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at junction 14 on the M62 with equanimity. However, I fuss and fume over the smallest delay or inconvenience when I travel on InterCity. Unlike the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mrs. Lait), I tend to get off a train infinitely more stressed than when I got on. I rage at the three classes of rail passenger when first class passengers travel in spacious luxury ; when second class--sorry, standard class--passengers receive a free cup of tea or coffee ; and third class-- sorry, saver ticket holders--are lucky to get a seat on some trains.If my ticket costs as much as £30 for a third class return trip, why cannot I be guaranteed a seat? Why is the food so expensive? Motorway services and BR rip off travellers quite shamelessly. Therefore, I fret and grumble about unexplained stops. Why can one never quite hear what the guard is saying just when you really want to hear? I sit in my stationary car just north of Birmingham and persuade myself that at least I have some control over my journey. Those may be somewhat petty examples of the frustrations felt by rail passengers, but they are nevertheless genuine and deeply felt. However, it is irrational for me to rail at BR over its pricing policy when the Government's failure to subsidise BR forces it to raise revenues in the only way it can. It is irrational for me to grumble about unscheduled stops and to imagine that no such delay would have occurred had I gone by car. However irrational that may be, I cannot deny those feelings, and I thought that it was important that I should explain them to the House.
Conservatives take that experience and the real frustrations of rail passengers and they exploit them for the pursuit of their own privatisation dogma just as they have done whenever they pushed our national assets and public services into the private sector. The Government told the public that things would be better when the gas or electricity supply was run by the private sector. However, over the past few weeks we have seen the chaos that has been created in our coalfields by the privatisation of our energy industry. The Conservative party believes that people will have more control and accountability as customers than as passengers of a public service. In the past, the Conservatives have said, "Your child will enjoy his or her school meal more if it is prepared by a private company rather than by school dinner ladies." They have said and continue to say, "Your hospital will be cleaner if it is cleaned by a private company rather than by your ward domestic who keeps stopping work to chat to you, ask how you are, make you laugh and then warn you not to burst your stitches."
In paragraph 5, the White Paper plays upon the frustrations of rail passengers and it makes the right analysis of the problems facing passengers, but it prescribes the wrong treatment. It states : "BR's staff and management work hard to improve services. But they are limited by the structure of the industry in the public sector." That is the wrong diagnosis and the wrong treatment for the problems facing BR. That is the Conservatives' privatisation con trick all over again. They cuddle close to rail travellers and say, "Don't worry. We know how you feel. We can assure you that your rail journey will be less frustrating if Mr. Branson runs the train than if BR runs it." However, the Secretary of State was tonight unable to reassure hon. Members when he was asked specific questions about the lack of detail in the White Paper.
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When passengers complain about BR, they are told that it is all BR's fault ; if only it was privatised, there would be no more unscheduled stops. It is claimed that prices will come down because there will be more competition. That is just not true, as our experience of other privatised monopolies has shown. Privatisation is not a panacea for the problems facing BR.I want briefly to illustrate the point by describing the problems that have faced water customers in my constituency. Residents in a road in Old Swan complained to the water authority that there were bits in their drinking water and were told that they were imagining it. They were told that they were the only people in the area complaining about it. They were told that their domestic pipes were the problem. One elderly woman bought a new washing machine, although she could ill afford it, when there was nothing wrong with the old one.
A survey of residents carried out by the Labour party showed that four out of five residents had experienced problems and a number of them had reported those problems. That is an example of how privatisations have not worked in many of the areas when the Government have forced them on the people of this country. I am happy to say that the water authority has undertaken to renew the mains supply, but there is no compensation for those who were persuaded that the remedy lay in their own hands.
What remedy will be available to rail travellers after privatisation? I do not know the answer to that and I have seen no remedies that will work. However, the Government will be able to say, "It's nothing to do with us now. Don't complain to us ; we are no longer responsible. Go and see the franchising authority." People will be told to go to the operators and Railtrack.
The Secretary of State will no longer be ultimately responsible for passenger safety. Paragraph 79 of the White Paper states : "The primary duty for guaranteeing the safe operation of the railway will rest with Railtrack and individual operators of trains, terminals, depots etc Railtrack and operators will be responsible for undertaking the necessary investment which will sustain safe operation".
That is different from the present situation where the Secretary of State is responsible. Who should be providing failsafe doors to prevent further tragedies in which people fall to their deaths from trains?
