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Mr. Luff: No, I will not give way again. I am winding down my remarks and I wish to allow my hon. Friends time to speak in the debate.
Visitors to Worcester would not know that Shrub Hill is a railway station because there is no sign outside it. That will not be good enough for the new train-operating companies, and they will demand improvements to Worcester Shrub Hill station. That is one of the reasons why I welcome rail privatisation.
Investment and the alleged failure of investment has been discussed. I believe that the Labour and Liberal parties must bear a heavy share of the responsibility for that problem. Their attacks on the privatisation process are creating uncertainty and frightening passengers, and they should cease. We have the policies necessary to revive the railways, and those policies have my unqualified support. 6.18 pm
Mr. Jacques Arnold (Gravesham): The debate is fascinating because the enthusiasm for the future of the railways among Conservative Members is conspicuously absent among the Opposition, even in getting Back-Bench Members to speak. The other fascinating aspect of the debate is the fact that the Liberal party has at last managed to crawl to the left of the Labour party. We heard a diatribe against privatisation from the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), while the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) sat on the fence, giving no commitment and no policy. There is not even a Labour amendment to the motion on the Order Paper. Almost all Labour Back Benchers appear to have fled the field of battle during the debate, and we have heard nothing from them.
We should put the privatisation of the railways into context and the best way to do that is to compare it with the last great transport privatisation --that of British Airways. I went to the Library and looked up the Second Reading debate on the Civil Aviation Bill on 19 November 1979. It was the first step towards privatising British Airways. On that occasion, the Labour spokesman had something positive to say. Mr. Stanley Clinton Davis wound up the debate and it is instructive to examine what he said on that occasion:
"The Bill is yet another example of the Government's doctrinal spasms. It is an ill-conceived scheme. It does nothing to engender confidence in the airline, it provokes great anxiety and puts a question mark over the future of British Airways. It does not ensure that the investment programme of British Airways can be satisfactorily completed, which should be a condition precedent to any sensible aviation policy."--[ Official Report , 19 November 1979; Vol.974 , c. 153-54.]
What has happened to British Airways in the 16 years since then? It has expanded its network and its services, and it has gained the accolade of being the world's
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favourite airline. It has carried out a vast multi-billion- pound investment programme. One has only to look at the dozens of Boeing 747s and brand new airbuses that it has taken on to provide improved services to its customers. It is now the first European airline to have taken delivery of the new Boeing 777. So much for Labour's predictions. It is not surprising that the hon. Member for Fife, Central did not dare make any predictions today.Mr. McLeish: Will the hon. Gentleman address the fundamental point about how British Rail is being privatised? Does he agree that, if an organisation is privatised as a single entity, it will differ in a number of ways from an organisation that is chopped into 95 pieces and then flogged off to the highest bidder? Let us have a specific answer on that point.
Mr. Arnold: I shall turn to precisely that point, having first commented on the great Liberal speeches in the debate in 1979. I searched through Hansard for that date, and what did I find from the Liberal party, as it then was? I found no speech, and no vote. Not one Liberal Member spoke or voted. The Liberal Democrats are absent from the Chamber this afternoon. Then, as now, they were part-time Members of Parliament, with not too much to say about privatisation.
Mr. Tyler: Even the hon. Gentleman should be able to calculate that a far larger proportion of the Liberal Democrat parliamentary party than of the Conservative party has been here throughout the debate.
Mr. Arnold: That does not say much for the number of Liberal Democrats who are elected--which is not surprising, in view of what we have just heard.
In 1979, the Labour party went flat out against privatisation and the Liberals sat on the fence. Today, the Liberals are flat out against privatisation and the Labour party has not much to say of any significance.
As for the point raised by the hon. Member for Fife, Central, British Rail is being carved up into more sensible chunks, so that it can be managed better and deliver a better service in the private sector. To draw the analogy with British Airways once again, more than 100 airlines come into Heathrow and Gatwick. Each one is a separate company. When the railways are privatised, a multiplicity of franchisees will provide a service, some of them on exactly the same lines and passing through exactly the same stations.
All the airlines land at airports which represent yet another successful privatisation. British airports are managed not only by the British Airports Authority, which also manages other airports, but by other private companies. Railtrack will operate the railway stations and the signalling and lease them to appropriate operators. The same has occurred in air transport, where air traffic control is another separate agency.
