House of Commons Hansard Debates for 8 Feb 1993

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Mr. Wilson : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman is in order, in the interests of spinning it out, in dealing with a clause that has been withdrawn.

Mr. Deputy Speaker : We are dealing with the Second Reading of the Bill before us. Such issues as may arise in Committee are not for this evening's proceedings.

Mr. Brown : I wonder what the hon. Gentleman would have said last week when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State presented the Railways Bill if he had been told that clause 2 of the Bill would not apply. I wonder what he would have said if my right hon. Friend had said, "We hope that the shadow spokesman for transport will not debate clause 2 because we have said that we will not pursue it on Third Reading." The hon. Gentleman would have replied--

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. I have ruled on that issue. I thought that we were departing to Brigg now.

Mr. Brown : We are, indeed, departing to Brigg by a British Rail train, if they will allow us. I shall deal at an appropriate moment with clause 24, to which amendments have been proposed. I support clause 24 and I am certain that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield supports it. I am certain that he would make a powerful speech inviting the House not to delete clause 24 on Report if it was proposed to do so and would vote in the Lobby accordingly. If my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley thinks that we can dispose of clause 24 like that, he has another thing coming. We cannot dispose of British Rail's refusal to amend the Inclosure Act 1796 just like that.

The main part of the Bill that affects my constituency is schedules 1 and 2, which are referred to in clause 22. Those parts of the Bill refer to two works. The first is the strengthening of the embankment of the line between Gainsborough and Grimsby. I wish to describe that railway line to the House so that it can understand the implications of the work. I shall do so in a moment.

The other work is the strengthening of the embankment at Mill lane of the railway line between Gainsborough and Grimsby. Everyone knows that line does not go from Gainsborough to Grimsby only. The terminus of that line is Cleethorpes. Why has the Bill used the word Grimsby rather than Cleethorpes? I shall tell the House why. One day, if British Rail gets its way, it will chop the line between Grimsby and Cleethorpes. So in all the legislation relating to my constituency British Rail never refers to the line from Manchester to Cleethorpes, Gainsborough to Cleethorpes or London to Cleethorpes. It talks about the line to Grimsby.

Mr. Wilson : As the hon. Gentleman obviously intends to spin it out anyway, we might as well all join in. Will he confirm that under the Government's legislation--which, as far as we know, he supports--it will not be up to British Rail to chop any line? It will be up to Railtrack, which is a new creation. Poor old British Rail, or whichever franchise operator exists, will suffer under a financial regime that forces it to cut off services to places such as Cleethorpes, or other branches of the inter City services that have been lost in that area. Operators will have to do so not through any wish of theirs but as a result of the financial imperatives imposed upon them by the Government.

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Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. Before the hon. Gentleman is tempted down that route, I must inform him that he cannot anticipate other legislation. He must consider the Bill before us now.

Mr. Brown : To keep within the rules of order, I shall describe to the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) the way in which the railway service currently operates through, to and from Brigg. I am prepared temporarily to confine my arguments to the railway line between Grimsby and Gainsborough.

To set the proposals at Brigg in context, I must advise the House that a single spur railway line goes from Barnetby to Cleethorpes. One can travel by rail from Cleethorpes, through Barnetby and on to Manchester. Unfortunately, as the hon. Member for Rotherham said, the train does not stop at Rotherham. One can also travel from Cleethorpes to Barnetby and on to the second spur to Newark, or to Sheffield via the Gainsborough and Grimsby line.

British Rail says that it needs to strengthen the embankment of the line at Mill lane in Brigg and in the parish of Scawby near Brigg, because it wants to be able to run trains at 75 mph instead of 30 mph. It says that that is to enable customers to reach their destination without delay and inconvenience. It says :

"the state of this embankment is such that traffic is forced to reduce speed from 75 mph to under 30 mph with the result that services take longer to reach their destination thereby causing delay and inconvenience to the Board's customers."

Let us consider who the customers are on that line. About three years ago, British Rail wrote to me and to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) to tell us that it was going to take away the service and to use the provisions of the Transport Act 1985 to engage in what is called bus substitution. British Rail intended to operate a statutory bus service because it did not consider that there was a market for the rail line between Grimsby and Gainsborough. It seems extraordinary that three years later my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley should bring before the House a proposal to strengthen the embankment on a line that was going to be closed to passengers.