For those who rely on it, the rail network is vital to their ability to get to work or for the delivery of freight essential to their work. It is a key element in the management of our economy. That reason alone is good enough for me to believe that political accountability for the operation of the rail service is essential. I do not believe that privatised rail operators will pay sufficient heed to long-term regional planning that is so necessary, if not essential, for areas such as Merseyside and my constituency. Unless it is Government-led, how are we to see investment in a cross-Pennine rail link which would create a land bridge across Britain from Humberside to Merseyside and encourage the flow of freight and passengers to and from Scandinavia and northern Europe through Hull to Liverpool and on to Ireland?
With respect to greater choice, all I can see after privatisation for rail passengers is that the choice will be as
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it is now. Many of those passengers will do what I do now because the White Paper offers no hope to motorists like me who would rather travel by rail.8.57 pm
Mr. Peter Luff (Worcester) : We have always known that Blackpool is famous for fresh air and fun. Clearly, something in that air lends a passion for railways among hon. Members from that part of England. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) on his vigorous defence of the railways and, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Banks) on his vigorous and entertaining maiden speech. He talked of his problem of being mistaken for our hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Hendry). I fear that I suffer a worse fate ; I am regularly mistaken for my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Mr. Brandreth).
It is probably right that I declare two modest shareholdings, for I am a shareholder in two of Britain's highly successful private railways. I am a modest shareholder in the Severn Valley Railway. Therefore, I attach great importance to the comments of the hon. Member for York (Mr. Bayley) about the possible impact of the legislation on the national railway museum. I hope that the Minister will carefully consider that matter.
In response to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Broadgreen (Mrs. Kennedy), I am also a shareholder in Eurotunnel. Last week, I had the privilege of being on the first passenger train to go into the channel tunnel. Of course, the channel tunnel is a railway system rather than a tunnel. It is a very vigorous example of what the private sector can bring to transport in this country, and I congratulate all those involved in it. I unreservedly welcome the private sector's involvement in railways. Why should British Rail uniquely be disqualified from the advantages that privatisation has brought to other privatised industries--the private sector flair and capital ?
Many hon. Members heard the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley), but his views are not widely shared on Conservative Benches. However, Conservative Members share his view that the Government's objective should be a better railway, and we are convinced that the Government's proposals will provide precisely that.
I pay tribute to the present railways. I am a regular user of InterCity, of regional railways and Network SouthEast. Again, in response to the motoring hon. Member for Broadgreen, I wish that I could arrive as reliably at my destination by car as I can count on arriving by train.
I thoroughly endorse the comments of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about the radical change in British Rail's approach and performance in the past 10 years. On most measures of business performance, BR outperforms its European competitors. InterCity remains the only main line railway in Europe to operate profitably. It also runs more trains at more than 100 mph than any other European railway. We can look with confidence to the railway staff, many of whom will move to the new private sector operators to rise to the challenge of the private sector.
However, there are problems with the network. There is poor marketing at local level, and limited access to private capital. Investment policy is determined by the Treasury, not by need and, very worryingly in some recent
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developments in the railways, there is no transparency of charge which enables private operators to enter the market.In my constituency of Worcester, I see stations not fully exploited and their potential not fully explored. I see confusion, not clarity, about where to address complaints. I see timetables that are not consolidated for the benefit of the travelling public in the way that they are for bus services. It is difficult to work out how to get to London or understand the range of destinations that are served from my constituency. I see a destination--one could call it
in-fighting--between the three passenger sectors of the railways to provide through services to London, and that has significantly delayed the development of a good service. I am delighted that those problems will be resolved and that we will have the new turbo trains in next May's timetable. The success of those new through services will lead to enormous pressure on Railtrack for re-dualling of the Cotswold line between Worcester and Oxford.
The success or failure of the Bill will depend crucially on its detail. I am sure that the principle of franchising is absolutely right, but we must make it work in practice. In that context, I welcome the Government's clear commitment which Opposition Members have sought to criticise on many occasions and have sought to deny that we will subsidise those socially necessary services. However, I should like to raise several details with the Minister. I realise that he will not have an opportunity to reply to all of them, but I hope that he will be able to reassure me on them in due course. I am aware of the Secretary of State's comments about not pushing detail too far at this stage. We must let the consultation process and the various detailed documents that have been promised receive their due consideration. I congratulate the Government on their approach in that regard.
The hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill) has stolen some of my thunder about the apparent conflict between the length of franchises and the need for major capital investment by operators. The new class 91 locomotives which are operating successfully on the east coast main line cost about £8 million each and have a 30-year design life. The west coast main line urgently needs new trains, which will cost between £12 million and £15 million. The InterCity 125 units which serve my constituency and many other constituencies certainly will not last indefinitely, either.
We need to be sure that the franchise periods will be sufficiently long to encourage operators to make new investments. Those new investments are important not only for the manufacturers of that rolling stock and its locomotives but for the quality of service that the new private operators will provide. I also share the view that we must be sure that the Treasury will be prepared to commit subsidy over a long time. Indeed, the public expenditure survey must not be the limit of the franchise period.
Many hon. Members share the concern that more freight should be attracted on to the railways. I am confident that private-sector practices enhance that process. I am encouraged by Ministers' frequent assertions of the importance which they attach to that process.
It has been suggested to me most forcefully that more transparency of cost might increase the costs to freight operators and lead to disputes, for example, about the level of track maintenance required, which differs wildly between the high-quality run required for the 225 km per hour passenger trains and that required for heavy freight
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trains. I hope that the Minister will reassure me that the charging regime that is introduced will encourage the use of railways for freight transport.I am similarly encouraged that, although it is planned that the infrastructure and the rail track will remain in public ownership, paragraph 18 of the White Paper envisages possible private sector ownership in the long term. Will the Minister reassure me that, if a proposal comes from the private sector, earlier private ownership will be possible?
I am sure that every hon. Member attaches importance to network benefits for timetabling, through-ticketing and the national discount structure operated through the railcard system. I am convinced that the application of information technology could solve the timetabling and through-ticketing problems but what about the discounts, which are so appreciated by such a wide range of groups in my constituency?
My final detailed point is on how regulation will work. Will it be overseen by people steeped in the existing British Rail management style, techniques and practices or by new brooms from other sectors? In the privatisation of the telecommunications industry we saw the crucial importance of the effectiveness of Oftel. The qualities of Professor Bryan Carsberg will be called for in the regulator of the railways. I hope that we shall also have an assurance from the Minister that we will not follow the example of previous privatisations and call the office of the regulator "Ofrail". The principle of the forthcoming Bill is right. I look forward to its earliest possible introduction and the benefits that it will bring to all the passengers who will experience the services that will flow from it.
9.6 pm
Mr. Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) : There are many comments that I should like to make, but time, and the fact that I am a member of the Select Committee, dictate that I should reduce my remarks to several headings. I shall endeavour to do that.
Before doing so, I invite you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when you read your Hansard over cornflakes tomorrow morning, to reflect on the content of the speeches of Conservative Members. After the ritual congratulations to the Secretary of State on publishing with an innovative White Paper, there followed a catalogue of questions, followed by a litany of hope, as we heard in the speeches of the hon. Members for Worcester (Mr. Luff), for Hastings and Rye (Mrs. Lait), for Saffron Walden (Mr. Haselhurst) and for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins). Time after time they asked questions that are not answered in the two documents pumped out by the Secretary of State in recent weeks.
One must ask why there are so many unanswered questions. We must come back to the fact that the genesis of the documents before us today is not the present Secretary of State or Minister of State but the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, who dictated, along with her political colleagues, that British Rail should be privatised. The two Ministers inherited this chalice and have had to try to put something together. I know that they deny it, but I do not believe them. The Secretary of State and the Minister of State are decent people who have fallen among sinners. Effectively, they have had to cobble together something to present to
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Parliament because they inherited the policy from their predecessors. I do not believe that their hearts are in it. Nor have they been able to complete the job of presenting meaningful legislation. Consequently, we have been presented with an opaque White Paper. The Bill will be purely enabling legislation, and if it is passed and receives Royal Assent it will be a total abdication by Parliament of its capacity to control and shape the future of an important part of our transport system.What is happening with British Rail is similar to what happened with the poll tax. We were told that the rating system was unwelcome and we needed to find alternatives. However, when it was examined, generation after generation of people realised that it could not be done easily and painlessly. Similarly, rail privatisation has a superficial attraction, but on examination one finds it cannot be done while maintaining a national service and network and ensuring swift mobility, at low cost, in our cities.