What about ticketing? Only a few months ago, the Labour party put out the most magnificent scare stories about ticketing. Almost immediately after privatisation, British Airways set up Galileo, the computerised ticketing service, so that outlets for information and the purchase of tickets on different airlines increased in multiples by hundreds and thousands. The idea that private railway
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operators would not make the greatest effort to increase the outlets for tickets shows how much a part-time lecturer understands about private enterprise.Mr. McLeish: As the hon. Gentleman is developing that argument, he should address the fundamental flaw in its foundations. When he talked about British Airways, did he mean the British Airports Authority? The simple premise of the argument that must be addressed is that British Railways is being broken up into 95 parts, whereas British Airways was not.
Mr. Arnold: That is the whole point. I was comparing the rail industry in Britain, which is traditionally one vast monolith, with the civil aviation industry, part of which was nationalised in British Airways and BAA.
In civil aviation, equipment is owned or leased. Likewise, the franchise operations for rolling stock will either get rolling stock from the rolling stock leasing companies or they will buy it. A singularly important aspect is the prospect for the transfer of traffic from road to rail. I have always thought it extremely odd that we have a wide and integrated network of railways managed by one entity, but it has been unable to provide an infrastructure of freight farms for moving freight around the country. Despite all the advantages of the wide scale of the network, the nationalised British Rail has completely failed to get its act together to move freight around the country, and it failed to do that during a period in which the Government have put £54 billion into the railways since nationalisation.
Why has that not been achieved? British Rail argues that it is impossible to achieve it in such a small country as Britain, because the distances are so short that there is no point in loading freight on and off the railways. However, the channel tunnel makes that excuse no longer valid. As my hon. Friend the Minister said, freight can be carried from Glasgow to Milan by rail through the channel tunnel within 36 hours whereas it would take 72 hours by road. I believe that there will be a massive switch from road to rail, particularly for international traffic, harnessing the channel tunnel. However, any suggestion that that could be achieved by the nationalised monolith that is so fondly considered by the heart of the Labour party is absolutely hopeless. We need the flexibility of the private sector.
Another aspect worthy of rapid consideration is the channel tunnel rail link. My constituency has suffered from this ghastly business for the past eight years, but recently the rail link has passed from being a figment of the imagination of rail enthusiasts to a viable proposition. At the moment, we have rail capacity across Kent, but early in the next century we shall not. It is therefore sensible to build a brand new railway line which can carry high-speed traffic. If that is done, it should remain a passenger- only service and not extend to freight, which should stick to the lines that travel through southern Kent, which the Government rightly invested more than £1 billion in upgrading in recent years.
One Opposition Member mentioned a rumour that he was glad to put about, that Ebbsfleet station and the channel tunnel rail link onwards into London St. Pancras is not to be built. I have quizzed my hon. Friend the Minister, and I shall be grateful if, when he winds up, he will confirm yet again that the Government view Ebbsfleet station and the line onwards into St. Pancras as absolutely vital and will not be cut. Ebbsfleet station would be most welcome. It would cut commuting time
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from 50 minutes to 19 minutes. It would mean new developments which will create thousands of jobs in the area and new roads--if only Kent county council will get on with them. Scaremongering by Labour about Ebbsfleet station is extremely unhelpful and damaging.6.30 pm
Mr. Michael Stephen (Shoreham): The other day, a constituent of mine stopped me in the street and said, "I've got a bone to pick with you. I travelled on the railway to London recently. The train was slow, the carriages were dirty, the service arrived late and the staff were rude. You should never have privatised the railways." I had to remind him that the railway of which he was so critical was the good old nationalised railway that we all know and love. If it worked as well as it could and delivered the service that our constituents expect, there would be no need for the House to consider the matter--but clearly that is not the case.
I was not surprised to hear the usual negative speeches from Opposition Members, who have criticised every one of our privatisations--British Airways, the British Airports Authority, British Steel, British Telecom and British Gas. They were all wonderful industries, but they were costing the taxpayer £60 million a week before we started to privatise them. Today they deliver the same amount of money to the Exchequer every week.
The trouble with Labour is that it always sees things from the side of the producer, not the consumer--particularly if the producer happens to be a unionised worker. Labour Members criticise shareholders but do not seem to realise that most shareholders in today's privatised or nationalised industries are the pension funds of their own constituents. They complain about the family silver being sold off, but they were put up to that by a mischievous old gentleman from the Conservative side of the House: in fact, the family silver is still there and working for us better than ever before.
One is surprised to note that this is a Liberal Supply day, as two Liberal Members are all that can be mustered.