How was the passenger service restored? It was because my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle and I kicked up such a fuss and told my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury--who was then the Minister with responsibility for railways--why we thought that it was wrong for the passenger service to be withdrawn. So it has been retained.

For ease of reference, I have obtained from the House of Commons Library timetable 29 from British Rail's all systems timetable, which gives times for trains from Gainsborough to Grimsby. The line covers the stations of Cleethorpes, Habrough, Barnetby, Brigg and Kirton in Lindsey in my constituency and goes on to Gainsborough central. Three trains a day, in each direction, run on the line where the work is to be done. The first train from Brigg to Gainsborough Central--even if one is able to go at 75 mph instead of 30 mph--is at 11.32 am. I do not know what sort of person will want to travel at 75 mph instead of 30 mph to Gainsborough Central at that time of the morning. The journey takes until 11.56 am, which according to my reckoning is about 14 minutes. So the only type of person likely to use the train at that time

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Mr. Wilson : The hon. Gentleman should check his figures.

Mr. Brown : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. My secondary modern education has clearly come to the fore. I failed my 11-plus and I think that mathematics was one of the reasons. The journey from Brigg to Kirton takes 24 minutes. Let us suppose that I wanted to visit my goddaughter--the daughter of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle--and that I set off on the first train at 11.32 am. Unfortunately, due to the level of service that British Rail provides on the line, that is the only sort of journey that one can use it for.

There is no prospect of anyone using the service who works normal office or industrial hours, such as a workman or skilled worker who wants to get to the steelworks in Sheffield. They would want to use it during the rush hour. There is no way that a college student in Brigg could use the service to go to Sheffield and it is no use to children going to school. Some parents in Gainsborough send their children to Brigg preparatory school--it is a private school, so many Opposition Members might say, "A good thing, too"--but they have to drive them there.

The opportunities for passengers to save themselves a certain amount of time merely represents wasted time. Who will use the 11.32 service from Brigg to Gainsborough? What will happen if one speeds up the service, bearing in mind the fact that the trains in question will stop once between Brigg and Gainsborough?

Mr. Kevin Hughes : Perhaps the hon. Gentleman's constituents want to visit Doncaster to use its fine shopping facilities, particularly the market, which is open on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. They may want to visit that market to make some fine purchases.

Mr. Brown : That would be possible if my constituents took the train from Barnetby to Doncaster. I should remind the hon. Gentleman that it is not possible to travel to Doncaster on the train in question, from Brigg, on the Sheffield line, without changing at Retford. If one took the 11.32 am and changed at Retford, however, one would arrive at Doncaster at 12.9 pm. I suspect that most of my constituents would travel from Barnetby, on the Scunthorpe line, to Doncaster, which is on the Manchester line to which my hon. Friend for Blackpool, South referred earlier.

The people who will benefit from travelling at 75 mph and who will no longer be inconvenienced by delays as a result of weaknesses in the embankment at Scawby and Brigg, at Mill lane, will be those travelling at midday, for one reason or another, from Brigg, through Kirkton in Lindsey, to Gainsborough.

The next train from Brigg goes at 3.10 pm and the final train goes at 8.4 pm and reaches Gainsborough at 8.26 pm. For some reason, that same journey takes 22 minutes rather than 24 minutes. I am not sure how that is possible, but that is the way British Rail timetables work. It will never cease to amaze me how the final train, which makes the exact same journey, arrives two minutes earlier. Perhaps the fact that the driver is heading for home and the train is going to bed makes for a quicker journey. Three trains from Brigg to Gainsborough will benefit from the work outlined in the Bill. The return journey is even more quixotic. Train No. 1 sets off from Gainsborough at 9.2 am and gets to Brigg at

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9.23. That train arrives just too late for those who may work in Brigg, especially if they have to get to work for 9 am. It is too late for college students attending the sixth-form college in Brigg, which now takes students from across the county boundary in Lincolnshire. I cannot imagine that there is any great demand for that train.