If the legislation receives Royal Assent, Parliament will have ensured that parts of our rail network will be privatised without further debate in the House. I predict that Conservative Members and their successors will greatly regret a decision taken now which means that they were unable to influence, temper or reject the privatisation of key areas of our rail network. It shall have been a profound mistake. We would be abdicating the capacity to decide the shape of our rail network and who should control it to the franchising authority, and that is unprecedented, even in terms of this Government's privatisation programmes.
I know that the Minister of State will consider that I have repeatedly probed him on the issue of the British Transport police. I continue to do so because we never get a reply. I probed the matter in the Committee of the British Coal and British Rail (Transfer Proposals) Bill, in the Select Committee on Transport yesterday, and I shall do so again tonight. Why are the Government unable to tell the House what they intend to do about the much-respected and appreciated British Transport police who are vulnerable, especially if the Government succeed in their objective of privatising, as distinct from franchising, some of our rail network? If I am wrong, I cannot for the life of me understand why we must wait for another paper from the Minister of State. Why is he not able to reassure us, the public and the police at the Dispatch Box tonight?
The hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn) claimed to have the worst railway line in Britain within his constituency and dismissed my claim. I do not want to get into an auction with the hon. Member--I accept that we both have the worst railway lines within our constituencies.
The proposals before us are irrelevant to the needs of passengers and of customers, who have to try to tolerate the line from Dartford or the line which goes through my constituency, through Tilbury, Grays and Purfleet. If the proposals receive Royal Assent, these services are likely to be diminished still further. There is no prospect of either line being an attractive purchase or franchise for any sensible or prudent financial institution or individual. I fear that there will be a temptation to give away the real estate and the service to the present managers of such
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lines. I underline the word "managers" as distinct from employees. Much has been unfairly said about the bulk of British Rail employees, who have to endure the irritation of many passengers who must tolerate the appalling travelling conditions on the Dartford and Tilbury lines and elsewhere. However, it is not within the employees' capacity to improve those services. The Government, the management of British Rail and the line managers are to blame. I fear that the line managers are already making dispositions to enable them to get the franchise on those lines.I have no confidence in the line managers of the Tilbury and Southend line and nor have passengers, customers or employees. I hope that there will be no nonsense whereby the managers will be given the almost exclusive opportunity to place a cosmetic bid for those lines. That would be unacceptable and would compound the irritation of passengers and the bulk of employees.
I find it breathtaking to listen to the hon. Member for Blackpool, South bleating about the loss of his InterCity service. He is in part to blame, and I hope that his constituents will note that. He has acquiesced in a situation in which InterCity is viewed as a profit centre. It is clearly being pruned to make it attractive for privatisation. Presumably he will support that in the Lobby. I hope that he will pay dearly for it at the next general election. Mr. Hawkins rose --
9.14 pm
Mr. Hartley Booth (Finchley) : The debate has been long and informed and--as Conservative Members always do--I have welcomed the depth of information and experience that we have heard about from Opposition Members. That is why I have been so surprised that, despite their experience of British Rail, they do not understand, as Conservative Members do, that British Rail's network was built by private money ; that for two thirds of the life of that system it was run by the private sector ; and that some of the great exports through this country have been railway exports under the private sector. Yet there has been no ghost of a hint by the Opposition of the fact that during that period--100 years of private sector management--there was enormous initiative.
In 1902, stenographers were provided on the railway to Broad street. Hon. Members, had they have been travelling on the trains, could have had their letters written. Such was the imagination and initiative under the private sector. None of that was heard from Opposition Members.
So what is the prospect for the future? The hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill) told us that he had never heard of proposals by management that the two sides of the railway, the track and the running operations, be separated. In 1947, a book was written by the management of the London and North-eastern Railway called "An Alternative to Nationalisation". They were fighting the Labour party in those days. They proposed then that the track should be separated from the operating part of the railway. It was a good idea and it is part, perhaps, of what we have seen in the White Paper today.
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I have only a few minutes and all of us have an agenda of questions, so I shall ask only three main questions. First, I see a danger with this privatisation at which many of us on the Conservative Benches have hinted. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is hearing these points about which we are very anxious as well as our welcome for the White Paper. The question is : if a number of different operators are bidding for a particular good service, such as the 8 o'clock on the east coast route, who will decide who gets it?Are we to fill the pockets of more lawyers? Do we have to have an arbitration system? We have heard of "Ofrail". I hope we shall not be derailed in all this. We need to have a private sector body, a private independent body, that commands the respect of the public, to decide those matters quickly and effectively.