Mr. Stephen: I apologise, but the Liberal leader has not been in the Chamber during the debate. No doubt he has been off studying the railways in Bosnia, and we shall have a full report from him when he returns. The Liberals have come out in their true colours as a first-class socialist party. It is they and not Labour who are threatening to renationalise the railway.
I had the privilege to spend a year as an Industry and Parliament Trust fellow with British Rail, so I can tell the House that we have a very good railway. I do not agree with the constituent who criticised that nationalised industry, but we can make it better. None of the managers I met is afraid of the private sector techniques and capital that will come to the industry--they want them. Managers told me that, in a nationalised industry, one can never manage or plan ahead, because one has to wait for the man from the Ministry to make up his mind: he does not often say no-- the trouble is that he will not make up his mind at all. One cannot manage a business with such restraints. The managers said that, when they went to the Department for money to invest in new trains, track and stations, they were told to get in the queue behind the national health service, the schools and everyone else.
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Strikes are another reason that the railway has not delivered as a nationalised industry. The latest shenanigan by the rail unions that is about to disrupt the lives of the travelling public is a good example of the unrestrained and irresponsible use of national union power, which must be broken in the public interest. That is a good reason, if there were no other, for privatising the railway and breaking it up into the 92 parts of which the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish) constantly reminds the House.As for subsidy, Opposition Members are trying to scare our constituents by suggesting that uneconomic lines will be closed. In fact, the opposite is true: the uneconomic lines are most likely to be attractive to private sector operators because they will be paid for operating them, whereas they will have to pay for the privilege of running economic lines. Opposition Members claim that we are pursuing privatisation out of pure political dogma, but it is they who are being dogmatic in refusing to put privatisation to the test. They refuse to give our constituents the opportunity to ascertain whether private sector capital and management techniques can improve Britain's railway.
The Opposition regale us with silly ideas of private sector operators cramming our constituents into cattle trucks and sending ticket prices through the roof. Do the Opposition not realise that private sector operators will want the public to ride the railway and pay for the privilege of using their trains? That is all I have to say.
6.36 pm
Mr. Charles Kennedy (Ross, Cromarty and Skye): It has been an interesting debate. The hon. Member for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) said it all, in a prophetic statement. He was referring to this debate, but his remark could apply equally well to the Government. He said that we were running out of time.
That is very much the case, because the Government are running out of time in terms of both the parliamentary calendar as the next general election approaches, and their leadership options, which the Conservatives semi- resolved last week with the "least worst option"--as the Minister who will be winding up described the Prime Minister in ringing tones. The Government's privatisation policy, which a number of Conservative Back Benchers have endorsed to various extents, will prove an increasing nightmare for the Government as the next general election approaches.
I will begin with a friendly sideways comment on the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish). He and I have been happy to share a number of public platforms in Scotland on rail anti-privatisation issues. I have also shared platforms with the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson), and we have had some political effect in the broad-based campaign that we have fought.
I was a little disappointed at the paucity of contributions from Labour's Back Benches. It is a sad reflection on the procedures and customs of the House that a Liberal debate on the important issue of rail privatisation is considered a lower-grade affair. If the issue is important, Labour Members should be campaigning on it, and not leave so much of the debate to Conservative Back Benchers. It is also a shame that the problem for Labour is not north of the border, where our positions have been clear and robust. I suspect that the difficulties or constraints
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confronting the hon. Member for Fife, Central emphatically arise south of the border. I have no doubt that mainstream Labour opinion would endorse the Liberal Democrat motion. If there was an unambiguous political signal from the Opposition parties that a golden share or a controlling public interest would be secured if and when Railtrack disappears completely into the private sector, that would have an important business as well as political effect on Railtrack's saleability.Although Labour was unable to be unequivocal in its support for us tonight, I hope that the fact that Labour was not wholly dismissive of our arguments is an encouraging sign for the future, and that we may yet see Labour's leader being rather more emphatic than he has felt able to be hitherto. I believe that that is one case that we could win.
It is not the fault of the hon. Member for Fife, Central, because it is not his remit, and I know that he will be relieved by that, but the one transport issue--that of London taxis--into which the Labour party has ventured and boldly gone, proved to be an unambiguous fiasco. The leader of the Labour party intervened, and the entire policy had to be turned upside down. I think that the Labour Front-Bench team are endorsing that view.
Mr. McLeish indicated assent .
Mr. Kennedy: I say in a friendly way to the Labour party that we live in hope. Clause IV still lives in the hearts of some people, and perhaps the Front-Bench members of the Labour party should remember that.