Three trains travel between Brigg and Kirkton in Lindsey, at 30 mph. Under the fine proposals in the Bill, those trains will be able to travel at 75 mph. At the moment, at 30 mph, two trains from Brigg take 24 minutes and one takes 22, but the journey in the reverse direction takes just 21 minutes. Perhaps hon. Members can use their mathematical abilities to enlighten the House. Is that the reason for the variation in the timetables?

Mr. Norris : I am following this part of my hon. Friend's speech with immense interest. I am not very good at this sort of thing, but could the reason not be that on one leg of the journey the train is going uphill, while it is going downhill on the other?

Mr. Brown : I had not thought of that. However, two minutes are still unaccounted for--the two minutes that separate the last train home to Gainsborough from the slower train that travels from Brigg to Gainsborough at the beginning of the day. I am prepared to concede that Brigg is probably slightly higher than Gainsborough on the Ordnance Survey map ; there is a small incline on the road journey.

Mr. Boyce : The hon. Gentleman has already said that the trains concerned are travelling at 30 mph. Surely they will be travelling at 30 mph whether they are going uphill or downhill. I may be wrong ; perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) will point out some anomalies in my theory. I have always assumed, however, that 30 mph is 30 mph, whether a vehicle is going uphill, downhill, sideways, horizontally or vertically.

Mr. Brown : I am not trying to suggest that a vehicle travels faster when it is going downhill at 30 mph than when it is going uphill at that speed. Even with my limited mathematical ability, I recognise that that is not possible. Some years ago, when I was studying for O-levels, I encountered a question on logic and scientific method in the mathematics paper--O-level papers were a good deal more difficult than GCSE papers are now. The question asked whether a ton of steel was heavier than a ton of feathers. The reference by the hon. Member for Rotherham to the speed of railway trains travelling in opposite directions strikes me as rather akin to that O-level question.

Mr. Wilson : I note that only 49 minutes remain, and I know that the hon. Gentleman has quite a few timetables to get through in that time. Will he spare a moment to tell us why he is opposed to a proposal that will make an embankment safer?

Mr. Brown : I will do a deal with British Rail. Three years ago, British Rail made a case to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle and me for taking away the passenger service, and I am prepared to acknowledge that that case may have been acceptable.

Let us assume that only three trains a day are travelling between Brigg and Gainsborough, with a passenger service

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travelling from Cleethorpes through Grimbsy, branching at Barnetby just before Brigg, down through the line to Newark in Nottinghamshire, carrying on to King's Cross--in other words, the high- speed 125 direct service, which I can still catch to my constituency, but which in some 16 weeks' time, on 12 May, my constituents will be unable to catch because the service is being withdrawn. It is rather like the experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South : we too are to lose the direct high-speed 125 service.

Mr. Wilson rose --

Mr. Brown : I will give way in a moment, when I have developed the beginning of what the hon. Gentleman will have recognised is a most important argument for allowing the embankment at Brigg to continue in its present state. I am not suggesting for a moment that the line should be operated unless it is safe ; but it is safe at 30 mph, whereas it is not safe at 75 mph unless the works are done. I understand that the total cost of these works will be more than £2 million. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley will be able to tell me the precise cost of the two embankment improvements, which the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North says need carrying out for safety reasons. Of course, as long as three passenger services a day run over these embankments I do not want any risk to be taken with human life--but that is not what would happen if these works were not undertaken. The services would merely continue exactly as they are, with the current speed restrictions.

Mr. Wilson : We are gradually getting somewhere, albeit at 30 mph or less. We seem to have established that this jolly jape has nothing to do with the arguments that the hon. Gentleman has been adducing but more to do with a complaint--perhaps legitimate--about the withdrawal of an adjacent InterCity service. Given that fact, and given the hon. Gentleman's protestations of concern for his constituents, does he think that good enough reason to obstruct other measures in the Bill that are for the benefit of other hon. Members' constituents' safety?