We also need--I refer to page 2 and paragraph 8 of the White Paper, "New Opportunities for Railways"--a reference to interchanges. In all our transport training and practice, transport has been dealt with in boxes, such as air, water, rail and road. It needs to be dealt with in interchanges. I want to see opportunities for interchanges between stations and car parks surrounding the stations and I want the airspace over railways to be used for urban regeneration and not used for the wrong purposes. I do not want the question of interchanges or airspace to be forgotten in what is proposed.
I welcome this proposal and the Government's initiative. It shows the Government's typical courage to deal with complex issues. I also welcome the Government's desire to sweep away the cobwebs of the past and their determination to enter the next century by harnessing the ideas, the money and the initiative of the private sector for the passenger--a concept that the Labour party will never understand. 9.19 pm
Mr. Peter Snape (West Bromwich, East) : I have seldom, in almost 20 years in the House, known a Bill to be welcomed with so many qualifications. Some of the earlier enthusiasm for the Bill expressed by Conservative Members was rapidly qualified as it dawned on them that, just in their constituencies, it was perhaps not such a good thing ; a case of capitalism red in tooth and claw--but not too much of it these days in Finchley, I notice, listening to the hon. Member for Finchley (Mr. Booth), and not at all in Blackpool.
We had a tirade from the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkings) about idle and slothful railwaymen. Then suddenly realisation dawned that, with a majority of 1,640, or whatever it is, that was rather a risky strategy, so the idle railwaymen were not present in Blackpool any more.
The whole tenor of today's debate has been a welcome for the forthcoming Bill from those with ambitions on the Conservative Benches, albeit hedged with all sorts of qualifications in the light of the fact that their ambitions might not be realised if the Bill, as envisaged by the Secretary of State and his faithful acolyte, were implemented in the way that we think it might be. I say "think" because if ever there was an imprecise White Paper before the House, it is this one.
I do not want to harp for too long on the speech of the hon. Member for Blackpool, South because, to be honest, I do not think that it is worth it, but he talked about a
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consultative document. I am no great procedural expert, but I always thought that a White Paper was an indication of what the Government intended to do--a precursor to legislation. Yet any detailed questions from either side of the Chamber today were greeted earlier by the Secretary of State saying, "Wait and see." A positive myriad of documents are to be produced early next year.Mr. Hawkins rose --
Mr. Snape : It is too early yet. The hon. Gentleman must contain himself.
Her Majesty's Stationery Office is already geared up. It will be working overtime all next year producing documents to explain the legislation that we here today are supposed to be discussing. The Secretary of State and the Conservative party will have to forgive me some puzzlement about exactly in which direction this train is heading, or, looking at the two characters opposite, who is the driver and who is the fireman.
First, and in a non-partisan way, I congratulate the hon. Member for Southport (Mr. Banks) on a maiden speech which was fluent and concise. I hope that I do not blight his promotion prospects by so doing. I do not know why we have had to wait so long for a speech that was so assured. I noted with some interest that he was receiving Refreshment Department bills for his namesake, the hon. Member for Harrogate (Mr. Banks). He is lucky that he is not receiving them for his other namesake, my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks). Hon. Members on both sides of the House will join me in saying that we hope to hear the hon. Gentleman often in the future. The concept of railway privatisation is based on a myth. Ministers continually talk about a railway monopoly, as if the only way to get from A to B in Britain were to take the train. But competition in transport exists here as elsewhere. Given the British devotion to the company car and the well-founded view within the Department of Transport that the heavy goods vehicle is a good thing, greater competition probably faces the railway industry in Britain more than anywhere else in western Europe.
The Government continually peddle another myth about the railway industry. They portray the industry as an inefficient uncaring outfit which, if it only enjoyed the bracing effect of private sector involvement, would be miraculously transformed.