I comment on where, as usual, most of the entertainment came from this afternoon: the Conservative Back Benches. The most friendly thing that I can say to the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins) is that there seemed to be some philosophical confusion in his arguments about the merits of privatisation. He seemed to argue that, because direct services to his constituency had been withdrawn and there was no guarantee that they would be restored, the uncertainty that at least one day they could be restored was in itself an emphatic endorsement of rail privatisation.
Mr. Hawkins rose --
Mr. Kennedy: I shall give way, but I am terribly tight for time.
Mr. Hawkins: The matter that I raised was that--already--a private sector company plans to reintroduce direct through services from Scotland to my constituency and from London to my constituency as soon as it is able to do so. That would replace a withdrawal of service from the old nationalised British Rail.
Mr. Kennedy: We will watch that space with interest--as, I am sure, will the hon. Gentleman's constituents. They may be looking to fill a space with a different personage at the next general election. There might be a triumph of hope over experience.
The hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Tracey) has accepted lock, stock and barrel all the assurances issued by the Regional Railways managers, but he does not seem to appreciate how the system works. The one prediction that I shall risk is this: as this Parliament goes on, we shall see at Prime Minister's Question Time, Transport questions and other occasions such as this debate, more and more Conservative Back Benchers getting to their feet
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to protest about the fact that effective local consultation has been short-circuited by the rail passenger franchising director, and that they, as local Members, do not have the opportunity to put the case vigorously and rigorously, as their constituents will want them to, for the retention of rail services. The penny is just beginning to drop with some Conservative Members, but clearly, judging from the speeches, not with as many as it will do in due course.I commend the hon. Member the Worcester (Mr. Luff) for his practical support for the railways, both private and public. He speaks with great enthusiasm and passion. I agree with him about the need for better marketing and promotion. There is an attitude problem in this country towards our railways, and a debate such as this provides an important opportunity to underscore it.
The hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) spoke with great, burning support and enthusiasm for the Government. I can only assume that that is why he resigned as a member of it last week. So enthusiastic is he that he voted for the person who stood against the present leader of his party.
We now have a ray of hope, because the hard man who was in charge of the Department of Transport has been moved to the hard place of Conservative central office and been replaced by the bicycling baronet himself. I regret that we did not hear from the Secretary of State for Transport this evening, but he is present.
The right hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) has commendable independent spirit, which is why he got himself sacked under his previous leader and then reappointed. All of us interested in the future of our railways hope that he will follow what appear to be the discussions that he was having with the Secretary of State for Scotland earlier this afternoon, not least because the consultation on the passenger service requirement for Scotland ends tomorrow. The franchising director, Roger Salmon, and Ministers must be impressed by the quality and the quantity of the submissions--which include one from the likes of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which is, after all, a Government agency--that the threatened services should be reprieved. It is healthier at the end of day for such strategic, political decisions to be taken by politicians and Ministers. They should not be farmed off and taken by bureaucrats. Although we have had to resort to the Scottish courts, it is scarcely ideal either that such decisions are taken by judges on the bench. As somebody with a sense of the constitution, I think that the Secretary of State for Transport will share that view privately. I hope that he and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland can therefore come to a sensible arrangement as a result of discussions which have already taken place.
At the centre is the question of responsibility. There is no doubt that the Government, as in some other areas--the health service being an obvious example--have sought to move the stigma of rail rundowns or closures away from Transport Ministers and, indeed, the Scottish Office or territorial Ministers generally.
It is now farcical when one wants to complain about a threatened reduction or withdrawal of service. One raises a question in the House and asks the Minister concerned, who says that it is an operational matter for British Rail or ScotRail management. When one talks to them, they say that it is a question of subsidy, which is decided by
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the franchising director. When one talks to Roger Salmon, he says that the budget is decided by the Ministry of Transport.It is chaotic, circular nonsense, in place of what used to be something approximating coherent decision making and a sense of ministerial accountability, for what is, after all, something still emphatically in the public domain. That is the great contradiction and weakness at the centre of the entire privatisation process. In the course of this short debate, we have not learnt a lot more about what the Labour party stands for, we have learnt a little more about the Liberal Democrats' view, and we know that there is a variety of opinion on the Conservative Back Benches. I shall end on an optimistic note, because inevitably in such a debate the focus is on the negative.