Mr. Brown : The main safety provision--the strengthening works-- relate to my constituency. I am not obstructing anything. The Order Paper tells me that at 10 pm the House can come to a conclusion on this matter. I am not aware that any other hon. Member wants to address the House. I would never dream of trying to prevent other hon. Members from speaking either for or against the Bill--

Mr. Waller : I am grateful for that assurance. My hon. Friend has raised a number of legitimate points which deserve an answer. He has said that he would not obstruct anyone who sought to intervene. I am sure that he would agree that it would help the House if answers could be given it. With the leave of the House, I should like to speak again, to answer the points that my hon. Friend has raised. Bearing in mind his assurance, I should be grateful if he allowed me to do that in, say, 20 minutes' time.

Mr. Brown : I think, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that my hon. Friend can catch my eye and intervene with his answers to each question that I pose. I seem to recall that at the beginning of the debate, when I sought to intervene in my

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hon. Friend's speech to ask him to consider the legitimate questions posed by the people of Brigg, he was unwilling to give way. He gave way reluctantly on a second occasion.

We have massess of time in the House ; there is no question of obstruction. This is a three-hour debate. That is a perfectly reasonable length of time for anyone to say what he wants to. The hon. Member for Cunninghame, North wants to go home to bed early. He can do so--the debate will conclude at 10 pm, as it must under the rules of the House. I assure him that this is no jolly jape. I will ensure that his comments are drawn to the attention of my constituents.

It is certainly no jolly jape attempting to make a rail journey on the line between Cleethorpes and Manchester, via the

Scunthorpe-Doncaster line or via the Gainsborough-Kirton in Lindsey line-- the subject of all this expenditure--or via the line to Newark down to King's Cross. I have been doing the journey for 17 years, and if the hon. Gentleman would like to try doing it for one week he will find that it is no jolly jape.

I assure the House that I have serious, legitimate concerns about the works to be engaged in by British Rail. The high-speed 125 service was introduced in a blaze of glory in 1982, when British Rail took away four direct trains from Cleethorpes to London and introduced in their stead a single high- speed rail service. It invited me to ride shotgun with the driver, and all sorts of fancy receptions were held. Yet the service is to go now, because BR says that my constituents are not paying enough in fares to make the service pay.

Tonight British Rail proposes massive expenditure on an embankment to carry three trains--at times when people cannot possibly use the service to get to work, college or school--to run in each direction between Brigg and Gainsborough. That is not a jolly jape ; it is a serious constituency concern.

I hope that, if my constituents have the good fortune to hear these exchanges tonight on their local radio or in the television programmes that broadcast our proceedings, they will understand that the hon. Gentleman thinks that this is some kind of joke. I assure him that it is not. This is a crucial policy discussion on British Rail's expenditure and appropriation, or rather misappropriation--that is the joke, although I do not think that we should laugh at it. It is a joke to go to a firm of environmental consultants and to produce an environmental assessment of clauses that the House will be invited to withdraw on Report and Third Reading.

Mr. Wilson : The hon. Gentleman speaks about his constituents knowing what is going on. I wish that his constituents could be supplied with a video of this debate so that they could see the hon. Gentleman in full and glorious flight. He spoke about going home to bed. I shall not be going home to bed anyway. Like most hon. Members, I do not like to see stunts, which is what the hon. Gentleman is performing. The hon. Gentleman seems to confirm that by saying that he is not arguing against the service but is using the Bill and the issue within it coincidentally to air his doubtless legitimate grievance about the withdrawal of InterCity services.

The hon. Gentleman is complaining in dramatic terms and at inordinate length about the withdrawal of the InterCity service to Cleethorpes. He had better prepare himself for a few more one or two-hour stunts, because the logic of his Government's legislation is that many more

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InterCity services will be withdrawn. British Rail cannot be blamed for that. It is the fault of the Government who have imposed financial objectives on BR which require these closures, and privatisation will ensure many more withdrawals of direct InterCity services. The hon. Gentleman cannot escape from that logic and no amount of histrionics will get him off that hook.

