proportion to the benefit that would be gained by following that route. British Rail has chosen the worst proposals to meet the challenge. We are debating a railway for the 21st century and how we ensure that the United Kingdom, although separated from it by the Channel, can nevertheless have a direct rail link with the rest of continental Europe. British Rail has failed to recognise the opportunities and to meet
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