The channel link is a marvellous engineering achievement. Any hon. Member who has recently used either the Paris or the Brussels link for business or parliamentary activity could not have failed to be impressed by it. The days of being stacked above Charles de Gaulle airport or stuck on the M4 going out to Heathrow are behind us because of the convenience and the quality of travel that the rail link affords. It is therefore something to celebrate, and it is an important signal for the vibrant future of this country's railways, especially as we are plugged into the continent of Europe. There is also an awful metaphor at the centre of that achievement, as any hon. Member who has travelled on the service will know. It is galling to trundle through the south of England's green and pleasant land at a certain rate, only to cross the channel and accelerate to a fantastically greater rate as one passes through France, Belgium or wherever.
In the words of our motion, that is surely the central point. On this side of the channel, under this Government's policy, there has been a fundamental lack of investment in a rail infrastructure. That will not be improved by privatisation, and I hope that wiser counsels may yet prevail, given the change in ministerial personnel. 6.47 pm
The Minister for Transport in London (Mr. Steve Norris): I want to start where the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) has just left off. His last statement demonstrated the patent absurdity of the motion. He seems to have forgotten that the channel tunnel rail link is being constructed by private sector finance, and that a Labour Government cancelled a channel tunnel project which was to have been taken forward by the taxpayer. It is precisely the inadequacy of the state in such circumstances that leads Conservative Members to their fundamental belief in the advantages of privatisation.
I congratulate all my hon. Friends, who followed the excellent lead of my hon. Friend the Minister for Railways and Roads, on making this an interesting debate. My hon. Friends the Member for Worcester (Mr. Luff), for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway), for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins), for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold), for Shoreham (Mr. Stephen) and for Surbiton (Mr. Tracey) all made valuable contributions to the debate. I shall comment on them later, but first I want to deal with a few detailed points.
The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye referred to Anglo-Scottish sleeper services. As he knows, the consultation period ends tomorrow. All the
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representations which have been made will be carefully considered by the franchising director. I know that he is aware-- I want to make it clear, as the House should also be aware--that, in the intervening period, those services will continue. I should also make it clear that--beyond sleeper services--the PSR for ScotRail as a whole essentially protects the entire May 1995 timetable. That is a new guarantee of services for the next seven years.Mr. Tyler: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Norris: The hon. Gentleman is intruding on his own time--which may be why he wants to intervene.
Mr. Tyler: I am grateful to the Minister. I think that this point is important.
The Minister just said that all sleeper services to Scotland would continue. Does he include the sleeper service from Plymouth, which has already been withdrawn?
Mr. Norris: I understand that services that are not in being will not continue. My statement was straightforward: I made it clear that, while the franchising director is considering the representations that he has received in relation to Anglo-Scottish sleeper services, existing services would continue.
The hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Hill) is a great transport buff, and always makes an interesting and, indeed, emotional speech; but he really must not let hyperbole run away with him in support of an already thin argument. He presented an extraordinary notion of fees and the cost of privatisation. That is one of the great fairy tales of British political life: the hon. Gentleman decides on a figure, and then doubles it.
Mr. Norris: I will tell the hon. Gentleman the exact figure: indeed, that was my purpose in referring to his remarks. The hon. Gentleman should not worry about doubling the figure, however; the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) multiplied it by four. Whatever the figure advanced as the cost of this extraordinarily complex exercise, the Opposition parties generally add a nought and know that they will be on the safe side.
In fact, the figure is neither £240 million nor £700 million. Between April 1991 and May 1995, Department of Transport consultancy fees amounted to £29.9 million, costs of the Office of Passenger Rail Franchising to £16.9 million and the rail regulator's costs to £4.4 million. That gives us a total of £51.2 million.
It is fair to include the costs borne by British Rail and Railtrack, which will probably account for some £72 million. My maths tells me that the figure is around £123.2 million, not the £240 million mentioned by the hon. Member for Streatham or the £700 million that the hon. Member for North Cornwall implied would be spent by the end of the year.
Opposition Members, however, roll into the extraordinary figures that they present every part of the restructuring of an industry that is desperately trying to drag itself from the nationalised mess of the last half century into the modern world. Conservative Members, who made that point themselves, were perfectly clear about the value of the exercise.