Mr. Brown : That is simply not the case and it is not true. Under the present structure it is the nationalised British Rail which is withdrawing services and misappropriating expenditure in my constituency. Thank goodness I can look to the Government's Bill to franchise services and to come to the aid of my constituents. [Interruption.] British Rail has taken decisions about services in my constituency on the basis of its current standing as a nationalised corporation. British Rail gave notice in 1992, nearly a year ago, that it proposed to withdraw services from Cleethorpes to London and at that time there was no Government legislation on the table. The Government's current Bill will give my constituents opportunities and challenges which British Rail seems intent upon taking away. I look forward with enthusiasm to further debate on the legislation that was introduced to the House last week.

Mr. Wilson : I should like to clarify the hon. Gentleman's argument. Does he think that a private franchisee will reintroduce an InterCity service from London to Cleethorpes? Would a private franchisee have been more likely to introduce such a service in the first place? Many InterCity services have been pruned. Night sleeper services in some areas and some direct services from Scotland have been lost, but I at least have the sense and consistency to realise that InterCity has to do that to meet financial objectives. Neither the hon. Gentleman, who gets into an enormous lather of outrage about the loss of the direct service from London to Cleethorpes, nor any of his hon. Friends should be under any misapprehension. Enfranchisement or privatisation--call it what we will--will lead to the loss of many more direct InterCity services. If all Conservative Members feel as nervous about it as the hon. Gentleman does, we shall have many similar entertainments in the months ahead from Tory Back Benchers.

Mr. Brown : The hon. Gentleman is plain wrong, but he has asked me a specific question, which I shall answer. Provided that British Rail does not operate a scorched earth policy and does not allow a gap in the timetable so that ther is no going concern between the end of the service in May and the enactment of the Bill, there is hope for the service. Along with the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), I have proposed to my hon. Friend the Minister for Public Transport and to British Rail that British Rail gives an undertaking that it will retain in the timetable the services that are used by the people of Brigg far more than the services affected by the Bill. The people of Brigg are far more likely to use the railway station at Barnetby, two and a half miles to the east of Brigg, than they are to use the railway station at Brigg, because then, to get to Gainsborough, they have to go over the embankments on a delightful journey in the middle of the day, involving two or three trains.

Therefore, if British Rail undertakes to continue the direct service from Cleethorpes through Barnetby and down to Newark and on to King's Cross, in both directions, until the day that the Railways Bill receives

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Royal Assent, a franchise-run direct service between Cleethorpes and London could be a serious runner. However, I am prepared to concede that if British Rail operates a scorched earth policy and says, "We don't want to operate a direct service from Cleethorpes to London. Let's get it out of the railway timetable this May. Let's make sure that people have got used to making some other arrangements," there will be problems. People may become used to driving their cars to Doncaster or Newark to get the main line trains direct from those stations or have got into the habit of not using public transport for the journey to Cleethorpes from Brigg, Barnetby or Newark. Then it would be much more difficult for a franchise service to be successful.

Let me return to the Bill and the works in schedule 1. The main point is that money is being wasted by strengthening the embankment for a passenger service that operates six vehicles a day. The trains that operate are the new class 138--I think that that is right, but there is probably greater expertise among Opposition Members on that. I know that the 158 is the two- car service that operates between Cleethorpes and Manchester Piccadilly, and does not stop at Rotherham. If my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Select Committe on Transport were here, he could have put us all in our place by giving us the correct numbers.

Mr. Boyce : I hope that it is in order to ask the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Waller), through the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown), when he comes to answer the financial questions put by the hon. Gentleman, to answer my question about the time that will be made up if the proposals go ahead and the trains through the link are allowed to travel at 75 mph rather than 30 mph. Earlier, the hon. Member for Keighley implied that he would answer the question and I am anxious that he does so.

Mr. Waller rose --

Mr. Deputy Speaker : Order. We cannot have an intervention on an intervention.

Mr. Brown : I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley has heard the hon. Gentleman's point and, should there be an appropriate point in my remarks that would allow him to deal with it, I should be willing to give way to my hon. Friend, who suddenly developed a desire to address the House on a second occasion even though he was a little nervous about giving way to me when he was speaking.

Mr. Peter Butler (Milton Keynes, North-East) : I congratulate my hon. Friend on completing the first hour of his address to the House. During that period, he could have travelled approximately 30 miles on a British Rail train. Might that not have been a better way to spend his time?