As recently as yesterday, while he was giving evidence to the Select Committee, I understand that the Secretary of State referred to British Rail as a monolithic monopoly. The prospect of an intelligent dialogue with a Secretary of State as capable of self-delusion as that makes those hon. Members on both sides of the House who care about the future of the railway industry despair. Where is the monopoly for travellers between, for example, Birmingham and London? After all, having just spent millions of pounds on the M40 motorway, presumably to allow car drivers to avoid the monopoly of the M1, and given that British Midland airways runs an occasional--albeit somewhat expensive--service between Birmingham International and London Heathrow, where is the monolithic monopoly referred to by the Secretary of State? The fact is that it does not exist, and nothing that Conservative Members have said justifies that assertion.
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The problem about any rational discussion with Ministers about the future of the railway industry is that they appear to be motivated entirely by an ideology and dogma that would have seemed quaint and unrealistic even to the much-vaunted Victorians who built our railway system in the first place. The danger of the whole nonsensical exercise in the White Paper is the damage that is being done, and will be done, to a railway system already rotting away after 13 years of hostility and indifference by Secretaries of State who have come and gone faster than the Gatwick express.The most obvious danger in the Government's proposals is their effect on the overall operation of the railway system. Despite the popular view that anyone can run a railway--a view that is obviously shared by the Thomas the Tank Engine personalities who inhabit the Department of Transport--it is an enormously complex system which operates on a 24-hour, seven-day a week basis. Many thousands of people, in a myriad different grades within the overall structure, co-operate together with the objective of providing a service to both passenger and freight for the public and the country. That system works as well as it does only because all those people share that goal and are pulling in the same direction.
It may be hard for the Conservative party to appreciate, in these cynical days, the fact that most of the people involved in our railway industry share a sense of achievement at the end of a successful working day. Those who clean the trains, often very early in the morning or late at night ; those responsible for planning and the safe passage of the journey ; drivers and signalmen who shepherd a train safely along its route ; and those responsible for planning that and the turns of duty--all share a sense of pride in the railway industry which not even 13 years of attack by successive Secretaries of State in the present Administration has reduced.
As a former railwayman who worked on the railway until the trumpet sounded for the 1974 general election, and as the son of a railwayman, may I say with personal pride that the non-stop denigration of those who work in that great industry is extremely dispiriting. Many of them, underpaid as they are, feel strongly about the services that they want to provide and have genuine fears. They have fears not only for their jobs--such fears are human--but genuine fears which many of them express to me about the future of the railway industry if those barmy proposals are implemented.
Mr. Hawkins : The hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to the fact that several Conservative Members have referred to a minority of rail employees who let the side down. I am sure that he would not wish to defend those who let the side down. We have all paid tribute to the high standards of the majority and I wish to do so again, but the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott)--
Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman may make a brief intervention, not a speech.
Mr. Snape : The hon. Gentleman has made that point before and we all know why--he must look over his shoulder. I shall go to Blackpool again shortly and when I meet the local branch of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers--the RMT--I shall say
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that the hon. Gentleman expressed concern about its members' welfare and job prospects. I have no doubt that they will give him the same support as they have given him in the past--[ Hon. Members :-- "He got elected."] Aye, but only just. He might be a Member of Parliament in Blackpool temporarily, but I remember Blackpool when it was one of the safest Tory seats in the country. I confidently prophesy that the hon. Gentleman's constituency will be back in the Labour camp by the next general election. He will end up leaning on his broomstick on Blackpool North platform.The core of the Government's philosophy hinges on the right of access to the railway network for private sector operators, both passenger and freight. If I can take the Conservative party no further, its members will at least agree with me about that. Whether they will seek such access depends on the price charged by publicly owned Railtrack, operating as it does under the direct control of the regulator, whose qualifications, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) said, do not include a working knowledge of railways.
We believe that the most likely outcome of these proposals for freight transport will be that they will bring even more joy to the Road Haulage Association, despite the fond hopes expressed by Conservative Members. It will be more expensive to carry freight by rail under the new regime, when subsidies to rail freight will be forbidden, just as they are now. Rail freight is not subsidised, although in the opinion of many of us, given railways' enormous environmental benefits, it should be. At the moment, however, freight enjoys a favourable charging regime on the railway network, although nowhere near as favourable as that granted to road operators. Where freight trains share track with passenger trains, by and large they bear only the marginal costs of the track and signalling along the route.