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The hon. Member for Streatham mentioned the travelcard. He really should know better. He is aware of the value that Conservative Members have consistently placed on the card, but he has allowed me to say just one more time that we remain entirely committed to its value and to the millions who benefit from it in London. He knows that, during the time--more than three years--that I have been Minister for Transport in London, I have made it clear that that commitment will continue. We have no hidden designs on the travelcard. The hon. Gentleman also knows perfectly well that there can be no change to the PSR without the franchising director's approval, and that any proposal for a significant alteration in the level of service would have to be subjected to consultation with the rail users consultative committee and local authorities.My hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham mentioned Ebbsfleet in connection with the channel tunnel rail link. I can confirm that the Government's position has not changed; they continue to regard Ebbsfleet as an important part of the rail link project. My hon. Friend also raised an important point, provoking the hon. Member for Fife, Central to his feet several times: he spoke of the great socialist belief in the monolith--the idea that, universally, bigger must somehow be better.
In some businesses--aviation is arguably one--size is indeed a virtue, but I believe that my hon. Friend was entirely right. In British Rail, the monolith has too often proved inflexible, unmanageable and unresponsive to customer demand. We must deliver the system into manageable units that offer a specific, focused, user-friendly service, maximising value for money and seeking out new markets and investment opportunities and more effective management.
Mr. McLeish: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Norris: No, I do not have time.
The hon. Member for North Cornwall presented an extraordinary sight. As several of my hon. Friends have pointed out, we are now faced with the remarkable prospect of the Liberal party rushing far to the left of new Labour--as I believe we are now entitled to call it. The Liberal party is now the only party that calls for renationalisation. I noted, as the House will have noted, that the hon. Member for Fife, Central squirmed to avoid the very commitment that Liberal Members invited him to make. What an extraordinary proposition.
Just when we thought that a Conservative might be speaking, however, the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) intervened in his own pithy way: "But you lot were in favour of it a few years ago, weren't yer?" I can assist the hon. Gentleman. Earlier today, I turned to a speech made in 1990 by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), in the aptly named Empress ballroom in Blackpool. He was extolling the virtues not of nationalisation, but, on this occasion--for goodness knows which way the weathervane of Liberal opinion was swinging on the afternoon in question-- of privatisation.
The right hon. Gentleman said:
"In some parts of the US, citizens who use, for instance, solar panels to generate electricity have the right to put any excess they generate back into the grid, reversing their meters"--
and odd phrase, that, but we will not dwell on it--
"cutting their bills and providing power for industry.
So free competition there makes each citizen a power generator"--
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my, there is a Liberal phrase to conjure with--"saving costs, capitalising on the potential of alternative energy and protecting the environment--all at the same time.
And if we bring competition to the utilities, why not to British Rail?"
I have the words before me. They are in a Liberal press release, so I suppose the party was proud of them at the time.
In the words of my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State, however, there is more. The right hon. Member for Yeovil went on to say:
"Nothing would increase the volume of rail freight more than allowing private industry to compete on the same basis as road freight."
Mr. Tyler: Will the Minister give way?
The right hon. Member for Yeovil went on:
"Competition . . . is not an ideological talisman, still less an economic gimmick. It is simply a way of ensuring that the customer--the citizen-- comes first."
Amen to that, say Conservative Members.
As we all know, however--I suspect that Labour Members know it too--the Liberals will say whatever they consider appropriate and convenient at the time. We are now confronted by the extraordinary spectacle of a Liberal leader--a man who has, on occasion, suggested that he might actually take a rein or two of office--saying that Liberal Democrats will buy back 51 per cent. of shares in Railtrack at the issue price, or the market price. How much will it cost? Half the value of Railtrack: a little more than £1 billion, or probably a good deal less.
Given that the Government's total spending bill is £300,000 million a year £200 million is perfectly affordable, according to the right hon. Gentleman. It is cheap, he says. The right hon. Gentleman reminds me of the noble Lord Healey, who once said, "A billion here, a billion there, and soon you are talking about quite serious money."
The reality is that the leader of a party which seriously pretends to office is so cavalier with public funds as to produce such an extraordinary statement. That is the leader of the Liberal Democrats' commitment, which he believes to be is clear, costed and responsible. The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I quibble with that last description.
The Government support the privatisation of the railways because we know the benefits that privatisation has brought, particularly to transport. Several of my hon. Friends have referred to the historic change which has been brought about in the fortunes of British Airways, a company which was a basket case but which has been transformed into a world leader. What is more, BA is operating in the harshest environment of all--that of free international
competition--and still manages to out-perform its rivals, who often receive literally billions of pounds of state handouts.
BA's performance owes considerably to its privatisation, as does the performance of the British Airports Authority. The BAA is wreaking a huge change in the environment of airports, and is now winning contracts in the United States.
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