Mr. Brown : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. All too often, I spend an hour standing at Newark railway station, catching a cold or flu, becoming accustomed to what life will be like for my constituents at Brigg and for the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle, the

Under-Secretary of State for Technology. In 16 weeks' time we

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shall have to tolerate a change at Newark on our journey through to Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Some of my hon. Friends have found the past hour or so an endurance, but I shall have to spend even more time waiting for connecting trains at Newark and Doncaster. We know that London trains have to be only 10 minutes late before a local train is sent on.

My hon. Friend feels that it is possible to travel 30 miles in an hour with British Rail, but my experience is that it is sometimes necessary to stand on a station for a long time. If anyone wishes to travel from London to Cleethorpes, he or she will have to do just that at Newark, and for hours on end. I have much in mind the way in which connections are sometimes timetabled. Those of my hon. Friends who have found the past hour or so, which I have spent drawing attention to the problems of railway travellers, an endurance test will bear in mind, I hope, that that is what life will be like for my constituents later this year at both Newark and Doncaster when they wait for connecting trains on cold and draughty platforms for hours on end.

Mr. Wilson : The hon. Gentleman's analogy is false. Most travellers waiting on a station for an hour would love to be entertained for that period by a clown.

Mr. Brown : It is clear that the hon. Gentleman, who has not been a Member of this place for as long as myself, does not appreciate that some of us take private Bills extremely seriously. If I were to entertain my constituents on a cold and draughty platform at Newark or Doncaster, they would much rather be on a train--however good the entertainment--making their journey home. They would much prefer not to be on the platform at Newark being entertained by me or anyone else. They would much prefer to sit in a train travelling direct from King's Cross to Cleethorpes. The hon. Gentleman might want to make cheap and stupid points, but he should bear in mind the inconvenience that some of my constituents will have to tolerate.

As it is constructed, the Bill appears to be a waste of British Rail's valuable resources. How does British Rail have the brass-necked cheek to tell my constituents that they cannot have a service of any sort between Cleethorpes and King's Cross without changing trains? Yet it is only too anxious to improve a three-train-in-each-direction service on the line between Brigg and Gainsborough and onward to Sheffield. That demonstrates a wrong sense of priorities. I am angry that British Rail has decided to adopt that approach to "improve" railway services in my constituency. The only railway service that needs improvement is the one that is being threatened with closure. It is a service which should be retained. The hon. Member for Cunninghame, North said earlier, on behalf of the Opposition, that British Rail had to withdraw services such as those to Cleethorpes and Blackpool because of the imposition of Government-imposed financial criteria. That is not why Cleethorpes is being disadvantaged, even though British Rail might say otherwise. I remember the assurances that were given to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle and myself about five years ago about the long-term future of the service. I remember also writing to British Rail. I recall a private Bill that was considered in 1988. During the passage of that Bill I happened to write to British Rail--this was by coincidence--about the future of certain railway stations in my constituency.

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I asked British Rail to commit itself to maintaining services between Cleethorpes and London. It stated in a letter that there was no threat to rail services, but my suspicious mind worked out that, one day, the high-speed 125 direct service would be taken away. In 1988, when there was no talk of privatisation, I worked out that one day BR would want to take away the men who sell tickets at railway stations to reduce manning. I received these letters from British Rail a week before the Bill was due to be given a Second Reading. It is strange that BR is prepared to give certain assurances to hon. Members, and I foolishly played no part in the private Bill that the House was then considering. This time, because of my experience, I do not believe the assurances that British Rail has given me. BR retimed the Cleethorpes to London service. Previously I could catch a train from the House to my constituency, and Ministers frequently visited my constituency. A couple of years ago, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury was a transport Minister with responsibilities for British Rail. One Friday evening, he caught the train from King's Cross to Barnetby. He left the House of Commons at about 4.45 pm, caught the 5.15 pm train and two and a quarter hours later he arrived at Barnetby. Within 10 minutes he was at his official engagement in my constituency. A year before British Rail announced that it would withdraw the direct service, it retimed the service so that it left London at 5.50 pm, arriving at Barnetby at 8.20 pm. It now arrives in Cleethorpes at 8.50 pm.