It is impossible to imagine that such a system will continue when a multiplicity of private operators are seeking to operate freight trains in the way the Secretary of State fondly imagines they will. I am intrigued when I listen to Conservatives and Ministers talking about the need to attract freight from road to rail. Let us not worry about what is in the White Paper or about what may happen in future--although worry we will. Let us look at what has happened over the past year while Ministers have been telling us that freight will be transferred from road to rail--or at least, that that is their objective.
In the past 12 months, we have witnessed the collapse and withdrawal of the Speedlink wagon-load network from British Rail. The lines between Cambridge and Fendrayton, Yate and Tytherington, and Alves and Burghead in Scotland have all closed. We expect the line from Northallerton to Redmire to close later this year, and under review are no fewer than five freight lines in various parts of the country. Among the terminals closed in the past year, while the much-vaunted policy of the transfer from road to rail has been in action, have been Hawkhead in Paisley, Ridham Dock near Sheerness, the Bristol Freightliner terminal, Roseisle in Grampian, South Lyan in Norfolk, and Eccles Road in Norfolk, in the constituency of the Secretary of State himself. If that is the experience of rail freight under the current regime, how much worse matters will be once, and if, this nonsense is implemented.
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The whole track charging regime to which I have referred is shrouded in mist even denser than that which surrounds the Government's economic strategy. Earlier this year, the Minister of State gave a keynote address to a rail privatisation seminar entitled "Deregulation and open access", held under the auspices of the Institution of Civil Engineers. I am sorry that I was not there ; I was invited, but I had another engagement. Nevertheless, I did read the Minister's speech, in which he said that Britain had"played an active role in framing an EC directive on the development of European Railways".
I am always fascinated to hear Ministers telling us how we lead Europe and are at the heart of Europe.
The Minister went on to talk about access rights for rail freight customers under the new proposals and he asked a number of questions about how they would work. Unsurprisingly, as he could not answer his own questions--the Secretary of State still cannot answer them--he played safe. Instead of adopting a former Prime Minister's view, that one should set up a royal commission that took minutes to set up and years to report, this Government engage consultants to present these reports.
In January the previous Secretary of State appointed Coopers and Lybrand and told it to report in June. Perhaps it could not find any answers because it never reported. But that did not faze the Minister who, if nothing else, is a resourceful chap, and he appointed Mercers to carry out the same exercise. This is the Government who lecture us about the need for careful stewardship of public money. I hope that both reports will be placed in the Library. I am sure that the Minister has received the first report and that it does not match his conclusions. We can compare the two and discover what public money was spent on and the expensive conclusions.
The Government's proposals have no friends. Conservative Members have given them a muted welcome. The hon. Member for Dartford (Mr. Dunn), who is not in his place, is presumably waiting to catch a train on the Dartford loop. I can hardly wait to see all the Richard Branson imitators waiting to buy the Dartford loop when the proposals are implemented. The hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mrs. Lait) spoke about being at the end of a branch line and about how wonderful it would be for private enterprise. Obviously she does not know much about the history of the Hastings line. Private enterprise made such a good job of building it that the tunnels were defective and British Rail had to install signals at them. Before that the much attacked publicly owned British Rail had to build special trains to fit the tunnels. The hon. Lady appears to be digging up a few Victorians. Does she think that there will be many buyers for the Hastings line or that a comprehensive network service would operate on it? The hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Haselhurst) also gave the proposals a muted welcome and posed some preceptive questions to which the Minister had no answer. In his winding-up speech the Minister of State will tell the hon. Gentleman, as he told the rest of us, that next year a series of documents will be produced. The House is being treated with utter contempt. The Government want to do something about the railways but they are not sure what, so they dress up dogma to look like policy and place it before the House. They have not been able to answer a single question on the vital matters that must be discussed before any legislation is presented.
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What about railway safety? Which of the would-be railway kings will pay for the signal protection system on which millions of pounds of public money is currently being spent? Who will pay for the safety training of railway employees? About 5,000 people per year are killed on the roads, while in three of the past 10 years no passengers were killed in a moving train accident on British Rail. Such a glittering record is expensive. Who will pay for it in future? The Secretary of State will not tell us but says that he will produce a consultative document next year. That is not much use in the context of legislation that is to appear in November.Of course not just the working railway costs a great deal of public money. Who will pay for the maintenance of bridges and viaducts and the other structures on closed branch lines that are still owned by British Rail? We shall pay, and while we are doing so the profitable segments of British Rail will be parcelled up and sold to the private sector. Is that how the profit motive is to be demonstrated in the legislation?
