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Hostage Recovery
Mr. Neil Gerrard accordingly presented a Bill to place a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that appropriate assistance is provided to people returning to the United Kingdom, having been held against their will as hostages, and to their families; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 29 March and to be printed. [Bill 84.]
Orders of the Day
London Regional Transport Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
3.45 pm
The Minister for Transport in London (Mr. Steve Norris): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Madam Speaker: I have selected the amendment standing in the name of the Opposition.
Mr. Norris: London Regional Transport came into being technically as a statutory corporation--but more commonly described as a nationalised industry--on 29 June 1984. On that date, the London Regional Transport Act 1984 transferred political and financial control of what is generally known as London Transport, the old LT, from the Greater London council back to central Government, which had last been directly responsible for LT in 1969. As hon. Members would be aware, London Transport's principal duty is to provide or to secure passenger transport services in Greater London, having regard to the transport needs of London and to efficiency, economy and safety of operation.
The board of London Transport is headed by a chairman appointed by the Secretary of State for Transport. Peter Ford took over as chairman in September 1994 and, additionally, became chairman of LT's subsidiaries London Underground and London Transport Buses. There are currently three other full-time LT board members, one of whom is responsible for finance, one of whom is also managing director of London Underground and one of whom is also managing director of London Transport Buses. Additional part-time members, including a non-executive vice-chairman, bring a wide range of outside business experience to the LT board.
London Transport is also a parent or holding corporation with two wholly owned operating subsidiary companies. The first company is London Underground Ltd., which is responsible for the operation of the London underground. Since April 1994, it has included the Waterloo and City line between Waterloo and Bank, which was formerly operated by British Rail. The second wholly owned operating subsidiary is Victoria Coach Station Ltd., which is the principal London terminal for national and international express coach services, serving more than 1,000 destinations in 21 countries, with some 170,000 departures each year. Although VCS administers the coach station, it is not responsible for the operation of the coach services using it--they are the responsibility of the individual contractors.
A third operating subsidiary, London Buses Ltd., effectively ceased to trade when its 10 component companies were sold into the private sector by the end of 1994. London Buses Ltd. was set up in 1985 to operate London Transport's bus services and had, in turn, set up locally based subsidiary companies in anticipation of the new arrangements for bus services in London--although the Government announced in November 1993 that the original planned deregulation would not be implemented before the next general election. LT began competitive
tendering of its bus routes in 1985, and in 1993 those LBL routes not yet involved in the tendering process were placed on a contractual basis.
That development, together with the sale of the LBL subsidiary companies in 1994, placed those companies on a basis similar to that of the private companies which are also operating bus services on behalf of, or under contract to, London Transport. Overall responsibility for all bus services in London is now exercised by London Transport Buses, which is a department of LT, but with its own chairman, managing director and management board.
Against that background, the Bill is essentially technical in its nature. Its purpose is simply to extend the powers of London Transport in order to allow it to make full use of the opportunities available under the Government's private finance initiative. The Bill has the full support of LT itself. I should say that it was London Transport that identified the deficiencies in the existing legislation which the Bill is intended to address and which asked the Government to assist in taking that forward.
Dr. Norman A. Godman (Greenock and Port Glasgow)
rose--
Mr. Nigel Spearing (Newham, South)
rose--
Mr. Norris:
I give way first to the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman).
Dr. Godman:
I hesitate to intervene in a London debate, but as someone who travels frequently between Heathrow and Westminster, may I ask the Minister whether anything can be done to improve the tube service between Heathrow and the centre of London, not just for Members of Parliament, but for visitors from our constituencies to the capital? We hear over and over again from our constituents the complaint that they have to put up with that terrible tube service between the airport and the centre of London.
Mr. Norris:
One of the things that I have learnt about being responsible for transport in London is that there are 651 Members who have an interest in it. Although one's constituency may not be in the capital, hon. Members are likely to spend most of their week in it. Certainly, with regard to the licensed taxi industry I have at least 651 additional constituents with whom to deal. Therefore,I well appreciate the hon. Gentleman's question.
The hon. Gentleman will know that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) raised that matter in the House a few weeks ago. When I heard of his complaint I made it my business to take a personal interest in the apparent inadequacy of the arrangements for boarding the Piccadilly line. I have done it myself on many occasions and I agree that the service there is not as good as it should be because of the physical constraints of the layout of the station within the airport and also because of the difficulty that people often have in acquiring tickets, perhaps because they do not have change or British currency in their pockets, or because they have to ask questions in a foreign language or through some intermediary at the ticket office. All that means that the process of buying a ticket at Heathrow is infinitely more complicated than it is likely to be elsewhere.
London Transport has a programme of improvements for Heathrow station. Bob Bayman, the general manager of the Piccadilly line, has been in touch with hon. Members, circulating a note of the improvements. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I will take a personal interest in ensuring that those improvements are delivered.
Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South)
rose--
Mr. Norris:
I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), who caught my eye previously, and then to my hon. Friend.
Mr. Spearing:
May I revert to the Minister's remark that this is a technical Bill? Clearly, reading the long title, it is to extend the powers of London Regional Transport. In the notes on clauses, under clause 1, paragraph a says:
But clause 1 itself says:
It makes out that that can be done only with the consent of the Secretary of State. Therefore, surely the Bill gives the Secretary of State extra-statutory powers to let the contractor for London Transport do anything that he and London Transport want to be done. Is not that more than technical?
Mr. Norris:
No. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman because Bills such as this ought to be subject to forensic scrutiny and it is perfectly appropriate that he should raise that extremely important question. In many ways, it is the whole question posed by the Bill and the Opposition's reasoned amendment. But I shall be at pains to demonstrate in what I have to say on the subject that the technical amendment is simply to allow London Transport to benefit from the full potential of the private finance initiative, and that means the need to extinguish technical bars to its doing so, which I do not believe any hon. Member would seek to place in its way. I will give the hon. Gentleman a firm undertaking from the Dispatch Box that nothing in the Bill is intended to extend the effective powers--the de facto powers--of London Transport or, indeed, of the Secretary of State. I shall go on to assure the House that the intention behind the Bill is specifically not that about which concern is expressed in the reasoned amendment. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me, as I develop my speech, to respond in more detail to the points that he has raised.
Mr. John Marshall:
I revert to the question of Heathrow. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most important developments at Heathrow is the Heathrow to Paddington link, which is a joint private and public sector project? Can my hon. Friend tell the House when he expects that link to be up and running?
"the carrying on by the contractor of activities which LT do have the powers to carry on, in particular the provision of public passenger transport services."
"to . . . carry out an agreement with any person for the carrying on by that person ('the contractor') of any activities which London Regional Transport does not have".
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