The hon. Member for Cunninghame, North says that British Rail is under an obligation from the Government to operate InterCity services in such a way that they are not profitable. British Rail has made the service unprofitable. People are less inclined to use the service in the evening because it now arrives about 40 minutes later than it did previously. People use the train that departs at 4.30 pm and tolerate changing at Newark because they get home earlier. British Rail has deliberately sabotaged the service by making it depart from London 40 minutes later, thereby making it very late when it gets to Barnetby, Grimsby and Cleethorpes. It has deliberately driven trade off the train.

If British Rail is saying that fewer people are using the train from Cleethorpes to Newark than two or three years ago, I am prepared to acknowledge that. After all, it is said that statistics never lie. I shall tell the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North why people are less inclined to use the direct service, and it it has nothing to do with the Railways Bill but more to do with BR's pricing policy. British Rail used to advertise aggressively the super-saver service. In those days, the cost down to London was about £38. The super-saver ticket was available for second class passengers on the train from Barnetby to King's Cross until the year before last. British Rail then decided that no passenger could use the direct service from Barnetby to King's Cross unless he caught a traing after 9 am using the saver ticket. That meant that a large eight-coach train with first and second-class compartments and a breakfast car could not be used by some passengers, perhaps retired or less well-off people who could not afford to throw an extra £6 at British Rail. They had to wait until 9 am to catch the Regional Railways train to Newark, stand on a draughty platform and then get the main line train to London.

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Mr. Wilson : Before the hon. Gentleman starts on another circuit, perhaps I can pin him down. He has obviously persuaded himself--or purports to have persuaded himself--that there has been a dark conspiracy against Cleethorpes within the upper confines of British Rail. He is clearly a little parochial in these matters, but perhaps he can elevate his sights. Is it likely that British Rail has set out to deprive Cleethorpes of its InterCity service? if not, perhaps he should consider which InterCity services should be cut so that Government targets can be met.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned 1988. Surely, given his encyclopaedic knowledge of these issues, he knows that the financial objectives to which InterCity and the rest of British Rail have had to work were laid down in December 1989 by Cecil Parkinson. Since then, InterCity--uniquely, certainly in Europe, and probably in the world--has been a profitable railway, albeit only marginally profitable. However, as there are some very profitable sectors within InterCity, which services does he suggest should be cut to meet the targets? Does he not understand that it is not a matter of Cleethorpes against the world but of Government policy?

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes) : Order. That was a somewhat lengthy intervention.

Mr. Wilson : I was trying to get it in proportion to the hon. Gentleman's speech.

Madam Deputy Speaker : I suggest that the hon. Gentleman does not follow that precept.

Mr. Wilson : Can the hon. Gentleman say which sectors of InterCity should be cut and why he supports the financial objectives for InterCity which will clearly have the effect that he has rather unconvincingly created about tonight?

Mr. Brown : The hon. Gentleman complained and seemed to suggest that I was detaining the House unduly. I have many notes to read out and I wish to refer to Redruth and to Macclesfied. I shall respond to the hon. Gentleman's intervention, as he is responsible for prolonging my short speech. I have many issues to raise with the promoters of the Bill, which are directly relevant to the clauses affecting Macclesfied and Redruth. I have wanted to refer to them for some time, but the hon. Gentleman keeps detaining me by raising interesting points to which I feel it is my duty to respond. The House will know that I am always generous in giving way to interventions from Opposition Members and that I do my utmost to answer them. I am certainly prepared to answer the hon. Gentleman. I see no reason for British Rail to have to make cuts to live up to the objectives that the Government have placed on it. If British Rail had had the imaginative management of British Airways in the past 10 years, it would have no difficulty in being able to provide, with its InterCity services, trains at times the customer wants to travel while still meeting the Government's financial objectives. British Rail chooses to run trains at times when people do not want to travel and chooses to delay the departure of the King's Cross to Cleethorpes train. That train was used by my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) until he became a Minister. He went on to become an even bigger Minister and then Prime Minister.