No fewer than 60 rail user groups, the customers who Conservatives say they are concerned about, came together as recently as last week to attack the White Paper and the philosophy behind it. The statutory Transport Users Consultative Committee was appointed by the Government. The former leader of the Conservative party said that her first question about any appointee was, "Is he one of us?" Presumably, many of the committee's members are "one of us" in the Conservative party's terms ; yet they too have condemned the proposals in the White Paper, and the likely legislation.
Let me end on a non-controversial note--I do not like controversy when it is not necessary. Let me pray in aid an organisation that rarely finds itself on the same side as the Labour party--although the more it sees of the activities of the present Government, the further it moves in our direction. I refer, of course, to the CBI, which published a press release last Wednesday headed "BR privatisation : CBI signals at amber". The CBI feared that the proposals lacked "clarity and detail"--in spades, one might add. It went on to say that they
"ought to be seen within the context of a more coherent transport strategy."
I do not want to baffle the Secretary of State by using such jargon as "transport strategy", because I know that that is a philosophy that he has long eschewed : indeed, he and his Minister of State are very anxious to avoid it.
The CBI added :
"if further reflection needed by the Government causes them to delay the timetable, so be it the overriding concern of CBI members is not primarily one of ownership but one of how the quality and level of railway services can be improved."
I am sorry if all this bores the Secretary of State, who is yawning. If he had listened to more of the debate, he might be a bit livelier. He has probably been travelling on Stagecoach, which I understand is a pretty unsuccessful way of travelling between England and Scotland. [Interruption.] I must remind the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes) that Whips are traditionally silent. I am not surprised that he is making sedentary interventions : he is wasting his own party's time by provoking me in this way.
Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. I think that questions of order can safely be left to me.
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Mr. Snape : As long as you are in the Chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will not trust them with anyone else.
The CBI concluded :
"As the proposals currently stand, there will be a daunting array of regulators involved in the running of the railways. Far from encouraging private sector interest, there is a real danger that privatisation will be a blueprint for bureaucracy. We urge the Government to think hard before moving ahead with the legislation." So do we--and, in their heart of hearts, so do many Conservative Members.
9.41 pm
The Minister for Public Transport (Mr. Roger Freeman) : The argument advanced by the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape)--that the Government are consulting on the detail of their proposals and should not be doing so--is unconvincing. The whole purpose of the exercise--the whole purpose of producing a White Paper and then debating it, in advance of legislation--is to enable the views of the House to be understood and, indeed, to consult widely. That is exactly what we are doing. If we had presented a cut and dried policy down to the last detail, the hon. Gentleman would have been the first to criticise us for doing so.
We have set out our principles clearly. We have not sought to set out the implications in detail, and I think that that is right. The details can be discussed in the Committee stage of a Bill that will receive overwhelming Conservative support on Second Reading. If the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East thinks that he can build a case for the defeat of the legislation on the speeches of two hon. Members and one right hon. Member-- whom I greatly respect, and I shall deal with the points that they made--he has another think coming. Let me correct what the hon. Gentleman said about the use of consultants. He has confused two tasks. Coopers and Lybrand was appointed to propose the new basis of track charging by Railtrack. It has not completed its work ; when it has done so, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will publish its conclusions and deposit them in the Library of the House. Mercers is examining the structure of the freight industry, which has nothing to do with track charging. As my right hon. Friend said, when we receive its report in the new year, we will bring its recommendations for sale of the assets to the attention of the House.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) said that the railways can be privately owned, that he had no great argument about whether the railways should be public or private and that the issue was taxpayer support. We have made it plain that revenue support will continue. About £1 billion is going to Network SouthEast and Regional Railways. The Secretary of State said clearly that that regime will continue. We have also said, regarding the infrastructure, which will be Railtrack's responsibility, that Railtrack's revenue costs will be recovered by charges to passenger and freight trains but that the public sector will support Railtrack in the way that it supports any nationalised industry--through Railtrack's ability to borrow.
We have gone further than that. In answer to the hon. Member for North Devon (Mr. Harvey), we said that we had announced a change in the appraisal rules. Everybody will broadly welcome that change. When Railtrack appraises new infrastructure investment, non-user benefits will be taken into account. The appraisal of new electrification schemes will become much more like that
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