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The hon. Member for Cunninghame, North should study the Order Paper for tomorrow. He will see that, during Prime Minister's Question Time, we are to discuss railway services between Cleethorpes and London, because I am to invite the Prime Minister to make an official visit to Cleethorpes by train. Tomorrow afternoon, the House and the nation, through television broadcasting, will be able to relate the proceedings on the Bill to Government policy. Between 3.15 and 3.30 pm tomorrow, the House will focus its attention on these railway services.

I hope that the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North will not shout out that it is some kind of jolly jape when I ask my right hon. Friend to make a comment--

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. Let tomorrow take care of itself.

Mr. Brown : Although that great day is only two and a quarter hours away, I leave that line of argument.

The main point made by the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North is that British Rail is unable to provide certain services to Cleethorpes. He asks me to accept that there is no conspiracy in British Rail against Cleethorpes. I should like to think that there is not, but I think of the way in which British Rail gave me assurances about the manning of railway stations in the Brigg area, in the Barnetby area and in the Habrough area of my constituency some years ago. BR gave me assurances about the long- term future of the high-speed 125 train from Cleethorpes to King's Cross some years ago.

I suddenly see that the Bill refers not to the

Cleethorpes-Gainsborough line, but to the Grimsby-Gainsborough line. Stations such as Barnetby were denounced six months ago. The Cleethorpes 125 direct service has been withdrawn. My suspicious mind wonders whether somebody up there in British Rail has got it in for Cleethorpes.

Mr. Boyce : I have no way of knowing whether Cleethorpes has been disadvantaged deliberately. I have my own theories about what is going on. The reason may be the vociferous way in which the hon. Gentleman has sought to protect Cleethorpes. It may be because I am a new Member of Parliament that British Rail has sought to take advantage of Rotherham. I have no way of knowing, but my suspicious mind tells me that that is the case. As I am a new Member and not very used to procedure, British Rail has sought to ride roughshod over the people of Rotherham. British Rail may have made the people of Cleethorpes suffer because of the vigorous intervention of the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown).

Mr. Brown : The hon. Gentleman does himself a grave disservice. Anyone listening to him would not believe that he had been a Member of Parliament for only nine months. I honestly felt that I was listening to someone who had been a Member of Parliament for at least nine years. He eloquently convinced me of the disadvantageous way in which the Bill will affect the people of Rotherham.

I knew the hon. Gentleman's predecessor very well because we used to cross swords on steel issues when I represented the constituency of Brigg and Scunthorpe before the boundaries were altered in 1983. I knew Mr. Stan Crowther extremely well--

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Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman must keep to the rails.

Mr. Brown : Hon. Members keep sending me down branch lines. The hon. Member for Rotherham described himself as an inexperienced Member of Parliament. He is a very experienced Member of Parliament and he has quickly learnt to be suspicious of British Rail in the provision of railway services between east and west.

I shall now link the comments of the hon. Member for Rotherham with the challenge of the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North. I believe that British Rail simply wants to run InterCity trains in straight lines from London to Edinburgh, from London to Glasgow and perhaps from London to Bristol and Swansea. Its cross-country service provision has always been poor.

I am prepared to concede that there is, however, one bright spot--that is, when it works, when the trains turn up and when British Rail does not send old trains which break down. The Manchester to Cleethorpes service is pretty good and it has modern rolling stock. As the hon. Member for Rotherham said, the only thing missing is for the service to stop at a town the size of Rotherham. Under the terms of the Bill, that will not happen.

I believe that it is much more convenient for British Rail to run high- speed, electrified railway trains. British Rail does not want to run diesel -electrics. We must recognise that the service from Cleethorpes to Newark is not electrified. The point that is relevant to the intervention of the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North is that the Government have given British Rail hundreds of millions of pounds to provide an electrified service from London to Edinburgh. When the electrification programme was taking place in 1988, I wondered what would happen when the train from King's Cross reached Newark and the thing--I have forgotten what it is called--that extends from the engine to the electrified wire to draw the power--

Mr. Norris : The pantograph.

Mr. Brown : I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister. I would expect him to know what it is called.

The pantograph is of use only on an electrified service. There is no electrification proposed between Newark and Cleethorpes and between Cleethorpes and Manchester. Therefore, we depend upon diesel electric trains.

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